The PCS Union is running out of patience with the Government over unacceptable delays in receiving national guidance for Civil Servants' 2009/10 pay offer. The delays are against the agreement made during talks last November.
"Our general secretary has written to ministers, and lead negotiators in our civil and public service bargaining areas have been asked to raise the issue with permanent secretaries and chief executive officers, to make the point that the delay in issuing the remit has led to unacceptable delays in the bargaining process."
The current economic crisis brings fears that there will be a fresh clampdown on public sector pay, which could be announced as part of the budget. PCS also needs to address the propaganda that is peddled by the press against public sector workers.
"One of the key tasks for us is to counter increasing propaganda in the press that is clearly designed to pit the private sector against the public sector. We will be working hard to rebut the inaccurate way in which public sector pay is reported."
"We need to confront these attacks both in the media and by campaigning politically to give the lie to the artificial divide that some are trying to create between public and private.In a recession, communities need adequately resourced public services more than ever.Meanwhile PCS is urging members in one Department to vote against the pay offer that is on the table. This offer, which is separate from the national agreement, is seen as divisive and suggests amongst other things a pay cut for some of the lowest paid staff. The shortening of pay scales will also mean that many members will lose out by being pushed back to the bottom of their pay band. Even though the offer has not yet been accepted, the Department has elected to impose the offer with effect from 1st May 2009 thereby forcing PCS to ballot its members and recommend that they reject the pay offer. Full details can be found here.
Our campaigning will be supported by detailed research into civil and public service pay to challenge the myth that average public sector pay is increasing, while private sector pay is falling."
7 comments:
Keep fighting, Cherie!
Do you think there should even be pay bands?
Welshcakes - I don't think there is much chance of me stopping!
James - I think we established my views on that over at your blog recently ;-)
With a median income for civil servants well below the national average wage, with ever worsening working conditions I just don;t understand why so many colleagues are not union members.
It pisses me off to hear and see lazy hack commentators still crap on about lazy overpaid pen pushers
Jams - I don't understand it either. At our place they can't even say that it's because we can't make a difference because we have a proven track record of doing just that.
Yes the me media really annoy me too, luckily we have some good contacts too.
When councils start making their cutbacks because of reduced budgets, it's quite likely that there will be redundancies. The worst is certainly not over.
Ellee - Yes,things are set to get worse. There are more challenges ahead!
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