Public and Commercial Services Union

Colleagues, welcome to the 2010 DfT Group Conference.

Well if you thought the last year was tough –you ain’t seen nothing yet. I want to touch really on two main issues.

We know now the colour of the Government a pale green, a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition in which both parties get what they want apparently, the conservatives get power, and some of the Liberals get to sit at the same table as them. The Tories get the high profile jobs in Cabinet the Lib dems get to make the tea for them.

The real issue is we are told by David Cameron and Nick Clegg that this will be a new politics. Yet all the way through the election campaign I didn’t hear anything new. All the leaders of the three main political parties bleated on about the state of the economy, all bleated on about the economic deficit, all said the public sector would have to pay the price, all agreed that there would need to be fewer public sector jobs, all agreed that they couldn’t tell us about what specific cuts they would make, all agreed that there would need to be wage restraint for ordinary working people, all agreed that the most important issue was calming the financial markets. None said that the financial and banking corporations should be made to pay for the crisis they created, none said that state nationalisation had been the answer when the so-called free market saw banks crashing into bankruptcy, none said a word when after the election and just before this Government was formed when the same people responsible for the economic crisis demanded a Government that would start to deal with the deficit they created. So what’s new because all of this was being said before the general election and its being said now? It’s like buying a second hand car – it may be new to you when you buy it but the reality is it ain’t a new car.

The truth is that we now know the Tories have got their way and there will be a further £6 billion of cuts on top of what we already faced from the Labour Government. We don’t know yet where they will fall but we do know that not one area of the civil service will be left untouched.

We also know under this new politics who the Minister is for Transport.

So let me tell you a little about the person now in charge of Transport. Philip Hammond is the MP for a surrey constituency. His personal wealth is around £9 million so I think it’s rather decent of David Cameron to announce a 5% cut in Minister’s wages, obviously that will deeply hurt the 22 millionaires now sitting in Cabinet. But Phil also received criticism in 2009 when it emerged that he claimed just £8 short of the maximum allowance for a second home in London from 2007 to 2008 – even though he lived in the commuter belt town of Woking. The Sun columnist Kelvin Mackenzie stated that as Mr Hammond had previously refused to support his opposition to a rise in car parking charges at Weybridge railway station, the revelation about the second home showed that Hammond is "not interested in the downtrodden local motorist". As a result of the criticism Mr Hammond told his local paper that he would pay back any profit he makes on the future sale of his second home to the public purse. When his expenses were revealed on the internet it emerged that Hammond spends thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money every year on newspapers, and once spent £24 of public money on eight teaspoons.

So luckily for the Lib Dems they won’t have to look very far when making his tea.

So you might be able to guess here that this person who we will have to try and do business with is perhaps a tad removed from the living standards that we have to eke out day in and day out.

Turning to the other issue I want to touch briefly on the result of the judicial review regarding the Civil Service Compensation Scheme. Firstly, congratulations to you and to every member for the effort and campaigning you put in. The strike action that we took in my view was essential and it will remain essential if we do not reach a negotiated settlement, the victory is down to the resilience and resistance of our members and they should rightly feel proud of themselves. I am sure that Janice will want to speak more on this later today so I won’t say much more. However, there is still much more to do, we need one scheme for all members including those in the NUVOS pension scheme, but we also know that this ruling will now have a cost to any employer who simply thinks they can walk in. sack us and pay us off on the cheap.
So where do we go from here?

Well, we know that the attacks on us will quicken and there will be attacks. Pay will be restrained, sickness absence will be targeted, expenses will not go up with inflation, our terms and conditions will be eroded if we let them. So that requires us to do a couple of things.

Firstly, we need to recruit members because membership is our strength and there are many out there who will join PCS is we ask them.

Secondly, our Branch structures and our union structures have to be ‘fit for purpose’ what that means in my view is that they have to have good membership numbers and equally they have to have good membership participation.

Thirdly, if we get these two things right then we need to get communication right and better will members, we put out many messages but we need to ensure that those messages are being read, that members are getting ballot papers that members understand our union structures, that members understand that they are the union and it is they who can play a part in that.

There is much more we will need to do but I think without these three priorities we will not be able to campaign successfully.

I finally want to turn to our Group. Without the transport infrastructure in this Britain the country would grind to a halt. From road building, to road safety, to vehicle safety, sea safety, and railway safety we have an integral part we play in that. But we also raise huge revenues for Government. In short our Department has major industrial significance; our members therefore have major industrial strength. It is that strength that we are going to need to harness in the coming months and if we do it and link with our fellow union members and other unions then I believe that we can see off the attacks that are coming. We have started that process in the DSA and I want to welcome Ollie and Jarko from the Finnish Driving Examiners union and Christian, Yann, and Patrick from the French Driving Examiners union SNICA FO to our conference. You are all very welcome.

We often look to other trade unions in Britain and that is right but we need to start looking a little further as well. The economic recession is global, the legislation which is brought in for us is international and that is why we need to make closer links in Europe with sister unions.

We also need to support our fellow workers in Europe as well. I say so because you should all be aware of what is happening in Greece where they are trying to make workers there pay for the crisis not of their making. What is happening in Greece is crucial for how it plays out in the rest of Europe including Britain, if workers lose the rich and powerful will move on to the next country, lose and they will have to re-think their economic strategy in short they will have to move away from the idea of profit before people and that is why I say to you all that our message today must also be ‘victory to the Greek workers’.

Finally, I want to thank you all again for the support and hard work you have given to members this year, we face tough times, tough choices, but I know that we will come through it. I know for example that MCA members continue to fight for decent and fair pay, three years on and still in industrial action, I know that DVLA reps have had to come through some horrendous times within our own union but they have come out stronger and more respected for the way they conducted themselves and the members have benefited from that. UI know that we face enormous challenges but I also know that the reps we have in this Department are up for the task, are serious about defending our terms, we will use political, legal and industrial pressure wherever we can, and w will organise better than we did last year because we will have to.
I also want to give my personal thanks to those who are standing down from the GEC this year and welcome those who will be coming on to it, I can assure you we will be very busy this year.

Enjoy this conference, pass the motions, set policy today, and after today let’s make that something real not just a set of words.