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Dear Colleague
Sir Gus O’Donnell, Head of the Civil Service, has called on PCS members not to
vote ‘yes’ in the national ballot on action over the compensation scheme and has
stated that other unions have accepted the changes to the scheme proposed by
the government.
Despite previously saying that it had reached its ‘final position’, the government
has, as Sir Gus says, moved from its original draconian proposals and offered
some degree of protection to some existing civil and public servants. These
concessions have been won by the resolute opposition of PCS members over
18,000 of whom emailed the Cabinet Office opposing the government’s plans to
slash their entitlement to redundancy payments and by the lobbying amongst
MPs carried out by the union, 138 of whom have signed an early day motion
calling on the government to change course. The concessions would still leave
many thousands of PCS members unprotected, however.
PCS represents almost three times the number of civil and public servants than
the other unions combined. It is no surprise that the other unions have accepted
the proposals. Some of them would have accepted even the original proposals and
have since then argued for each new proposal to be accepted despite the
detrimental effect on the majority of staff.
But the latest proposals leave a very large proportion of PCS members
unprotected. The details will be available on the PCS website. As a union which
stands for fairness and solidarity, we have decided that we must continue to try
to find a settlement which covers all our members, not just some.
Moreover, accepting such divisive cuts in so many people’s entitlements, as the
other unions have done, would weaken the whole union and make job losses and
compulsory redundancy much more likely at a time when we know that the
major political parties are planning such cuts.
The latest proposals made by Cabinet Office were, in fact, conditional on PCS
giving up its right to seek legal protection in the courts. We cannot accept that
and we will press ahead this week with a judicial review along with NIPSA, a
sister union.
We must continue to build pressure on the government to come to a fair
agreement. PCS has identified ways the government could save money while also
protecting members’ entitlements. Sir Gus says he has moved a considerable way
from the original proposals made last summer. If we are united we can move him
further towards a settlement that will protect all PCS members from
redundancy.
We urge you to vote `yes’ to both questions in the ballot and ensure that Sir Gus
sits down with PCS and talks about how to avoid a dispute, without crude
attempts to divide us.
Yours sincerely,
Mark Serwotka Janice
Godrich
General Secretary
President