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Why all fixed term contract and casual staff in the DWP and CMEC should support the strike

4 March 2010

PCS is campaigning to defend the Civil Service Compensation Scheme. The Government wants to cut jobs on the cheap by cutting the amount of money you get if you take early retirement or face redundancy.

Because negotiations have broken down PCS members have voted for strike action. This affects you so all Fixed Term Contract and casual staff are urged to support the strike.

I don’t think it affects me

Yes it does. This attack on the compensation scheme affects everybody. It will make it easier to cut jobs and new staff would be under the greatest threat. This is because voluntary redundancies would become much less attractive making compulsory redundancies much more likely. Then management can pick who they get rid of and new staff would be cheapest to make redundant. Support the strike and help get more permanent jobs.

I don’t want to get into trouble

The vast majority of staff are in the union. When you join PCS you will be in the majority. You have a legal right to join the union to strike. Management cannot end your contract because you join the union and strike. When your contract is due to end management cannot refuse to renew it because you went on strike.

I want a permanent job

PCS is doing everything possible to get a permanent job for you. We are in negotiations with senior management who have already agreed that they will honour the full length of all casual and Fixed Term Contracts In the past we have had a great deal of success in having temporary staff made permanent.

What is the union doing about Promotion?

PCS is also pressing senior DWP management to run permanent promotion exercises. There are Band B staff doing EO work on Fixed Term promotion contracts and there are other Band B staff who would like the chance of promotion.

A campaigning union

PCS is a campaigning union with over 88,000 union members in the DWP. We won a campaign to defend our pensions and now we are campaigning to stop cuts in redundancy pay. At the same time PCS is negotiating with senior DWP management about jobs and promotion and trying to persuade them to run proper permanent recruitment and promotion exercises. If the government gets away with this attack on the Civil service compensation scheme it will make it easier for them to cut jobs on the cheap.

 

  Why fixed term and casual union members should support the strike
 

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