As the government struggles to come to terms with the scale of the national deficit, one thing is clear: there is a consensus among the major political parties that the public sector and its workforce should pay the price. And yet, the debt was not run-up by public sector mismanagement, but by the corruption of the banking sector, which collapsed due to its own greed, deceit and the failure of government to regulate.
The first stage of this process for the current government is to make civil servants cheaper to sack. Apparently, arrangements put in place for civil and public servants by Margaret Thatcher are now too generous.
The Public and Commercial Services Union has been negotiating with the government since the middle of last year on this issue. Despite previously saying that it had reached a ‘final position’, the government has gradually moved from its original draconian proposals and offered a limited degree of protection to some existing civil and public servants. These concessions have been won by the resolute opposition of PCS members, over 18,000 of whom emailed the Cabinet Office resisting plans to slash their entitlement to redundancy payments. However, the concessions to date would still leave many thousands of our members unprotected.
The government has been quick to claim that five unions have accepted the new proposals, but less open in publicising that PCS represents almost three times the combined number of civil and public servants of the other unions involved. The cuts would not affect those unions in the same way as they affect PCS members.
We have consistently opposed these proposals because they would deprive civil servants of tens of thousands of pounds in redundancy payments, and make them easier to sack – just as all the main political parties are proposing huge cuts in the public sector. Even the latest proposals leave a very large proportion of PCS members unprotected. As a union that stands for fairness and solidarity, we have decided that we must continue until a settlement is reached that protects all our members, not just some.
We have therefore started balloting our members on industrial action over cuts to the Civil Service Compensation Scheme – which provides redundancy payments for civil servants.
Accepting such divisive cuts in so many people’s entitlements, as the other unions have done, would weaken the whole union and make job losses, compulsory redundancies and privatisation in the civil service much more likely as all three major political parties are sharpening the knives.
The latest proposals made by Cabinet Office were conditional on PCS giving up its right to seek legal protection in the courts. We cannot accept that and we will press ahead this week with a judicial review, along with Nipsa, our sister union in Northern Ireland, which has also not accepted the proposals.
We have also received considerable support from MPs for our opposition to the government’s proposals. EDM 251, calling on the government to change course, has now been signed by 139 MPs – nearly 100 of whom are from the governing party.
We will continue to build pressure on the government to come to a fair agreement. The PCS has identified ways of saving money while also protecting members’ entitlements. We believe that a negotiated settlement is still possible, but we will be balloting our members for industrial action to encourage Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell and Cabinet Office Minister Tessa Jowell to re-engage with us in talks.
Our members will not pay the price of this recession not of their making, and nor should they be expected to.
Mark Serwotka is general secretary of the PCS union
