Pensions Campaign

I went to a meeting in Birmingham & then listened to Mark Serwotka update us on the pensions campaign.


After the nonsense had died down it turns out that most unions had not signed up to the government's derisory offer.

We are currently negotiating the next steps with those unions & will get back to all members to discuss the campaign.

Watch this space.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Reject and Fight - The pension campaign goes on

A rank and file conference at the weekend that had been called to discuss the pensions dispute was attended by about 450; a magnificent turnout given that the organisers expected about 200. There were activists from all the major unions who took action on N30.

The conference was held against the background of a number of unions, not just PCS, having rejected what was on offer and the conference heard speakers from PCS (including Mark Serwotka), NUT (including Kevin Courtney who spoke in Leicester on N30), Unite and UCU. There were also speakers from unions, such as Unison, who have not yet endorsed the decision of their leadership to accept the government's proposals and call off their involvement in the dispute. These Unison members believed that as the major concerns of the dispute had not been met (i.e. having to work longer, pay more and receive less,), the proposal should be rejected. Unison executive's meet on 10 January to endorse or reject the decision of their leadership. The TUC General Council meet on 12 January to review the overall situation.

The conference agreed:

- The government's proposals should be rejected

- PCS would propose at the General Council the next date(s) for co-ordinated action

- If the TUC were not able to sustain co-ordinated action because some unions had formally accepted the proposals, PCS would seek meetings with the other unions who had rejected to plan a joint programme of further action.

It is important that you regularly refer to this blog and our Facebook group @ PCS DWP Leicestershire General Branch (but not from an official PC)to keep yourself up to date with developments.

Excellent News!

Unite unanimously rejects NHS pensions offer
5 January 2012

The government’s latest proposals on NHS pension ‘reform’ - the ‘Heads of Agreement’ document - were unanimously rejected by Unite, the largest union in the country, today (Thursday 5 January).

Unite’s health sector national industrial committee (HSNIC) rejected the ‘Heads of Agreement’ as a basis for a satisfactory outcome.

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said: ”Our NHS executive unanimously rejects the government’s pernicious attempts to make hard working and dedicated NHS staff pay more, work longer and get less when they retire.

”The government’s attacks on public sector pensions are politically motivated, as part of an overall design to privatise the NHS, cut public services, break-up the national pay agreements, and disrupt legitimate trade union activities and organisation.

”Unite believes it is important to continue a campaign to maintain a fair and equitable system of public sector pensions and calls on ministers to enter into real, genuine and meaningful negotiations on the future of NHS pensions and public sector pensions.”

Unite’s concerns centre on three areas:

A high proportion of NHS staff will see their pension contributions jump from the current 6.5 per cent to 9.3 per cent by 2014/15, and other staff will see their contributions leap by nearly 50 per cent, with some paying 14.5 per cent of their salary into their pensions.
The linking of the NHS retirement age to the ever-increasing age that people will receive their state pensions. The state retirement age is set to rise to 66 in 2020 and 67 by 2026, with the prospect of working even longer in future decades. Unite is concerned that, for example, paramedics and nurses could be doing heavy lifting into their late 60s.
The proposed accrual rate for NHS staff is worse than the planned rates for other public sector schemes. Because this will be based on career average earnings, it will hit women who had taken career breaks to raise their children hardest.

The Unite HSNIC is due to meet again on 11 January to formulate future strategy. Unite has 100,000 members in the health service.

ENDS

More untruths from a government who seem to want to deliberately mislead

Contrary to what the Intranet would have you believe, the government have not concluded headline agreements with all the trade unions on pension reform. In fact, in the Civil Service only GMB (a relatively small industrial player) has indicated acceptance. PCS have, for reasons already explained earlier on this blog, rejected the proposals out of hand.

You might like me be wondering why the government is attempting to mislead. It certainly isn't a sign of confidence that they have things in the bag as they have claimed.

This weekend a rank and file conference is being held to discuss the next stages in the campaign. It will include activists from unions whose leaders have signed up to the headline agreement. These activists are no happier than PCS about the terms or what their leaders have done. I am going to the conference and will give members a report next week.

Serwotka hits back at Maude lies over negotiations absence

by Tim Lezard@Union-News.co.uk

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka has responded to claims in The Times that he had not attended any of the negotiating meetings between Francis Maude and the other union leaders.

The Cabinet Office minister, who served in Margaret Thatcher’s government and last month warned he would re-write laws to make it harder for unions to go on strike, accused Mark Serwotka of refusing to attend the meetings over public sector pensions, a claim flatly denied by the union.

In a letter to the newspaper, Mark Serwotka wrote:

Sir, Your leading article (Dec 21) suggests I have refused to attend the negotiations over public sector pensions.

PCS has attended every single meeting since they started.

As part of the TUC negotiating team, I have attended every meeting centrally with Francis Maude and Danny Alexander.

My deputy Hugh Lanning has attended all meetings with their officials. However, they have only been able to discuss ways of implementing the government’s proposals, when what we need are proper negotiations on the issues of substance: imposing a tax on millions of public servants by increasing pensions contributions, raising the pension age even though the schemes are affordable and sustainable, and switching indexation from RPI to CPI.

Far from “walking away”, as Mr Alexander claimed in parliament, we want to negotiate on these things. But the government is attempting to exclude us from future discussions.

PCS has refused to sign the heads of agreement, saying nothing has changed since before the strike on November 30th, with workers still expected to work longer, pay more and receive less.

UNISON and GMB have signed up to the agreement, promising further talks in the New Year, while EIS, NUSUWT, NUT, UCU and Unite have refused, saying they will consult their members first.

Unions’ executives will consider the government’s offer early in the New Year before reporting back to the TUC’s Public Sector Liaison Group on January 12th.

Serwotka: “We will not be bullied by the government”

by Tim Lezard@union-news.co.uk

The PCS has said the government’s “unacceptable bullying” will not deter the union’s members from standing up for what is right.

During his statement to Parliament yesterday, chief secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander singled out PCS, accusing the union of “walking away from talks” – a claim strongly denied by the union which says they were told they no longer invited to negotiations.

In a letter to Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude yesterday, PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka wrote: “As the union representing the overwhelming majority of civil servants we want to reach an agreement, but we could not accept that the government’s proposals are an unalterable framework within which any discussions have to take place. PCS would expect to be involved in any further discussions which take place in relation to the government’s proposals.”

The union has reiterated its commitment to negotiating but ministers have refused to negotiate on the three core issues of forcing public servants to pay hundreds of pounds more each year in pensions contributions, work for up to eight years longer and receive much less in retirement – in many cases, tens of thousands of pounds.

Of all the proposed changes, these will have the biggest impact on the pensions of millions of public servants. Not a single penny of the extra contributions will go to make pensions any more affordable – because this is not required – the money will go to the Treasury to pay off the budget deficit caused by the recession and bailing out the banks.

While talks with Cabinet Office officials have been held in recent weeks on aspects of the civil service scheme, there have been no central negotiations with ministers on these key issues since 2 November.

At a meeting of the TUC’s public sector liaison group on Monday, Mark Serwotka reported the union’s view that nothing had changed since the public sector strike on 30 November, that the offer on the table in the civil service was not good enough, and that further industrial action will be necessary in the new year if the government’s continues to refuse to negotiate on the main issues.

He said: “It is extraordinary how PCS members have been treated by this government, simply for saying they will not accept being made to pay more and work longer for tens of thousands of pounds less in their retirement.

“This kind of unacceptable bullying will not deter union members from standing up for what is right, and opposing the government’s attempts to make them pay the price for a recession they did not cause. We remain committed to negotiating with ministers, but they continue to refuse even though we believe they have a legal obligation to do so.”

Why PCS had to reject the pension offer

PCS have rejected the government's latest offer on pensions. Why? Because it was no different to what was on offer before November 30th, when millions (including thousands of PCS members) took action. The deal would still see you working longer, paying more and receiving less. In short, the government still want to steal money from your pocket when your pension is a contractual agreement between your employer and you.

The fact that some union leaders seem to fail to understand this is a gross dereliction of their duty to their members, many of whom will not share the view that the deals on the table are improvements and may express this quite angrily. The fact remains, however, that our General Secretary, Mark Serwotka, and our National Executive Committee have not succumbed to government blackmail and have called things by their proper name: this is not a deal worth the paper it is written on and acceptance of such a deal would be a complete betrayal of the sacrifice members have already made.

In the coming days, the government will attempt to appeal over the heads of PCS to you to accept their terms. A government that just last week arbitrarily decided to raise your pension contributions from April next year; showing what they really think about a negotiated settlement. You need to remain strong and tell the government:

I'm not willing to work longer, pay more and receive less.
I'm not willing for the government to steal money from my pocket when I have a contractual agreement.
I support my union's rejection of the proposed deal offered to PCS placed under duress.