PCS

Public & Commercial Services Union - trade union for civil servants

The politics of the PCS's dispute over national civil service pay

The PCS national dispute is a necessary strike against a gratuitous government pay policy that is squeezing public sector workers at a time of sharply rising costs. It is a fight we have to win if civil servants are not to have their living standards slashed this year and in coming years. PCS organising defensive industrial action across many tens of thousands of workers challenges the very logic of British politics today that sees workers wages squeezed while the rich get richer and bankers get bailed out. There is a great deal of potential to build on the dispute, recruit new members, defend...

PCS backdown was a mistake

The PCS National Executive Committee's decision to "suspend" the national civil service one day strike planned for Monday 10 November is at best a dreadful mistake. Or it may be a prelude to abandoning the action, possibly on the pretext of some relatively minor concession. This is a longer version of the article than in the printed paper. See also: The Politics of the PCS Dispute PCS leaders' record on national pay negotiations PCS leaders' record on action for national pay The SWP in PCS PCS leaders' explanation for calling off the 10 November strike The explanation was given somewhat...

Civil service and teachers

The PCS civil service union has called a strike for 10 November, and the teachers’ union NUT will announce the result of its strike ballot on 3 November. Both unions are in dispute with the Government over pay, demanding pay rises at least matching inflation rather than the Government’s limit of two-and-a-bit per cent. PCS’s call to action for 10 November is muffled and apologetic. Headlines: “PCS calls on government to avoid national strike. PCS calls on government to come to negotiating table to avoid damaging industrial action over pay. National executive committee sets 10 November as day...

Striking on different days in November

Civil servants (PCS) and teachers (NUT) are set to strike in November against the Government’s two-and-a-bit per cent limit on pay rises — but on different days. How the foul-up happened is a mystery. Both unions now have avowedly left-wing Executive majorities and top full-time officials. Both union leaderships make a big deal of wanting united action by public sector workers against the Government's wage-cut plans. Both unions have had plenty of leeway to select their time to ballot. NUT is following up on a one-day strike in April; PCS, on a national pay campaign which theoretically began...

Unions and immigration officials

It is obviously welcome as Robin Sivapalan reports (Solidarity 3/139) that the campaign against immigration controls is being taken into the trade union movement, given the way these laws are used against the struggles of migrant workers on the Tube and elsewhere. However the fact that the campaign will be meeting with PCS members in the Borders Agency needs expanding on. The Socialist Party-led group executive in the Department for Work and Pensions should be calling on members to refuse to check the national insurance numbers of migrant workers on behalf of the bosses. But what about PCS...

Public sector pay: how to win

If anything sums up New Labour as a Government for the rich, a cuckoo in the labour movement nest, it has to be their year-on-year drive to keep public sector wages below the rate of inflation. According to a report on the Joseph Rowntree website, and based on 2007 statistics, “the public sector is a large employer of workers earning less than £7 per hour, accounting for a quarter of all such employees... the public sector employs relatively few adults of the age group where low pay is most prevalent, namely those under the age of 25. If this age group is excluded then the share of low paid...

PCS and NUT may strike on different days

Unbelievably, it looks as if the pay strikes by civil servants (PCS) and teachers (NUT) in November could be on different days. The NUT's ballot begins on 6 October, and the PCS's on 24 September. Under the current laws, a ballot mandate for industrial action has to be activated within 28 days, or it lapses; at the same time, however, there's a minimum time (notice to the employer, and so on) between a union getting a ballot mandate and organising a strike. The current word is that the NUT's strike will be between 19 and 27 November (and legally cannot be earlier than the 19th); the PCS's...

Left unions form political alliance

Perhaps the most positive development at the TUC congress was the formation of a new Trade Union Co-ordinating Group, led by left-wing MP John McDonnell and bringing together the RMT, PCS, NUJ and FBU (with the POA, NAPO and BFAWU expected to come on board soon). The group aims to act as a workers’ voice in parliament and coordinate the parliamentary work of trade unions. Its formation is a positive step, and is a clear indication that at least the leaderships of some key unions are thinking practically about the issue of working-class political representation rather than just making...

Worker self-management in the DSA?

Increasingly in the Civil service, and probably in the public sector generally, there is a move to fragment jobs and functions i.e. to introduce further division of labour. Therefore it is good to report an interesting experiment in the Driving Standards Agency (DSA), which is part of the Department for Transport, that flows contrary to this tide of work fragmentation. Call Centres are traditionally organized where functions are split between the workers so that one set of call operators handle “x” type of calls. There is strict supervision of work with operators given work targets and set...

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