Public sector workers to vote on industrial action

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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Gordon Brown faces a series of national public sector strikes in the run-up to the general election which could cause chaos in courts, prisons, ports and jobcentres for weeks, it was announced last night.

Hundreds of thousands of civil servants will be balloted tomorrow (thurs) to back a programme of rolling industrial action throughout March over plans to slash their redundancy payments by a third to save £500million.

The Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents nearly 300,000 workers, said the walkouts would also involve immigration officers, museum staff, job centre workers and airport staff.

Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said ballot results would be announced on February 25 and a 48-hour national walkout could be held, if the strike wins support, as early as March 8 and 9.

The union is then likely to call out different sets of related workers on consecutive days to cause maximum chaos. For example court administrators could be called out on the first day and prison staff on the next, so no cases could be heard. Similarly customs staff and port authority workers could walk out on consecutive days.

The same approach was employed by post office workers during the Royal Mail dispute at the end of last year which resulted in weeks of disruption.

Mr Serwotka, one of the most militant trade union leaders, said that rolling action could continue through April right up to a general election if the Government continued to push through the changes. He said that talks with Government officials had broken down and the union had no option but to press ahead with the ballot.

“Margaret Thatcher introduced this compensation scheme but the Labour Government is now saying it is too generous and wants to rob hard-working, low-paid public servants which is an absolute disgrace,” Mr Serwotka said yesterday.

He said he feared the move to cut redundancy payments would be followed by huge job cuts after the general election. Both parties have signalled that tens of thousands of civil service jobs will have to go as part of the public spending squeeze.

“Gordon Brown, in his last days as Labour Prime Minister, is ripping up terms and conditions so that David Cameron can sack civil servants on the cheap. Compulsory redundancies will become much more likely. It is an absolute outrage,” said Mr Serwotka.

The Prime Minister announced last year that he wanted to save £500million over three years by cutting compensation payments for 500,000 civil servants.

Under the Government’s plans, to be phased in from this April, compulsory and voluntary redundancy terms would be capped at two years’ pay instead of the current average of three years’ salary. Workers over 50 would lose generous early retirement rights.

Under the current arrangements, a benefit worker on £24,000 would be entitled to a lump sum of £72,000 if he or she had worked for over 20 years. But under the new proposals, this would have dropped to £48,000, a reduction of £24,000.

But yesterday five other unions with civil service members who had also been opposed to the measures agreed to the redundancy cutbacks after a series of small concessions for low-paid and older workers.

Cabinet Office negotiators agreed to protect the lowest paid by allowing a cap of £60,000 or three years’ pay, whichever was the lower, to those earning less than £30,000. Those over 50 will also be able to keep some of their early pension entitlements.

The FDA, which represents senior civil servants, the Prison Officers Assocation, Unite, the GMB and Prospect issued a joint statement stating they would withdraw their opposition to the changes.

Jonathan Baume, general secretary of the FDA which represents senior civil servants, said: “Although we considered legal action, key parts of the new offer go a significant way to resolving matters likely to be dealt with by any judicial review.”

Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, urged PCS members to accept the new agreement and vote against taking strike action.

“I believe the decision by the PCS union to continue opposing the proposals and ballot its members for industrial action is wholly misguided,” said Sir Gus. “The terms we are setting out today give substantial protection to the lowest paid and those closest to retirement,” said Sir Gus. “Industrial action can only damage the services we provide to the public.”

But the PCS argued the concessions were minor and insisted they would go ahead with their ballot. The union is to lobby every single MP’s surgery at the end of February and will hold a national demonstration in Westminster. More than 130 MPs have signed a Commons motion, opposing the changes, including 97 Labour MPs.

[BELIAL]

Oh my, surely not another example of a Liebour govt. attacking the terms and conditions of ordinary workers. Seems like some of our caring socially responsible peoples representatives in NEW Labour thought the terms struck under Tory rule were far too generous

[dvbuk55]

When they say that those terms are over generous they're not joking - if you'd done 20+years at Royal Mail, do you think you'd get anything like that amount?

[BELIAL]

Absolutely DV most shocking . I feel sure that had our union managed to secure such terms, that if offered you would on principle refuse your full entitlement and demand a lower sum.
I myself felt exactly the same way about our "gold plated pension" but fortunately RM have relieved me of that dilemma

[dvbuk55]

Absolutely DV most shocking . I feel sure that had our union managed to secure such terms, that if offered you would on principle refuse your full entitlement and demand a lower sum.
I myself felt exactly the same way about our "gold plated pension" but fortunately RM have relieved me of that dilemma

Quite so B - the MPs thought it a waste of money maintaining your over-generous pension scheme whilst maintaining their own bloody goldmine!