Fighting Low Pay

Civil service strike

Fighting Low Pay

Defend jobs

JOBCENTRE AND benefit office staff will be on strike
against low pay on 16 and 17 February, whilst Department for Work and
Pensions (DWP) management’s plans to cut 18,000 jobs have been exposed.

"Most people in the DWP think we haven’t got enough
staff to do the job now", PCS national executive committee member Rob
Williams
told the socialist.

These 85,000 members of the Public and Commercial
Services Union (PCS) will be joined on strike by administrators from the
Driving Standards Agency (DSA) on 16 and 17 February and driving examiners
on 17 February.

Talks with the (DWP) management broke down after PCS
suspended strike action to allow negotiations on an improved pay offer and
the divisive and unpopular PDS appraisal system.

John McInally, from the PCS DWP executive
explained: "Members hate this appraisal system; it will be a disaster for
members and is being resisted in offices up and down the country…
Management were told that unless this was to be part of the negotiation
then the strike would go ahead. Management agreed, in writing, to
negotiate relative assessment at the last minute. But management were not
sincere about serious negotiations."

Their performance appraisal system is central to the
leaked plans to cut 18,000 jobs by 2006.

Staff are insulted about the poverty pay they have to
live on. "I was talking to a new member this morning," Rob Williams told
us.

"He has just started in the DWP having been made
redundant from his previous job. He’s an admin officer with a starting
salary of about £12,000, half of what he used to get. He thought for that
money the job must be dead easy. But he’s been shocked at how difficult
the job is and how much responsibility he’s expected to bear. And the
department demand a lot in terms of professionalism and integrity, all for
the sort of money you’d get stacking shelves in Tescos."

Resolute strike action, following the success of the
strikes in the courts, Home Office and other departments at the end of
last month, will show management they cannot get away with their plans.

The PCS campaign for a return to national pay and
conditions is vital to ensure that members do not pay for management’s
plans with their jobs as well as their pay and working conditions.