Defending jobs

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Postal workers fight jobs cuts

by Mike Southerden ROYAL Mail's latest drive to slash jobs is continuing apace, but is meeting with rank and file resistance in some areas. Management (with the collusion of union officials) are deploying every method of bullying and bribery to try and get staff to agree to “efficiency savings” by the end of May. Delivery workers at Mount Pleasant were told by CWU officials to expect about 50 job cuts (mostly on nights). If they were agreed, the remaining staff would be receiving 40% of the savings. If they voted “no”, the cuts would be implemented anyway and they would get nothing. Some...

Jobs fight needs active strategy

Charlie McDonald, Public and Commercial Services union DWP Group Executive (personal capacity) TENS of thousands of Public and Commercial Services union members in the government’s biggest department, Work and Pensions, struck on 2 and 3 May against Gordon Brown’s job cuts. The cuts started with the 2004 Comprehensive Spending Review. 30,000 posts were to be cut over a three-year period. Management have openly admitted that they are making significant progress towards this target. In a letter to all staff prior to the strike, permanent secretary Leigh Lewis stated: “We are also now nearly 60%...

Decent jobs for all!

The TGWU and Amicus have responded to Peugeot’s announcement of the closure of its Ryton factory in Coventry by demanding “stronger” laws making it difficult to cut jobs, laws like those that exist in France. There was no talk of direct workers’ action — action like the French workers’ strike which have put limits to the destruction of job security in France. But, so far as can be seen, this wasn’t just a matter of union leaders being feeble: there was no confidence for a fight among Ryton workers, either. For the last twenty years at least, the union leaders have had nothing much to say about...

French students and workers revolt against neoliberalism

“The student movement did not start with a single blow. At first it was just the students of Rennes who dared to bet that their strike would snowball, and who shut down their university, on their own for a week. “It will be the same among the workers...” So resolved the 300 university and high-school student delegates who met in Lille on 1-2 April to plan the way forward for the struggle in France. The movement started two months ago, with a small minority of students who ventured to take action against a government measure cutting job security — at first sight just another of dozens of...

Benefits Staff Fight Cuts

by Charlie McDonald, local PCS branch secretary Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) members working in dole offices and jobcentres in London have voted for a series of strikes. The first may take place on 16 November. This is in response to savage job cuts being implemented by Chancellor Gordon Brown across the Civil Service. 100,000 jobs are to be cut. On top of this, work is being moved out of London. PCS is particularly concerned about the impact this will have on unemployment in black and minority ethnic communities. We are worried about increasing workload. There is the same amount...

Benefits and Jobcentre staff set to strike

Charlie McDonald, PCSU DWP East London branch secretary Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) members working in jobcentres and dole offices in London have voted for a series of strikes. The first strike is due to take place on 16th November. This is in response to a savage job cuts programme being implemented by the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, across the Civil Service. 100,000 jobs are to be cut. On top of this, work is being moved out of London to the regions. PCS members are particularly concerned about the impact this will have on unemployment in black and minority ethnic communities...

Cuts at Morrisons

TGWU and GMB members are also taking on exploitation by supermarket bosses at Morrisons in the UK. On 10 August over 8,000 of the chain’s distribution staff received ballot slips on whether to take strike action over Morrisons’ refusal to engage in meaningful negotiations. A particular point of friction has been job security, at a time when Morrisons is carrying out major restructuring of distribution after purchasing Safeway last year. The supermarket has told workers that it “cannot guarantee” any jobs beyond March 2006. Despite the precarious nature of its workers’ livelihoods, Morrisons...

Strikers thwart bosses

Ansa Logistics, a firm which delivers Ford cars to showrooms, has been hit by a strike by 350 staff over pay and reduncancies. The company, which delivers 300,000 cars a year, was fortunately thwarted in its contingency plan to get cars to showrooms, due to the “disappearance” of their keys. 2000 cars which the bosses had planned to deliver instead remained in the safety of depots in Avonmouth and Liverpool. While the Avonmouth keys were eventually “found”, those missing from Liverpool are still at large. Ansa’s website claims that the reason that the T&G so unwilling to accept redundancies is...

Jobs strike deferred

Officials from the civil service union PCS are meeting new Work and Pensions minister David Blunkett on Thursday 23 June to ask for guarantees of no compulsory redundancies and no compulsory transfers in the DWP as the Government proceeds with its plans for over 100,000 job cuts in the civil service and 30,000 in the DWP. If the union does not get the guarantees then, so the officials say, it may go for a national ballot for national strike action in the autumn. The union’s DWP London Regional Committee had already called for a campaign of strike action in London, against job cuts as well as...

Strike back on?

Unions at the BBC have warned Director General Mark Thompson that they consider the dispute over the corporations proposed job cuts “still on”. Following strike action by thousands of workers on Tuesday 24 April which crippled the BBC’s services and won widespread public attention and support, the BBC’s management has softened its proposals by suggesting a one year “moratorium” on compulsory redundancies and various other concessions. Unfortunately, as a result, Amicus, BECTU and the NUJ called off their plans for a two-day follow-up strike on Monday Tuesday 31 May and Wednesday 1 June...

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