The PCS DWP Group Conference kicked off on time at 9.15am.
The Branch had made representations to the Standing Orders Committee on Sunday afternoon to move the motion previously submitted by the Branch on lighting and the individual control of lighting up the agenda. The soc didn't accept the reference back but we requested to address Conference before standing orders were adopted to hope for a sympathetic response.
Unfortunately, even after an excellent speech by one of the Branch Deputy Secretarys' (Grant McClure), Conference also rejected the proposal. We may still get to speak on the motion at the end of Conference in the section for motions that have fallen off the agenda.
The main debate of the morning session was on pay and the forward strategy. Motion A1 was carried and will now inform the incoming GEC.
The second session started with a guest speaker from NIPSA, their General Secretary, speaking on the similar problems faced in Northern Ireland that we face within the DWP.
The next section was on privatisation and job cuts, headed by Emergency Motion 3, a motion primarily dictating the way forward on these issues. It stipulated the need for equality impact assessments and monitoring, alludsmative employment offers in all cases of potential redundancy, full consultation on redundancy avoidance. The motion was overwhelmingly carried.
Motion A47 was carried, as was A49 with the qualification that the Branch wanted included of "seek to" prior to the latter two bullet points.
The debate on CMEC/CSA and the way forward regarding the privatisation of the area was an important one. The motion, A86, was resoundingly passed, the other three motions on CMEC were moved to the national conference agenda for debate.
A206 in the Welfare Reform section was carried, this dealt with third sector organisations being lined up to cherry pick our members jobs.
The motion on Remploy (A209) was also well supported against the closure of their factories. A140, a composite on flexible working hours, was moved by Dave Burke on the GEC.
It was an important motion for Conference, dictating the actions the incoming GEC should take, steering them in the direction the membership wishes, against restrictions and qualifying periods and trying to introduce a DWP wide fwh policy. Zero tolerance for zero flexibility.
There were several more motions passed on flexi and the attacks on it, examples of new non-flexible contracts, genysis work planning tools, not being able to change hours when you need to and also the requirement to give four weeks advance notice of your working patterns in the pension service, being disciplined if you vary from it.
There was quite a long debate on the composite A169 which would cause A189 to fall. Both were reasonable motions in as far as trying to combat the terrible sick absence regime, however the latter motion simply trying to censure the GEC for failure to progress over the year, which is not the case.
A169 was carried by about two thirds after a mildly annoyed Dave Burke reiterated what he had been doing over the last year that the opposers said he hadn't in his right of reply.
