GOVERNMENT workers were striking over pay in York today.

Staff at the offices of the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) were taking action along with colleagues across the country.

The workers involved are those staff who used to work for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) before it was merged with other departments to form DEFRA.

They are angry because many now work alongside others who are doing the same job, but get paid more because they used to be in different departments.

Graham Pearson, group assistant secretary for the Public and Commercial Services Union, said the strike was the latest in a series of actions taken by workers in protest.

He said: "Morale is low because of the big pay difference - we're talking about inequality and injustice after the huge efforts people put in the face of foot and mouth disease, people made big sacrifices in their lives to combat the disease. They're the foot-soldiers."

One example of the inequalities in pay, he said, was the post of administrative assistant, which was paid at £10,000 for former Maff workers, but up to £4,500 more for staff who were at other departments before the formation of Defra.

The union was expecting that between 300 and 400 employees out of the total workforce of 700 would come out on strike today.

A spokeswoman for Defra said: "The position is that different departments were on different pay scales and by coming into a new department with staff from several other departments, there was a discrepancy. This is being negotiated at the moment.

"An interim pay offer was made which was accepted by the other two unions but not by the Public and Commercial Services Union. Negotiations are ongoing."

Updated: 08:16 Friday, September 28, 2001