Saturday 8 August 2009

News round up

Immigration officers set strike date

THE CIVIL service union PCS warned last Wednesday that over 1,200 immigration officers could be taking part in a 24 hour strike on 5th August should further talks with UK Border Agency (UKBA) management fail in a dispute over job content, working practices and shift patterns.
Further talks are scheduled for this Friday aimed at resolving the dispute, which centres on plans by UKBA to force immigration officers to undertake duties and work performed by customs officers, as well as imposing changes to shift patterns which could see immigration officer’s wages cut.
Immigration officers are angry over moves by UKBA to force them to carry out duties which they weren’t employed for, such as strip searches and law enforcement duties, as the agency seeks to merge the jobs of customs officers and immigration officers.
The union isn’t against change but believes that immigration officers should be able to choose whether or not to undertake customs duties and will be pressing management for assurances on job roles, working practices and shift patterns.
The Home Office group executive section of the union which covers immigration officers will be on standby to meet in the event that talks produce an acceptable offer of settlement.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "Immigration officers are angry at being forced to do a job that they weren’t recruited to do. We are not against change, but there needs to be a recognition that immigration and customs officers have separate specialist roles and duties"

PCS anger at job outsourcing


THE CIVIL service union PCS last Wednesday reacted angrily to the news that the Government intends to outsource more than 100 finance and IT jobs at the British Council to India as part of a massive cost-cutting exercise.
The decision to recruit local Indian workers to fill finance and IT posts has infuriated unions, who fear that this could be the blueprint for Whitehall.
It is believed to be the first time that the Civil Service or a quango has directly exported jobs to save costs. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which funds the British Council, is exploring similar options.
A spokesperson said that administrative jobs could be carried out by local staff in regional hubs overseas.
PCS said that the British Council decision went against Gordon Brown’s stated principle of “British jobs for British people” and could not be justified during a recession.
The council, which promotes British culture and language abroad, said that 500 of its 1,300 British workers would have to go in the next 18 months to save £45 million.
More than a fifth of these posts are to be filled in India and the body plans to bring some of the Indian recruits over to “shadow” finance staff in Manchester.

Sunday 28 June 2009

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Wednesday 17 June 2009

PCS ponders the future


By Andy Brooks

Brighton was once again the venue for the annual conference of Britain’s largest-civil service union and the sixth biggest in the country. Delegates representing some 320,000 members in the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) gathered at the south coast resort last May to pass a host of worthy and progressive bread-and-butter motions and welcome the new national executive elected by a postal ballot that was an overwhelming vote of confidence for the left-led Democracy Alliance platform. The left held the deputy and assistant general secretary posts, retained the presidency and vice-presidency and the ineffectual right-wing opposition was reduced to just one seat on the NEC. On the face of it this would seem to be a remarkable victory for the left. But behind the scenes there are causes for concern.
Though the Democracy Alliance notched up another electoral victory – the seventh on the run – the turn-out was low. Only 9.5 per cent of the membership bothered to vote, a drop of two per cent from last year and that should send alarm bells ringing amongst the leadership, which is dominated by members of the former Trotskyist Militant Tendency now organised around the Socialist Party.
Though the senior officer elections were won by the left-led slate the incumbents were hit by an anti-full-timer vote. Deputy General Secretary Hugh Lanning, a veteran careerist, was seriously challenged by a maverick left candidate while a relatively unknown right-winger came within 200 votes of toppling Assistant General Secretary Chris Baugh, a leading member of the Socialist Party.
The charismatic general secretary Mark Serwotka, of course, dominated conference, and he rounded on the City, MPs and the government over the expenses scandal and the handling of the economy in his opening speech to main conference.
Serwotka launched his re-election campaign at conference during the week and over 300 delegates packed a hall to pledge support for him at the forthcoming poll this November. The Socialist Party rally was also dutifully supported by many delegates. But attendance at other fringe political meetings was well-down on last year.
John McDonnell, the leader of the Labour Representation Committee, is also the chair of the PCS parliamentary group and his address to conference summed up the bitterness, anger and frustration of the membership at the sleaze culture that revolves around Westminster. He demanded a sea-change in the entire British political system and called on PCS to reach out to other unions to build the new agenda for fundamental change in favour of working people. Though this was met with rapturous applause the leadership are following a slightly different path.
PCS, like its predecessors in the amalgamated union, is not an affiliate of the Labour Party. and the Democracy Alliance as a whole is pursuing the illusory path of the “left alternative”.
The Alliance is a big tent of factions that came from the three civil service unions that finally united in 1998 to create PCS. Led by the Socialist Party it includes its Trotskyist rivals in the Socialist Workers Party and what once was the Scottish Socialist Party; the revisionist Communist Party of Britain and even a section of the old right-wing Membership First bloc which includes at least one prominent Liberal Democrat. Bizarrely enough the only forces, like the NCP, that directly support the Labour Representation Committee or still work within the Labour Party are in the maverick “Independent Left” that walked out of the big tent last year over the pay campaign.
The right-wing For the Members (4TM) faction, a motley crew led by former Blairites, may have little to offer members but the Democratic Alliance itself is going down a blind alley of its own with the “Make Your Vote Count” campaign which aims to funnel union support for trade union candidates, opposed to Labour, in the general election. All sorts of nonsense was said by leading members of the Socialist Party, who should know better, about the supposed support for this on the street, when this was debated. Though the European elections had not yet taken place the miserable vote obtained by No2EU and the other left social-democratic slates could have easily been predicted.
Solidarity with the Palestinian Arabs was highlighted when guest speakers Fathi Naser and Hana Joma,from the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) told delegates about the reality of trade union life under the thumb of the Israeli occupation that opened a debate on a solidarity motion condemning the Israeli attack on Gaza which was overwhelming passed.
Pay is, of course, the paramount issue for the membership and it’s become the Achilles heel of the leadership. Last year the union called off a series of planned protest strikes and accepted a deal which they claimed was a “breakthrough” that would lead to considerable improvements in the future. In practice all it’s done is provide a cover for departments to impose the miserable pittances they intended to implement in the first place.
The problem is simply that the only way the employer – and we’re talking about the State in most cases – could be forced to seriously negotiate with PCS is under the threat of an all-out indefinite strike. That is beyond the reach of PCS, or indeed any other union in the country. Few are ready to endure the immense hardship of a prolonged struggle these days and most believe it wouldn’t work anyway. But that’s the point. What members fear is not lost wages as such – victory would get it back and more – but struggle which ends in hardship and defeat, like what happened to the miners in 1985.
The Serwotka leadership chose the only other course open to them which was a series of two-day protest stoppages designed to wear down management and put pressure on the Government to settle. It was essentially a war of attrition and the only favourable outcome could have been a “good draw” with at least half a loaf on the table. Unfortunately the strikes were called off because support over two years of action was waning – creating a climate in which even crumbs from the employer seemed credible. In reality the problem was that the leadership didn’t explain the tactics to the membership and perhaps more accurately hadn’t really worked out the strategy for maintaining a prolonged protest campaign in the first place.
The Independent Left alternative was the old tactic of pulling out key workers on high strike pay – ignoring the fact that when that was used last management simply routed work to other offices and bled the union’s coffers dry in the process. As for the right-wing their answer is the white flag. They argue, without any shred of evidence, that if they were in power the Government would reward their collaboration with a better deal.
When PCS was created it was led by a united and craven right-wing bloc that won the first elections with ease. Within a year the right-wing split and the left not only won control of the executive but also succeeded in tearing up the undemocratic new constitution and restoring the powers of Conference through the same postal ballot procedures that the right had for years thought was their ticket to ride. The Democracy Alliance has achieved a lot with the support of the activists and the rank-and-file. It now needs to mobilise the membership to take on the challenges of the future. This can only be done by encouraging mass participation in the campaigns and within the Democratic Alliance itself. The old dragons have been slain. But it’s not the past that matters but what comes next that counts

Sunday 3 May 2009

Budget Blues

Last week’s budget did little to rally support for Labour where it counts. The new 50 per cent income tax band on the rich and an equally modest allocation of new money for council housing has done nothing to rally working people behind Labour’s banner. The latest opinion polls show the Tories widening their lead over Labour and Cameron looks set for a landslide victory at the next general election.
Harold Wilson always stressed that nothing is certain in politics. Wilson, a Labour leader far greater than Gordon Brown, famously said that a week is a long time in politics and that goes for opinion poll projections as well. Wilson confounded the pollsters who had predicted big Tory victories in the two “who governs Britain?” elections of 1974. Wilson, of course, could rely on the enthusiastic support of the unions and workers fighting for higher wages and a stake in the direction of the economy. Gordon Brown on the other hand seems to hope that he can still scrape by with the support of significant sections of the bourgeoisie.
There’s no doubt that the ruling class is deeply divided over Europe and the economic crisis. The bourgeoisie as a whole are not too bothered by the income-tax hike despite all the wails in the Tory media about a new “class war” and a return to the “politics of envy”. Those who can will avoid it. Those who can’t can easily afford it. Someone’s got to pay for the crisis and in any case the bill for bailing out the banks is going to be largely paid by working people in tax, job losses and cuts in services.
The bourgeoisie themselves have difficult choices. They approved of Brown’s decisive switch to social-Keynesianism to stave off the complete collapse of the British banking system. Many of them doubt whether the Tories could do the same given that so many of Cameron’s cohorts are still wedded to the failed Thatcherite monetarist policies that were once so eagerly embraced by New Labour as well.
There’s still no consensus amongst the ruling class over Europe either. The Neanderthals and those who still believe British imperialism’s best hopes lie in close partnership with US imperialism have been undermined by the slump which exposed the underlying weakness of the American economy and finished off the neo-cons in the US elections last November. But their views still hold sway in the Cameron leadership while those who favour greater co-operation between British imperialism and the rest of Europe cannot fully rely on Labour to do their bidding.
The Tories are implacably opposed to the single European currency. Labour is more amenable towards European integration and the Government has clearly shifted more towards Franco-German imperialism but the biggest obstacle to joining the euro is Gordon Brown himself.
Brown, like Blair before him, has turned his back on the unions though he occasionally goes through the motions of “consultation” to ensure the continuous flow of the money chain that keeps the Labour Party afloat. But Labour’s only hope of a fourth term is by mobilising the grass-roots around policies that clearly benefit working people.
Some Ministers are already talking about scrapping the odious identity card project to save money. But Labour will have to come up with much more than this to win back the millions of disillusioned voters.
The Labour Representation Committee and the unions have drawn up alternative programmes that could win back the workers to Labour. A massive council-house building programme; increases in social welfare and pensions; the restoration of the public sector and the abolition of the anti-union laws would make a good start. It can all be paid for by a return to the progressive taxation levels we had in the 1970s, pulling the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan and scrapping Trident.
If Brown & Co respond to the union demands Labour can certainly win the next election. If they don’t we will certainly be in Tory government for many years to come.

Friday 24 April 2009

Whistling in the Wind

by Daphne Liddle

CHANCELLOR Alistair Darling promised it would all be over by Christmas – the recession that is – as he delivered his 2009 Budget speech. The Tories squealed when he raised income tax on the rich to 50 per cent but the Chair of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) said this was too little, too late. And working people were hit again with more duties on petrol, beer and tobacco.
Darling claims that though the British economy will shrink by 3.5 per cent this year it will soon pick up. He says it will grow by 1.25 per cent next year and then expand by 3.5 per cent every year from 2011. But nobody believes him.
Official Government figures show that the British economy is now in deflation and that unemployment rose by another 177,000 to 2.1 million between December and February. Thousands more job cuts are known to be in the pipeline.
The International Monetary Fund calculates that the global economy is set to decline by 1.3 per cent in 2009 – the first global recession since the Second World War.
In January, the IMF had predicted world output would increase by 0.5 per cent in 2009. It now projects that the British economy will shrink by 4.1 per cent in 2009 and by a further 0.4 per cent in 2010.
Darling shouldn’t feel too bad; other major economies are predicted to shrink even more, with Germany declining by 5.6 per cent, Japan by 6.2 per cent, and Italy by 4.4 per cent in 2009.
The truth is that none of these capitalist economists have a clue about the real size of the economic crash they have cooked up between them.
Darling announced that Government borrowing levels will rise to a massive £175 billion this year. This is the result of the massive bail-outs to the banks.
In theory those banks should be paying back some of that money over the next few years; the Government now technically owns some of them. But the global power of the banks is such that they can demand governments shore them up at whatever expense to taxpayers or their collapse will wipe out not only the governments but whole state economies overnight.
Gordon Brown could of course reduce public borrowing by many billions simply by scrapping Trident and pulling the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. It would probably win him some votes too.
Brown’s promise to revive the economy by using public spending to create new jobs turned out to be a damp squib.In housing, where he could have done most good by creating jobs and homes for workers at the same time, Darling announced only a scheme to guarantee mortgage backed securities, an extension of the stamp duty holiday and a measly £80 million for a shared equity mortgage scheme.
There will be £500 million to restart stalled housing projects and a mere £100 million for local authorities to build energy efficient homes.
There will be new investment in retraining redundant workers and keeping young people in education longer. This will create jobs only for teachers but it will help to massage unemployment statistics.
There will be £2,000 subsidies to persuade people to junk old cars and buy new “green cars” to boost sales. But since just about all motor manufacturing here is owned by global giants in Europe, Asia and America and all these giants are in deep trouble, the fate of our car industry is beyond the scope of anything much our Government can do.
And for every job created the Government’s very small public investment schemes, far more are likely to be lost in the swingeing public sector cuts that everyone knows are just around the corner.
Darling and Brown did make one move in the right direction by bringing forward and raising to 50 per cent the increase in income tax for those earning over £150,000-a-year. But this is not nearly enough and most of this elite one per cent of the population have accountants, who will maximise their personal allowances and other avoidance strategies.
LRC Chair John McDonnell MP said: “Although the 50p rate is a small step in the right direction, it really is twelve years too late and a tokenistic measure, given that the poorest will still be paying more of their incomes in tax than the rich.
“For the Government to announce tax avoidance measures amounting to only £300m per year is derisory when £100 billion is estimated as lost to the Exchequer by tax avoidance.”
Most very rich people pay very little tax and though Darling did announce some tightening of tax loopholes, it is nothing on the scale of what Merkel and Sarkozy have been calling for in Europe.
This was a budget that showed a Government trying to pretend that economic prospects are not as bad as they really are; trying to reassure voters in the run-up to the next general election.
Whoever wins that will be forced to bring in big tax rises and big public spending cuts as soon as the results are announced, whatever they say in their manifestos.
But with Tory leader David Cameron’s mind still set firmly in the Thatcher era, we know his solutions will be the more painful for workers in Britain.

Tuesday 24 March 2009

Equal pay and rights ditched

by Caroline Colebrook

THE GOVERNMENT has launched an underhanded attack on the equality and employment rights of millions of vulnerable workers in answer to demands from bosses who say they can’t afford it during the slump.
The Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) last Monday told the Government that the current economic climate is too fragile to demand that equal pay reviews should be imposed on employers. Instead of standing up for the rights of vulnerable workers it is acting for the Government and big business by keeping a lid on demands for too-long delayed equal rights.
Currently women’s pay is on average 17 per cent less than mens and the gap is widening, making nonsense of the equal pay act that was passed over four decades ago.
PCS last week also drew attention to cuts that the EHRC is making to its helplines, which provide a service for vulnerable workers seeking advice on equality issues. The Manchester helpline is to be axed while those based in Cardiff, Glasgow and Birmingham will be slimmed down and 50 jobs will go. undermine
The move comes at a time when calls to the helpline are increasing due to the recession. Despite repeated representations from the union, the Manchester helpline, which handled over 50,000 enquiries last year from members of the public facing discrimination, goes this autumn. This, PCS warns, would undermine key government initiatives.
PCS national vice-president, Sue Bond said: “This is a key frontline service that provides support and advice for people who face discrimination in all its forms in every walk of life.
“It makes no sense to cut helpline posts at a time when call volumes are increasing, The EHRC need to think again and recognise that the service skilled and professional staff deliver is too valuable to downsize.”
Meanwhile Peter Mandelson has decided to outsource another vital Government helpline for workers facing employment rights violations.
The move to outsource the new single enforcement hotline, which includes advice on the national minimum wage, comes despite opposition from the TUC, PCS and MPs.
The formation of a single hotline for vulnerable workers brings together helplines for the national minimum wage, health and safety, gangmasters, employment agencies and the agricultural minimum wage. Many fear that lumping so many issues under one umbrella – as with equality issues – will allow the Government to dilute the service to each issue and in fact serve to curb legal demands from workers and act on behalf of the bosses.
PCS warns that outsourcing the new hotline could fail vulnerable workers, with providers lacking current staff’s expertise and links with enforcement bodies.
Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: “The important work of the vulnerable workers enforcement forum risks being undermined by the outsourcing of a key helpline that will cover the minimum wage and employment rights.
“We have major concerns about the lack of full consultation on these plans and doubt whether contractors have the expertise to deliver the new unified helpline.
“There is a danger that providers will cut costs, resulting in the help and support for vulnerable workers being read from a script in some distant call centre.
“As the recession bites, vulnerable workers are most at risk of being exploited. Support, advice and enforcement cannot be done on the cheap and we urge Lord Mandelson to think again and keep the helpline in-house.”
TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber, added: “I am deeply disappointed that yet again the Government is turning to the private sector to deliver a crucial public function.
real support
“The most vulnerable workers need real support and advice and this helpline could have been effectively delivered by dedicated public servants.”
Once again workers must face the reality that a bourgeois state will give them no protection against the greed and oppression of the ruling class and that their only real protection is in solidarity with each other.
As the ruling class sharpens its claws to suppress workers’ demands, so the workers must sharpen their union structures to defend themselves.

Sunday 8 March 2009

Mobilising against the BNP

by Daphne Liddle

THE HOPE Not Hate campaign against fascism is calling on trade union members throughout Britain to mobilise for a cross-union campaign day – set for 15th May – against the fascist British National Party.

The aim is to stop the BNP from winning seats in the European elections and the campaign hopes to get hundreds of union branches doing some kind of activity on this day in what, they say, will easily be the biggest show of opposition to fascism by trade unions in recent years.

The editor of Searchlight anti-fascist magazine, Nick Lowles, said: “The trade unions have a vital role to play in the European election campaign. Between them they organise almost seven million members, double that if you include other adults in the members’ households.

“Given the low turnout expected in June, the unions’ role could be decisive if they can increase the turnout of their members.

“And it is precisely because of this potential that Searchlight has been encouraging unions to target their members like never before.”

Nick also reported on the success of combined anti-fascists in getting the cancellation of a planned national BNP rally in Liverpool on 14th March.

The plan caused particular anger among Everton football supporters after police requested the team to reschedule a home match with Stoke City because they did not have enough police to cope with a BNP rally and a football match on the same day.

Trade Union Friends of Searchlight (Tufs) is an organisation that exists to provide assistance and advice to unions fighting racism and fascism.

It exposes the activities of fascists in the workplace and produces background briefings and monitors the BNP union “Solidarity”.

A Tufs statement said: “Trade unions are proud to campaign against the extremism of the BNP. We do this because we care about communities in which we work and the people who live within them.

“We have seen where the politics of hate can lead during the violent disturbances in Oldham and Burnley in 2001.

“We see the BNP’s dishonest blaming of minorities for everything as a cowardly substitute for challenging those with real power to address the real problems with which we deal every day.

“This campaign is a bread-and-butter matter for unions. We are only as strong as our members. Our influence to get the better terms and conditions our members deserve depends on us having a strong and united membership.”

Tufs has produced an anti-BNP “toolkit”, including a magazine and a DVD. The DVD is £20 to union branches but is free to branches affiliated to Tufs.

Further information is available from Hope not Hate at PO Box 1576, Ilford IG5 0NG or http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/

Friday 6 March 2009

Unions damn welfare reform bill

MEMBERS of the public and union activists lobbied MPs on Tuesday to protest against the Government’s reactionary welfare reform bill organised by the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, the biggest civil service union in the country, and backed by the TUC and a number of other unions and pressure groups.

At the same time PCS has released a damning report that shows that public opinion is overwhelming opposed the Government’s plans that will lead to the privatisation of employment services and the social fund; introduce “work for welfare” schemes; abolish income support; cut benefits for single parents and those on long –term illness and require all parents of young children to seek work.

Speaking at the lobby at the House of Commons on Tuesday TUC Deputy General Secretary Frances O’Grady stated that the Welfare Reform Bill is “the wrong Bill for the wrong time”, and that it will be resisted by unions.

“It’s clear that aspects of the Welfare Reform Bill now going through Parliament are not fit for purpose. This is the wrong Bill for the wrong time: conceived in a boom, about to be implemented in a bust,” he declared.

“The Government’s ideas would be flawed at the best of times; but with Britain deep in recession, these are emphatically not the best of times.

“Just think about the implications. A new regime for jobseekers, limiting the time for job search and retraining.

“Tougher rules for parents, undermining the Government’s pledge to halve and then end child poverty.

“The introduction of sanctions, stigmatising the most vulnerable as villains, not victims, and driving working people into poverty.

“And the privatisation and break up of a world-class public service, with private contractors profiting from joblessness.

“This is the reality confronting us. Why, after the near collapse of free-market capitalism, does the Government press ahead with an agenda of privatisation, marketisation and competition? Why, during the worst economic crisis for generations, is there seemingly one rule for the rich and another one for the rest?
“The contrast could not be starker. Bailouts for the bankers, punishments for the poor - welfare for Wall Sreet, workfare for working people. That is unacceptable; and we will resist it.

the answers

“So what are the answers? How do we create a welfare system that delivers in this downturn? The TUC is campaigning for a change of direction: for policies that give ordinary working people the help they need when they need it. We have already secured some important concessions - not least the welcome scrapping of plans to make disabled people look for jobs or risk losing benefits.

“But we need to go further. That means more generous benefits to stop people falling into poverty, and the TUC has been proud to lead the call for an immediate increase of £15 a week in Jobseekers Allowance.

“That means helping unemployed workers into proper retraining schemes and jobs that pay the going rate.

“And that means giving Jobcentre Plus and the dedicated staff who work in it the resources and the support they need to make a difference where it is needed most.

“Make no mistake: our welfare state has never been more needed than now. It is one of Britain’s greatest achievements. A genuine safety net for everyone: won through the campaigning of generations of socialists, trade unionists and progressive reformers. And we are not about to give up on that legacy now.

“So today let our message go out clearly. We will resist any changes that diminish our welfare system. We will stand up for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our society. And that we will continue to fight for what we believe in.”

Seventy nine per cent of people are not confident of surviving on the current rate of jobseekers allowance (£60.50) according to an ICM poll for PCS. The poll also shows that just six per cent of respondents feel ‘very confident’ about the ability of private sector companies to take over some of the work of Jobcentres.

Coming against a backdrop of rising unemployment and government plans to privatise some of the work of Jobcentre Plus, the poll also shows that just one in three think there are enough jobcentres or that there are enough staff in jobcentres to deal with the current economic crisis.

Over the past five years the government has closed over 500 jobcentres and benefit offices.

Commenting, Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: “There is little appetite for the government’s plans to privatise some of the work of jobcentres, with the poll showing a lack of confidence in the private sector’s ability to take over this work.

“The public sector has consistently outperformed the private sector in getting people back into work with jobcentres working flat out and doing a fantastic job in helping the rising numbers of unemployed.

“This poll should be a wake up call to the government which needs to raise benefit levels to alleviate the threat of poverty, ditch its plans for privatisation and start opening Jobcentres to deal with rising numbers of unemployed.”

Sunday 8 February 2009

Treasury committee echoes PCS concerns

PCS last week echoed concerns highlighted in the House of Commons Treasury Committee's report on the 2008 pre-budget report.
The committee expressed concerns about Government plans to find a further £5 billion of efficiency savings in addition to a planned target of £30 billion by 2011.
Questioning where the additional savings would come from, the committee asked the government to provide details of how and where the additional savings could be made, as well as setting out measures to ensure that public service delivery doesn’t deteriorate.
In echoing these concerns PCS warned that civil and public services would continue to suffer if the further “efficiency savings” were made at the expense of jobs and services.
Eighty thousand jobs have already gone across the civil and public sector, with tens of thousands more planed by 2011 including, 10,000 in the Ministry of Justice, 12,500 in Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and 10,000 in the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
The union maintained that further job cuts and office closures would damage public services and be bad for the economy.
PCS urged the Government to reverse its job cuts and office closure programme across civil and public services to safeguard services delivered to the public.
Commenting, Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: "The Treasury committee have rightly expressed concern about the Government’s plans for an additional £5 billion of ‘efficiency savings’.
"No doubt substantial savings can be made from cutting out consultants and agencies, but plucking a figure out of thin air with no idea of how it will be achieved is no way to improve efficiency.
"We have already seen the damaging impact on so called efficiency programmes on key areas such as tax, Jobcentres, justice and defence.
Further savings should not be at the expense of jobs and services which would damage public services and be bad for the economy. "Further savings should not be at the expense of jobs and services which would damage public services and be bad for the economy.
"As the recession worsens and people become more reliant on public services, the Government need to reverse its job cuts and office closure programme across civil and public services to safeguard services delivered to the public.”

A wave of anger

A wave of anger is sweeping across the class in Europe. Wildcat strikes in Britain; battles with the cops in Athens and millions of French workers downing tools in a general strike that paralysed the country last week.
The ruling classes of Europe are determined to put the entire burden of the slump on the backs of working people. They’re going to slash state welfare, pensions and social provision. They want to drive down wages through social dumping by closing down their operations in high-wage areas and setting them up in other parts of the European Union where labour is cheap or recruiting cheap labour from poorer regions of Europe to undercut existing rates for the job. This is what Blair and Brown called the “free market” that they told us was going to usher in an era of prosperity for all in the European Union.
It’s what Brown and Co will soon be telling us about the joys of joining the Euro now that the pound is sinking.
For years Labour and the majority of the leaders of our unions have elevated the EU as an instrument for social progress and economic advance. They say that the EU is becoming more representative through the authority of the European Parliament and establishment of regional autonomy. The social-democrats claim that the anti-working class “directives” and “rulings” can be reversed. The revisionist and left social-democratic circles that still pose as communists in some parts of Europe argue that the EU can be reformed to serve the interests of working people.
But the EU with its toothless parliament, ruritanian regional governments and farcical referendas that only count when the vote agrees with what has already been decided by the powers that be, hasn’t been reformed. Nor can it ever be under the Treaty of Rome.
The neanderthal section of the ruling class, who still dream of an independent role for British imperialism, is also opposed to the EU. That’s why some of their minions are trying to divert the unofficial energy workers strike movement down nationalist and racist lines to reduce it to the demand for “British jobs for British workers” that was shamefully resurrected by none other than Gordon Brown himself in September 2007.
These people, like the rest of the ruling class, have nothing in common with workers apart from the fact that they owe their entire parasitical existence to the labour of others. The real enemy of the working class is the employer, not the imported labour from abroad.
Now people see the European Union for what it is – an institution designed solely for the benefit of the oppressors and exploiters – and millions upon millions are seeing through the lies of the bourgeoisie and taking their anger onto the streets. What little benefits the EU has brought such as increased trade and open borders could all have been achieved through separate agreements and treaties.
In fact the European Union is neither genuinely federal nor democratic and every stage of European integration has been financed by working people through higher indirect taxes, lost jobs and lost benefits. The European Union cannot be reformed. It must be dissolved and the Treaty of Rome, which established the Common Market in the first place, and all addenda repealed.
In the meantime the dispute within the energy industry must be resolved through free collective bargaining. The union leadership should take a leaf out of the wildcat’s book and call on the mass membership to defy the anti-union laws to force the Labour Government and the Labour Party whose financial survival depends almost entirely from funding from the unions to meet their demands.