The NEC decided that, in its present form, the offer does not protect the accrued rights of sufficient numbers of our members and is not acceptable. We have called on the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude MP, to enter into further talks in order to find an agreement with the Council of Civil Service Unions (CCSU). We believe an agreement is possible.

Disgracefully, some other unions representing a minority of staff have collaborated with the Government in attempting to divide the CCSU at a time when we are faced with the prospect of massive job cuts. These unions have entered into a separate agreement with the Government, even whilst CCSU discussions were taking place. The government’s planned cuts make this a vital issue concerning members’ livelihoods, and the minority unions’ actions are a matter of the utmost seriousness. We have demanded that the Minister returns to talks to find an agreement with the CCSU.

The other unions have, very regrettably, lent the government a veneer of respectability in its attempts to make it easier and cheaper to sack tens of thousands of civil and public servants.

PCS will continue to carry out a parliamentary campaign to stop the Government’s legislation on the CSCS, and will take further legal action at the appropriate time.

Background: negotiations

Following the union’s legal victory in the High Court earlier this year, talks have been taking place between the Cabinet Office and the Council of Civil Service Unions (CCSU) to see if agreement could be reached on a new compensation scheme.

The PCS position has been clear: that we wish to negotiate to reach agreement, but any agreement should be fair to all parties, recognise the accrued rights held by many civil service staff and be fair to new entrants to the civil service.

However, whilst claiming they wanted to proceed by agreement with all unions, the government stated their clear view that the scheme quashed by the High Court was ‘over generous’ and that they intended to introduce a Bill into Parliament to cap CSCS payments.

This Bill would slash members’ existing entitlements and accrued rights. It would include capping all compulsory redundancies at a maximum of 12 months pay and limiting payments for voluntary exits to 15 months salary. In addition, they have said they would seek to make changes to the 1972 Superannuation Act to remove the basis on which we were able to win the judicial review on the compensation scheme.

The talks with the Cabinet Office have therefore been conducted under the threat of legislation: the government has attempted to use the Superannuation Bill as a blunt bargaining tool to influence the negotiating process.

Minority unions allow Tories to divide CCSU

On 24 September all the unions that make up the CCSU formally agreed that an offer made at that time by the government was not acceptable and informed the Minister of that position in a meeting on 28 September. However, it transpired that five other unions – Prospect, FDA, POA, Unite and GMB, representing a minority of civil servants – had already written to the Minister offering to come to an agreement on terms based on the Cabinet Office offer. PCS represents more than double the civil and public servants than the other five minority unions combined, and represents the people who would be affected by job cuts and redundancy. Nevertheless, at the meeting with the CCSU on 28 September, the Minister declared that he would seek an agreement with the five minority unions and break off talks with the CCSU.

• The full PCS statement

• My previous article on the background

Collated info on the CSCS (7^th March 2010):

In August 2009 the government announced plans to reform the Civil Service Compensation scheme in such a way that it made it look the Trade Unions had agreed to the terms.  Although the Trade Unions and the cabinet office had been in negotiations since the previous autumn no agreements had been reached.

• Civil Service Compensation Scheme

Since August the negotiations were still ongoing and concessions had been made on both sides, with PCS showing other ways that money could be saved.

Then at the beginning of February 2010 the new terms and conditions were published and imposed whilst the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) were still in negotiations.  This was done because the other 5 Trade Unions had agreed to the new terms.  The other Trade Unions had done this without consulting their membership.  The Government were then able to use this as propaganda making out PCS to be the bad guys and trouble makers.  PCS actually represent over 80% of Civil Servants far more than the other 5 unions combined.

PCS decided to ballot their members on whether they were willing to go on strike and if they were willing to take action short of a strike.  The latter means working exactly to your terms and conditions and not doing any extra or work overtime.  Both questions received a yes vote.

• PCS Members Vote for Strike Action

• Members vote for national strike

Then of course there was the usual spin and allegations coming out of the Cabinet Office followed by PCS rebuttals.  Links to the main ones can be found on the following page.

• CSCS updates and briefings

On 3^rd March 2010 as part of the campaign PCS members from around the country attended a mass Lobby of Parliament in order to gain support from their MPs.  The lobby was preceded by a briefing in Westminster Hall, although I attended on the day I was only present for half of the briefing.

In the briefing my colleagues found out that:

• The Judicial Review is being stalled by Treasury Barristers not being available in March.

• Next Tuesday the Welsh Assembly is being closed since Labour Welsh Assembly Members have voted not to cross the PCS Picket Line!

• The government has denied MPs a vote on these changes which are aimed at cutting jobs on the cheap. Instead the government has relied on an arcane parliamentary procedure to avoid any debate, discussion or vote to change the law.

• Delegates heard how some of the Permanent Secretaries had sabotaged negotiations by cancelling 4 key meetings before Christmas and misleading Tessa Jowell the Cabinet Office Minister into believing that the new CSCS terms were fair for all. This clearly then spilled out into the briefings sent to MPs in their House of Commons pigeon boxes.

After the briefing we found out that none of the Shropshire MPs received the green cards we had filled in calling them to the central lobby.  We met one of the MPs because one of my colleagues had texted him earlier to say we would be there, a second spotted us talking to the other MP and came over to see us and the third MP just happened to be walking through the lobby and we approached him.

We learned later that the cards hadn’t got to some of the other MPs either.

It was clear that the MPs we spoke to had been misinformed because they thought we were asking for more money when all we were asking for was a negotiated settlement which is fair for existing members.  After speaking to them, they all agreed with our position and are taking actions on our behalf.

Another MP overheard our conversations and told us that from a lawyer’s perspective he thought we had a very good case and would win the Judicial Review.

Further information:

Some of the points above were taken from a briefing by a colleague and mostly duplicates that I posted in the following blog post.

• PCS Lobby Parliament

This is the link to the EDM that we were asking ministers to support:

• EDM 251 – Civil Service Compensation Scheme

The link for Civil Service Compensation Scheme posts on the PCS Shropshire site:

• Civil Service Compensation Scheme

On the day we also learned why the other unions agreed to the terms without balloting their membership.  They were told that if they didn’t accept the revised terms they faced having the original proposals being imposed on them (the offer as it was before it was revised due to the negotiations).  This information came from an FDA briefing to its members on a retrospective ballot to accept the new terms and conditions.  You can’t see the document on line unless you are a member of FDA but you can see a brief statement on the FDA website.

Dave Penman, FDA head of operations, said: “The FDA was faced with making a decision on whether to agree the changes to the scheme or risk losing the significant concessions we had managed to negotiate.

“Faced with this unprecedented situation, the EC agreed the deal of behalf of members. On matters of this significance, the FDA has a long tradition of directly consulting members, but this was not possible because of the deadline the Government had set on laying the amendments to the scheme before Parliament. The FDA now wishes to give members the opportunity to express their view.”

• Union members urged to vote Yes in consultative ballot

This sums up how things stand on the on CSCS for now but of course this really started with the attack on the pensions in 2004/5 where PCS managed to negotiate to keep existing terms for current Civil Servants with new Civil Servants coming in on revised conditions.  But before that took place the government had offered two new pension schemes to Civil Servants directly suggesting the new schemes were better than the existing one.  I don’t think many people took them up on their offer which is what caused them to try and impose the new pension terms.

I wonder if news will be manufactured on the day so the strike doesn’t make the papers.  That is what happened last time all Civil Servants walked out, with the obvious intended effect of lowering people’s morale and resolution.

It isn’t really about ‘fairness’ (the word they keep using).  It is all about causing divisions and subjugating the people!

Update 2nd August 2010:

Following the above report the judicial review hearing took place on 22 and 23 April. On 10 May, the High Court ruled that the government had acted unlawfully when it introduced, without PCS’s agreement, a new scheme which cut members’ accrued rights under the CSCS.

• PCS wins in the courts

It was time for PCS and the Cabinet Office lawyers to reach a settled agreement on the terms of the quashing order.  By this time the new government were in place and the two sides failed to reach an agreement so it was necessary to go back to court for the judge to set out in full what he had deemed unlawful in the amended scheme.

On 18^th June the high court judge again ruled in favour of PCS:

“In his decision on Friday he made clear that all of the amendment scheme, with two small but helpful exceptions on age discrimination for those approaching and over 60, has been quashed as if it had never existed.”

Following the ruling PCS wrote to the cabinet office in order to restart negotiations and agree a fair and legal deal.  Although PCS had won in court twice they were still prepared for the government to undermine the decision or make an appeal against the decision.

• Branch briefing 22 June

The government’s response to the court ruling was to announce that it intends to change the law so that they can legally change the terms of the Civil Service Compensation Scheme.

“The new government unilaterally announced on July 6th that, although we had won our court battle, they intended to bring forward changes to the scheme this time   by introducing primary legislation. A bill laid before Parliament on 15 July the effect of which, if it become law will cap redundancy payments at a maximum of 12 months for compulsory redundancy and 15 months for voluntary redundancy.  Early retirement and severance packages will be costed so as not to go over the cap, including lump sums.

The Bill has been laid as a ‘Money Bill’.

A second reading of the Bill is required before the Bill can receive Royal assent. We know the government intend that Royal assent will take place around October. We are however seeking urgent legal advice on the process.”

• Branch briefing 7 July

• CSCS new legislation- Q&A

The government have now indicated that they are now willing to enter negotiations on a limited basis in order to agree a new deal that is ‘sustainable and fair’. At the same time they portray PCS leadership as letting its membership down by not agreeing to the original deal offered by the previous government.  The government states that the reason that the new deal is not as good as the offer from the previous government is solely due to the PCS challenge.  They also fail to mention that it was a democratic ballot of all the PCS membership (who voted in favour) that led to the action taken and not just the decision of the PCS leadership.

It is a shameful tactic, used to cause divisions between the different unions, union members and between the public and private sector.  Unfortunately too many people fall for the spin.

• New Legislation to Limit Civil Service Redundancy Payments

• How can civil service cuts be blamed on union court action?

For some reason I got rather confused and caught the train an hour earlier than I needed to. I am not sure if I was in my other meeting mode which starts an hour earlier or if I was in my breakfast before meeting mode (we do that sometimes) or if I was just being ditsy.

It was rather odd to see Birmingham when it was quiet and not completely open for business. However some of it was open and instead of stopping for that cup of tea I had promised myself, I got sidetracked by the shops and dresses and shoes… I blame my colleagues for not travelling with me because they were at a different meeting elsewhere, they would have whisked my straight past the shops. Or perhaps because we would have arranged to meet on the train I would have been on the right train in the first place with no time for browsing around.

In other news; around two weeks ago the CSCS case was taken back to court because PCS and the new government couldn’t reach an agreement on the way forward. Today the high court judge has delivered his ruling:

Mr Justice Sales confirmed today, PCS was right to challenge the way the terms of the civil service compensation scheme, which governs redundancy payments, were slashed.

The decision quashes an amendment to the scheme that the previous government had claimed was effective from 1 April, and requires the new government to enter negotiations with PCS if it wants to change the scheme in future.

While the judge quashed the detrimental changes to the scheme, he retained elements – relating to protection against age discrimination – that provide improvements. The union says this shows it was not opposed to change on principle, but that any alterations had to be fair and agreed.

There was a lot of  correspondence with tech support who after all else failed tried to restore the pages to how they were before they stopped working properly.  Even that didn’t work so I was advised to do a manual upgrade of Wordpress.  There was one small hitch with that, which was just me being silly and forgetting to change one of the settings in the config file.

Before all that could happen I had to do a separate, fresh installation of Wordpress to see if that would work.  Whilst I was doing that I came across this new theme that I am using.  I hope you like it   I have done a little tinkering around with the sidebars but I still need to upload my own header.  So please don’t ask me where that picture is because it isn’t one of mine.

In addition to fixing my blog I have been very busy planning for campaigns in the run up to the general election.  We have proved that the government are going to ignore PCS until after the election.  Despite making a lot of noise, saying that BA and Network rail should get back to the negotiating table with the unions the government have remained stonily silent on requests  by PCS to talk to it’s own employees about the Civil Service Compensation scheme.  The PCS union have made several requests for talks, to cabinet office minister Tessa Jowell and to Gordon Brown who have not yet replied.

So for now we will be concentrating on the Make Your Vote Count  (MYVC) campaign which we have been building on for the past four years.  We will be engaging with the prospective MPs to find out their views on Public Services and to get them to sign up to five pledges.  All responses will be made publicly available.  This will also involve a local public hustings which is being organised by the Shropshire Action Group and resulted in me attending another meeting last night, where I was told I ‘had to’ take notes!!!  I have yet another meeting tonight which I could really do without.

On the plus side, I did have one evening off to visit my Mum for her birthday and my brother was in town which was nice.  The spiky plant I mentioned the other day was much appreciated

I had to get up early to man the picket line which in our case meant standing well away from workers driving into the car park for fear of being run over. There have been quite a few incidences of near misses due to people looking in totally the wrong direction (because they are too embarrassed to look at us) when entering the car parks. It was rather chilly and my back seized up a bit due to standing around for too long, but it didn’t rain even though there was an ominous black cloud overhead.

Following that I had to take my car home and get to my local railway station so that I could attend a rally and demo in Birmingham.   During the 20 minute walk from my house to the station I lost the heel off my shoe! One of my colleagues knew there was a shoe repair place on the way out of the station at Birmingham. I went in only to find that the sole of my shoe had split too!!!

I needed replacement shoes, so now I was a woman on a mission! I rushed up the street into the Clarke’s shoe shop  and did a quick scan of the shoes and found just the type I needed and prayed they had them in my size. They did (which is unusual) and I tried them on and they fitted perfectly. I explained the situation and was allowed to keep the shoes on, all that was needed was the label of the shoe bottom to scan in for me to make the purchase. To top it all  the assistant kindly offered to dispose of my less than adequate shoes. Who says a girl can’t shop in 10 minutes flat

I got to Victoria Square in plenty of time for the demo which was followed by a rally in the Britannia Hotel, plenty of time for catching up with my colleagues and a well earned evening meal before the train journey home.

So it will be another early start to another busy day for me. I shall be outside my workplace for an hour or so and then I shall make my way over to Birmingham for a rally. I think I might get rather wet because the weather doesn’t look to promising, so wish me luck.

I nearly forgot to add that I am likely to be appearing in a town near you too

The stoppage, called by PCS, follows a strongly supported two day strike earlier in March which saw up to 200,000 civil and public servants stay away from work over changes to the civil service compensation scheme.

Tomorrow’s strike, the first ever on budget day, involves Prison workers, Jobcentre staff, tax workers, passport staff, court officials, Ministry of Defence workers and driving test examiners. The stoppage will also see civilian staff and 999 operators working for the Met Police walking out as well as security staff working in the Houses of Parliament. Serious Organised Crime Agency officers will also be on strike affecting operations tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning will see a battle bus taking to the streets in London touring picket lines including: The Royal Courts of Justice, The Houses of Parliament, The Victoria and Albert Museum, British Library, Tate Modern and government departments in Whitehall including the Treasury.

In London there will also be a campaign boat cruising up and down the Thames outside the Houses of Parliament and a demonstration in Parliament Square from 11 am to 1pm.

In Scotland, there will be a demonstration at the Mound in Edinburgh from 10.30 am and a short ‘alternative budget’ will be presented at 11.00 am. In Glasgow, members will gather at Labour Party HQ, West Regent Street, at 11 am and hand in a letter to the Scottish Labour leader.

Wales will see a budget day demonstration and rally on the steps of Senedd, Cardiff Bay from 12 noon to 4:00pm. The last two day stoppage saw the cancellation of business in the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament as assembly members and MSP refused to cross picket lines.

The government have ignored PCS offers to resolve the dispute by negotiations rather than strike action. This has led to PCS members planning further industrial action on budget day next week:

Legal and Strategy Update – 18th March

The NEC meets on Thursday 25 March to plan the CSCS campaign through April. A factor to be be considered will be the decision of the courts today to set the hearing date for our Judicial Review on the CSCS changes for 22/23 April.

PCS is both disappointed that this is not much earlier, but also pleased that at long last the management delays have been brought to a halt and that we now will have a full hearing of our case

Plans for the 19 and 24 March

Following successful strike action by PCS members on the 8 and 9 March, we are now preparing for a UK-wide campaigning day on 19 March and strike on 24 March, budget day.

This action would not be necessary if the government had met with us to negotiate a settlement. Tessa Jowell has regrettably refused to meet with PCS and we have now written to Gordon Brown calling for a negotiated agreement.

A UK-wide day of campaigning is planned for 19 March, with events taking place across the country. The PCS battle bus will also be touring London, visiting key parliamentary constituencies including Tessa Jowell’s constituency of Dulwich and West Norwood, and meeting general secretaries from other unions. Branches are asked to leaflet the public at lunchtimes and after work on the day too. Full details of the battlebus schedule route will follow.

A strong strike is expected for budget day on the 24 March alongside a national overtime ban. Picket lines are being organised across the UK. The battle bus will again be touring London, alongside a ‘battleboat’ that will be taking our message to Parliament via the Thames. There will be a range of activities in Whitehall, Parliament Square from 11am to coincide with the chancellor delivering his budget speech. All pickets and members in London should make their way to parliament square for 11am where we will direct them to a number of protest points. For further details contact our organising and learning department.

As the campaign continues, the number of membership applications across the union has doubled in recent weeks, with over 900 staff joining PCS from the Department for Work and Pensions alone.

PCS are still committed to resolving the dispute by reaching a negotiated settlement. Unfortunately Tessa Jowell has ignored letters offering this, therefore Mark Serwotka, PCS General Secretary has now written directly to Gordon Brown:

16 March 2010

Dear Prime Minister

I am writing to you regarding the dispute over the changes to the Civil Service Compensation Scheme (CSCS). The changes to the CSCS represent a cut in members’ entitlements in the case of redundancy and would tear up members’ accrued rights. We welcome the fact that, through prior negotiations, some improvements were made after we had made representations. The current proposals, however, still leave almost half of our members worse off, many of whom are low paid.

As you will be aware, our members’ took two days of well-supported industrial action on 8th and 9th March, and further national strike action is scheduled to take place on Wednesday 24th March, Budget Day. However, I am writing to re-affirm that PCS remains committed to achieving a resolution to this dispute through negotiations. Indeed, it is only through a negotiated settlement that this matter can be resolved.

I read your comments relating to the BA dispute over the weekend, and your wish “to find a way in which the two sides can get together – the BA management and the BA workforce”.

We have now written twice to Cabinet Office Minister Tessa Jowell offering talks, stating that in order to facilitate an agreement we would be willing to use the services provided by ACAS. Sadly, we have received no response from the Minister. We were also dismayed by the Minister’s remarks in Parliament that “there is no question of any further negotiation”.

We have previously put forward proposals that would achieve the savings you have said are necessary, while protecting existing members’ entitlements. We therefore believe an agreement is possible to avoid further damaging action. I very much hope that if you believe talks are the solution in the BA dispute then you will ensure talks take place immediately for your own employees.

There is considerable strength of feeling among PCS members on this issue, demonstrated by the strong support on 8th and 9th March. That depth of feeling is reflected among backbench MPs, some 164 of whom (and well over 100 of whom are Labour) have now signed EDM 251 ‘Civil Service Compensation Scheme’.

I look forward to your urgent response, and hope to re-engage in talks with the Government at the earliest opportunity.

Yours sincerely

Mark Serwotka
General Secretary

The action plan detailing the events and rallies that are planned for the day can be viewed here.

Looking windswept in London

The stalwarts got up early to man the picket lines again.  The temperature was only -1 today but it still felt rather chilly until the sun came out. We shared this duty with another department that occupies the building with us. Some of their colleagues very kindly brought hot coffee and biscuits out for us, which was very welcome To warm up at the end of our duty we visited the local all day breakfast establishment where I had a tasty bacon buttie and a welcome cup of tea.

Mark Serwotka, General Secretary commenting in the latest edition of PCS view:

In 1987, Margaret Thatcher – who made huge cuts in the civil service – approved the current terms of our compensation scheme. If it was a fair scheme then, why does the present Labour government tell us that it is not fair now for the people who, for years, have suffered low pay on the basis that they have secure jobs?

The answer seems to lie in the fact that Gordon Brown believes it would be wrong to take parliamentary action to curb bankers’ bonuses because they are a contractual right, but it is apparently all right for the contractual rights of civil and public servants to be ripped up to save money.

Gus O’Donnell has written to civil servants to tell them the cuts are ‘fair and reasonable’ and concessions have been made to the low paid. But almost half of PCS members would be worse off, in some cases by tens of thousands of pounds. PCS does not accept that this is a fair and reasonable way to save money to pay for a financial crisis caused by the greed and stupidity of the banks.

Mr O’Donnell was quick to tell us that other unions have accepted the fairness of the proposals. It is disappointing that some unions have accepted cuts in their members’ entitlements and allowed themselves to be cited by him in his demand that PCS members should ‘think hard about how to vote’ in the ballot. But that is for them. PCS represents almost three times the number of civil and public servants than the other unions combined.

PCS cannot accept changes to the scheme which would leave almost half of our union suffering a detriment. We must be united to win protection for the other half. An agreement with the government which saves money and protects all members’ existing entitlements is affordable and possible.

Taking industrial action is never an easy decision to take but this national ballot is the most important one for PCS members in years.

The political parties are all talking about massive public spending cuts after the next general election. The government’s changes to the compensation scheme are clearly designed to make it cheaper and easier to cut and privatise our jobs, whether by a Labour or Tory government.

We must build the pressure on the government to reach an agreement which is truly fair to its own employees.

The updated photo gallery of picket lines in Shropshire can be found here.