Workers' Liberty

Following a spate of sackings and victimisations at Hastings Child Support Agency, Public and Commercial Services Union activists are organising a march and rally to protest.

PCS Branch Secretary Sam Buckley has just become the fifth union officer to be sacked from the Child Support Agency (CSA) in Hastings since November 2007.

On 23 July I attended a PCS anti-cuts campaign briefing meeting. The 35 attending delegates consisted of activists from all of the principal governmental bargaining units, along with their full-time officials.

Fundamental attacks on civil service workers are coming thick and fast. We are entering a very different period compared to anything that has gone before.

At this year's PCS civil service union conference, the Department of Communities and Local Government HQ and Department of Work and Pensions East London branches proposed the following motion:

The civil service union PCS has attacked the announcement by the Department for Work and Pensions to cut 8,000 staff working in Jobcentres.

The conference in May of the civil service workers' union PCS resolved on "a major call for joint action amongst public sector unions".

A joint two-hour walkout was staged by PCS members working in the National Gallery and the National Gallery Company (a “front” retail company at the Gallery) in a protest over poverty pay on Thursday 13 May.

PCS, by far the largest civil service trade union, met in conference in mid May, as the Tory-Liberal coalition was drawing up its year-on-year slash-and-burn plans for the public sector: huge reductions in jobs and services; privatisation; cuts in real wages; further attacks on pensions and severance terms.

On Thursday 13th of May, PCS members at the National Gallery and the National Gallery shop went on a 2-hour walkout against low pay.

Under a Lib Dem-Tory coalition, we know that members of the Public and Commercial Services Union will be attacked even more viciously than we were under New Labour; indeed the whole of the public sector will be. It is against this background that the PCS will hold its national conference between 17 and 19 May.

On Budget Day, 24 March, the civil service union PCS took a third day of strike action over detrimental changes to redundancy and early retirement rights.

In the 24 March budget Chancellor Alistair Darling announced the first tranches of cuts to the public sector. But he did this by saying he wanted to save hundreds of millions of pounds through “improving efficiency”. What does this mean?

On 10 March, Merseyside activists organised a protest outside the UK Border Agency in Liverpool to show solidarity with the women who were then on hunger strike at Yarls Wood detention centre near Bedford and to demand the closing of the detention centres, an end to deportations and the scrapping of immigration controls.

On 8-9 March the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) took strike action on 8-9 March over the Government’s proposals to reduce redundancy and early retirement payouts civil servants (proposals which come into force on the 1 April). The national union reports well over 100,000 members took action on each day.

The civil service workers' union PCS will strike again, over severance terms, on 24 March.

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Members of the civil service union PCS have voted decisively to take industrial action over redundancy and early retirement terms. National strikes will take place on Monday 8 and Tuesday 9 March.

The civil service union PCS has announced that it is continuing to ballot its members over strike action, despite the announcement by the Cabinet Office that five unions have agreed to changes to the Civil Service Compensation Scheme (CSCS). The ballot, which is scheduled to close on February 25, is covering around a quarter of a million civil service workers across all sectors, including Jobcentre staff, tax workers, court staff and driving examiners.

Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) leader Mark Serwotka has promised a strike campaign in the run-up to the general election aimed at causing “the most disruption possible” to the government.

The election for the General Secretary (GS) of the civil service union PCS has begun. AWL members in the PCS are recommending a vote for Mark Serwotka, the present incumbent. Our recommendation for such a vote is not because we are not uncritical of him; on the contrary.

Rob Bryson is contesting the post of General Secretary of the PCS (civil service workers') union against the current incumbent Mark Serwotka.

The election for the PCS General Secretary (GS) position has begun, and AWL members in the PCS are recommending that members vote for Mark Serwotka, the present incumbent.

On 6 October Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, announced that he was writing to the public sector salary review bodies calling on them to “freeze the pay of 40,000 senior public servants in 2010-11. And he recommended that about 700,000 middle-ranking public servants, including doctors, dentists and prison officers, get a rise of between 0 per cent and 1 per cent”.

Nominations for the post of General Secretary of the PCS civil service union has begun. Currently only two candidates are contesting the election; right winger Rob Bryson and the present incumbent, Mark Serwotka.

Over 30 people — mainly local workers but also some school and university students — attended a meeting on 2 July called by the Sheffield Department for Work and Pensions branch of the PCS trade union to discuss working-class anti-fascist campaigning.

If the Government puts out £1100 billion in cash, credit, and guarantees to the banks, as it has done, then someone is going to foot the bill. On current plans, both Tory and New Labour, it is public services and public service workers.

Roundup of Union news in brief: Linamar, Tube, UCL, PCS