Norcross Closure Announcement

To all members and potential members of the PCS Fylde Central Benefits and Services Branch

The purpose of this post is to inform members who may not already be aware but today, 27th June 2012, the employer has announced that the DWP Norcross site is to close.

The employer in an earlier meeting, and elsewhere has indicated that there will not be any DWP job losses or job losses in any of the contractors for the DWP as a result of today’s announcement. You may also be aware of the amount of work that has been undertaken by the Branch in raising the issue of job cuts and the potential of a site closing with the local MPs and local council leadership. There has been a fair degree of coverage in the media about these meetings and our campaign to defend jobs and promote the economy of the Fylde.

We do not believe that the decision announced today defends jobs nor does it promote the economy of the Fylde. It merely cements in the two thousand five hundred job losses that there have been in the over the last few years and means that it is highly unlikely/ impossible for there to be any return of those numbers of jobs.

What happens now? 

The Branch has today written to the employer setting out a series of questions regarding the closure. The topics include; confirmation that there will not be any job losses in the DWP (including FLSMs etc) or the contractors (including catering, cleaning, messengerial, security etc), that no work will move away from the Fylde, details about the units that may be going to other sites, and the question of members potentially being posted outside of the mobility conditions of service. This is merely the tip of the iceberg.

I will keep members informed of any updates.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Again if you require copies of the five circulars that have been issued over the last couple of months, which include details about your conditions of service and potential options then please do not hesitate to contact me.

Remember that it is important that members at Norcross actively support the Campaigns that the Branch/ PCS take forward.

Yours sincerely

Duncan Griffiths

Branch Secretary

Government can't leave safety to business

The following has been supplied by the TUC:
The government's insistence that workplace safety laws hold back the economy and that safety enforcement is a diversion business could and should do without is 'a cynical - and ultimately deadly - lie,' a new report has charged. The new issue of the safety journal Hazards magazine examining the government's safety strategy notes: 'Your life just got a little bit cheaper. Safety regulations and enforcement are out of favour, and for more and more workers, this could mean they are out of luck.' It adds 'this immoral government strategy will exact a high human and economic cost.' The report is critical of ministers for giving business the inside track on policy making. It says this privileged access comes both in face-to-face meetings and increasingly in policy initiatives like its Focus on Enforcement, where only a business viewpoint is sought. Hazards says while safety minister Chris Grayling is happy to hold regular sessions with business lobby groups to hear their safety wish list, relatives group Families Against Corporate Killers is still waiting a year after requesting an audience. The journal notes: 'The government would prefer to limit the business of consultation to business,' and points to the May 2012 Focus on Enforcement consultation which asked just those British chemical firms covered by the Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations (COMAH) - those with the potential to cause the worst devastation if they go bang - how they'd like their safety enforced. 'No-one else - certainly not the workers or local residents who would be blown to smithereens - gets a look in,' it concludes.

Whistleblowing law undermined by the 'back door'

The following has been supplied by the TUC:

'The government is bringing in an amendment which will undermine the law on whistleblowing 'by the back door', an employment law expert has warned - and the protection of safety reps and whistleblowers is in the firing line. David Lewis, professor of employment law at Middlesex University and convenor of the International Whistleblowing Research Network, has written an open letter to business secretary Vince Cable attacking the lack of consultation over an amendment to whistleblowing provisions in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, which was presented to parliament on 23 May. The section 12 one-line amendment introduced in the Bill would mean disclosures made by whistleblowers would have to be 'in the public interest' in order to protect the individual if they are made redundant or suffer detriment as a result of doing so. Professor Lewis warns in his letter to the business secretary this will inhibit potential whistleblowers from making important disclosures about wrongdoing. Lewis told human resources magazine Personnel Today: 'My prime concern with this amendment is that most people have a choice whether to blow the whistle or not and they will keep quiet if they think it is the safest and most sensible option.' He added: 'What the bill is going to do is drop a bomb on the whistleblowing provisions by simply saying there is now going to be a public interest test for all cases in all circumstances, which completely sabotages the legislation.' He said that while a review of the legislation was needed, this change has been brought in 'by the back door' without consultation. The amendments would apply to the section 43B whistleblowing provisions in the Employment Rights Act 1996. Section 44 of this Act covers protection for safety reps raising concerns about workplace safety. It is believed the legal changes if introduced would have a dramatic impact on safety rights at work, leaving safety reps and whistleblowers without essential protection. Whistleblowers' charity Public Concern at Work says the 'public interest' qualifier would apply to any whistleblowing, including where 'the health or safety of any individual has been, is being or is likely to be endangered.'

Fit-for-work checks should be scrapped, say GPs

The following has been supplied by the TUC:
'Family doctors have called for an end to the work capability assessment introduced by the government in a bid to get more people off benefits and back to work. The British Medical Association's conference last week called for the fit-for-work checks to be scrapped because of the harm they do to vulnerable patients. The doctors, who represent GPs from across the UK, called instead for a more vigorous and safe process which takes into account the needs of long term sick and disabled patients. Dr Laurence Buckman, chair of the BMA's GPs Committee, said: 'When 40 per cent of appeals against the assessments are successful at tribunal hearings something is clearly very wrong with the system. Being in work is good for people's overall health and well-being, but GPs are seeing too many patients who genuinely need to be on incapacity benefit coming in very concerned and confused by the system.' He added: 'It's not fair on these patients but it could also have a wider impact as well - having a lower income may lead to people having a poorer quality of health and could therefore increase health inequalities for our nation as a whole. The government needs to look again at the whole assessment process and replace it with one that is fit for purpose.'

HSE health expertise 'destroyed by stealth'

The following has been supplied by the TUC:

The retirement in May 2012 of the chief medical adviser for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has left its Employment Medical Advisory Service (EMAS) close to collapse, a top HSE trade union rep has warned. Simon Hester, a frontline HSE field inspector and chair of the union Prospect's HSE branch, made the warning in a 22nd May letter to The Guardian. 'Twenty years ago EMAS was an internationally respected source of occupational health expertise employing 60 occupational health doctors and 62 nurses. It is now down to 2.2 doctors, only one of whom is full-time,' he wrote. 'Successive years of cuts and 'reviews' (three in the past five years) have effectively destroyed by stealth an organisation committed to the well-being of the nation's workforce.' Citing official HSE figures, he warned well over a million people are currently suffering from ill- health caused by or made worse by their work, 'all relying on medical help from an ever-stretched NHS, the vast majority suffering from preventable illnesses. If the government truly believes prevention is better than cure it must reverse the cuts to HSE and rebuild a service that can help protect the UK workforce.' HSE's ability to respond effectively to workplace health and cancer problems has been damaged by the demise of its medical wing, campaigners have warned.

PCS HQ Email Distribution

Email gathering
A growing number of PCS activists and members now receive information about PCS campaigns from HQ by personal email. This enables PCS to communicate quickly and efficiently and is increasingly important given the restrictions placed by some employers on workplace communications. 

Members can now give us personal email and mobile phone details through our quick sign up form which can be found here.