Why I am asking for you to support me in the PCS GEC election?

Why I am asking for you to support me in the R&C Group Executive Committee election?

I am standing in this election for the GEC as a Socialist and Member of Left Unity, along with like-minded colleagues on a shared platform of defend jobs and conditions in HMRC. I am prepared to argue for a new approach in response to the many threats we now face.

Having worked for the Department for nearly 33 years and been active in the Union for the majority of that time, but have never seen the scale of threats in all of this time. The morale amongst members is at an all-time low – brought on by the pay freeze, a constant fear for job security and pensions - the savage increases in pension contributions – reduction in the value of pensions and being forced to work to 68 or until  you drop.

When I first joined the Civil Service, it was understood that although the pay was less than elsewhere - you would get a good pension and terms & conditions. But this “deal” is being reduced on an almost daily basis. But at the same time the Department still demands the same loyalty and expects all the old Civil Services values which are to their benefit.

It is scandalous that the perception of civil servants as privileged, overpaid  with almost complete job security is being fed to the media by the our employer, the Government.  Following two newspaper articles about CS privilege days, the Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has embarked on a crusade against allowing us the Maundy Thursday 1/2 day and the Xmas privilege day.

This is of course the same Francis Maude who in March 2012 responding to a threat of action by fuel tanker drivers, advised the public to fill up gerry cans and store fuel in their garages.  In 2009 the Fees Office rejected his claim for mortgage interest on his Sussex home. Also he had purchased a flat in London, close to another house he already owned he rented out this house and claimed £35K mortgage interest on the flat. According to the Legg Report, he was not asked to payback any of the money he had claimed.

What we are facing is the old ideological animosity from the Conservatives against public sector workers and their trade unions.  The Public Services be they elements of HMRC or the NHS represent potential rich picking for the Tories’ friends in out sourcing companies and the private equity sector. Austerity policies and the need to reduce national debt, have allowed the Coalition Government the excuse to settle old scores with unions like PCS. 

It has been reported that the Government will single out the PCS for special treatment for being too “militant”! Hence we see the vicious attacks on facilities time for or reps and ending the collection of union subs via the payroll. These attacks are small minded and vindictive.

Of all the current attacks, I would point to the changes to the performance management system, under the Civil Service Employee Policy  - CSEP – being led by the Cabinet Office. Hardly anyone will be shocked by the fact that there have been no negotiations with PCS over the changes. Managers in the department are being told that box markings must be divided up on the basis of:

• Exceeded 20% of staff
• Achieved 70% of staff
• Must improve 10% of staff

Clearly this will introduce a culture of a management by fear. Our members who are managers will be forced to implement this system under the threat of being given “must improve” themselves.  I wonder how the 10% of staff will be calculated. Is this why 2 senior members of Excom have recently left to take up private sector jobs?

In the USA, this quota system is known as “stack ranking”. In an article – Microsoft’s Lost Decade- in Vanity Fair magazine, the journalist Kurt Eichenwald said “Every current and former Microsoft employee – every one – cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees” and “it leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies”.  How typical is it of HMRC to adopt a management system that has already been discredited elsewhere in the world?

What should we do in response?

I urge all colleagues to vote Yes/Yes in the current ballot for industrial action. It is not an easy decision for any member to take action when our standard of living is diminishing almost week by week. But then if we do not take a stand, we will without doubt be subjected to worse terms & conditions, have our pensions further raided and have to suffer the indignity of unending pay restraint.

If elected to the GEC, I would strongly argue for selective action that frustrates the employer and does not immediately hit the pockets of PCS members. In my Branch, we are making a call for non-co-operation with performance management system from the outset.  Targeted action is a more contentious issue but is one that PCS must fully explore.  

PCS has had success with selective action in several areas in the Civil Service recently – proposals in the DVLA to issue compulsory redundancies as part of the agency’s plans to cut staff were halted and in the DWP 46 jobs were saved by the PCS holding a ballot for industrial action. Last year, in HMRC the continued action over privatisation in the call centres and sickness absence policy, resulted the enabling agreement which led to FTA staff being given permanent contracts.

I think it is the job of the PCS to bring back the membership from the lowest ebb that I can remember. If we stand together united, and back the action, then we can win on all the threats we currently face.

Keep Blood Testing Services in Southend!

As I am nearing 50 years of age, I have to have annual blood tests to keep a check on the health conditions that afflict a middle-aged man. So I feel that I have have a genuine interest in and am "a stakeholder" in the Blood Testing Services.

For about a fortnight, I have been meaning to post about the proposal from the Strategic Health Authority to move the Blood Testing Services from Southend Hospital to a central laborattory in Bedford. The fast moving pace of events has meant that it is difficult to comment on the current position.

But the unwise and somewhat risible contribution by James Duddridge, Rochford & Southend East Tory MP, has forced me into print so to speak. James' concerns are not concerned with either jobs at Southend Hospital or those of his constituents, but with "spending money better" and  promoting the interests of the private companies muscling their way into the provision of NHS services. He uses the language of an advocate for privatisation. The Bedford laboratory is a partnership with the outsourcing company SERCO.

I would congratulate those comrades from Southend Against The Cuts, Southend TUC and other campaigning groups who staged a protest against the Clinial Commissioning Group (CCG) meeting  at the Civic Centre on 29th January. The public had been invited to submit their concerns and questions to the meeting, however these were summarised in way that the tone of the original contributions were lost. In a remarkable piece if dissembling, the CCG said that this was a "meeting in public, and not a public meeting" and declined to take questions from the floor. This sham is what passes for consultation under the Coalition Government.

I should also acknowledge the contribution of the campaign by the Echo newspaper against the moving of the service to Bedford. In tonight's edition, other local Tory MPs show a bit more savvy than James Duddridge by being cautious and expressing reservations about the proposal. Perhaps they are more in touch with the views of their constituents. Last week, Tory Councillors on Southend Council voted to refer the decision to the Secretary of State for Health. Clearly by "kicking the decision upstairs" the Tory Councillors are hoping to deflect being blamed for this unpopular policy.

To me, the campaign to save the Blood Testing Service is a key battle against the austerity and privatisation policies of the Tories and Lib Dems. It is one that we must win! There may already be one casualty in James Duddridge, by putting himself on the wrong side of the argument and against the interests of the people he is elected to represent.

Social Security or Welfare - loaded words

 

In the supplement to yesterday's Guardian, there was an article by Zoe Williams about the false "skivers v strivers" arguments peddled by Ian Duncan-Smith and other Coalition Ministers.

The comment was made that everyone now talks about welfare benefits rather than social security payments. I, too, did this in my piece the underserving rich earlier this week. Therefore, I have resolved that in future I will always refer to social secuity benefits.

Like most of the neo-liberal agenda and propoganda, talking of "welfare" as a derogatory term comes from the USA. It is used to demonise those who do not have a job or cannot work. It infers that there should be no sense that anyone should be entitled to financial support from the state. A few years ago, there was the abusive term "welfare mothers" applied to lone parents.

British politicians have anbandoned the historic term "social security", because it suggests that working people have an entitlement to benefits when they lose their jobs or become unable to work. The whole post war-settlement Welfare State, created by Labour, is being unpicked piece by piece.

I having heard that certain MPs, mainly Tories, are saying in private that they should have a 32% pay increase. As many people consider MPs to be skivers rather than strivers, I wonder how they would explain their sense of entitlement to their constituents?

The underserving rich?

How much longer will we tolerate the underserving rich?

 

I am dismayed that the Victorian notion of "the undeserving poor" is featuring in the current debate of the planned capping of welfare benefits. Even more sickening is that this slur is being made by millionaire Cabinet Ministers and the mouthpieces of the billionaire, right-wing newspaper proprietors.

 

Sadly, the whole "strivers not shirkers" rhetoric began when Labour started talking about "hard working families". Regrettably, this was taken from the same New Labour lexicon as "Middle England" and is just a code for the middle classes, designed to appeal to their prejudices. The underlying claim is that only professional, managerial and middle-income people - the Middle Class- are hard working.

 

Under the neo-liberal policies that have been pursued by governments since the 1990s, a virtual war has been declared on any sort of safety net of welfare benefits, through means testing and actual cuts. The post-war concept of universal benefits is a complete anaethema to neo-liberal politcians.

 

In today's world of tightly controlled media (controlled by the very rich and their apologists) there is no possibility of  a mature and rational discussion of the distribution of wealth, let alone the redistribution of it between rich and poor. I would throw in the concept of the underserving rich, and particularly their manifestation in the Cabinet of the Coalition Governement. How many of those currently on the Government's payroll are truly hardworking?  Is the inherited wealth enjoyed by many of the Cabinet actually deserved?

 

How does the practice of tax avoidance fervently pursued by the very rich, the use of tax havens and the off-shoring of their companies, make these individuals deserving. Of course they are all hardworking if we believe the lickspittle ring-wing press.

 

It puzzles me that supposedly 'progressive' Liberal Democrat Party supports this disgraceful state of affairs. I am at a loss to name one example of where their Ministers and MPs have reigned-in the malice of the Tories. Their collusion in the current round of benefit cuts is truly diabolical. I hope that they have signed their own electoral death warrant.

 

There is also the question of what the working classes can do defeat the Tories and Lib-Dems. A general strike by trade unions could force a change of government and policy, but this looks more and more unlikely by the week. The Labour Party is still in the hangover of the Blairite aspirational, fantasy politics. Ed Miliband's attempt to claim the "One Nation" tag is also a misjudgement, because the Tories always supported the rich man in his castle and keeping the the poor man at his gate. Labour Party members should start putting pressure on the Leadership to abandon their tacit support for the policies of austerity.

 

 

Vote Val Morris-Cook on 15th November!

I must admit that I have been less than enthusiastic about the elections for Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC). Personally, I would have preferred to see the retention of Police Authorities which were accountable via our elected councillors and county councillors. Cameron has branded them unelected and of not being sufficiently visible. So their powers has been put transferred to the PCC, whom will I assume set up their own structures.

The PCC powers involved are important: deciding the local police plan; setting the police budget: engaging with the local community; and the appointment/dismissal of the chief constable. You can see why the Tories are keen to vest these powers in people that are sympathetic or are actually Tory Party members. In my view, the underlying motive is to stop any resistance is cuts in the police service, which is one of the more bizarre austerity measures given the Tories' decades of 'tough on crime' posturing

I suspect that low turnout and voter indifference is key to Cameron's plans for gaining control of the PCCs. This is a dangerous and cavalier approach, as the ever opportunistic far-right have seen the chance to put up candidates. The thought of a far right candidate being elected is a terrifying prospect, and threatens recent advances in countering hate crimes against women, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities.

In Essex, we have the candidates of the main parties and independents. One independent, former police chief Mick Twaites, is being backed by the Lib Dems. I was amused the by the use of the old Sweeney catch-phrase "you're nicked" in Twaites' publicity, does he see himself as modern day Jack Reagan fighting the bureaucrats I wonder?

Of greater concern, is the candidate of the English Democrats. I know that they are a party of the right, but do not know how far over on the spectrum on right-wing politics they stand. Nevertheless, in this year's elections for Southend Borough Council several former BNP members stood as English Democrats. It is a truism that you can judge someone by the company that they keep.

I am fairly certain that I would not see eye-to-eye on many political issues with Val Morris-Cook. However, I believe that she is the best candidate to serve as PCC. As the ballot is on the basis of a supplementary vote, I urge everyone to cast their 1st vote for Val on 15th November. As for the 2nd vote, it's a pity Jack Reagan isn't standing!

                                                              Val Morris-Cook

A Future That Works

Why we are marching

20th October will see hundreds of thousands of people descend on London, Glasgow and Belfast in a unified show of strength against the government and its reckless austerity programme.

The PCS has been at the forefront of the unions calling for the TUC to organise these demonstrations to show that the opposition of the Trade Union Movement to the Government’s current policies has not gone away. For PCS members, it is our opportunity to express our anger over austerity pay; on paying more, working longer and getting less for our pensions; and job losses and our future job security.

In the Civil Service, and HMRC, we have faced a pay freeze since 2010. This will be followed two years of salary increases limited to 1%. On top of this there is the planned increase of pension contributions of 5.6% which is to be phased in over three years. Many colleagues are finding that they cannot make ends due to this onslaught on our living standards.

Austerity isn’t working!

Despite the savage cuts to the Public Sector, reductions in public services and pay restraint, the economy remains in recession. It is therefore the responsibility of trades unionists to call for a change in the economic policies of the Government.

The march for A Future That Works can be the moment when millions of working people can make their voice heard to the Government that their policies are failing and a new direction is urgently needed. The more members that attend the march and demonstration, the louder our voice is, the harder it will be for the politicians to ignore us.

Transport to London has been organised for supporters in Southend. You book a coach via the Southend against the Cuts website:

We need a future that works.  Will you join us?

Quantative Easing - who pays?

With hindsight, I wish that I had studied Economics at school or college. Perhaps I would now have a better understanding of the seemingly arcane theories and principles of the subject.

When I worked in the Basildon during the early 1980s, a number of my colleagues were Conservative supporters and, I believe, my team leader was actually a Tory Party member. One of their grievances against  James Callaghan's Labour Government was that they had "printed money", caused inflation and thereby damaged the economy. I was in a weak position to argue with them, but believed this was a Keynesian approach to create demand in the economy by increasing the supply of money.

I was a bit surprised when this policy was restarted by Alastair Darling, but now it was called "quantative easing". This seemed to be a break with the strict monetarist approach followed by New Labour since 1997. What was even more surprising was that George Osborne, then Shadow Chancellor, supported the policy. Did this mean that Tories now endorsed "printing money"? Apart John Redwood there seemed to be no wider criticism.

Today, I read in The Guardian that the Bank of England, and I quote, "will begin pumping a minimum of £5 billion n a month into City institutions to improve their liquidity". This a part of the response to the crisis in the Eurozone and to head-off a slump. As these "institutions" were responsible for creating the recession it seems a bit rich that they are now being bailed-out.

I know that the Bank of England can effectively "create" money, but the question is who will pay back these vast amounts?  I think we all know the answer, the working classes will face a generation or more of austerity policies for bailing out the bankers.