by René Lavanchy
Civil servants across Britain will vote from this week on strike action over cuts to their redundancy pay. But the Public and Commercial Services Union will be balloting alone after five other unions agreed to put an improved offer to their members.
The vote, covering 270,000 workers, comes after two months of talks over changes to the civil service compensation scheme designed to save £500 million.
In a joint statement, Unite, Prospect, the GMB, the FDA and the Prison Officers Association said: “We recognise the requirement for reform and believe that the terms that have been reached are the best that might be negotiated.” One union negotiator said some payoffs had been increased, but he was still “not pleased” with the offer. Details were unavailable as Tribune went to press.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said it was “no surprise” the other unions had accepted, adding: “Some of them would have accepted even the original proposals and have since then argued for each new proposal to be accepted despite the detrimental effect on the majority of staff.”
In a letter to civil servants, Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell called the strike ballot “misguided” and urged PCS members to “think hard about how to vote”.
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I am resigning from PCS because of this. You wonder if Mark Serwotka has joined the Tory party! Totally stupid and how insulting to big unions like Unite and GMB. This is all about PCS being the plaything of a rump of members of the tiny cult like Socialist Party and a few other misfits who do not inhabit planet earth.
I am a member of the POA and I bet the POA NEC dare not put these proposals to their members….sold out again !!
Resign then! Real income for rank and file civil servants has been falling for years and now they want to make it cheaper to sack us! If they get away with this the next step WILL be mass redundancies and contrary to myth most civil service jobs are in areas of high unemployment.
Members of the FDA, PROSPECT and POA should seriously consider leaving their union and joining a union that represents its members and consults them before entering into contractual changes on their behalf. There must be some legal action members can take against their unions to not consult or vote its members on proposals to which they have signed. I left PROSPECT for this very reason and joined the PCS. I hope members of the other unions would vote with their subscriptions being cancelled and join the PCS so we can speak with unite.
PCS represents three times as many members as the other unions combined.
It is the only union that counts when it comes to the civil service.
The current scheme was introduced under Margaret Thatcher – that well known benefactor of public sector workers.
It’s New Labour that’s a disgrace.
I wonder who in PCS is being paid by the Tory party…. I will not pay £11 a month to fund a pro Tory union because that is what PCS is.