MARK SERWOTKA, the general secretary of the Civil Service union PCS, won the strongest reaction yet from the TUC’s annual conference when he condemned the Government for poor employment practice over its plans to cut 104,000 civil service jobs.
Mr Serwotka won a standing ovation with his attacks on the Government for announcing “on national TV” that 20 per cent of the civil service would be cut , referring to the Chancellor’s plans in the Comprehensive Spending Review.
The PCS leader said the move was “party politics at its worst” after Labour had followed the Conservatives in announcing that tens of thousands of civil servants could be axed. He described the cuts, which still have to be detailed, as “disgraceful butchery” and said they were “not based on evidence of overstaffing but were cuts for cuts sake”.
Advertisement
The TUC voted to co-ordinate campaigns against the job cuts including linking up on industrial action, demonstrating at parliament and lobbying the Chancellor. Dave Prentis, general secretary of the public services union Unison, said that PCS would win support from other unions although co-ordinated action “may be some way down the road”.
It is illegal to walk out on sympathy strikes but unions could co-ordinate strikes over a variety of issues to strengthen the impact of each action.
Earlier this week PCS said that it would ballot for a national strike on November 5 unless it won assurances that there would be no compulsory job cuts or forced relocations out of London and the south east to the regions.
Mr Serwotka warned that the Government risked doing a “British Airways” and leaving itself with too few staff to carry out services: “It is one thing having your flight to New York cancelled, but it is another if it is your benefit, your pension, or your tax credit. It’s another if it is protecting the country against the influx of drugs and it’s another if you rely on your winter fuel allowance to keep warm.”
He warned that job cuts of more than 100,000 would lead to more privatisation in the civil service because much of the work done by those employees would still have to be carried out.
Advertisement
The confrontation between the union and the Government over the job cuts follows more than a year of acrimonious relations over pay.
This year PCS has staged three two-day walkouts in the Department for Work and Pensions over an imposed pay increase and controversial bonus scheme. It has co-ordinated some of those strikes with action in other departments such as the Home Office.