Earth Hour 2013 – Saturday 23 March 8.30pm – Join the Revolution

Our colleagues within Balfour Beatty Workplace have supplied us with the following information for our members to consider taking part in:

At 8.30pm (BST) on Saturday 23 March, hundreds of millions of people across the globe will switch off the lights of homes and business for one hour – Earth Hour.

In 2007, 2.2 million Sydney residents decided to turn off all non essential lights to raise awareness about the need to tackle climate change. Many others followed their lead and last year, over 152 countries and 7,000 cities switched off. Some of the world’s most famous landmarks (the Eiffel Tower, Buckingham Palace, Sydney Opera House) stood in darkness to mark the event.

So we’re asking you to join Stephen Fry, Nelson Mandela, Cate Blanchett, Coldplay, the BBW Sustainability Team (amongst millions of others) to join the switch off revolution and Care, Dare, and Share:

• Care – recognise that climate change it is an ever growing issue which we all have a responsibility to take action on both at home and at work - we can all make a positive difference.
• Dare - make a pledge by turning off all non essential lights in your house for that one hour. It’s a simple as that. Do your friends and family know about Earth Hour? How many people can you inspire to dare to join in?
• Share – let us know if you switched off by emailing Sustainable.FM@bbworkplace.com. Switch on by switching off this Saturday.

For more information about Earth Hour - http://www.earthhour.org/

Letter to the Gazette

Members may have seen a letter from the Wyre Council leader Peter Gibson in the Blackpool Gazette on 20th March 2013. The letter can be found here.

The PCS Regional Secretary Peter Middleman has written to the editor of the newspaper, along the following:

"Dear Editor

Councillor Gibson’s letter (Gazette Letters 20th March) regarding the closure of Norcross is missing a few points.

Councillor Gibson states that no DWP jobs will be lost due to the closure. Actually that still remains to be seen, however 3000 DWP jobs have already been lost from the Fylde Coast due to the cuts of both this and the previous government. This has been an economic disaster for the Fylde Coast.

What the closure of Norcross does is to cement in these job losses and make them absolutely permanent. They can never return in the future as the office accommodation will have been lost. Certainly some retail jobs might arrive in the future, although whether they will detract from existing retail jobs is another question. But they will certainly not number 3000, and may very well be paid even less than civil servants (if that is still possible and legal). Hence this will not compensate for the destructive effect on the Fylde economy of the loss of 3000 DWP jobs.

Secondly, Councillor Gibson has not referred to the loss of up to 130 privatised ex-civil service jobs including messengers, drivers, cleaners, caterers and guards. There will be compulsory redundancies amongst this group of workers and this is a “will be” not a “might happen” scenario. The PCS has repeatedly warned about this to all who have been willing to listen.

The privatisation of these groups of staff has contributed to putting their jobs at risk, as has the privatisation of the estate itself. The “owners” of Norcross (and the DWP itself, that we are given to understand takes a half share in the proceeds in event of any sale) will make many millions on the back of these job losses. I cannot of course comment on “people getting off their backsides to find work”, but this strikes me as easy money, to be achieved by making some very low paid workers redundant, and making 3000 permanent DWP job losses. The proceeds of the sale are unlikely to remain in the Fylde.

Our members would have appreciated the support of Wyre Borough Council in our attempt to stop these job losses, which began in 2004. Our priority is to try every means of preventing job losses for our members. However for some, the priority seems to be making millions for the privatised owners of the Norcross site. Yours sincerely

Peter Middleman

North West Regional Secretary

Public and Commercial Services Union"

PCS Wins FTA Redundancy Compensation Employment Tribunal

The following has been supplied by PCS HQ:

PCS took DWP to an Employment Tribunal (ET) to secure redundancy compensation for our FTA members who were dismissed when their FTA contracts were ended after two or more years of qualifying service. The tribunal has this week reported its decision and has found in PCS’ favour.

Fantastic Outcome
This is a fantastic outcome for PCS. The compensation should in total be worth over a million pounds. PCS had always argued against the dismissal of the FTA staff, arguing instead that all of them should have been converted into permanent staff to deal with the excessive workloads DWP faces. While we were able to achieve permanent contracts for some FTA’s it was not possible to do so in many cases. But we were determined to ensure that, where FTA staff were dismissed, then they received their due redundancy compensation

Lead cases
PCS used two volunteer FTA members as ‘lead cases’ to take the case to the tribunal on behalf of the hundreds of FTA members of PCS who were dismissed after two or more years qualifying service. The GEC would like to thank the two members who agreed to be our ‘lead cases’ for making this victory possible.

Confident we would win
If DWP had accepted its obligations from the start there would have been no need to go through the time and expense of legal action. But PCS was always confident that we had a strong case and that we would win. Now that we have won the tribunal we expect DWP to accept the verdict and pay the redundancy compensation to all of the FTA staff who are entitled to it.

Dismissals were redundancies
The tribunal decision centred on the question of whether the dismissal of an FTA by DWP at the end of their contract was a dismissal on the grounds of redundancy or a dismissal for ‘some other substantial reason’. PCS consistently argued that these dismissals were redundancies and therefore the FTA’s were entitled to a redundancy compensation payment in line with the provisions of the Civil Service Compensation Scheme. The tribunal has now confirmed that these dismissals were indeed redundancies.

The Civil Service Compensation Scheme says that “as long as the fixed term employee has at least two years qualifying service and is being dismissed for redundancy, they will receive the same compulsory compensation terms as a permanent member of staff.” Broadly speaking this compensation amounts to one month’s pay for each year of qualifying service.

DWP’s Response
In the light of the ET decision, PCS has contacted DWP management to confirm that they will now act in accordance with the tribunal’s decision and pay the redundancy compensation. We are awaiting their confirmation of how and when they will do this. As soon as we have more information on this we will keep branches and members informed.

Unions must fight for safety in a 'hostile' climate

The following has been supplied by the TUC:

A 'hostile' political climate is jeopardising hard won safety improvements at work, the TUC has warned. Launching the new edition of its bestselling safety publication Hazards at work last week, TUC said the government's disdain for workplace safety had resulted in the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) being barred from making unannounced visits to most workplaces. On top of this, HSE is in the middle of a cuts programme that will lop 35 per cent off its budget. TUC has called for a change of direction from the government, after latest death at work statistics showed the fatality rate remained at the same elevated level in 2011/12, up over 17 per cent on the record low figure in 2009/10. It is also urging union reps to get hold of a copy of the 2013 edition of Hazards at work, so they can use the 448-page guide to find their own solutions to health and safety problems at work. TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said: 'This guide is an essential tool for union safety reps and employers and has never been more badly needed. The government seems determined to water down health and safety laws despite recent increases in workplace fatalities. It seems incredible that ministers seem unconcerned by the cut in the number of workplace inspections at a time when more people are dying and getting injured at work.' She added: 'Protection is more important now than ever and this book is one of the best tools for understanding, assessing and dealing with health and safety issues.'

Growth yes - but not at the cost of our safety

The following details have been supplied by the TUC:

The government is pandering to the business lobby at the expense of workplace safety, the TUC has warned. The union body was speaking out after an 8 March invitation from business minister Michael Fallon to 'businesses and regulators' to help fashion a 'growth duty' for regulators - a proposed legally-binding measure that 'will require regulators to take into account the impact of their activities on the economic prospects of firms they regulate.' A BIS news release announcing the quickie six week consultation, 'Non-economic Regulators: Duty to Have Regard to Growth', which 'businesses are invited' to consider ahead of a 19 April deadline, said: 'The proposed 'growth duty' will ensure that enforcement activity of these regulators, including the Health and Safety Executive, Environment Agency and Highways Agency, imposes minimum burdens that could hold businesses back, while upholding the highest standards of public protection.' TUC head of safety Hugh Robertson commented: 'High quality, safe work will help promote growth, but it is a pleasant addition to the greater benefit of having a happy healthy population. To achieve that we need strong, properly enforced regulation.' He added: 'If on the other hand we believe that regulation is simply there to promote business and help profitability then we might as well just hand over regulation-setting to the CBI. Mind you, they seem to be almost doing that, as the press release announcing the consultation exercise asks for the views of business, but not of workers or the public. That says it all really.' A commentary in Hazards magazine noted: 'Improving the 'economic prospects' of firms by slackening regulatory controls doesn't reduce costs, it shifts them.' Most of the cost of companies' safety shortcomings are carried by individuals, communities and the public purse, it concluded.

Support PCS, Support Yourself, Support Your Colleagues on March 20th

Dear Colleagues (and potential colleagues) in the Civil Service on the Fylde.

ALL OUT ON THE 20th OF MARCH 2013

THEN AN OVERTIME BAN UNTIL THE 20th OF JUNE 2013
PCS Rally in Preston at 11am - Details here.

(PLEASE NOTE THERE IS AN INDEFINITE OVERTME BAN IN MOD)

Ten reasons to support the PCS Action to defend pay jobs, pensions and conditions of service.

Background: 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 TEN good reasons why members are angry and should support the action:

• Pay: Pay in the Civil Service has been cut in real terms since 2007 with below inflation pay rises, and pay freezes. In the DWP has been cut in real terms between 13.8% and 19.2%
• 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 will get less in Pension.
• Jobs: Over 3,000 Jobs cut/lost from the Fylde in the Civil Service
• The Closure of a large part of the DWP Norcross: With up to 130 privatised Civil Servants being made compulsorily redundant
• 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.
• An attack on our Conditions of Service: Including our Annual Leave, Privilege Leave, Mobility rules, sick pay and a raft of other issues
• 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 Tax Dodgers. It is the case that 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.
• 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.
• The future of the jobs at Warbreck: There are no guarantees that there will be work for more than 400 people at Warbreck beyond 2018. Presently over 2000 people work there.
• Compulsory Redundancies: The recent announcement that the DWP was to make 43 administrative assistants/ administrative officers compulsorily redundant is a warning to all members. This was defeated by the threat of Industrial Action, but the threat remains to us all in the future.

Potential Members
If you have not yet joined your Union, please consider doing so by completing the form here.

Preston Rally on Strike Day - Wednesday 20th March.

PCS has organised a rally in Preston to promote our alternative to the cuts campaign in the North West.

Assemble 11am at the Flag Market, Market Square, Preston for the rally, there will be PCS and community speakers.

More details can be found here.

The Council Business plan 2013/14 – 2015/16

The following details are the contribution to the debate about the Wyre Council business plan 2013/14 – 2015/16 from the Labour Councillor Emma Anderton:

“Whilst I support the Business plan as a whole I’d just like to comment on one of the themes: Pride in our Places > We will adopt a new local plan to deliver economic growth, housing and employment.

I think this Council has missed a real opportunity to take a strategic view in terms of employment and job retention within Wyre.

The Council’s Core Strategy document highlights the Norcross site as an ‘employment hub...continuing to employ significant numbers (approx 3000)’

As we have seen the DWP’s announcement in 2012 to pull out of the Norcross site means the Core Strategy is out of date before it has even been adopted and the Conservative members and Officers have made little attempt to fight to retain this major employer within our borough.

Civil Service jobs at the Norcross site are reasonably well paid, many are highly skilled and there are good prospects for career progression.

A mere 200 DWP jobs and 400 Ministry of Defence jobs will remain.

Following the announcement of the DWP retreat, the Council could have been more proactive in bringing other civil service jobs to the area making use of the existing office space and IT infrastructure already in place. There was talk of the MOD relocating jobs to Wyre from London and Manchester. An opportunity missed.

The site owners Telereal Trillium have published draft proposals for the site in the post DWP era – houses, a pub and another food retail outlet (half the size of the Morrison’s store just a stone’s throw away). In other words; low skilled, minimum wage jobs with little chance of career advancement.

The DWP has designated Ryscar House on Faraday Way as a centre for the new benefit Universal Credit. It was announced in the Guardian newspaper only yesterday, that the initial rollout of UC will be rely on clerical processing rather than IT based. There is a real potential that extra processing jobs will be needed to administer this benefit. Norcross could have been the ideal place to house these extra workers, bringing new civil service jobs to the Fylde Coast. However once the bulldozers move in – as early as August - this will be the final nail in the coffin.

The Labour Group had wanted to bring a Notice of Motion before this Council requesting that the Norcross site be designated an employment zone – as already indicated in the Core Strategy plan for Thornton but unfortunately the Chief Executive deemed this would be trying to predetermine a future planning application. Perhaps this Council is more interested in the new homes bonus, the new plans for the site would bring. Unfortunately this short term fix to Wyre’s finances would in no way compensate for the loss of £500,000 per year business rates that the DWP having been paying.

So another food retail outlet is on the horizon, first Booths, then Sainsbury’s, who next I wonder? This Council certainly knows how to give food shoppers choice!

The Fleetwood Weekly News this week featured an article where Peter Gibson and Eric Ollerenshaw have both “vowed to fight for local jobs...and not see them disappearing”. What a shame this fight didn’t stretch to the civil service jobs on the Norcross site.

The youth of Wyre needn’t worry about their future employment prospects, this Council has ensured there will always be work for them shelf stacking or on the checkout!

In conclusion, I’d like to implore the Council leadership & officers – if they are serious about employment in Wyre, to take what might be the last opportunity, to fight for local jobs and to fight to retain the Norcross site as an employment hub for civil service jobs."

The debate took place on Thursday 7th March 2013. The majority grouping on the Wyre Council (Conservatives) voted down the proposal to have the Norcross site designated as “employment”. If you live in Wyre you may wish to ask your Councillor which way they voted, and why.

Government defeated on compensation changes

The following details have been supplied by PCS DWP Group:

A Government move to limit compensation for work-related injuries and ill-health has been rejected by the House of Lords. Ministers had wanted to end 'civil liability' on employers, meaning compensation would only be payable if negligence was established, even where the employer was found to be in breach of criminal safety laws. But in a report stage debate in the Lords on 6 March, peers voted 225 to 223 to reject wholesale the change. Moving the successful amendment, former Labour safety minister Lord McKenzie of Luton told peers the clause backed by the government 'seeks to remove civil liability from breaches of duty imposed by health and safety regulations, and our amendment would reinstate that right of action.' He added that should the government clause be passed there would be 'serious consequences' as 'civil liability applies in very limited circumstances and where injured employees would otherwise face a near impossible evidential burden.' This 'would include injuries caused by defective equipment where the employer controls the selection, purchase, installation and maintenance of equipment, where investigation can be very difficult and with the employer holding all the cards.' TUC, which has led the campaign to defend compensation rights, welcomed the Lords vote. TUC head of safety Hugh Robertson said had the government been successful not only would disease and injury victims lose out, it would have 'a negative effect on preventing injuries in the workplace as compensation claims have always helped to drive forward improvements to help ensure that such incidents are not repeated.'

Action starts with budget day strike

Our programme of national industrial action will start with a strike on budget day on 20 March.

Meeting today our national executive agreed this will be followed by further walkouts, other forms of industrial action and protests over the next three months.

The campaign against cuts to pay, pensions and working conditions aims to put maximum pressure on ministers who are refusing to talk to us. It includes:

• All-day strike on 20 March to coincide with the budget, with rallies and demonstrations in key locations, including Westminster
• Further national and group strikes of varying durations, including half days and short walkouts, timed to have the greatest impact, with dates to be announced at a later date
• Industrial action short of a strike, including a national overtime ban until 20 June and disruptive action in groups
• Strike days interspersed with other protests and campaigning activities around specific themes

Consultation is now underway in groups on what forms and duration of action will be most effective. Our national disputes committee will meet weekly to discuss progress and tactics, and any decisions on a second phase after June will be taken after our annual conference.

We will also continue to seek the widest possible co-ordination with other unions on pay and pensions.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka told the media: "This is not a one-day protest, this is the start of a rolling programme of walkouts and disruptive action to put pressure on a government that is refusing to talk to us."

AGM 2013 - Thanks for coming!

The Branch Annual General Meeting took place on Thursday 28th February 2013, at the Thornton Little Theatre, for those who missed it they missed out.

The guest speaker was the PCS DWP Group Secretary, Steve Cawkwell who was a late replacement for the PCS Vice President John McInally.

For those who weren’t there the following may be of interest:

Steve Cawkwell indicated that he first joined the Civil Service in 1974, and his father said to him when he got an interview, that the Civil Service was a good job, a job for life and with promotion prospects and a good pension at the end of it. Well he managed to rise to the rank of AO, so perhaps it wasn’t as rosy a picture as painted but essentially it was true; it was a good job, there were promotion opportunities and the pensions were reasonable.

He said that coming from a working class background of a family that worked on the docks in Hull the job of Civil Servant had status in the community, and therefore it was seen as going up in the world being a Civil Servant.

He said that it was sad and wrong but true that over the decades the role of the Civil Servant and Public Sector worker has been attacked by successive Governments adopting an ethos of Public Sector bad, Private Sector good. He indicated that he does not agree with this.

He stated that after working many years in the Civil Service he is now a PCS employee, and DWP Group Secretary.

Steve indicated that the Public Servants do a good job, and a job that we should be proud of, and part of the job of PCS was to make sure that people were aware of this.

He stated that we faced attacks on pay, cuts in jobs, attacks on pensions and attacks on our conditions of service.

He stated that due to having no pay rise, or one percent pay rises that on average people were 16% worse off in the DWP than they would have been if pay had matched inflation. He advised the meeting that there was a new phrase in society, the working poor, as more and more working people found it difficult to make ends meet.

He indicated that people had to move downwards in terms of the stores that they shopped in, holidays were being cut, and it was becoming difficult for people to pay for petrol for their cars. He stated that this was due the Government’s pay policy.

He stated that it was PCS’s role to fight back against the policy of austerity, that there was a key ballot which closed on 4th March, and explained the importance of members voting “Yes and Yes” in that ballot.

He stated that Industrial Action was always a last resort, but members needed to show that they are prepared to back up negotiations and campaigns.

He explained that PCS had lodged a claim for a pay rise of £1,200 for members to start to try and claw back some of the lost ground in terms of the 16% pay cuts, in real terms.

He then turned to the attacks on conditions staring with privilege leave, which we have had since the end of the last World War. But the attacks didn’t stop there, the employer was looking to remove sick leave provisions, change mobility rules and replace them with mobility rules of what is considered reasonable by the line manager. He said that we should send a clear message of “No to any further erosion of our rights”.

He indicated that the attacks were to do with sending us down the path to privatisation, so that the private sector could find it easier to make a profit out of Government contracts.

Steve then moved on to the question of the increases to pensions contributions, where the Government want us to work longer, pay more and receive less. He stated that this was not acceptable; there should be no cuts, no privatisations.

He contrasted the way that we were being treated to the Bankers, who have been told that they should get bonuses no greater than their salary; he indicated that this was remarkable in comparison to the levels of bonuses that people in the Civil Service receive. He stated that clearly we weren’t all in this together.

He then turned to the state of society, picking up on the parlous state of the high street, where shops were closing down to be replaced by Pound shops, Pay Day loans, and betting shops; breeding on people’s difficulties.

He returned to the workplace and highlighted the role of Trade Unions, explaining that people may not think that they will need help in the workplace, they get on well with their line manager, they may be in good health and they may not have any problems, but things can change very quickly to the opposite and they may then need help. He indicated that the Government was trying to get rid of this help, by hammering down on the facility time that is available for the representatives to help the members. He indicated that PCS opposed the attacks on facility time, legally and collectively.

He explained that our demands in the National Campaign are reasonable for working people that the Government’s policy of Austerity wasn’t working.

He indicated that Austerity was causing difficulty for society, the Government’s policies had lost the AAA rating, and that there would be more misery if they didn’t change policy, especially for young people.

Steve then introduced Universal Credit, which he explained was the Government’s new policy to be introduced over the forthcoming period. He explained that at a meeting with the employer he asked what percentage of the staff working on Universal Credit, will themselves be eligible to claim Universal Credit. He informed the meeting that the reply was 44%, due to the poor rates of pay in the DWP.

He stated that one of the rules of Universal Credit was to ask recipients who were in work, “what they could do to work more hours to get off Universal Credit”, this would include asking this of their fellow colleagues working on Universal Credit. He said that this was insane.

He returned to pay, and said that PCS’s role was to make the Government listen, and this is why there was a need for a good turnout, and good levels of support for “Yes and Yes”. He explained that PCS would offer talks, we are always prepared to talk, but the Government won’t listen, it was our job to make them listen.

He indicated that it would be good if other Unions got involved but that we may have to go it alone and then try and build support from the entire community. He said that there was no need for fatalism or defeatism. He had achieved victories recently in DWP, with the stopping of the compulsory redundancies, in HMRC where the threat of Industrial action brought about extra jobs and likewise in the Home Office.

There was then a lively question and answer session. There are some pictures from the event here and they can also be found on our Facebook page (link on the right of this blog). See below for a 5 minute clip of the session, you may only be able to view this on your home PC, please bear in mind your employer's media policy if you can see it at work: