Ten Reasons to Support the PCS Action

Defend 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:

1) 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%

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.

3) Jobs: Over 3,000 Jobs cut/lost from the Fylde in the Civil Service

4) The Closure of a large part of the DWP Norcross: With scores of privatised Civil Servants being made compulsorily redundant

5) 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.

6) An attack on our Conditions of Service: Including our Annual Leave, Privilege Leave, Mobility rules, sick pay and a raft of other issues

7) 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. 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. More privatisation is now threatened; as over 200 members in Shared Services at DWP Norcross face being privatised.

8) 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.

9) The future of the jobs at Warbreck: There are no guarantees that there will be work for more than 500 people at Warbreck beyond 2018 (the time-frame for the end of the PIP reassessment work). Presently over 2000 people work there.

10) 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.

Don't forget the overtime ban until June 20th

DWP Group - Action Short of a Strike

The PCS DWP Group has issued the following guidance on action short of a strike. The Branch thought this would be useful to members. A .pdf version is available here.

Introduction
Action short of a strike is an effective way of hurting the employer simply by only doing your job and no more. We are asking members to follow some suggested forms of action for the duration of our current national dispute. We are not asking members to risk being disciplined – if you’re unsure ask a local rep for advice.

What is action short of strike action?
Action to inflict maximum possible disruption but keeping the risk of members losing pay to a minimum.

What sorts of things are we asking you to do?

1. Refuse to work overtime
Overtime allows the Department to mask how under resourced it really is allowing them to publicly make false claims that the department can meet its responsibilities with fewer staff.

2. Work 7.24 (or 7.12 in London) and no more

• Don’t work longer than your contracted hours. Refuse to be flexible to help out management. Insist on going home when you have worked your hours regardless of how much work there is still left to do.
• Refuse to travel distances that take you over your daily contracted hours.
• Switch off blackberry’s and lap tops and do not deal with emails or take calls outside your contracted hours.
• Under no circumstances work weekends or evenings.
• Under no circumstances work additional hours to deal with backlogs no matter how stressful it might feel to have work piling up – remember every one of your PCS colleagues will be in the same position.

3. Only do your job, not other people’s jobs as well
Employers rely on your goodwill to help cover other people’s jobs when they are off. Don’t do this! Insist on only doing your job. If it's not part of your normal job then refuse to do it. If formally instructed to do someone else’s job then insist that you only do their job and not your normal job as well. There is only one of you and that means only doing one job at a time. If you are a line manager only ask your staff to do their normal job. Don’t staff to other sections.

4. Don’t volunteer for unpaid deputising duties
Refuse to deputise to the next grade unless you are paid to do so. You cannot be required to do work at a level above your grade. This does not include work in the higher grade which you are paid for with temporary duties allowance (TDA).

5. Don’t volunteer for management focus groups or working parties
These kinds of events are normally over and above your normal job. Don’t volunteer to take part, if your manager insists you attend and you are forced to go to one of these meetings, don’t participate. Management cannot force you to contribute or participate in these groups.

6. Follow the correct procedures. Don’t take short cuts
The basic principle is that you should do your job “by the book”. Often members are asked to cut corners and ignore established procedures as a means of hitting targets. Don’t do this.
Every job has different procedures so you are best placed to recognise effective action here.
Some suggested activities to take include:

• Insist on seeing all relevant paperwork and verifications required
• Collect and collate statistics thoroughly and methodically.
• Insist on management clearance of work that is supposed to be authorised.

7. Don’t compromise on health or safety

• Follow all safety procedures fully.
• Take regular breaks from the computer – log off when you do so.
• Seek a workplace assessment for your workspace.
• Make sure you have read fire/bomb instructions.

8. Performance management (People Performance) work to rule
DWP People Performance was revised to match civil service employee policy for performance management following consultation, but not agreement, with PCS. Improvements were achieved in DWP but all PCS members are part of the current national dispute which demands significant improvements to the civil service policy for all members. A work to rule reinforces your rights under formal procedure and advice, safeguards your basic right to be awarded the rating you have achieved and supports the national campaign.

• Consuming time can be an effective form of opposition. Demand your rights and dispute all unacceptable decisions. You have every right to ensure that your performance is fairly assessed so that you are awarded the performance rating you have achieved. This can and will consume management time.
• Ask for training if you still have not been trained in the new system. If you are a manager ask for training as a manager as well as a member of staff. If you are not trained inform your manager that you cannot undertake People Performance duties.
• Demand disclosure of all evidence and records related to your performance. Lodge a Subject Access Request (SAR) under the Data Protection Act if refused.
• Demand regular review meetings – insist that your performance concerns are fully discussed and resolved.
• Demand your right to natural justice – any “must improve” allegation must be put to you with evidence to justify it – you must be allowed to know the case against you and be allowed to answer it and state your case.
• Demand that your work objectives be agreed with you. If they are unfair, unreasonable and imposed lodge a grievance.
• Demand your end-of-year rating be agreed. Your manager should discuss your rating with you using the Performance Wave Chart. Record a marking with your manager. Email them with a record of the discussion and the marking you agreed.
• Boycott instructions to rank staff and any ranking discussions. If instructed to do so ask for a formal instruction in writing and dispute it using the grievance procedures. DWP has no requirement or recommendation to rank staff.
• Boycott instructions to meet quotas for performance ratings. Ratings must not be changed or forced simply to meet the distribution. There can be 0% “must improve” ratings in your peer group when there is no evidence to justify this rating.
• Demand your right to a formal grievance and appeal hearing, with the right to be accompanied, to dispute unacceptable decisions.

9. Read your e-mails and the intranet

• Make sure that you catch up on unread e-mails and the various guides, e-learning modules and general information that is available on the Intranet. Many of these contain vital information about your terms and conditions of service that you may be completely unaware of.
• You are entitled to and encouraged by management to read this material in official time. Now is the time to make sure that you do.
• Access RM every day to ensure it's up to date. Finally get round to filling in your equality data on RM (this will take hours because non-one has ever ensured it's fit for purpose!).

10. Always take your breaks
Have regular breaks, make tea, and speak to colleagues about work and how the action is going.

11. Insist on full training
You should not be carrying out any job or task for which you have not received full and proper training.

Consider the e-learning modules on the intranet and undertake the e-learning you have missed because of work pressure to date.

12. Team meetings
All teams should have regular team meetings, usually at least once a week. Often these get cancelled due to other pressures. As part of the campaign, make sure your team meeting is held and that you take the opportunity to contribute to the meeting and raise questions.

13. Think of things to do yourselves
Action short of strike action has an endless number of possibilities for disruption and non co-operation. It means that normal behaviours, such as goodwill and flexibility are suspended while the dispute is on.

You and your colleagues are bound to think of other activities that can help the campaign. Remember, no-one knows more than you about what would most effectively impact upon the employer.
All voluntary procedures should be boycotted apart from training.

14. Finally, don’t get disciplined.
Push non co-operation and the withdrawal of goodwill as far as possible. But if directly instructed by a line manager to do a task, you should do it rather than be suspended or disciplined. Just remember to refuse to do any other task while doing the one instructed to do. Be sure to make your manager know you are only carrying out the task under duress and grudgingly.

It is not the intention of this action to cost members money or have them subject to disciplinary action.

If you need support or advice contact your local PCS representative.

DWP - All out on the 4th of June

Dear Colleagues and potential colleagues,

The purpose of this post is to inform members of the DWP wide strike action in the North West on the 4th June 2013 and as a reminder to members of the Civil Service wide overtime ban until 20th June 2013.

PCS has done everything possible to resolve the disputes over Jobs, Pensions, the Civil Service Compensation Scheme, and three more years of extreme pay restraint, however to date there has not been an acceptable outcome from the Government. We have seen our pay cut in real terms by the Government by up to 20%. This will increase over the next three years as inflation marches ahead of the 1% pay cap. In other areas of the Public Sector where Pay Progression was separately funded, the Government has now announced that they are going to take this off them; meaning that they will be treated equally as unfairly as members in the DWP.

We have already witnessed over three thousand job losses from the Fylde economy due to the Civil Service cuts in the area and even more are now in jeopardy and many members in the privatised areas are facing redundancy due to the majority of the DWP Norcross closing.

Our Pensions are under attack; we are being expected to pay more for our pensions (the public sector worker’s tax, with more threatened next year, and to work longer and receive less), the Government has now said that we will have to pay an additional 1.4% on National Insurance as the majority of members are in a defined benefits scheme.

And our redundancy terms have been cut so that it is cheaper to get rid of us.

We are being asked to pay for the financial mess created by the bankers and the financial speculators and spivs, with:

• our jobs
• our pay
• our pensions
• and, our conditions of service. 

The financial mess was none of our making. It’s their financial mess make them pay for it. It is time for members to show that they oppose the notion of being forced to pay for the excesses of the spivs.

Potential Members If you have not yet joined your Union, please complete the form at the link here or contact the Branch office on ext: 67400.

***DWP ON STRIKE ON THE 4th JUNE***

***OVERTIME BAN UNTIL 20th JUNE 2013***

Safety

The following three articles on workplace health and safety have been supplied by the TUC:
MPs warn about the working wounded
Employees are under pressure not to take sick leave entitlements when they're ill, Labour MPs have warned. The say job insecurity has left the UK workforce scared to take time off. Official figures show that the average number of sick days taken has fallen every year since the 2008 recession. Labour MP John McDonnell, quoted in the Guardian, said: 'High levels of unemployment and escalating job cuts in the public sector have created a climate of stressful insecurity at work. The result is that people who are unwell and should be taking time off sick are anxious about taking leave for fear of being victimised by managers or losing their job. This is completely counterproductive, as when people come in sick productivity falls and they infect colleagues.' MP Michael Meacher said the government was not doing enough to support employees: 'This is a government which regards sickness as a form of malingering. On top of job insecurity from rising unemployment and paring back of employment rights, is now added pressure on people to work even when ill." Figures from the Office of National Statistics show that the average number of days of sickness leave employees have taken has decreased from 5.6 per year in 2007 to 4.5 in 2011. Now, new research by Canada Life, suggests an average of just 4.1 sick days were taken last year. The research found that 93 per cent of workers would still go to work if they had a cold, while 80 per cent would attend despite stress-related illnesses; 81 per cent of those surveyed also said they thought they had become ill because another member of staff came into work when they were unwell.

HSE's independence is undermined by government
A decision by the government to impose an 'employee interests' representative on the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) board who did not have the support of trade unions has led to serious concerns about the independence of the official safety watchdog. The government is legally required to consult with 'bodies representing employee interests' before appointing the three employee board members, who have always been active trade unionists supported by the TUC. This year the TUC supported a candidate who is both on the TUC's general council and has an enviable track record on safety issues, Matt Wrack, the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU). The government instead hand-picked a retired union general secretary, Jonathan Baume, who had not been nominated by a single union. According to TUC head of organisation Kevin Rowan: 'The decision not to appoint Matt Wrack shows exactly what the government wants, which is a compliant board there to administer the organisation and make sure it delivers what the government wants. It wants to smother any independence and any challenge.' He said as a result 'we will end up with a board of professional committee-members', adding that with the exception of the two remaining union-nominated non-executive board members, all 'are either retired or semi-retired consultants.' He warned: 'The losers will not be the TUC, but the credibility of the government's claim to have an independent HSE and ultimately the workers whose lives and health will be put at risk.' Commenting on the government snub to Matt Wrack, the union's general secretary, FBU president Alan McLean said: 'The decision of the government not to appoint him suggests a serious weakening of any commitment to health and safety. Firefighters know very well that health and safety is not a matter for silly press stories - it is frequently a matter of life and death. The government's decision further threatens the future of health and safety provision for workers in the UK.'

Cameron's 'stupid and dangerous' move on safety
The TUC's top safety expert has branded the government's latest move to relax workplace safety controls as 'stupid and dangerous'. Hugh Robertson said the Deregulation Bill announced in the 8 May Queen's speech will pave the way for self-employed workers 'who pose no risks to others' to be removed from the scope of the Health and Safety at Work Act. According to the TUC head of safety, the move makes no sense, as the law only requires action to prevent risks; if there is no risk, then there is no problem to solve. Instead, the government is introducing a system where the self-employed will be unsure of their legal position - and this confusion could be deadly. 'Given that the most dangerous industries all have a high proportion of self-employed people in them (agriculture, construction etc) anything that confuses the situation is a recipe for disaster,' he warns. 'The government will say that these people in dangerous industries are not exempted and if you ask who is exempted they come up with examples like a novelist who works in their own home. Yes, but the novelist in their own home is only covered now if they put someone at risk. That will not change. What will change is that hundreds of thousands of other people simply will not know whether they are covered.' Robertson concludes: 'This stupid and dangerous proposal is being done in the name of reducing burdens. How it is going to remove any burdens is beyond me. It does not actually change the situation for those who genuinely do not pose a risk to others and only creates complete confusion for all the other self-employed. Instead it is an ideological move from a government that is solely interested in deregulation, or even worse, the illusion of deregulation, regardless of the cost. No-one is claiming that it will do anything to improve health and safety and it certainly is not going to simplify anything.' TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said: 'Taking the protection of health and safety laws away from some of the UK's many self-employed workers - who are more than twice as likely as employees to be killed at work - will not help businesses nor grow our economy one bit. It's a recipe for confusion as many people will now be unsure about their rights and responsibilities. The result is likely to be an increase in workplace accidents.'

Politicising the civil service

The following has ben supplied by PCS HQ:
The Department for Education has been in the news a lot recently, and not necessarily for the reasons secretary of state Michael Gove would have wanted.

Gove’s U-turn on scrapping GCSEs coincided with revelations about a substantial financial settlement following a long-running grievance that involved some of Gove’s closest advisers; And the Guardian newspaper has revealed management consultancy Bain and Company was not only brought in to work for free last year to help draw up plans for a major restructuring, but has also been handed a place on a senior committee overseeing the changes.

This “review” concluded the department could and should go further than the spending cuts required by Chancellor George Osborne. So the DfE now plans to cut 50% of its admin budget, axe a quarter of its workforce and close six of its 12 UK offices.

While maintaining the fiction that the department is not in “a redundancy situation” – something our lawyers have pointed out is “mystifying” – senior managers have stated that “poor performers” will be “speedily managed out” using a new performance management system.

The DfE is a department in a hurry and, make no mistake, what happens here matters.

Rapid and seismic shifts
We believe Gove has been given free rein to test out a model of a skeletal civil service, stripped of many of its functions and acting more as a light-touch enabler for the private and voluntary sectors.

The signs are that his cherished free schools and academies agenda is being prioritised over other important public services, including child protection and special educational needs. And, instead of being responsible for a comprehensive education system, the future DfE would focus on basic support to academies and free schools.

In response to these rapid and seismic shifts our members in the DfE voted for, and have started, a programme of industrial action.

This has so far led to walkouts and a work to rule, including non-compliance with the performance management regime, which one senior human resources manager complained they were ‘not happy with’, could be a breach of contract and would “disrupt” the work of the department. We did point out that was the intention.

As our members are fighting back in the workplace, Gove’s wider political project is now coming under increasing scrutiny from MPs and some sections of the media – though at the time of writing the secretary of state’s plans continue to be praised in the right wing press of course.

• 25% Planned reduction in staff
• 50% Cut to admin budget
• 6 offices to close out of a total of 12

Injury Move

The following has been supplied by the TUC.

Injury move 'a charter for rogue employers'
A government plan that will make it harder for workers to claim legitimate compensation for injuries at work has been criticised by Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspectors' union Prospect. The union condemnation came after a 16 April vote by MPs to over-rule the House of Lords and go ahead with plans to remove the right to use criminal breaches of safety law by an employer as grounds for a personal injury compensation claim by a worker suffering an occupational injury or disease. The government amendment to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill had been throw out by peers in a close vote last month, but was reinstated by MPs in a 316 to 241 House of Commons vote. It now goes back to the House of Lords on 22 April. Prospect health and safety officer Sarah Page said: 'The government's proposals to remove civil liability from breaches of health and safety law will make it harder, if not impossible, for people with legitimate claims to be compensated. It signals Victorian neglect for injured workers and plays to rogue employers, who will willingly leave our already overstretched health services to pick up the pieces.' She added: 'This is a miserable decision by a government that is spinning the myth of a compensation culture which even its own advisers have said doesn't exist.'

Compensation move puts ideology over justice
The passage last week of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act means workers will only be able to claim compensation for a workplace injury or disease if they can demonstrate employer negligence, even if it is accepted that employer had broken criminal safety laws. 'It is a bit like if a burglar enters your home to burgle you, and when they are nicking your TV they knock over a valuable vase and the insurer demands that you prove that the burglar was negligent in knocking over the vase,' TUC head of safety Hugh Robertson explained in the Stronger Unions blog. 'It is about bare, raw political ideology from the anti-worker pro-business Tory hawks.' He said claims compensation is out of control are 'rubbish. In fact compensation claims by workers have been falling for over 15 years and are usually considered to be lower than in most other industrialised countries. A TUC report a few years ago showed that only about 1 in 8 workers who is likely to be liable for compensation actually claimed.' He added that the cost of compensation claims to employers and insurers can drive safety improvements. 'The bill may now be law but that is not the end of things,' he wrote. 'Unions will continue to support workers and to take compensation claims and are likely to challenge this ridiculous and reactionary law by taking a complaint to Europe on the grounds that workers are being denied any recourse to compensation when they are injured because an employer has committed a criminal act. This battle may have been lost but the fight goes on.'

Hands Off our Welfare State

The following has been supplied by PCS HQ.
PCS is campaigning to keep a fair and just welfare state and oppose the government’s brutal welfare changes that penalise the poor.

We know from pay surveys that many members claim tax credits, child benefit, disability living allowance and other benefits that supplement their income.

The welfare state, which was established to provide social security to those unable to work is being dismantled through privatisation. The government is waging an ideological war on the welfare state.

Fighting the attacks on social security benefits is a key part of our national campaign. When tens of thousands of civil service jobs are being cut, we know people are made unemployed through no fault of their own.

Large cuts
Large welfare cuts were imposed from 1 April. This is not about cutting the deficit, but paying for tax breaks to millionaires and big business. To justify these cuts, the government is spreading myths about the ‘lazy’ unemployed and those unable to work, trying to create prejudice and division. But the reality is cuts will affect those in work as well those not in work. 

Just as the government tried to divide public and private sector workers, so it is trying to divide those in work from those out of work. Most of the changes are being brought in under the deceptively named ‘Universal Credit’ (UC) – a single benefit that combines jobseeker’s allowance, employment and support allowance, income support, housing benefit and tax credits. It will be frozen at an uprating of just 1% in its initial years – effectively a cut. 

As UC is phased in across the UK over the next four years, parents with young children, carers, disabled people and those with mental health issues face tougher tests to qualify for benefits. If they fail they could be cut off without support.

For the first time since our welfare state was introduced, the principle of people having a right to welfare is being undermined. Many of the changes will hit women, BME groups and disabled people hardest. 

Limited access
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) wants 80% of UC claims to be made online – but nearly 20% of adults and 32.8% of disabled adults have never used the internet and many more do not have regular access.

PCS believes the best way to help people claim the benefits they are entitled to, and help them back into work where appropriate, is through face-to-face contact.

Unique threats to PCS members
It is a shocking fact that 40% of the DWP staff who work on UC receive some form of it and may be assessed and sanctioned by their own colleagues. To compound the problems, automating functions currently carried out by staff could lead to massive job cuts at DWP and HMRC.

The terms and conditions of staff being moved between HMRC and DWP have not been guaranteed. Long-term provision of UC has not been decided, leaving open a real risk of privatisation. If UC goes live with an inadequate IT system, there are likely to be severe delays to benefit payments and greater staff stress will result.

Campaign objectives
Our key objectives of a united campaign include organising a week of activities around welfare as part of the national campaign from 29 April to 5 May. This includes highlighting our alternative vision for welfare and protecting public service delivery, while defending members’ jobs from cuts and privatisation.

We are also stressing the need to defend claimants’ rights and entitlements and bust welfare myths put forward by the government and sections of the media.

Campaign activities have already taken place – on 13 March. PCS supported a demonstration organised by campaign group Disabled People Against the Cuts to challenge the closure of the Independent Living Fund.

Protesters were outside the High Court to support six disabled people challenging the fund’s closure. A joint rally with Unite is also due to take place on 29 April in Manchester – one of the places UC is being trialled before being rolled out nationally in October this year.

• DWP wants 80% of Universal Credit (UC) claims to be made online
• Nearly 20% of adults and 32.8% of disabled adults have never used the internet
• 40% of DWP staff who work on UC receive some form of it and may be assessed and sanctioned by their own colleagues

Does the government want child labour on farms?

The following has been supplied by the TUC
The abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board (AWB) could lead to the re-emergence of child labour on British farms, an international union representing agricultural workers has warned. The warning from IUF came ahead of a 16 April Commons vote on the future of the AWB, which has protected the incomes of 150,000 agricultural workers since the second world war. In a letter to work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, IUF general secretary Ron Oswald wrote: 'We believe there is a strong possibility that the abolition of the AWB will make children more vulnerable to exploitation in agriculture.' AWB sets minimum pay rates for children of compulsory school age, and higher rates of pay for the over 16s than the national minimum wage. Unite national officer for agriculture Julia Long said: 'The IUF letter reinforces Unite's case that the board's abolition could herald poverty wages on the land; very suspect employment practices; and the real possibility of child labour being exploited shamelessly by ruthless bosses.' Unite, an IUF affiliate, is lobbying intensively in the run-up to the 16 April vote by MPs on the government amendment to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform bill that seeks to abolish the AWB.

New TUC Site

Mary Doolin the National Equality Co-ordinator in the Legal, Equality, Education, Policy & Support office of PCS has advised us that the TUC have launched a new blog for women over 50, which may be of interest to some of our members.

The site can be found here: http://ageimmaterial.org/