PCS Independent Left

RCN said that almost two-thirds of its members who had voted in a ballot had rejected the offer. The turnout though wasn’t great with just over 16% of members, (65,759) voting. RCN of course is the largest nursing union.

They join the union Unite in the health sector in rejecting the draft agreement proposed by the government in December.

What we think is interesting is that as yet, no major union has actually accepted the pension offer. Even Unison has not put the proposals to its members. Therefore there is a possibility that over a number of months that more and more unions re-join the pension fight. Of course for there to be such a fight we have to win the ballot for the 28 March strike.

From the PCS website “The PCS national executive committee (NEC) has unanimously agreed to consult members on rejecting the government’s offer on pensions and on a programme of action as part of the continuing campaign”.

For members in PCS at least, the strike ballot was for jobs and pay as well as pensions. The Independent Left cannot understand why the union deliberately fails to mention these other dimensions to the dispute. Job insecurity and job loss has not lessened since the ballot result; indeed in many areas they have increased. We face a two year pay squeeze; this follows on from a two year pay freeze. The objective conditions for a pay campaign exist but that requires the union to launch one. We will keep reminding members that this is a pay, jobs and pensions dispute; the PCS leadership should be telling the entire membership the same thing.

Under the work programme job seekers can be forced to work for their dole money at companies such as Tesco and Matalan. Of course for the company this is free labour. If the job seeker refuses to work for “free” then their benefits can be cut.

Tesco was more than happy to back the government’s flagship policy – and of course get free labour. Things have changed, however. According to a report in the Guardian “Supermarket group Tesco said it has asked DWP officials to make the work experience scheme voluntary after thousands of angry customers wrote in and posted messages on Twitter and the company’s Facebook site accusing the multinational of profiting from hundreds of thousands of hours of forced unpaid work”.

In other words faced with growing public protest Tesco has changed its mind; of course if there had been no such protest then Tesco would have continued with the work programme. This shows yet again the importance of campaigning.

To read the Guardian article please go here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/feb/18/tesco-jobless-scheme-work-experience?newsfeed=true

The private sector work programme provider has had its offices in Slough raided. According to the Mail on Sunday “”The Department for Work and Pensions confirmed last night that a probe into A4e – headed by Mrs Harrison – was under way. A source at the company told The Mail on Sunday that on Friday afternoon, officers from Thames Valley Police visited the company’s offices in Slough, Berkshire. The source said they stayed for up to four hours and demanded staff hand over documents and computer files dating back two years.” Apparently what’s being investigated is the allegation that “the company had put some people in jobs for just one day, but claimed the funding nonetheless.”

The Mail on Sunday’s article can be read here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103252/Back-work-tsar-centre-fraud-probe-claims-funding-went-jobs-lasting-just-day.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Also check out a good blog concerning A4e called “Watching A4e”. Lots of useful information here, not only for activists in the DWP but for the wider movement. The blog is at: http://watchinga4e.blogspot.com/

The NASUWT is to issue a legal challenge to the government over pension changes.

The union argues that the government should have embarked on a valuation of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme to establish whether there was a problem with its viability and sustainability, before making changes.

The union has served a pre-action letter on the government Actuary’s Department, the Secretary of State for Education and HM Treasury, setting in train a claim for a judicial review. The basis of the legal action is that the NASUWT contends the Government had a statutory responsibility to conduct a valuation of the scheme.

The last valuation was conducted in 2006 and the union said regulations required a further valuation in a period not exceeding five years. Obviously the union must believe that a valuation would show that the teacher pension schemes were affordable etc .

If the union takes action it will be on top of the current legal case where a number of unions argue that change from RPI to CPI is unlawful.