On the back of a successful day of strike action on 20th March, members of the PCS union working in government departments across the civil service plan a further walk-out for half a day on Friday 5th April. The dispute is over the Tory-lead government plans of more job cuts, holding down wages, and the ripping-up of hard fought for terms and conditions.
On the back of a successful day of strike action on 20th March, members of the PCS union working in government departments across the civil service plan a further walk-out for half a day on Friday 5th April. The dispute is over the Tory-lead government plans of more job cuts, holding down wages, and the ripping-up of hard fought for terms and conditions.
Strike
With the prospect of a drawn out dispute and staff taking imaginative forms of industrial action the Home Office have broken rank and instigated a management lockout on members of PCS union.
In a global email to all staff, the Home Office have set out that PCS members’ planning to take a half day of industrial action on the 5th April will be penalised with the loss of a full day’s pay. Furthermore, they have told staff planning to take any form of industrial action, including walk-outs or short stoppages, that they should not turn up to work at all as they won’t get paid. In effect they have enforced a management lockout. The reason they have given for this is they claim staff will have only “partially performed” their duties. The union have committed to challenge any move by management to refuse to pay staff for hours they have worked.
In an extract from a briefing issued to PCS members shortly after managements’ announcement, Mike Jones – PCS Home Office group secretary – stated:
“It is bad enough that management have resorted to tactics reminiscent of the Dublin Lock-Out of exactly a hundred years ago – but such is the level of their bungling disorganisation, they cannot even manage to agree to apply their nasty little policy across the entire Department. Home Office staff working in the Identity and Passport Service will only be deducted a half day’s pay for their part in the walk out; and even more ridiculously, Home Office staff working in the UK Border Agency (UKBA) Public Enquiry Office will also only be deducted a half day’s pay. So some UKBA staff will lose a half day’s pay; and some will potentially lose a full day – even though they will have worked precisely the same hours”.
PCS fight back
At an emergency meeting called last Thursday, involving senior union reps in the Home Office and the PCS national disputes committee, a decision was made on how to respond to this act of aggression by the employer. Late on Thursday afternoon, PCS served further notice to the Home Office stating that they were not only going to go ahead with the planned half day of strike action on the 5th April, but they were now going to be taking members out for a further full day of strike action on Monday 8th April.
PCS have also changed its notice for the 5th April for shift workers. Members will now be called on to not turn up for work for the first half of their shift, instead of the planned walk out midway through their shift.
Further confusion and disruption to employer
This latest form of strike action called by the PCS will mean that all the contingency plans that the employer had been putting in place for 5th April will have to be changed. It will also hinder the plans of scabs they have been scrambling round to find to cover all the borders at UK ports and airports including disrupting the ferry terminals in northern France.
The additional day of strike action planned for Monday 8th April will cause a further headache and stretch the resolve of the scabs as the employer tries to now persuade them to cover for another day too. This action is set to cause major disruption and chaos to the department.
Increased management aggression
Regular readers of Socialist Appeal and visitors to the website will be aware of the increasingly hostile attitude from Home Office management towards PCS union as the government department has looked to victimise a number of union representatives recently.
PCS are still in dispute over a case whereby a young rep Kevin Smith was sacked after he complained about being bullied by his managers. The overtime ban and work-to-rule to press for his reinstatement at his workplace in Liverpool is having a major impact on the UK Boarder Agency (UKBA) with them being unable to deal with immigration cases and permanent migration backlogs have not been shifted.
Under pressure from PCS members’ action, Mark Sedwill, the Home Office permanent secretary, has now written to the union to state he will now personally review both Kevin Smith’s case and that of another PCS rep. However the permanent secretary has not committed to meet with the union prior to looking at these cases and hear their representations. As a result, the PCS union have refused to call off their industrial action and the dispute continues.
Break-up of UKBA
Senior managers in the Home Office are still reeling after a further lambasting in Parliament by the Home Affairs select committee for their failure to deal with the massive backlogs. This has now led to the breakup of the UKBA. However the statement on the closing of the UKBA by the Home Secretary was short on detail and short on action. The government’s ‘new’ plans will change nothing and immigration cases will continue to build.
The only solution to deal with the crisis within immigration is to put in extra resources. Thousands of jobs have been lost due to ill thought out Tory cuts that have completely backfired. These decisions need to be reversed and the only solution will be the recruitment of hundreds of new permanent staff to help get on top of the backlogs of immigration cases.
Next steps
PCS have contacted Shadow Cabinet ministers to come out in support staff and to put pressure on the Home Office to halt their plans to enforce a lockout over planned industrial action. PCS have also received support from Paul Nowak, Assistant General Secretary of the TUC, who has committed to raise this issue at the highest level within the TUC.
PCS will be publishing the names of all the managers involved in this decision and will be highlighting this to the press.
Mark Serwotka PCS general secretary has written to Home Office calling on them to withdraw their threat of deducting a full day’s pay from PCS members choosing to take a half day of strike action on the 5th April.
Failure on the part of the employer to back down will see PCS members across Home Office taking strike action on the 8th March causing chaos at UK borders and snarling up immigration casework.
