Reply from the Employment Minister regarding the closure of the majority of the DWP Norcross Site

The Branch has been in correspondence with the local MPs regarding the closure of the majority of the DWP Norcross Site. We have also met several of the local MPs and one of the local Council Leaders since the premature announcement in June 2012 that the DWP Norcross site was to close.

The following is an extract from a letter from the Employment Minister Mark Hoban MP dated 10^th December 2012;

“In terms of travel time and the DWP Mobility rules, I am sure you will agree that the provision of a direct public transport route will reduce travelling time. In addition, for those staff that are still outside the DWP Mobility rules and are unable to move, our aim will be to seek redeployment opportunities within their mobility status, this may include other Government Departments.”

If any members want to see the full details of the correspondence then please contact the Branch Office on x63484.

Quick fire move leaves workers dangerously insecure

A government move that will make it easier to for firms to fire their staff will do nothing for the economy but will leave workers much more insecure, the TUC has said. The warning came after ministers announced the 90-day consultation period before large-scale redundancies can take place is to be cut to 45 days from April 2013. Employment relations minister Jo Swinson said: 'Our reforms will strike an appropriate balance between making sure employees are engaged in decisions about their future and allowing employers greater certainty and flexibility to take necessary steps to restructure.' But TUC general secretary Brendan Barber responded: 'The last thing we need is for the government to make it easier to sack people. Unemployment has not gone as high as many feared because employers have worked with unions to save jobs, even if it has meant sharing round fewer hours and less work. The need to consult unions has made an important contribution to that, and also given staff, many of whom will have had years of loyal service, time to think through their options.' He added: 'These measures will not create a single extra job. The idea that an employer will change their mind about taking someone on because the statutory redundancy consultation period has been reduced from 90 to 45 days is close to absurd. Removing consultation rights from fixed-term contract staff will seriously increase job and financial insecurity for vulnerable groups of workers, and temporary staff will lose out on redeployment opportunities.' Recent reports have linked job insecurity to higher injury and sickness rates and poorer health overall, including a greater chance of suffering heart disease and strokes.

This information was supplied by the TUC.

HSE gifts us a seasonal sanity clause

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has no intention of grounding Santa, the safety body's top official has confirmed. HSE chair Judith Hackitt was responding after a 14 December front page splash in the Daily Star headlined 'Elf and safety Santa ban' proclaimed: 'Health and safety nuts have banned Father Christmas from an annual parade that has been staged without a problem for almost 50 years. The bureaucrats ruled it would be too dangerous for the festive hero to sit on top of a float that travels at walking pace.' HSE's Judith Hackitt indicated the story, regarding an event planned by the Rotary Club in Sutton, south London, was Christmas crackers. She said: 'Clearly nobody wants Santa injured at this, his most important time of year. But regular parades take place all year around all over Britain and floats are a major part of that tradition. Others have been successful in finding ways of safely letting performers ride on vehicles so I am curious to know why you considered this was not possible.' Calling on the Rotary Club to reveal the real reason Sutton's Santa could be de-sleighed, the HSE chair added: 'There may be genuine reasons why the Rotary Club has taken this decision, but there is nothing in health and safety law which stands in your way.' In the run up to Christmas, HSE is urging firms not to be Christmas puddings. It is publishing its 'top twelve festive myths, gifted to HSE from media reports and correspondence received.' Top of the Xmas fairy tales are 'Santa needs a seatbelt in his sleigh' and 'workers are banned from putting up Christmas decorations in the office.'

This information was supplied by the TUC.

10 Reasons to support the PCS Campaign to defend jobs and oppose the threatened redundancies

Our pay is frozen or cut, our pensions attacked, our terms and conditions attacked and our jobs are getting more stressful, redundancies are one more straw that we will not accept.

There are 10 good reasons why our members are angry:

1 Pay
Pay in the DWP has been cut in real terms between 13.8% to 19.2%

2 Pensions if you retire now

Cut between 28.8% to 34.2%, not including the Public Sector Workers’ Tax and not including not receiving it until age 67 or 68 Also not including that Members wil get less in Pension.

3 Jobs

3,000 Jobs cut/ lost from the Fylde

4 The Closure of a large part of the DWP Norcross

With up to 130 privatised Civil Servants being made compulsory redundant

5 People at DWP Norcross being asked to work up to 2 hours a day extra

People at DWP Norcross who may be redeployed to Peel Park are being asked to travel 2 extra hours a day to get to Peel Park, for yet another cut in pay. They will get excess fares, but these are taxable and that equates for some people as being £16 a month down, and 10 hours unpaid labour per week down.

6 The future of the jobs at Warbreck

There are no guarantees that there will be work for more than 400 people at Warbreck beyond 2017. Presently over 2000 people work there.

7 An attack on our Conditions of Service

Including our Annual Leave, Privilege Leave, Mobility rules, sick pay and a raft of other issues

8 Compulsory Redundancies

The announcement that the DWP is to make 43 administrative assistants/ administrative officers compulsorily redundant rather than move work to them – this is a warning to all members in the DWP

9 Scrapping our Compensation Scheme if we are made redundant

After PCS had defeated this in Court, the Government changed the Law.

No other employer could enforce cuts in Employment terms by changing the Law after it had been found to be acting unlawfully in Court.

10 Privatisation

All this is to prepare the ground to sell us off to the Private Sector (or the Privatised Sector) to make more money for the rich, and the other Tax Dodgers.

We did not create the financial mess; we are not the financial speculators who created the financial mess and resultant recession. We did not financially benefit from the financial sector bubble that so spectacularly burst.

We should not be expected to pay for someone else’s mess

Branch press release

Blackpool Gazette have picked up the story of the change in decision for the DWP Norcross closure.

The page can be viewed here.

DWP Norcross Continues

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

Dear Colleague

DWP Norcross Continues – Announcement of 18th December 2012

Members at DWP Norcross may/ should have seen the communications from the employer regarding the continuation (in part) of the DWP Norcross site, with Shared Services moving in to Tomlinson House.

We were very disappointed at the announcement on 27th June 2012 regarding the closure of the DWP Norcross site, and believed the decision that the DWP Norcross site would close on 31st August 2013 was wrong.

We have argued all along that the closure of the DWP Norcross site would result in job losses/ redundancies for members who work for the DWP contractors, and job losses in the DWP as well as undermining future employment in the DWP in the locale. We have met with the local political leaders (MPs and Council) and pressed for the development of jobs/ economy in the area, not a managed run down.

We have also made it clear (including to MPs) that we have always been highly dubious as to the logistical aspect of moving 1,200 DWP people into a limited amount of space at DWP Warbreck and Peel Park. We have been concerned that not all the units will be able to be physically re-housed on the Fylde (including the usage of the Department’s magic maths). We have made the case that there has been/ is a real danger of work moving elsewhere if the location strategy doesn’t work as a result of the announcement to close the DWP Norcross site. 

Location strategy changes

Members should now be aware that the employer has announced that the DWP will be retaining Tomlinson House (this would have been a MOD building if the DWP had totally withdrawn from the site) and that Shared Services will move into Tomlinson House (along with the MOD {SPVA} people who are already there). There will be a re-organisation in Tomlinson House to facilitate this.

A step in the right direction but more steps are needed

We welcome the announcement that part of the DWP Norcross site will continue and that Shared Services will move into Tomlinson House. We believe that there now needs to be a full review of the decision to transfer 1,000 DWP staff to a limited amount of space at Warbreck and Peel Park. We believe that there is an overwhelming case to retain further blocks at DWP Norcross and to retain and move work to the site. We are aware that some of the areas of the site in not in best condition and this should form part of the review.

If you have any questions about the above then please contact Duncan Griffiths.

Vote YES for strike action

PCS is balloting all members in the DWP for strike action and an overtime ban to oppose compulsory redundancies and for more staff.

The ballot will start on 12 December and end on 10 January.

Please make sure that you vote.

PCS strongly recommends that you vote YES/YES.

There is no justification for these redundancies
DWP has issued compulsory redundancy notices to 43 staff. There is no justification for these redundancies. There is plenty of work for these staff to do. There is no shortage of work in DWP.

We need more staff not less
DWP needs more staff, not less to cope with high workloads. Making staff redundant means more work, pressure and stress for everyone else. 43 staff may be gone but their work doesn’t go away.

These members want to keep working
The staff facing compulsory redundancy want to keep working for DWP. The department responsible for finding jobs for people should not be making staff compulsorily redundant.

You could be next
This is the first time the DWP has ever issued compulsory redundancies. Security from forced redundancy has always been valued as one of the good things about working for the DWP. This is a clear signal from the DWP to all staff that they are prepared to make anybody compulsorily redundant if they want to. You could be next.

This is the last straw
Our pay is frozen or cut, our pensions attacked, our terms and conditions attacked and our jobs are getting more stressful, redundancies are a last straw that we will not accept.

PCS is fully supporting these members
Our union has done everything possible by negotiation. The DWP’s decision to hand out compulsory redundancy notices to these staff is an act of extreme provocation.

Use your vote – Vote YES/YES

Campaigning against welfare cuts

The government is making unprecedented cuts across the public sector and is removing people’s social, economic and civil rights. The welfare state which was established to provide social security to those unable to work is being dismantled through privatisation and £30 billion of cuts.

The attacks on the welfare state by the Tory-led government are ideological and the cuts are blighting the lives of the least economically secure in society.

These cuts are not about balancing the books. Over the same period of time the government will also give away £30 billion in tax breaks to business. Disabled people are being disproportionately and brutally affected with the proposed abolition of the Independent Living Fund and cuts to the Employment and Support Allowance and Disability Living Allowance, and the imposition of the Work Capability Assessment – carried out by Atos.

It is shameful and immoral that private companies are making profit from disabled and unemployed workers but, even worse, it does not work. The public sector delivers services more effectively, efficiently and less expensively than the private sector.

The government’s approach cannot work: there are already 2.5 million people unemployed, and more than six million seeking additional work.

Pushing disabled people off benefits – without creating jobs or tackling employer discrimination – is simply a means of cutting disabled people’s living standards. 

Brutal attacks

Evidence shows supportive social security systems that treat people with dignity and respect – rather than punitive systems based on conditionality, sanctions and low benefit levels – help not only individuals, families and communities but also the wider economy.

The social, individual and household consequences of these cuts contravene the right to independent living enshrined in the United Nations Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Hate campaign

To justify these brutal attacks on disabled people and those on welfare more generally, the government has engaged in a campaign of vilification to label those on benefits as lazy, feckless and as scroungers. Much of the news and print media have colluded in this hate campaign – leading to a sharp increase in attacks on disabled workers, including physical assaults.

Yet the government’s own figures show benefit fraud accounts for £1.5 billion a year, while £16 billion of benefits and tax credits are left unclaimed.

PCS on the front line

Tens of thousands of PCS members are involved in the administration of the welfare state and are committed to providing a service that meets people’s needs. Workers are facing huge cuts in their pay, pensions and rights at work – 40% of those who will administer Universal Credit will also be entitled to it.

PCS members are often on the front line, facing the anguish and anger of those suffering from government welfare policies. They did not create these policies; the union does not support them and is committed to campaigning against them.

PCS is committed to strengthening its campaigning alliance with Disabled People Against Cuts and the Black Triangle Campaign, which includes peaceful direct action against politicians who have supported welfare cuts and those companies that seek to profit from them.

The government is trying to divide people between those in work and those out of work; disabled and non-disabled people; and those in the public and private sector. The key to defeating these cuts, and austerity more generally, is unity.

Genuine debate needed

PCS is calling for a genuine debate over welfare.

The main political parties have become critical of the post-war model but apart from the increasingly discredited Tory attempt to return to Victorian attitudes to the “undeserving poor,” there is no coherent welfare policy to replace it.

PCS believes there is an alternative and has set out a different approach calling for:

• A welfare state where everyone has a decent standard of living free
• A government that commits to full employment
• A welfare system based on need not moral judgements
• A government that acknowledges and respects the work of dedicated DWP staff
• An end to low pay that leaves people dependent on means-tested benefits.

For further information see pcs.org.uk/welfare

Pay

How we can win on pay

PCS members are being hammered financially by the government’s economic illiteracy that masquerades as a deficit reduction plan. PCS policy officer Enrico Tortolano outlines how the union is campaigning against pay austerity:

“Soaring energy bills, increased travel costs, rising food prices, benefit and tax credit cuts, VAT increases, falling wages and increased pension contributions have resulted in massive levels of personal debt for PCS members.

Millions of households are heading for a long period of declining living standards unless we ensure that growth and wealth over the next decade is redistributed to the 99%. Even with a return to steady growth, it is now entirely possible living standards for a large swathe of low and middle households will be no higher by 2020 than they were in 2000.

According to the latest figures from the Commission on Living Standards households in 2020 are set to have an income 15% lower than the equivalent in 2008, a return to income levels not seen since 1993. Yet action can be taken to alter this course.

Campaigning Hard

PCS is campaigning hard on pay.

The regional pay briefing sessions have developed the themes in the recent PCS booklet Inequality: The price of austerity.

Primarily, the presentation outlined PCS pay objectives:

• An end to the pay freeze/pay cap policy
• No pension contribution increases
• Pay progression as a right for all
• National pay bargaining not local pay
• That equality concerns should be the central principle on which pay systems are based and assessed.

However, the talks go further and dispel government myths about the economy and put the pay freeze into an economic as well as an industrial context. We are told there is a deficit crisis in the UK, that we are spending beyond our means, and that the solution to this deficit crisis is to cut public sector pay.

Public spending is actually an investment, not a debt. Public servants deliver vital services. The campaign to drive down public sector pay and vilify public services is motivated by an ideological goal to privatise these vital services. The reality is that there does not need to be a pay freeze or in fact a single penny taken away from any public service, or a single job lost.

Cuts are political

The economy is actually awash with cash. The trouble is it’s all going upwards to the wealthiest 1%. Even within this 1%, inequalities are now enormous.

At the lower end of this tiny group of high earners you find people earning £120,000 a year. But the richest thousand individuals leave them far behind. They saw their wealth increase on average in 2010 alone by £60 million. That was a 20% gain, following 25% the previous year. The rise left the chief executives with average pay of £4.2m. That was 145 times the average pay of their employees and 162 times the British average wage

So this is not a time of austerity: the pay freeze and public spending cuts are a political choice not an economic necessity. After the success of 20 October a sense of responsibility now rests with UK trade unions to urgently increase the agitation and resistance. Get active with PCS and help end pay austerity.

Government's 'shame' as crime victims are hurt

The following has been supplied by the TUC:

Compensation payments to people injured in violent crimes have been slashed or withdrawn completely after the government railroaded through changes to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme. The changes took effect on 27 November, scrapping five payment levels. Shopworkers' union Usdaw said many retail staff injured in armed robberies and assaults would lose out and postal workers union CWU said workers savaged by dogs while doing their job would now receive nothing, however serious their injuries. Ministers said the reforms will shave £50m off the annual £200m bill. Usdaw general secretary John Hannett said the cuts were a 'disgraceful indictment' of a government 'happy to see seriously injured but innocent victims of crime lose out on payments from the scheme. These payments helped the victims replace lost wages and were a token acknowledgement from government that victims deserve help after traumatic incidents.' CWU general secretary Billy Hayes said: 'The government says they are tough on crime, but really they are tough on the victims of crime.' He added: 'The government has wasted no time in fast-tracking these latest cuts into force. It now means that the victims of violent crime - such as muggings and dog attacks - who are unable to secure compensation through the courts or insurance companies will be left with nowhere to turn for help. Many others will only qualify for vastly reduced sums. Cutting CICS is one of the cruellest acts of this coalition government yet, taking compensation from the victims of crime who have nowhere else to turn when they are at their most vulnerable. A piece of society has died and the UK is a poorer place today as a result of these cuts.'

Starbucks sink to new lows

The following has been supplied by the TUC:

The US coffee company, Starbucks, which is already under pressure for its tax affairs has now cut the rights to sick pay for its 7,000 UK workers. Starbucks was branded 'immoral' by MPs who heard that the company has used a range of legal tax-dodges to avoid paying corporation tax in the UK. Over the past 13 years it has paid £8.6 million on sales of £3.1 billion. It has now announced that workers will no longer be entitled to sick pay for their first day's sickness. Concerns have been raised that this will mean that workers will be more likely to come into work while ill with viral or bacterial infections that can be spread through touch or coughing, leading to an increase in possible contamination and an increase in infection of other workers and customers. In a blog, TUC Head of Organisation, Paul Nowak said that companies that treated their workers like this were also the ones more likely to fall down on other social responsibility issues such as tax-paying and the solution was to try to unionise the workforce. Martin Smith, national organiser of the GMB union, which represents some Starbucks workers said "The reaction is one of confusion and fear. On the removal of sick pay, do we really want our coffee to be made by someone struggling to work with a cold, because that is what will happen. It is not a good look for a top flight coffee maker."

Support for UK Uncut Starbucks protests

PCS is encouraging members to support UK Uncut's 'refuge from the cuts' at branches of Starbucks on Saturday.

Low paid women and their families are bearing the brunt of the government’s austerity programme. That is why UK Uncut has been working with women’s campaign groups to turn tax avoiders Starbucks into services such as crèches and refuges. Starbucks is one of a number of companies exposed recently as exploiting our tax system, robbing our economy of much needed revenue for vital public services.

The company has paid only £8.5m in corporation tax since it launched in Britain in 1998 despite making profits of £3bn.

Public anger at the revelation has already prompted Starbucks to agree to pay more corporation tax, though this isn't enough.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “With hundreds of thousands of public sector workers having their jobs, pay and pensions cut, and people entitled to benefits being demonised and targeted in the most shameful way, it is utterly scandalous that some multinational companies believe they can get away with contributing little or nothing to our economy.

“We fully support this weekend’s action which, along with previous campaigns by UK Uncut and others, will highlight the fact that if large companies like Starbucks paid their fair share it would change the debate about public spending overnight.”

Visit the UK Uncut website for information on how to join Saturday's protests.

This information was provided by PCS HQ.