OUTRAGED Government officials in York, who provide back-up to the farming industry, plan to demonstrate in a one-day strike in the city next Monday.

But they have promised that their action will not have any impact on the ongoing fight against foot and mouth disease in the region.

About 250 members of the Public and Commercial Services Union, based at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in Peasholme Green, are joining a national protest about "unfairness" in their wages structure.

They plan to parade with banners outside the gates of the giant office block. They are to protest against the disparity between the pay of civil servants in the old Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food (MAFF) and those in the former Department of the Environment, who have joined them under the new DEFRA banner.

They argue that an extra £750 a year offered by the new DEFRA employers in no way makes up for the difference in salaries which, they say, can amount to as much as £4,000 between civil servants on the same grade, doing exactly the same job.

And, if they don't get their way, they intend to plan a series of selective strikes at offices throughout the country, with the Kings Pool offices, in York, as a distinct possibility.

But Tom Farnhill, the Union's local assistant secretary today said: "We don't intend to hit farmers or the agricultural industry in their battle against the foot and mouth disease crisis."

He said: "This issue is about unfairness. Since government departments have been allowed to decide their own pay systems, MAFF employees have fallen far behind civil servants in the Benefits Agency, the Department of the Environment and many others."

A spokeswoman for DEFRA said: "The management is committed to future upward assimilation, meaning that it wants the two rates to be merged, not by bringing the old rates down, but by raising the levels. It is an interim award while negotiations continue."

Meanwhile, another day has passed in North Yorkshire without a new case of foot and mouth. The last confirmed case was just over a week ago. But the National Farmers' Union said a month without a fresh case would be needed before farmers could breathe a sigh of relief.

Updated: 11:33 Wednesday, August 15, 2001