#15oct

Join a week of action for fair pay in the public sector

On Wednesday, 15 October PCS members in the civil service and related areas are striking for fair pay.

During that week workers across the public sector will be taking coordinated
industrial action for fair pay, and on Saturday, 18 October there will be major union demonstrations in London and Glasgow called by the TUC and STUC.

On 10 July we took successful joint action with union members in local government, education and the fire service over pay.

Stepping up the campaign

Now we are stepping up the campaign with our latest day of our action, including lobbying MPs in their constituencies, followed by marches and rallies on 18 October.

Strike action is a last resort but the government imposed a 2-year pay freeze in 2010 and in recent years has capped pay for all public sector workers at 1%. Since 2010 prices have risen by 16%.

We have submitted a national pay claim asking for 5% or £1,200 for all civil service and related staff. We are demanding a fair settlement.

Action gets results

PCS negotiates strongly with the government and employers, but we are ready to take action should they refuse.

Industrial action has got results for PCS members in recent weeks:
 

• In the Land Registry action by members stopped privatisation
• In HMRC action by members in one branch won secure jobs for fixed term staff
• In the MoJ Shared Services action won an agreement giving members important protections.

What you can do:
 

• Donate to the fighting fund
• Sign up to pay your subs by direct debit
• Join the TUC demonstration in London on 18 October #18Oct
• Join the STUC demonstration in Glasgow on 18 October.

National strike on 15 October - PCS to join 72 hours of action in public sector.

PCS national executive met today to consider the next steps in our national dispute in the civil service and related bodies.

The NEC decided that a national strike will be called on Wednesday, 15 October. The action will be coordinated with unions representing workers in the health service which have announced action on Monday, 13 October, and with unions in local government which have announced a strike on 14 October so that there will be 3 consecutive days of strike action over pay in the public sector.

Strike action is a last resort, but the government introduced a 2-year pay freeze in 2010 and in recent years has imposed a 1% pay cap for all public sector workers.

The action on October 15 follows the successful day of action on 10 July when joint action took place with other public sector workers. Now we are stepping up the campaign with 72 hours of strike action in October aimed at securing a fair settlement.

The strike on October 15 will not include PCS members in Scotland working in bodies falling under the jurisdiction of Scottish Government ministers where we are working with colleagues in Unison Scotland to build for joint action aimed at tackling the Scottish pay gap.

More information will follow.

TUC Young Workers Housing Survey

The TUC Young Workers Forum are asking young people, under the age of 35, to report on their experiences of trying to buy a home or find affordable quality accommodation in the renting sector.

Please take a few minutes to complete the survey below.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BVPQBXK

Dont participate in the 2014 People Survey

PCS People Survey Policy

The PCS National Executive Committee is calling on all members in the civil service not to participate in the 2014 People Survey because:

• A non-participation policy was democratically agreed by delegates at the 2013 national PCS Conference
• People Survey results are misquoted and misused against our members to justify the government’s civil service reform agenda to cut jobs, cap pay and introduce ever harsher civil service performance management procedures
• Members across the civil service are under pressure to complete the People Survey with positive responses.

Last year PCS members in the DWP provided extensive evidence of how the DWP People Survey was discredited by pressure on staff to complete the staff survey with positive responses and a range of bad practices which included:

• Members being pressurised to complete it
• Inappropriate incentives
• Manipulating questions and response categories
• Influencing how people should respond
• Scaremongering about office closures

People Survey discredited

DWP has accepted that all of these bad practices undermine the integrity of the survey and evidence shows it creates cynicism and reduces people’s likelihood of participating in the future...

DWP ‘Myth Busters’ guidance was put on the People Survey Intranet site in July 2014 telling managers: don’t put pressure on people to complete the People Survey, don’t use incentives for completion, don’t try to change the questions, don’t influence how people use the response categories, don’t use the People Survey to threaten staff. However, PCS believes that much more effective action needs to be taken to abolish local bad practices and end improper pressure on staff to complete the People Survey by giving positive responses.

Support non participation

The PCS DWP Group Executive Committee is calling for all members in DWP to boycott the 2014 People Survey.

Non participation is the democratically agreed national Policy of PCS. The Survey is voluntary and you have a have a right to not participate in the 2014 People Survey in support of PCS Policy. 

We all need a pay rise

The campaign continues

On 10 July PCS members took co-ordinated strike action with union members in local government, education and the fire service over pay and our national campaign issues. The campaign continues and now local government workers are planning to strike on 14 October and health service unions are balloting over pay. PCS is talking to these unions about how we can coordinate strike action to be as effective as possible so that we can force the government into negotiations.

Our campaign will include taking part in co-ordinated action with other unions to break the public sector pay squeeze. We are also identifying key groups of members who, if they take sustained strike action, will put real pressure on employers and the government. We are asking all members to support the TUC’s Britain Needs A Pay Rise demonstration in London on Saturday 18 October.

Discussions with other unions and the TUC will take place and the national executive committee will meet on 23 September to take decisions on coordinated industrial action in the week beginning 13 October, and on targeted action in the following period, with the aim of bringing the government to the negotiating table

Fighting fund
To help us fight the cuts we have launched a fighting fund. We need the fund to be big enough to support key staff taking targeted strike action. A donation of just £2 per month will help us build our fighting fund.

You can donate by:

• Completing a direct debit form
• Writing a cheque for £24 made payable to PCS fighting fund levy and sending it to PCS Finance Department, Freepost, BFH1003, 160 Falcon Road, London, SW11 2BR

Actions

• Support the demonstration on 18 October
• Get DD-ready
   

Latest staff announcements from DWP

Extra resources for Fraud and Error Services External recruitment into CCS 3 Job Centre closures proposed

Extra resources for Fraud and Error Service

DWP have announced that Taunton Contact Centre will become a permanent Fraud and Error office. DWP have been given additional resources to help reduce the amount of money lost through Fraud and Error and so wishes to transfer staff in to this area.

Taunton has been selected on the basis that offices in the Southern OSN have been relatively unaffected by the other recent staffing moves. Taunton is also one of the offices affected by the out-sourcing of JSA new claims calls to Capita.

Over the coming months DWP expect to announce further transfers of staff from Contact Centre Services (CCS) onto Fraud and Error work. At present management are not able to say where these staff will come from.

External recruitment into Contact Centres

Management have also announced their intention to recruit 365 new staff into CCS to replace the staff that they expect to transfer into the Fraud and Error Service over the coming months. These staff will be recruited on fixed term contracts though they will have the possibility of conversion to permanency as part of their contract. These staff will be spread over 16 contact centres, based on the sites with the greatest spare capacity.

This is the now the seventh announcement about moving staff around Operations in the last 4 months. While we welcome the belated move to recruit additional staff, these staff will not help the staffing crisis in DWP as they are effectively only being recruited to backfill behind other staff moving to Fraud and Error.

Management’s view is that the creation of six satellite contact centres, the recruitment of apprentices and the transfer of Glasgow Visits into CCS should give CCS sufficient staff to cope and eventually take the JSA new claims calls back in-house. PCS still believes DWP needs more staff and will continue to call on DWP to mount a large scale recruitment exercise of permanent staff across the department.

PCS have of course made the point to management that these new recruits will be filling long term vacancies and so the staff should therefore be recruited as permanent staff from the outset.

DWP has so reduced its internal capacity that it is not even able to manage what is a relatively small recruitment exercise. As a result the department will be contracting a private company to manage the recruitment process. This is yet another example of how DWP desperately needs additional staff. 
DWP have said though that they, and not the recruitment company, will retain the final say in who is selected.

3 Job Centre closures proposed

DWP has also informed PCS that it is considering the closure of three Job Centres: Nantwich, Penrith and Clitheroe. Public consultation on the closure of Nantwich has already begun and it will begin at Clitheroe and Penrith this week.

The proposal is that all services from these Job Centres, along with the staff, would be relocated to their nearest Job Centre with only a part time outreach service for vulnerable customers remaining. This means that DWP is effectively removing its presence from these three towns and will be expecting the claimants who are using its services there to travel considerable extra distances in order to sign on or to see their advisers.

PCS opposes these closure proposals and will campaign to keep these Job Centres open. We believe that these closures, if they go ahead, will seriously degrade DWP’s customer services in the locations affected. We also fear that some of the staff affected may have difficulties travelling to the new sites, given the significant distances involved, and may be outwith mobility.

Management have agreed to use the public consultation period to also consult with staff to learn what problems the closures would mean for the staff in advance of the final decision on the closure being taken. One to one meetings will be arranged and it is essential that members use these to highlight as soon as possible any issues they may have with the proposed closures. Members concerns should be forwarded to PCS Group office, through the local branch, to inform our discussions with management.

Save Penrith Jobcentre from Closure

Please sign the petition

We in PCS firmly believe that Penrith needs a Job Centre. Under DWP’s proposal the Job Centre would close and all of its services would be removed to Carlisle. Only a very limited outreach service would remain in Penrith for the most vulnerable claimants.

This closure will be a loss to the local economy. Eight much needed jobs will be lost from Penrith permanently, along with the money the staff spend in the town each day. The closure will furthermore deprive the people of Penrith, and the large geographical area that the Job Centre covers, a valued and important public service. We believe that Penrith, and the rural communities served by Penrith Job Centre, have every much of a right to have an accessible Job Centre as do people living in large towns and cities.

PCS also has concerns about our members who work in Penrith. We fear that some of them will live too far from Carlisle to be able to commute there every day. They may therefore be placed at risk of redundancy if the Job Centre closes.

For all of these reasons PCS strongly believes that Penrith Job Centre should remain open. 

Please sign this petition to support the PCS Cumbria campaign to save Penrith Jobcentre. 

News from the NEC

Elected by the membership every year, the national executive committee (NEC) is the governing body of PCS, responsible for running your union in line with the policies established by you and other members through national annual conferences and membership ballots.

Informed 

Informed is a regular newsletter for members from the NEC. It's made available to branches following each NEC meeting.

Informed - July 2014

Earlier issues

Check-off attacks are attempt to undermine PCS

Government attempts to end the system of collecting PCS union subs from salaries in the civil service are an attack on the union, TUC Congress heard.

Emergency motion 2, proposed by PCS delegate Helen Flanagan on Wednesday morning, expressed concern that since the end of July a number of civil service departments have announced that they are considering ending check-off, the decades-old method of collecting union subs.

The minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, has described check-off as "undesirable" and urged government departments to review it.

A number of departments have consulted civil service unions, with a view to giving 3 months' notice of the withdrawal of check-off. At the end of August PCS sought assurances from departments that they would continue with the system but by the time consultation ended on 31 August, all departments had refused to give such assurances.

The Home Office notified PCS on 1 September that it intends to withdraw check-off and we are signing up members to pay their subs by direct debit.

Important right

The motion stressed that check-off is an important and well-established trade union right and noted that its withdrawal has been used by right-wing regimes, such as that of governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin and Commodore Frank Bainimarama in Fiji, as an attempt to undermine union membership and income.

Helen said: "Check-off is only undesirable if you want to break a union. They do. They want to stop us fighting. If the government succeeds we can't be there for our members in their workplaces.

"The government's actions give the green light to many hostile employers who will want to cut union income streams. This union busting will not succeed."

She said the Labour party should be urged to include the defence of check-off in its 2015 general election manifesto.

Vindictive attack

The POA seconded the motion and general secretary Steve Gillan said that the attacks on check-off should be seen as "an injury to one is an injury to all" and explained that the POA had seen it withdrawn in the 1990s.

He said: "This is an unnecessary, vindictive attack on PCS because thay have had the audacity to stand up to the government and take industrial action and strike action across the civil service to protect their members."

The motion, which was carried unanimously, called on the TUC to:
Urgently lobby all government ministers, asking them to continue to provide check-off

Lobby the Labour party to include an election manifesto pledge on the right to have union subs deducted through salary by check-off

Launch a campaign to defend the right to check-off and counter the government anti-union rhetoric in the media.

Secure your rights

If you're a PCS member help secure your rights at work by registering to pay your subs by direct debit

If you're not a member join us today

Read more about PCS at #TUC14

Wigan Diggers Festival - this Saturday

A free fun packed open air event commemorating Wigan born Gerrard Winstanley and the worlds first true socialists known as "The Diggers".
From 11:00am to 9:30pm.

Featuring live music, poetry, comedy, puppet show, food and book stalls and beer tent.

For more information see
http://wigandiggersfestival.org/

Event Address:
The Wiend, Wigan WN1 1NH

Tribute to Bob Crow - TUC Congress 2014

Mark Serwotka: ‘I read on Twitter eight weeks ago that I was dead’ -Guardian article

PCS union boss Mark Serwotka needs a heart transplant. Until he gets it, his blood is pumped by a gadget worn on his belt. For the first time, he tells the incredible story of his shocking collapse – and calls for strikes on austerity.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/05/mark-serwotka-pcs-read-on-twitter-i-was-dead