Department for work and pensions:

Defend jobs and services:

Build for action

TALKS BETWEEN the Group Officers of the civil service union PCS and
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) management have failed to avert
the strike called for 26 and 27 January, in defence of jobs, services
and conditions.

John McInally, PCS DWP Group assistant secretary and national executive committee,
personal capacity

Management refused the central union demand for a moratorium (or
halt) in the cuts while a review is held to assess their impact – which
includes major service delivery problems affecting some of the most
vulnerable people in society.

15,000 jobs have already been cut and another 15,000 are due to go by
2008. Management are refusing to guarantee this will not mean compulsory
redundancies.

To add insult to injury, management are also pressing ahead with
attacks on terms and conditions on, for example, managing attendance.

The union demands are not about stopping "change" as management spin
would have it but about protecting the delivery of vital services. These
services are being damaged or destroyed by the implementation of an
agenda that is being driven by the ideological mania to cut staffing
levels in the name of "efficiency".

PCS is campaigning to raise awareness of what is taking place in DWP.
The union will be giving evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee
that is looking into the "modernisation" programme in DWP.

Management can resolve this dispute by agreeing our demand for a
moratorium and review and by working with PCS on our other demands about
staffing, terms and conditions and no compulsory redundancies.

If management are not interested in listening to PCS’s reasonable
demands then there is no choice but to build for the maximum turnout on
26 and 27 January and make the strike effective.