THEY WON'T TALK SO WE MUST WALK!
We took national action on Budget Day and half day walkouts on 5th April. Now PCS members in different Groups across the union are taking action on different days timed to maximise the effectiveness of the strikes. Industrial action is a last resort, but we need to be united and determined if we are to defend our livelihoods and jobs.
All PCS members are involved in a serious dispute with a management that has refused national negotiations with PCS about the pay freeze and the review of terms and conditions. Privatisation is a real threat to thousands of members. Cuts to facility time threaten how the union can represent you.DWP members fully supported the one day strike on 20 March, budget day, and the half day of strike action on the 5 April. These strikes were strongly supported across the whole union and PCS has written again seeking talks, but the management have refused. Therefore, we are now moving into the next phase of the dispute, rolling action across different parts of PCS. The DWP and HMRC Group are taking action together in w/c 3rd June, with different regions out on different days. The North West will be taking action on Tuesday 4th June. Action in the North West will have a massive impact on both department's ability to manage call demand throughout the whole week.
Why are you being asked to strike?
PCS members in the DWP are angry because
•20,000 Jobs have been cut in the DWP since May 2010, staff are under more pressure to keep up with demand - which will be further added to with the return of thousands of Work Programme Provider claimants later this year.
•Years of pay restraint has seen our living standards drop by 20% - a further 1% and measly bonus is not enough to keep up with living costs. With Universal Credit, we will be working along side colleagues in HMRC that are paid more for doing the same work.
•We are all be affected by planned cuts in our terms and conditions - it's not just entrants, changes to mobility (how far you can travel to work should you face an office closure) affect us all, if you get promoted or change your working hours you will face the same changes as entrants. We have not even seen the beginning of the changes yet to come.
•Targets, attendance management and people performance mean more stress - contact centre members are still under stress and are more likely to be sacked for being of sick, jobcentre members are constantly hit with new targets or 'expectations'.
•Our pensions have been attacked - contributions have been increased again from April, we are still being asked to work for longer, pay more to receive less at the end!
The government say they won’t talk to us but we have proved that action gets results. Strike action won improvements in DWP contact centres and just the threat of strike action forced the DWP to drop the threat of compulsory redundancies.
Your branch has a hardship fund which we welcome members to apply to if they are in financial hardship from industrial action. We know that these are hard times for all of us and we want to ensure all members can support their fellow workers in taking action together. We simply have no choice but to fight our employer on this. Please contact your local rep for more information or email pcswigan@gmail.com
