Wednesday morning saw the start of this year’s PCS Annual Delegates Conference. The president Janice Godrich opened the conference and apologised for the fact that Mark Serwotka was unable to attend the conference this year.

Her speech outlined the current political situation regarding the labour legacy and what would come next from the Con-Lib alliance. She went on to explain that everyone in the public sector was now under threat and that we need to get ourselves organised for the coming storm. Of the Lib-Dems changing their values to go into the alliance, she was reminded of the Groucho Marx quote:

“These are my principles, if you don’t like them I have others”

Janice then read out a letter of support from Mark Serwotka, who was in hospital undergoing tests for a heart condition. He congratulated members on their recent victory in the civil service compensation scheme dispute and thanked them for taking part in the strike action. He will be receiving DVD updates of the conference every day and has been keeping up to date with our campaign via regular press clippings. He mentioned how the nurses cheered when they heard the news that we had won our dispute. He praised the NHS staff and said they were wonderful and this has made him even more determined to defend the NHS.

He finished by thanking everyone who was standing in for him and sent his best wishes for a successful conference.

Deputy General Secretary, Hugh Lanning went on to present the PCS annual report. He thanked members for their support in PCS campaigns, which is essential to the success of the union.

“It is important to highlight what is possible when we stand together in unity and with resolve. The ruling that the government acted illegally over making unagreed changes to the civil service compensation scheme is a fantastic vindication of our determination to fight these attacks.”

The first motions of the 2010 conference all related to protecting public services.  Many other issues were debated including: redundancy pay & pensions, comercial sector, personnell policy, organising for success, protecting our reps, health & safety, international issues, affiliations, tackling pay problems, improving working conditions, evironmental issues and social & economic campaigns.

A report from each session of the conference can be viewed on the PCS website or downloaded as a word document.

• Photo gallery

PCS members have overwhelmingly re-elected Mark Serwotka for a third term as General Secretary of their union.

First elected in 2000, Mark Serwotka was returned for another five year term with 63.4% of the vote. His challenger received 36.6% of the votes cast.

With PCS members facing job cuts, privatisation, pay freezes and cuts to their redundancy terms in the New Year, the re-election of Mark Serwotka is an endorsement of the union’s active campaigning and organising strategy.

Mark’s re-election means that PCS remains united in its response to unilateral changes to the Civil Service Compensation Scheme, which could lead to PCS members having their jobs cut on the cheap.

PCS alongside other trade unions have been in negotiations with the Cabinet Office since last Autumn but nothing has so far been agreed between the two parties.  Despite this members were notified of the proposals in such a way that they thought the new plans had the full agreement of PCS.

PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka stated:

These proposals are a disgraceful attempt by the government to replace a fair, negotiated right to decent compensation with a bargain basement pay-off at a time of massive insecurity over jobs.

Following the announcement The Daily Mail published a grossly misleading article making out that the vast majority of civil servants receive a golden handshake when they leave,  which is far from the truth.

Mark Serwotka said:

Away from the headlines about bumper pay-outs for mandarins, the vast majority of civil servants live in the real world where pay is low and pensions are far from gold-plated. The real divide is not between public and private, but between low-paid workers and the very wealthy.

Additionally Mark responded to the Daily Mail with the following comment:

Your report about proposed changes to the civil service compensation scheme – Blitz on the £1bn golden goodbyes for civil servants - is based on a grain of truth, a great deal of speculation and a dose of prejudice.

The fact is that civil service management have put forward proposals that slash workers existing legal and contractual rights to fair compensation if made redundant.

It is interesting that these existing terms were introduced by the Treasury in 1987 and endorsed by the then Government led by Margaret Thatcher. If it was fair then why is it not fair now for civil servants who for years have suffered low pay and low increases on the basis that they have secure jobs?

It is also the case that almost 100,000 civil service jobs have been cut in the past four years. The vast majority of those jobs have been among low paid civil servants providing essential services in every community.

The stereotype of mandarins with gold-plated pensions is far from the truth. Almost 20% of civil servants earn less than £15,000 a year and the average civil service pension is £6,500. When you exclude high earners, the average is £4,200. Hardly gold plated.

Media myths about the civil and public services:

• Myth 1: Civil and public servants are well paid

• Myth 2: Civil servant pensions are gold plated

• Myth 3: Civil and public servants are secure in their jobs

• Myth 4: Privatisation

]]> http://www.cheriesplace.me.uk/blog/index.php/2009/08/04/media-myths-the-civil-service-again/feed/ 21 http://www.cheriesplace.me.uk/blog/index.php/2009/06/24/palestine-personal-perspectives/ http://www.cheriesplace.me.uk/blog/index.php/2009/06/24/palestine-personal-perspectives/#comments Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:17:43 +0000 CherryPie http://www.cheriesplace.me.uk/blog/?p=564 At a recent Trades Council meeting we had a talk from a member who had been on a sponsored visit to Palestine.  He showed us slides of the village of Aboud, which is where he stayed.  Aboud is cut off from the hills and fields around it by the “Separation Wall”, which means that children can no longer play in those places because they are out of bounds.  Our member described what life was like for the members of the village.

Equal numbers of Muslims and Christians live in the village and the two groups share important religious ceremonies, alternating between the church and the mosque.  It is quite different at the check points where Christians and Muslims are separated and made to stand on opposite sides of the road.  People have to cross  through the checkpoints to see other family members, go to school, go to work or visit hospital.  It is the decision of the border guards as to which people are allowed to pass through.    People have been known to die at checkpoints due to being detained by the guards, this includes women in labour who have not been allowed to pass through to the hospital.

During his visit he met a lady who was 103.  She spoke of the Nakba (disaster) and how the Palestinians were rounded up and randomly shot at by soldiers who would then leave only to return for more random shooting in the evening.

PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka has just returned from a similar visit to Palestine.  He was part of a delegation that was hosted by the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU).  He gave daily updates on the PCS website and I have summarised some of his thoughts below.

On arrival the taxi driver (Noor), who drove them from the airport pointed out a deserted village that was the site of a massacre in 1948, this is referred to by the Palestinians as the Nakba.  The village had originally been home to Noor’s family and many had died.

When Mark saw the separation wall that snaked through Palestine he was shocked.

In Jerusalem Mark was able to see first hand how divisions are being imposed on a mixed, multicultural setting to the detriment of the Palestinians.  The system of checkpoints and permits clearly shows the imposed division.  Palestinians whose families have lived in the area for centuries are unable to enter Jerusalem.

This checkpoint system means they have to start queuing at 2 or 3 in the morning to be able to work in town and Mark saw how the nation is being suffocated culturally and socially.

Even the school’s windows were boarded up as protection from Israeli bullets. This meant the classrooms, with 45 children, were suffocating hot in summer.

The Palestinian people are being all being slowly suffocated – culturally and socially, as well as economically.

They were living in unimaginably oppressive circumstances, yet were only asking for tolerance and peace, not retribution.

Yet this is contrary to the image we often see in the media of fundamentalists or terrorists.

When taken to the once bustling city of Hebron which is now boarded up he was again shocked.  The few Palestinians that remain have to have wire mesh nailed round their windows as protection from settlers who hold anti-Arab demonstrations and hurl objects at the houses.  In another part of the town, wire and tarpaulins were stretched over the street to prevent the settlers from the flats above throwing rocks and boiling water onto the people below.

Mark was able to meet up with Fathi Nasser of the PGFTU who spoke at the PCS Annual Delegates Conference.  On three occasions Fathi has been jailed for his trade union activities and whilst in prison he became a head teacher for the children, explaining the Palestinian situation.  Whilst imprisoned the children are tortured and ill treated by the Israeli authorities.

That evening we had a meal with Gerard, a lawyer working for an organisation called Defence for Children International, who had worked on a report about Palestinian child prisoners which documented “systematic ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children by Israeli authorities.”

He told us of the appalling abuse experienced by the children and the injustice built into the legal system.

Groups of children would be randomly rounded up by the army after a stone throwing incident in a village and placed in detention.

They were then faced with the choice of pleading not guilty and becoming incarcerated for two or more years or pleading guilty and getting away with three months in a harsh Israeli jail. Confessions were obtained by means that can only be described as torture.

Whilst visiting Ramallah the delegation witnessed a group of women and children trying to cross through the high narrow turnstyles.  There was a lot of shouting and crying whilst the Israeli soldiers hurried them along and sent them on their way with a round unpleasant clapping.

Even trying to get home was not simple with such tight security in place at the airport.  One member of the delegation was subjected to a thorough search because he had a Palestinian diary in his luggage.

The airport also has a system of stickers for the luggage.  Jews get a 1 or a 2, EU passport holders get a 3 and Arabs get a 6.  Anyone with 6 label has to have both a luggage search and a personal search conducted.

Many have made the comparison with South African Apartheid.

Such racially based policies, and the way in which they systematically discriminate against the Palestinian people, have led many people to make a comparison with South African apartheid.

We had seen much on our visit which backed up such a suggestion. Witnessing the systems of checkpoints and restrictions on movements directed at Palestinians, legal systems which directly discriminated against them, the confiscation of land and the creation of ghettos, the violence of the state and the settlers against the Palestinians as a people, and the whole policy of ’separation’ operated by the Israeli government had given us a shocking and draining experience.

You can read all of Mark’s reflections here.

There is also an excellent article in the June edition of National Geographic.  It covers similar ground but speaks about it from a religious perspective and is well worth a read if you can get hold of a copy.

On Wednesday morning national president Janice Godrich opened the 2009 annual delegates conference. She started by reminding delegates that we were meeting against the background of the worst economic crisis in living memory and that 11 million adults are now living below the breadline. She went on to say how this was affecting people with rising unemployment, bankruptcies, poverty and house possessions.

Following the opening speech, general secretary Mark Serwotka presented the annual report.  He stressed the importance of the Make Your Vote Count Campaign (MYVC), which encourages members to  find out their local election candidates views on public services.  By getting involved in this way it is hoped that more people will be encouraged to vote and become part of the election process.  He went on to say that the divide was not between private and public but betwee the haves and have nots and concluded by saying:

“I’m proud to be general secretary of this union because I think we get our priorities right. Let’s unite with other people in this country. The alternative is a decade of despair, where we offer a decade of hope.”

The first section of motions all related to the social and economic recession and how PCS members resolved to tackle these issues. The motions sought to provide better public services, regenerate the economy, defend the public sector and ensure that ordinary people don’t bear the brunt of the recession which is not of their making.

The Speeches can be viewed below, the video play time of the speech by Janice is 11 mins 57 secs and the one by Mark 31 mins 58 secs.