FCA staff to walk out on Wednesday in first strike action since finance watchdog’s inception

Staff at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) represented by Unite the union will stage the first walk out since the watchdog was created on Wednesday.

Employees will protest outside the FCA’s head office in Stratford, east London on Wednesday and Thursday to demonstrate their anger at their employer’s latest pay offer.

Further action will take place on 9 and 10 June and 5 and 6 July. A similar event will take place at the FCA’s offices in Edinburgh on Wednesday.

The City regulator has tabled a fresh employment offer that lifts most workers’ pay 12 per cent over the next two years, supported by a one-off cash payment of four per cent this month.

The new pay structure is designed to incentivise workers to improve their productivity levels by linking wage increases to performance.

Unite characterised the offer as a pay cut when announcing last month the strike action would go ahead, adding “unfair appraisals are extremely detrimental to thousands of staff and it is time for the FCA to rethink these plans”.

Fewer than one in ten of FCA staff actually supported strike action, City A.M. exclusively reported when the walk out plans were announced.

Unite said over 75 per cent of union members that participated in the vote backed the industrial action proposal.

The FCA has yet to recognise an independent trade union.

Nikhil Rathi, chief executive of the FCA, said in March the employment offer means the regulator “will continue to provide one of the best, if not the best, overall employment package of any regulator or enforcement agency in the UK”.