Save Our NHS - Manchester Rally

Speakers confirmed now include:

• Christopher Bisson, actor who plays Jai in Emmerdale, and roles in Coronation Street, Shameless and the film East is East.


• Andy Burnham Shadow Secretary of State for Health


• Tony Lloyd MP


• Debbie Turner Chair of North West Regional Health Care Committee


• Dr K Chand GP

Musical Entertainment from the Robin Sunflower Band"

The Unison leaflet to advertise this event can be found here.

TUC slams forcing long term ill to work for free

The following has been supplied by the TUC:

The government is considering forcing long-term sick people to work unpaid for an unlimited amount of time or have their benefits cut. Workers who have been injured at work but unable to return to employment could be deemed fit to undertake limited amounts of work which could further harm their health if the plans go ahead. The new policy, outlined by DWP officials in meetings with disabilities groups, is due to be announced due to legal changes to the Welfare Reform Bill. The policy could mean that those on employment and support allowance who have been placed in the work-related activity group could be compelled to undertake work experience for charities, public bodies and high-street retailers. Those effected could include those who have terminal cancer but have more than six months to live; accident victims; and some of those with mental health issues caused by work. The TUC's Welfare expert Richard Exell commented 'Workfare - making people work at much less than the national minimum wage in return for their benefits - is doubly unfair. It exploits unemployed people, who don't get the going rate for the work they do and it threatens the pay and conditions of employees doing the same sort of work. Forcing long-term sick people into schemes like this does nothing to help them to recover and nothing to help them get jobs.' Neil Bateman of the National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers said: "This proposal is very worrying. There are completely inadequate legal and medical safeguards - bearing in mind that these are people with long-term health problems and disabilities, often serious ones. "Compulsory, unpaid work may worsen some people's health, with the consequences of the DWP's savings being passed on to the NHS at greater cost. "If jobs are there to be done, people should get the rate for the job, instead of being part of a growing, publicly funded, unpaid workforce which, apart from being immoral, actually destroys paid jobs." Neil Coyle, director of policy and campaigns at Disability Rights UK, said that it was abusive for people to work without pay. He added: "The idea that disabled people should work but receive no financial recognition for contributing is perhaps a level of abuse in and of itself. Vicki Nash, head of policy and campaigns at the mental health charity Mind, said: "Work placements can be a useful bridge for people in the work-related activity group who are taking steps towards employment, but we are very worried about people being pressured into taking unpaid positions before they are ready."

Downing Street freezes out grieving families

The following has been supplied by the TUC:

The prime minister continues to make damaging policy about health and safety at work based on a business wish list and not the 'massive costs and burdens on families of people killed by negligence', Families Against Corporate Killers (FACK) has said. The campaign group, formed by relatives bereaved in tragedies at work, was commenting after a 14 February Downing Street summit hosted by David Cameron saw industry and insurance lobby groups invited, but no workers' groups or victims' organisations. FACK spokesperson Hilda Palmer commented: 'The prime minister and whole government continue to ignore us, the families of people killed at work because of far too little health and safety regulation, backed up by inadequate, toothless enforcement.' She added: 'The contempt shown to us, the victims of poor regulation and lax enforcement and business criminality, is quite disgusting, but very much in line with this government's utter contempt for ordinary people. The government is racing ahead to cut the lifelines for workers, based not on evidence or fact, but on the myths, lies and fairy tales peddled by their moneyed business friends.' According to FACK, the government is removing health and safety protection and 'allowing business to get away with as much as possible.' Ministers have held a series of workplace safety related meetings with insurance and business lobby groups. But repeated requests from FACK for a meeting have been declined. FACK's Hilda Palmer said: 'Cameron failed to reply to a letter we sent him expressing concern at his new year's resolution to 'kill off health and safety culture?' yet holds a summit with the insurance companies and only hears the side of the story he wants to.'

Injury victims left out as PM does insurers' bidding

The following has been supplied by the TUC:

Victims of negligent employers have been left in the cold by the prime minister, who has held a Downing Street 'summit' with insurance industry top brass and employers' organisations to discuss cutting the compensation bill. The only non-industry invitee at the 14 February meeting was Health and Safety Executive (HSE) chair Judith Hackitt. Business lobby groups CBI and the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) were both in attendance, with the other invitees all from the insurance industry. A Downing Street 'statement on outcomes' on the summit, which was led by David Cameron, notes: 'There was a commitment from the prime minister that the government will take action to tackle the compensation culture, reduce legal costs and cut health and safety red tape.' It added the meeting agreed 'to tackle the issue identified by the Red Tape Challenge of health and safety 'myths', insurers will provide short guidance to all clients at the point of purchasing insurance setting out clearly what SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises] need to do, and critically what they don't need to do, to comply with health and safety law and get insurance cover, to ensure that businesses are not asked to go beyond what is actually required by law.' Insurers agreed they would 'challenge more vexatious health and safety civil claims in order to tackle the compensation culture,' the statement said. TUC said the sole beneficiary of these measures would be insurers. TUC head of safety Hugh Robertson commented: 'This is nothing to do with trying to end a 'compensation culture' or to 'free up businesses from the stranglehold of health and safety red tape', it is a cynical attempt to prevent working people from getting compensation when they are injured by another person's negligence. The only winners here will be the insurance companies.' He asked why no representatives of the victims of poor workplace conditions had been invited to the summit. 'Clearly they seem to have been written out of this process which is all about helping increase the profits of the insurance industry and stop people with legitimate claims from getting the compensation they should be entitled to.'

Compensation 'under threat' from government

The following has bee supplied by the TUC:

Workers are facing an 'onslaught' by the government on their ability to claim compensation, the TUC has warned. The union body says compensation is facing a triple whammy, with for workplace injury and ill-health victims, victims of criminal violence and those unfairly dismissed all set to lose out. For those suffering work-related injuries and ill-health, 'the government seems hell-bent on making it as hard and expensive to claim as they possibly can,' a TUC bulletin warns. It dismisses government claims of a 'compensation culture', pointing out the number of personal injury claims for employer negligence 'has fallen by a staggering 63 per cent over the past ten years.' Under a planned law, millions will be deprived of the ability to claim or will lose damages, says TUC. The government is also proposing to slash payments under the criminal injuries compensation scheme, with an estimated 17,000 victims of violent crime every year to be excluded from the scheme. This includes many injured on the public services frontline. 'Finally the government wants to make it more difficult, and expensive, to get compensation if an employee is unfairly dismissed, victimised for being a safety representative or if the employer refuses to agree to safety representatives training,' the TUC briefing says. It adds 'it is not only dismissal and victimisation claims that will be affected. For example, the only way that a health and safety representative can seek to challenge a refusal by their employer to give them time off for training is by taking a case to an employment tribunal. The representative will now be charged for trying to get the training they need to help their fellow workers.' The TUC briefing is the latest in a series for use by union reps in the build-up to a 28 April 'Day of Action to defend health and safety.'

DVLA staff protest on Valentine’s Day over massacre of public services

PCS members in DVLA take network wide action to save jobs and prevent office closures

In response to the government’s plans to close DVLA's 39 local and enforcement offices around the UK, putting 1,200 jobs at risk, PCS members are taking part in a campaign to save their jobs and to preserve the provision of important services locally across DVLA’s network of offices in England, Wales and Scotland.

At present the future of the offices are subject to a public consultation, with DVLA’s preference being that all offices close, and the services are centralised, put on line or provided by third part intermediaries.

Commenting Dave Cliff, PCS DVLA National Officer said, "As the consultation proceeds, it is clear that the proposals for replacing local offices are based on what DVLA would like to be able to provide its customers, not what service DVLA is going to be able to provide its customers. PCS believes that many of the proposed replacement services represent a retrograde step to the service currently provided by the existing offices.”

As part of the campaign, there will be lunchtime demonstrations, on Tuesday 14th February, held between 12:30 and 13:30, at every DVLA local office. We would really welcome your support at this, your local DVLA demonstration will be held at: Preston AEC, Fulwood Park, Caxton Road, Fulwood, Preston, PR2 9NZ

Campaign for disabled rights

The following has been supplied by PCS HQ:

In the last year, the situation has worsened dramatically as the government has focused public outrage on benefit claimants and, in particular, disabled claimants. This has resulted in anxiety for many as they face It has never been so important to campaign for disabled rights and against disablism. Disabled people are at high risk of hardship and face significant barriers getting into work and education, the cuts making the situation worse, but there is plenty you can do to help prevent attacks on vital benefits and services trapping people in their homes and making employment even more difficult to secure.

Hostility rising
To make matters worse, research conducted by the charity Scope showed the portrayal of disabled people as scroungers by the government, also termed the ‘backdrop of negativity’, has lead to a rise in hostility and violence toward the most vulnerable in society.

In the face of this onslaught, the past year has seen an unprecedented rise in the profile of disability campaigns. In response to the attacks on benefits a coalition of charities, trade unions and others joined in the Hardest Hit marches. In May 8,000 people took to the streets of Westminster and in October protestors up and down the country demonstrated against the cuts to benefits and services. PCS had a great turnout at both marches and MP Anne Begg, a member of the PCS parliamentary cuts to vital benefits and services.

The statistics on poverty and employment and education are alarming. Disabled people are twice as likely to live in poverty as non-disabled people and nearly half of disabled people have no savings at all as compared to 12% of the general population.

About 50% of disabled people of working age are in work compared with 80% of non disabled people, and once in work the average gross hourly pay for disabled employees is £1.22 less than that of non disabled employees. It is in this context that the government plans to strip many disabled people of crucial benefits and services. The three main cuts targeting the disabled are 20% off the disability living allowance, mobility payments for people in residential care, and payments of contributory employment allowance for those trying to get back to work. This will mean pushing more disabled people into poverty.

Decent pensions for all

The following has been supplied by PCS HQ:

A new report commissioned by PCS highlights why workers in the private and public sector have a shared interest in fighting for better pension provision, and the real divide is between the rich and poor.

The joint report on private sector pension provision on central government contracts written with the University of Greenwich’s privatisation and outsourcing resource centre has considered a number of the world’s largest and richest companies, including IBM, Hewlett Packard and G4S. The provision of pensions to workers in the private sector today demonstrates how serious our work is and demonstrates why PCS is right to call for the development of a strategy across the trade union movement to fight for fair pensions for all.

Pension holidays wrecked schemes. Just over a decade ago nearly half of all private sector workers were in a workplace pension scheme; today it is only a third. In some parts of our own commercial sector of PCS less than 10% of members belong to a pension scheme because of low pay and the fact that the disgracefully poor schemes offered by their employers are often simply not worth joining. One of the key reasons for this is that in the 1990s, according to Inland Revenue figures, corporate Britain saved itself £18 billion through pension holidays, while employees continued to contribute. As the stock market declined many pension funds went into deficit – employers cut pensions rather than repay the monies they avoided. The main reason why companies have dumped decent pension schemes is to give more money to senior management and more profits for their shareholders. Corporate profits have expanded from 13% of GDP in the mid-1970s to 21% today, and executive pay has risen by several times the rate of the average worker.

Huge gulf
As the report demonstrates there is also a huge gulf between the pension of those in the boardroom and those on the shop floor. While pensions have become a thing of the past for many workers, the directors of large companies continue to enjoy very generous pensions averaging £175,000 a year in retirement.

The report sets out why PCS fundamentally rejects a race to the bottom on pensions. It makes the case that the responsibility for the removal of pensions for private sector workers lies with employers and shareholders. Employers failing to pay their share. Despite its claims the evidence indicates that the current government is making the situation worse and not better.

For example, it has been estimated that changing pension indexation from RPI to CPI in the private sector would save employers £100 billion over the lifetime of existing schemes. This is a direct transfer of wealth from employees to shareholders.

EU Treaty

The following has been supplied by PCS HQ:

The proposed new EU treaty would limit government borrowing and entrench austerity economics, though it would also introduce a Robin Hood tax on the finance sector – and that is why our prime minister vetoed it.

So even though the treaty was largely a disaster for working people, our prime minister opposed it for the one progressive measure it contained.

This is the problem. Our government, led by the City funded Tories, is completely in hock to the markets and the finance sector. Ministers try to argue that what is good according to the large financial institutions that control the markets is in our ‘national interest’. This is not a national but an elite interest: ripping up regulations, driving down wages, cutting pensions, and privatising public services.

Communities too important to fail
The inevitable result of these policies will be misery for many, hardship for most and riches for a tiny elite. We are already seeing this in the UK: more people out of work and, for those in employment, wages are falling. Meanwhile executive pay rose by 49% last year. On pensions too private companies like Unilever and Shell are pledging to cut pension schemes for their workers and the government is trying to cut public sector pensions so that jobs can be privatised.

Our economy operates in the interest of a tiny elite, dubbed the ‘1%’ by the Occupy Movement. Their only value is profit. Traders speculating on currencies and bondholders charging high interest rates can crash economies – throwing people out of work and removing democratically-elected governments. Speculation on food prices is causing starvation and malnutrition in poorer parts of the world, but generating tidy profits for some hedge fund bosses.

Multinational companies using tax havens and other loopholes to avoid paying the taxes they owe are depriving governments of the revenues they need to invest in public services and job creation. PCS will be focusing on setting out an alternative to bowing down before the markets, to make finance operate in the interests of people.

If the banks were too important to fail, then our communities are too!

Campaign against inequality

The following has been supplied by the PCS HQ:

Britain has become one of the most unequal societies in the developed world.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that top earners are soaring away from the rest of the country at the expense of average earners and the lowest paid. This is no surprise to PCS members who have been in the grip of a government imposed pay freeze for over a year now.

A two-year pay freeze for public sector staff earning £21,000 or more – with provision for rises of £250 at lower levels – was one of the early measures taken by the coalition government. In the commercial sector wages are also tumbling in real terms, rising by only 2.3% in October 2011, according to Incomes Data Services.

Severe hardship
The chancellor’s autumn statement revealed even further hardship lies ahead for PCS members and their families.

Osborne announced that public sector pay would rise by just 1% for the two years after the pay freeze is over. The steep upward trend in inflation, the pay freeze and other cuts such as to tax credits, mean that many members are suffering severe financial hardship.

In February 2011 PCS and Unison published a joint survey of members showing the impact of the cuts and pay freeze on family life. It revealed that a third of respondents had debts of more than £10,000. As money coming in has grown tighter and cost of living risen, 71% had cut spending on food, 33% on vital healthcare such as dentists and prescriptions and 22% on children’s footwear and clothes. Meanwhile the pay of FTSE 100 chief executives has risen by 49% in the last financial year.

The recent High Pay Commission report criticised what it called “stratospheric” pay increases for executives. It found some had soared by more than 4,000% in the last 30 years, resulting in wealth flow upwards to the top 0.1% of people in Britain, while average wages have increased just three-fold from £6,474 in 1980 to £25,900 today. The conclusion was that this massive inequality is “deeply corrosive to our economy”.

The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said George Osborne’s economic plans would mean a sharp drop in household income, especially for those already on low wages. This is all underpinned by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasting 400,000 public sector job losses rising to more than 700,000.

Absence of democracy
The current economic system is characterised by an absence of democracy, participation, transparency and accountability.

Employees and their trade unions are frozen out of national economic influence and decision-making. The captains of industry, commerce and finance run their businesses on quasi-totalitarian lines. All decision-making is concentrated in the hands of a tiny, privileged cabal of shareholders, directors and managers. They determine how the company and wider economy operates. Employees are disenfranchised.

PCS is fighting back and demanding an alternative based on economic and social justice. The national action on 30 November was in defence of jobs, pensions, and pay. The union is currently mapping the situation regarding pay across the PCS bargaining units to ascertain where they are in the pay freeze and which are entitled to pay progression. The union has arranged meetings with Treasury officials to establish the detail around the proposed 1% salary increase and clarify the issue of progression.

The union continues to legally challenge employers in areas of appraisals, performance-related pay and bonus allocation.

PCS is also widening alliances with groups outside the trade union movement who are campaigning against the public sector pay freeze, poverty and wealth inequality.

Justice under threat from all sides

The following has been supplied by the TUC:
Workers are facing a government 'onslaught' on their ability to get justice after being abused at work, the TUC has warned. The union body says while chief executives get huge sums in compensation when they are sacked or resign after screwing up, workers are either going to be barred from taking a claim to an industrial tribunal or face prohibitive charges just to get a hearing. Writing in the TUC's Stronger Unions blog, TUC's head of safety Hugh Robertson notes the attack on access to tribunals forms part of an injustice triple whammy, with personal injury and criminal injury compensation also in the government's sights. Under proposals going through parliament at the moment, 'as many as 25 per cent of injury claims will not be brought,' writes Hugh Robertson. 'Those that proceed might lose up to 25 per cent of damages for the success fee and further substantial reductions for required legal expense insurance.' The government is also proposing to slash payments under the criminal injuries compensation scheme. 'In a consultation document issued this week, the government says it wants to remove around 17,000 victims of violence crime every year from the scheme including those with injuries like a smashed hand or an injury to the knee that is serious enough to require surgery. In addition many of those who still qualify will find the compensation cut, so even people with minor brain damage face a cut in their payments,' he warns. According to the TUC safety chief: 'It is not a coincidence that all these proposals are coming together. The government has been wound up about a non-existent compensation culture by insurance companies who are happy to take insurance premiums but have taken a series of court cases to try to stop them paying out when things go wrong, including several aimed at asbestos victims. The coalition government is also hell-bent on removing as many employment rights as it can, so expect more to come.'