GGCA take industrial action over changes at IT&LD

The GGCA union said its members in the Information Technology & Logistics Department (IT&LD) have commenced industrial action amid concerns the Gibraltar Government is reducing the department’s roles and responsibilities by transferring them to the Ministry for Digital Services.

The union had declared a dispute in May over plans to transfer cybersecurity roles and responsibilities to the ministry.

But since then, the proposed changes were put on hold pending discussions between the ministry and the GGCA, which are scheduled to resume on September 19.

But the union claimed that in the interim, the Gibraltar Government has made arrangements to transfer the management of e-Government servers from IT&LD to the ministry “without consulting the GGCA.”
“It is shocking that the official side should remove further responsibilities from IT&LD when the GGCA is trying to negotiate a resolution to this dispute,” the union said in a statement.

“This is unacceptable to the workforce and shows that, in spite of all GGCA attempts to dialogue, the intention of [the Gibraltar Government] is to increasingly reduce the roles and responsibilities of the IT&LD, with a view to eventually dismantling the department entirely.”

“Given the above, the only option open to the GGCA is the commencement of industrial action.”

“However, as the IT&LD membership wish to minimize any inconvenience to the general public and to their employer, at this first stage, the workforce will only refuse to undertake discretionary overtime, whilst reserving the right to escalate into industrial action measures if necessary.”