ONS Staff to Ignore Order to Work in Office 2 Days a Week

The ‘indefinite industrial action’ will begin from May 8, affecting ONS offices in Newport, Titchfield, London, Darlington, Manchester, and Edinburgh.

A woman using a laptop on a dining room table set up as a remote office to work from home on March 4, 2020. Joe Giddens/PA Wire

Almost 1,200 employees of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) will indefinitely ignore an order for them to work in the office for two days a week in an industrial action starting next month.

The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union said many of its members already willing spend more time in the office, but there’s “widespread upset about the arbitrary nature of the new directive.”