UNION leaders announced today that hundreds of security guards employed by G4S at job centres will start a new 10-day strike for a better pay deal.

Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union members employed by the private security company as job centre security guards started a week-long strike this Monday.

The union said its members will now walk out alongside colleagues in the GMB union on weeks beginning August 12 and 26.

PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said: “Our members risk their own safety to keep DWP staff and the public safe.

“They deserve to be paid a decent wage. It is wrong that G4S refuse to pay this, particularly while taxpayers are funding their profits. 

“They are a huge multi-national company with substantial assets yet they are paying the minimum wage to their workers,” Ms Heathcote said.

In a provocative statement, G4S told the Star that PCS did not have a recognition agreement which was needed to enter negotiations, but that it had made pay offers to the GMB.

But the GMB hit back saying the G4S offer was deliberately misleading and represented a real-terms pay cut of 9 per cent.

A GMB spokesperson said: “All the ‘offers’ from G4S have been the same amount of money just continually reconfigured to look different.

“None address the cost-of-living crisis our members experienced in 2022 and the same ‘offer’ has already been overwhelmingly rejected resulting in over 80 per cent voting in support of industrial action.

“GMB membership has doubled throughout this dispute and G4S is presently under investigation by the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate for the use of agency staff to undermine the strike,” the spokesperson said.