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DWP Union News - Weekly Bulletin 33

20 August 2010

The latest news for members in DWP and CMEC.

PCS argues for all FTA contracts to be extended

PCS met Senior Jobcentre Plus management last Friday to discuss the future of FTA staff in Jobcentre Plus. It is clear to everyone that with unemployment still high they remain essential to Jobcentre Plus’s ability to keep doing the fantastic job we have been doing. Management was unable to commit to making any of the FTA staff permanent at present because of uncertainty caused by the autumn spending review. PCS pressed management hard to extend all of the FTA contracts by at least another six months as an interim measure and is awaiting management’s response to our demand. PCS is also pursuing the retention of FTAs throughout the DWP.

DWP pay talks re-start

Pay talks have started again today in DWP and are expected to start shortly in CMEC. DWP management has been taking advice about our entitlement to progression. PCS is arguing that we must get our progression payment just as other public sector workers like council workers are still getting theirs. We have also argued that if progression is frozen and members cannot progress from min to max within five years we will challenge this under the age discrimination laws.

Low pay must end

PCS will be focusing on ending the disgrace of low pay in the DWP. Our Secretary of State has written a great deal about poverty including in work poverty and poverty pay. It is a scandal that over half of all staff in DWP earn poverty pay rates of £18K or less. Reports this week indicated a fourfold increase in people using pay day loans – at shocking interest rates of up to 2500%. These loans only worsen an individual’s ability to make ends meet. Many of our members are now being forced to turn to such desperate measures. These members desperately need to be paid the living wage PCS is campaigning for.

Fair pay for all

PCS knows that the only way to end low pay in the DWP is to ensure that we all get a decent pay rise and good pay rates to progress onto. PCS will be arguing that every single penny of money that management has available must be used to improve our pay rates.

Together we will win

TPIP talks update

A meeting of PCS reps from all the TPIP sites was called by the DWP Group Executive Committee this week to update them on negotiations so far and hear first hand members’ views. The GEC reported their dissatisfaction that not enough progress had been made in talks so far, either in enabling those who don’t want to transfer to get out or in making the new contact centre’s into decent places where members would want to work.

Ballot prepared

Members are still very angry on all 11 TPIP sites particularly about restrictions to flexi and management by targets. A full report will be given to the GEC which meets next week. The GEC will be told that members are still prepared to be balloted for strike action unless there are significant improvements.

The whole TPIP project is now being submitted to the Cabinet Office for review. PCS strongly believes that the millions being spent on TPIP cannot be justified in the current financial climate.

Downloadable version:   DWP Union News - Weekly Bulletin 33

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