PCS Wigan branch goes multilingual ! (and more)

You can now view the PCS Wigan website in multiple languages thanks to the new translator feature. Simply select your preferred language from the drop down list on the right of the page and enjoy.

More new features

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Pickles lands taxpayers with £90,000 bill

We have won our legal fight against Eric Pickles' attack on our union.

Taxpayers now face a £90,000 legal bill after a High Court judge ruled the communities secretary acted unlawfully by unilaterally scrapping the 'check off' system for collecting union subscriptions through salaries.

The Department for Communities and Local Government had tried to end the decades-old arrangement even though it only costs the department £300 a year to administer.

The judge ruled today the move was a breach of contract and must be reversed, and ordered DCLG to pay our legal costs as well as its own.

The £90,000 bill would cover the cost of check off for the next 300 years.

Pickles has previously advised local authorities to end check off but was the first cabinet minister to attempt to apply it in the civil service.

In a statement to the media, our general secretary Mark Serwotka described it as a "reckless and political attempt to undermine our union".

He added: "Pickles has very serious questions to answer about why he decided to spend tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money fighting to scrap something that costs less than £30 a month."

Hovis staff dispute - Wigan

Hovis Members Begin Strike Action at Wigan

The issue of zero-hour contracts is one that is taking up a considerable amount of column space in both local and national newspapers at the moment. The Bakers’, Food and Allied Workers Union highlighted this exploitation back in 2011 during a dispute with a well known supplier of cake products. Unfortunately, we remained a lone voice. With honourable exceptions, the media, local politicians and the general public alike decided to remain impassive and apathetic. Since then, the use of zero-hour contracts has reached almost epidemic proportions and it has been estimated that over a million UK workers are now employed on these contracts.

Sadly, it was only a matter of time before other organisations decided to jump on this particular bandwagon. Staff at the Hovis (Premier Foods) bakery in Wigan had already reduced their hours and subsequently, their pay in a bid to reduce the need for redundancies. However, after long and protracted discussions with the Union, the company decided to proceed with job losses. However, once the redundancies had been made, the company decided to renege on long standing recognition agreements and make up the ensuing staff shortfall with agency labour, with many being utilised on an ‘as and when’ basis, in other words; zero-hour contracts.

Since then, we have attempted to resolve this situation with the company, but to no avail. Ultimately, the Union took the painful decision to ballot its members at the Wigan site in order to seek a mandate for industrial action. The result was overwhelmingly in favour of strike action against the company on the following dates:

6.00am on August 28^th 2013 until 6.00am on September 4^th 2013

6.00am on September 11^th 2013 until 6.00am on September 18^th 2013

6.00am on September 25^th 2013 until 6.00am on October 2^nd 2013

Further branch meetings will be held to extend the action unless the company comes to a satisfactory agreement with the Union on the withdrawal of agency labour from the site.

BFAWU members at Hovis, Wigan have not taken this decision lightly. They have no desire to lose pay. However, they see the current situation as unacceptable and are determined not to allow the company to set precedents, undermine current terms and conditions, create a two tier workforce and leave a poor legacy for subsequent generations of people who may be employed at Hovis in the future.

We urge the company to re-enter negotiations with the Union and find a way to resolve this dispute fairly, amicably and in a way that reflects the strength of feeling among the workforce.

You can read message of support and the latest news at http://www.bfawu.org/ and http://www.bfawu.org/view_news.php?ID=220

TUC rally at Conservative Party Conference - Manchester

PCS, as part of the TUC, is supporting a rally at the Conservative party conference on 29 September.  

An estimated 30,000 people are expected to attend.

The agreed themes of the day are:

• Save the NHS 
• Invest in jobs 
• No to austerity

PCS will be pushing its own 'Stop the cuts' agenda. 

Invite your friends and colleagues with our Facebook event listing.

Timings

• 11.00 - Assemble at Liverpool Road 
• 12.30 - Move off via city centre - including Deansgate and Lower Mosely Street - to Whitworth Park (approx. 2.5 miles)
• 14:00 - Rally with music and speeches 

Trains from Wigan, Hindley and Atherton

It appears there's engineering works and rail replacement bus service between Hindley, Atherton and Bolton to Manchester. There's currently nothing showing on the National Rail website about it but as you can see from below, the planner shows a bus calling all stations Wigan to Manchester Victoria via Hindley and Atherton. There is a direct Wigan, Deansgate and Manchester Oxford Road/Manchester Piccadilly.

              RAIL REPLACEMENT BUS

                       DIRECT TRAIN

We'll keep an eye on this and update if anything changes.

Join the PCS Wigan prize draw!

WIN A CASH PRIZE

All PCS Wigan Branch members could win a cash prize each month in our monthly prize draw.

For a monthly donation of at least a £1.00 YOU CAN WIN A CASH PRIZE !

The amount of prize money depends on how many members make a monthly donation and how much is donated.

e.g 900 members =  £450!

Winning members will be notified and the result of the draw published on this page.

Please note. Members may make more than one donation per month, however a member will only be allowed to have one entry in each monthly draw.

Come and tell Cameron to frack off back to Eton

On Thursday 8th August Tory PM David Cameron is expected to visit Wigan on the invitation of Wigan Athletic's £multi-millionaire owner Dave Whelan to take a look around the new Wigan Youth Zone project in the centre of town.

A group of us have come together to organise the type of WIGAN reception the two faced Tory liar deserves!

We think the ordinary townsfolk of the Borough who are suffering badly at the hands of his Government of the rich for the rich need to let him know in no uncertain terms that he and his Government's policies are NOT WELCOME in our Borough! NOT NOW - NOT EVER!

Join us on the day - BRING YOUR POTS & PANS & anything else which might make a noise. Full details to be announced as his itinerary becomes known. 

Provisional assembly point outside Wigan College, Parson's Walk. 9.30am

Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/183551308486088/

Thursday 8th Aug - Cameron @ Wigan Youth Zone