Coalition split as PCS call removing means of collecting union subs is 'blinkered political attack'

The Conservative party's plan to end the collection of trade union subscriptions through salaries is a "blinkered political attack", the Public and Commercial Services union says. In his speech at the Conservative party conference today, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said the system known as check-off is being stopped at short notice in the Home Office and other departments are actively considering banning it.

But we're told the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander has written to all Secretaries of State and Permanent Secretaries to confirm there is "no fiscal case" for removing check-off and that unions have offered to meet the costs "which are in any case minimal". "There is no public policy case to do this in any department across Whitehall," he adds.

Mr Alexander also reminds his cabinet colleagues that the union successfully fought a high court case last year against Eric Pickles' attempt to remove check-off in the Department for Communities and Local Government, and states the Treasury will not fund any departments' legal costs in defending similar cases.

Many large employers in the private as well as public sector use the method because they recognise the benefits of having good industrial relations and the benefits of trade unions to society. Charities and other organisations also collect subscriptions through salaries and these are being allowed to continue in the civil service.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "With the Treasury confirming there is no financial or policy necessity, it is impossible to see this as anything other than a blinkered political attack on trade unions. Many modern employers allow unions to use this convenient and simple method because they recognise the huge benefits of having good industrial relations."

Osborne's pay cuts leading to strikes next month

George Osborne's commitment to cutting public sector pay, confirmed in his Conservative party conference speech, has sparked a fresh wave of strike action, the Public and Commercial Services union says.

Up to a quarter of a million civil servants will be on strike on Wednesday 15 October, co-ordinated with other public sector walkouts that week. The strikes come ahead of the TUC's 'Britain Needs a Pay Rise' demonstrations in London and Glasgow on Saturday 18 October. Public servants' wages were frozen for two years after 2010 and subsequently capped at 1%. Added to the increase in monthly pension contributions and the effects of inflation, this means many civil servants will have suffered a 20% cut in their incomes by next year.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "George Osborne's government, propped up by the Lib Dems, has slashed the living standards of public servants while the super rich have been rewarded with tax cuts. Days after voting for air strikes on Iraq likely to cost billions of pounds, politicians of all parties continue to peddle the myth that there is not enough money around to pay civil servants, nurses or teachers."

Tax workers balloted for strikes over 'damaging' cuts

Fifty thousand tax workers are being balloted on a wide-ranging programme of industrial action in a dispute over job cuts, the Public and Commercial Services union has announced. The ballot of all the union's members in HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) opens today and forms part of the union's ongoing national campaign among its 250,000 civil service members against cuts to jobs and public services.

The union says it has sought high-level talks in HMRC on a range of key issue linked to jobs in a department that has cut more than 30,000 posts in the last decade and plans to cut thousands more by next year. The union has asked HMRC to reach a joint agreement on adequate staffing levels and to join it in making a case to the government for long-term investment to properly tackle tax avoidance and evasion.

The union says the department must improve its profile in our communities and ensure its central role in funding the public services we all rely on is recognised, but says continuing cuts are seriously undermining this. Despite significant opposition, HMRC is pressing ahead with the closure of all its 281 walk-in enquiry centres. This will cut face to face tax advice for millions of people, particularly older people and migrant
workers, and put 1,300 jobs at risk.

As well as more looming job cuts and office closures, other issues in the dispute include the threat of privatisation in HMRC's debt management division and in mail handling; and the imposition of a 'discredited' and 'widely unpopular' performance management system that places an arbitrary 10% of staff each year at risk of disciplinary procedures and the sack.

The ballot closes on Friday 16 May. In the event of a yes vote, the union will launch a series of one-day and shorter duration strikes, walk-outs, "good work strikes" to highlight the gaps in services caused by understaffing, and other forms of industrial action.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "A decade of cuts has left HMRC unable to cope with its crucial job of collecting the taxes that fund the other public services we all rely on. These cuts must be stopped and the government must invest in our society and a serious clampdown on the tax dodgers who deprive our public finances of tens of billions of pounds a year."

Met Police statement on strike action by PCS Union

Metropolitan Police statement:

"The PCS Union has informed the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) that they intend to take strike action on New Year’s Eve. We want to reassure Londoners that the MPS has taken the necessary steps to ensure that in the event of strike action, our essential services to London will continue.

The MPS’s took the decision in November to give a 1% pay rise to all police staff. This is at the ceiling of the Government’s public sector pay policy and the pay increase was given without any strings attached to it. The PCS demands include a pay increase of up to 6%. The MPS is simply unable to meet this demand.

The PCS Union which represents a number of our police staff has been balloting its members in the past weeks on potential strike action over the pay dispute. There are just over 14,000 members of police staff in the MPS. Only around 20% of PCS members took part in the vote and 1,150 people voted for strike action. That accounts for just 1 in 12 police staff members in the MPS actively voting for strike action.

The PCS has now informed the MPS that they intend to take strike action on New Year’s Eve - one of the days when demand for our services is highest. We have tried and tested business continuity plans for all eventualities, including industrial action. These ensure that critical functions performed by police staff are performed by police officers who are fully trained in those roles.

To ensure we are able to implement these plans, we stopped granting any further requests for annual leave or days off for officers and staff in a number of key areas for New Year's Eve in mid-December. In some cases we've also had to take the very difficult decision to cancel planned days off for officers with certain critical skills or in critical operational areas.

These are clearly all steps we'd rather not take, but we have to be prepared to maintain critical operational areas in the event of a strike action by police staff, and we are confident that we have appropriate plans in place."

Natalie Bennett backs the PCS day of action

The Green Party leader Natalie Bennett has sent a message of support for today’s PCS day of protest against public sector job and pay cuts, and to the National Union of Teachers North West strike. Natalie Bennett said: "On the day after the dreadful Comprehensive Spending Review, in which George Osborne sought to entrench the failed policy of austerity into the next Parliament, with the express support of the Labour Party, grassroots action to express popular disapproval of these policies is critically important." 

"The public understands that austerity has failed, that it is based on the false premise that excessive government spending caused our debt problems, when in fact it was the financial crisis caused by a failure of regulation and culture of gambling within the City. Even the IMF understands it, but Mr Osborne is a devotee of the ideology of ‘small government’, and is defying sense in continuing to follow these failed policies."

Ms Bennett added that Comprehensive Spending Review amounted to an attack on the public sector, and millions of workers who provide essential services, from teachers and dinner ladies, tax clerks to Jobcentre workers, firefighters to nurses. "We know that child poverty is rising fast, and as the TUC has recently demonstrated, a lot of this rise is and will come from families where at least one person works in the public sector. It simply is not right that the people who serve all of us, our public servants, should be living in poverty."

Natalie Bennett concluded by saying that the PCS call for fair pay for all civil servants and for all contracts to be underpinned by the living wage, highlighted the critically important issue of rising inequality "We need to make the minimum wage a living wage – that is an immediate step the government should take, but in the meantime, ensuring that government outsourcing meets this basic standard is an important step."

PCS union commence a week of rolling strike action

A week of rolling strikes involving 135,000 workers from the two largest government departments kicks off today, the Public and Commercial Services union says. Starting in north east England and Yorkshire and the Humber today, and in the north west tomorrow, jobcentre and benefit office staff from the Department for Work and Pensions join tax workers from HM Revenue and Customs in a series of regional walkouts until Friday.

The strikes form part of the union's three-month civil service-wide campaign against imposed cuts to pay, pensions, jobs and working conditions, which has involved weeks of industrial action among the union's 250,000 public sector members since a national walkout on budget day on 20 March.

They say that the "latest threat" from from the Labour party to universal benefits for pensioners is further proof that these two departments are at the heart of the political debate about public spending, the union says. The workers involved provide invaluable public services - with HMRC collecting and administering the taxes that fund all other public services and our welfare state that are currently being "undermined" by the Tory-led government.

Successive years of cuts in HMRC have left the department unable to properly tackle the estimated £120 billion lost every year through tax evasion, avoidance and non-collection. And, despite high unemployment, DWP has cut 20,000 staff since May 2010 and the government is now threatening to cut even more support for people entitled to benefits.

These strikes come as the union is campaigning to stop government plans to close all 281 of HMRC's walk-in tax advice centres in the UK and divert enquiries to already overloaded jobcentres. Pilot closures of 13 enquiry centres in the north east also starts today (3). The union says the closure of HMRC's enquiry centre network will cost more than it will save and disproportionately disadvantage pensioners, people on low incomes, migrant workers and disabled people. The union has previously announced it will hold a fresh national civil service-wide strike towards the end of June if the government continues to refuse to negotiate.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "These workers are the backbone of our country's public services and do not deserve to be treated with contempt by ministers who are refusing to even talk to us about the cuts they are imposing. Collecting even a fraction of the money we lose through tax dodging by wealthy individuals and organisations would make it impossible for the government to claim it has no choice but to cut billions from the welfare budget for sick, disabled and unemployed people."

Strikes at museums and galleries kick off a "long weekend of action"

Strikes tomorrow the 30th May at some of the UK's most prestigious museums and galleries kick off a long weekend of action over imposed government cuts, the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) has announced. These form part of the union's three-month civil service-wide campaign against imposed cuts to pay, pensions, jobs and working conditions, which has involved weeks of rolling industrial action among the union's 250,000 public sector members since a national walkout on budget day on 20th March.

Stoppages on Thursday (30th) include the National Gallery and Tate galleries in London and Liverpool. This will be followed on Friday (31st) by walkouts from the Natural History, Science and Victoria and Albert museums in London; and National Museums Liverpool where strikers will be forming a human chain around one of the main sites. Staff from a range of other government departments and agencies will also strike on Friday, including the Land Registry, which was recently told it faces an increased threat of privatisation, and Department for Transport.

On Sunday (2nd June) the union's members at English Heritage sites, including Stonehenge, will be on strike. Last week the union's annual conference agreed to hold a fresh national strike towards the end of June if the government continues to refuse to negotiate on these issues. Dates will be set at a later date and co-ordinated alongside other unions where possible. Thursday's strikes will include: National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery; Tate galleries in London and Liverpool; Department for Culture, Media and Sport headquarters; British Museum; and Imperial War Museum.

Friday's will include: Natural History, Science and Victoria and Albert museums in London; National Museums Liverpool (from 1pm to 1pm on Saturday); Department for Transport and its agencies, including the Driving Standards Agency and DVLA; Land Registry; Business, Innovation and Skills; Department for Energy and Climate Change; and research councils. Strikers and supporters will form a human chain around the Museum of Liverpool, Pier Head, Liverpool L3 1DG, from 2.30pm on Friday to represent a defence of culture and the arts from government cuts.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "These strikes highlight the huge gap between the valuable work our members do and the contempt being shown to them by ministers who are imposing cuts and refusing to even talk to us. Both in our cultural attractions that are known and loved around the world, and across the civil service, the government urgently needs to invest to improve services to the public and to help our economy to grow."

Parliamentary security staff to hold a 24 hour strike

Up to 300 security staff at the Palace of Westminster will stage a twenty four hour strike tomorrow in a long-running row over imposed shift patterns, the Public and Commercial Services union announces. The workers, employed by the Metropolitan Police, keep the Palace of Westminster safe and secure, and are well respected by MPs, peers, parliamentary staff and visitors.

Staff accepted two years ago that shifts had to change as overtime is currently paid on Friday nights because there are not enough volunteers but, the PCS say that, during protracted talks senior Met officials repeatedly moved the goalposts when the union presented a series of proposals. Now the PCS claim the Met is imposing its own roster today despite 95% of the security guards boycotting a ballot on whether to accept it because of the risks its poses to their health and wellbeing.

The latest alternative drawn up by staff would mean a longer run of night shifts but with more days off in between, while being fully compliant with European working time and health and safety regulations. In light of the Met's refusal to re-enter talks, 74% of the union's members voted for a strike and 91.5% voted for other forms of industrial action, on a 44% turnout. The walkout, from 6am Tuesday to 6am Wednesday, will seriously disrupt security arrangements in parliament, with police officers expected to be drafted in to provide cover at great expense. The 24-hour stoppage will be followed by a three-day work to rule and overtime ban.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "Anyone who works in parliament or has ever visited will have been greeted by these friendly, dedicated security staff who have been treated appallingly by their Met Police bosses. It is outrageous that the Met is trying to impose new ways of working on staff who have bent over backwards to come up with suitable alternatives, only to be ignored."

IDS launches the new Universal Credit system

Today marks the next step in the "radical reshaping of the welfare system so the system works for hardworking people", the government claims. The Universal Credit pathfinder has been launched in parts of Greater Manchester. People who live in Ashton-under-Lyne will be able to make claims to the new benefit from today. At the same time, Jobcentres in Oldham, Wigan, and Warrington will trial other elements of Universal Credit, including the new Claimant Commitment and signing people onto Universal Jobmatch. 

Universal Credit aims to ensure people will always be better off in work. As people’s take home pay increases from work, their Universal Credit will reduce gradually so they won’t lose all their benefits at once. There are no fixed hours thresholds, such as the 16 hours a week rule, so even working just a few hours a week will make a difference. Universal Credit will also introduce Real Time Information (RTI) to help employers manage their payroll and help their staff get the right benefit payments. When people are in work and their hours change their employer will report it on RTI and their Universal Credit payment will be adjusted accordingly.

Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith said of these changes, “This Government is on the side of people who want to work hard and get on. Universal Credit is nothing less than the start of a fundamental cultural shift of the welfare system. This will revolutionise the way people experience the welfare state. It will make it easier for people to claim what they are entitled to but, more importantly, it will make it easier for people to move off benefits and into work.”

The Universal Credit pathfinder has begun in Ashton-under-Lyme to trail the new system with a limited number of people for six months before a gradual national roll out begins in October. The new system will be fully implemented by 2017.

However the Public and Commercial Services union today issued a challenge to work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith to prove his claim that anyone is better off on benefits than in work. As the government launches universal credit, the union says the Department for Work and Pensions' own figures show it pays to work, contrary to the rhetoric Iain Duncan Smith and others continually use. And the minister's own staff in job centres use spreadsheet calculators to help claimants see how much better off they would be in work.

DWP figures show that, even compared to working for 30 hours a week on the minimum wage, benefits – including housing – are only worth 79% of in-work income. This is supported by data compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to assess the 'replacement rate' for moving from benefits into work for dozens of household types. There is not one example of a household being better off on benefits. The challenge comes at the start of a week of renewed campaigning by the union on welfare issues, starting with a protest in Ashton-under-Lyne, where universal credit is being trialed.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “If universal credit was being introduced to genuinely make life easier for people entitled to benefits it would be commendable, but the government’s pernicious language exposes its real intent is to demonise and punish them. We have shown that ministers are prepared to mislead and misdirect to drive through their welfare cuts so we are challenging Iain Duncan Smith and others to prove what they claim is true. The next time a minister says people are better off on benefits than in work, give them a pen and paper and ask them to show you how.”

PCS members at the DfE to strike on 1st of May

Education secretary Michael Gove's civil servants will walk out on strike again next week, the Public and Commercial Services union announces as his department confirms the closure of half of its offices.  Staff were told today that six of the Department for Education's 12 offices in England will be shut, putting around 500 jobs at risk. This includes Runcorn, the cheapest to run of all the DfE's sites, where low-paid staff will be forced to move or commute to Manchester to work in a building that is due to be demolished. The union's 1,800 members, who in March held a two-hour strike against the plans, will walk out again from 3pm to 5pm next Wednesday (1 May).

This comes as the union is engaged in a three-month campaign of industrial action and protests across the civil service over imposed cuts to pay, pensions and working conditions. The DfE closures follow a review involving global management consultancy Bain and Company, which recommended cuts deeper even than those demanded by chancellor George Osborne. The union believes Gove, who has faced criticism from MPs for how he and his advisers are running the department, is using the DfE as an ideological test-bed for wider civil service cuts.

Reports today show contracted staff brought in by Gove to persuade schools to become academies are being paid up to £1,000 a day through companies that allow them to minimise their tax bills, despite this practice causing a public outcry last year and being condemned by the prime minister.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "Ministers are ignoring all reasoned argument and pressing ahead with cuts and closures that are clearly purely political. As it slashes half of its budget and plans to cut a quarter of staff, the DfE is yet to say what it will not do in future and we fear vital public services, such as ensuring children are safe at school and supporting special educational needs, will be put at risk."