JCSA Prospect, which has recently seen a 'major increase' in its membership, wrote in a statement: "This is a very strong message to the employer that their package is seriously flawed and is not acceptable to staff."

Representatives of the union will be meeting the States on 13 February to discuss the result of their ballot. They say they remain committed to "working with the Employer to ensure that conditions within the Public Sector improve to not only ensure the retention of existing staff but which will encourage new people to come in and provide public services of the high quality Jersey currently enjoys and deserves."

They hope that a new proposal that will be acceptable to staff will be put forward "whilst there is still some element of goodwill in existence." They added: "The new Chief Executive Charlie Parker has acknowledged in a recent email to staff '...we’re about 10 years behind other public sector organisations and businesses in how we treat our people. Staff are our biggest asset, and if we’re serious about building a modern, joined up States of Jersey, we have to start with pay and conditions.'

"Now the employer has the opportunity to prove these are not empty words and show public sector staff they are respected for their work and effort and are valued accordingly in line with other equivalent market sectors."

The States revealed the details of the first phase of their long-anticipated ‘Workforce Modernisation Programme’ in November. While in terms of pay, 35 paramedics and 86 'live-in' child care workers are set to gain under the new plans, with their pensionable pay rising by 21% and 22% respectively by 2020, it wasn't such good news for the vast majority of civil servants. 

3,229 of them were offered an increase of 3.3% in pensionable pay in total by 2020, which is very unlikely to keep pace with inflation. If the cost of living continues to rise by around 3% year-on-year – as it did in the last quarter – then those thousands of civil servants, along with nurses and midwives and manual workers would actually see their pay fall by 2020.