Members of the Public and Commercial Services union working in the civil service are gearing up to take strike action to defend their jobs, pay and the services offered to the public. Strike action and overtime bans are needed across the whole civil service to stop attacks on terms and conditions. In 2004 Gordon Brown announced there would be 100,000 job loses across the civil service and there have already been compulsory redundancies in smaller departments like DEFRE. It is only a matter of time before these spread to larger departments. Now is the time that PCS must stand united to stop this. Members will be striking to gain an agreement with the government that there will be no compulsory redundancies.
Untied action is needed within the civil service to stop privatisation. Already over 20,000 civilian staff in the MOD face job cuts and privatisation which PCS fears will damage the high quality of training and logistical support given to the armed services. In the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) frontline service for the most vulnerable groups in society are being privatised. It has been announced that the ‘Pathways to Work' programmes that are supposed to help the disabled and sick find the help they need or work they can do will be privatised. The ‘third sector', a group of charities and voluntary groups will be given this highly sensitive work to do leaving 1,000's of civil servants without jobs.
Civil servants across different departments are paid at very different rates for doing the same job. Over a quarter of civil servants earn less than £15,000 per annum. It is time to take strike action for fair pay across all government departments. Now is the time to demand national pay bargaining. No department should be allowed to offer 2% or less. Civil servants deserve a living wage.
Now is the time for civil servants to stand together to defend jobs, pay and public services. If all PCS members join this strike action it will show the government we stand united and are prepared for a fight.
