Budget Day Civil Service Strike
Stillshooter | 24.03.2010 13:46 | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements | Liverpool
PCS Members outside Jobcentre Plus Offices.
A wave at support from passing motorists.
PCS Valuation Office Strikers.
Strikers gain support from the passing public.
Inland Revenue workers on picket duty.
Today’s strike, the first ever on budget day, involves Prison workers, Jobcentre staff, tax workers, passport staff, court officials, Ministry of Defence workers and driving test examiners. The stoppage will also see civilian staff and 999 operators working for the Met Police walking out as well as security staff working in the Houses of Parliament.
Serious Organised Crime Agency officers will also strike affecting operations.
Wales will see a budget day demonstration and rally on the steps of Senedd, Cardiff Bay from 12 noon to 4:00pm. The last two day stoppage saw the cancellation of business in the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament as assembly members and MSP refused to cross picket lines.
Commenting, Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: "It is no coincidence that PCS members are striking on budget day to defend jobs and services. As the government seeks to make it easier and cheaper for whoever wins the election to cut civil and public servants, we can expect a drive to slash jobs which will ultimately lead to poorer services.
“Loyal civil servants have already seen the damage that a 100,000 job cuts has wrought and will not stand by and allow the jobs and services they are proud to deliver slashed”
In the budget, the government has an opportunity to stamp out tax avoidance and evasion by companies and wealthy individuals. Alongside dealing with uncollected taxes, this would provide over £100bn towards cutting the deficit.
"The government needs to start valuing its own workforce by standing up for public services and reaching an agreement on redundancy pay that protects people’s entitlements."
Stillshooter
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Comments
Hide the following 6 comments
The very fabric of state oppression
24.03.2010 15:36
PRISON WORKERS who imprison for our beliefs; animal rights, anti war, civl liberties, anti tax protesters just to mention a few.
TAX WORKERS who have collected the money for the bombs used against Iraqi children and continue to collect the money for killing people in Afghanistan, not to mention collecting money to pay the police to arbitrarily arrest us and beet us should we decent. No choice, refuse to pay; go straight to jail. Is that what passes for democracy?
PASSPORT STAFF. Why should we need pasports? To stop illegal aliens coming into our imperial state? (especially refugees from the WARS the GOVERNMENT SERVANTS have imposed),
COURT OFFICIALS inforcing the mall practice of a corrupt judicial and law system which tries its best to prevent fair and just trials with fair and just juries, instead to impose the will of an government elite.
MINISTRY OF ATTACK we could live without these people.
In fact quite a lot of people could have lived if it wasn't for these people.
SERIOUS ORGANIZED CRIME (like protest in parliament square) and MET POLICE get real, who supports them?
Did any of these people go on strike to stop the WAR-OF-TERROR waged upon the middle east? If they had, the war could not have gone ahead.
No they will only strike for their own self interest.
Sorry we don't need you. Your jobs in this oppressive state system must go!
ANARCHIST
Essential services or back to the Dark Ages
24.03.2010 18:02
these people keep murders, rapists and pedos locked up to protect us.
They also look after people's health in prison by providing hot food and shelter.
Do you want a rapist to hang around a school waiting for a victim or do you want them kept away from our children?
TAX WORKERS
A lot of tax money isn't spent on bombs. Its spent on schools, the NHS and community services.
PASSPORT STAFF. Why should we need pasports? To stop illegal aliens coming into our imperial state?
Yes. Name one country that doesn't have a passport system or borders. Borders have been around for 1000s of years and are pretty much hardwired into all animal, reptilian and insect lifeforms. What are you proposing, to wipe out millions of years of evolution?
COURT OFFICIALS
These people convict the murders, rapists, pedos and thieves and are a key point in protecting the rest of us from them. Why protect these people? they should be kept away from our children.
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
We will always need defence. No one knows when. What do you want, for the nazis to just walk in and put us all in death camps? Is that what you want?
SERIOUS ORGANIZED CRIME (like protest in parliament square) and MET POLICE get real, who supports them?
Lots of people. The majority of people. To police the reprobates who don't pull their weight. And they are essential to putting the murders, rapists, pedos and thieves into prison to protect the rest of us from them. What do you want? For murders to waltz around killing whoever they like? Is that the world you want?
Paul
Class
24.03.2010 18:55
I went to support my local job centre picket line but found the door locked. There were some people stood outside; I asked if they were pickets but they were wanting to sign on. I pointed out that it's a good idea to stay inside your workplace to stop scabs getting in. They asked what the strike was about and I said it was against job losses. They weren't very sympathetic; they saw job centre staff having to sign on as karma.
It's important to support the action but not to support the institution the workers are taking action against.
BA workers (2010)
Sun workers (1986)
Miners strike...
Action
"Support the action but..."
24.03.2010 23:36
Exactly.
Most of the strikers are people who have no income except what they can get from selling their labour. By the classic definition this makes them working class, and exploited by the system they work for. Prison officers and police officers might, some of them, be bullying scum with too much power for their narrow mindset, but not quite all. And prison officers' pay is shit.
Court staff include the administrators and clerks and security staff, they are not corrupt - they don't exactly have an opportunity to be - and for the most part neither are the lawyers or judges. I happen to work in the county court some of the time, and this is essentially concerned with mediating disputes between people, whether that's people who owe money to somebody, want a divorce, have child custody issues, can't get on with their neighbours, or can't get the landlord to do repairs. People come into conflict with each other and we will always need something resembling a court service, no matter what kind of a society we live in.
The ordinary people who run these services are having their future security undermined by a State that wants to make them 'pay' for the recession by increasing their exploitation. And that will lead to worse services for the other ordinary people who use them, because disgruntled and exploited staff will go off sick more often, or simply leave.
Annie Citizen
Homepage:
http://www.rightsandwrongsuk.blogspot.com
support them
26.03.2010 16:33
Davey
About time
27.03.2010 10:17
Why should the majority of us pay for fantastic redundancy payments for Civil Service staff which are much higher than we'll ever get if we are laid off?
The government sets minimum levels of redundancy pay. If these are good enough for the private sector taxpayers who fund the Civil Service they should be good enough for the government's own employees. It is a scandal that the government chooses to make superbly generous redundancy payments simply because it has a guaranteed income which it can enforce by law.
Pete