Public and Commercial Services Union

HO/MB/37/09 gave details of the position reached in negotiations on UKBA and of PCS’s decision to ballot our members on industrial action.

Border Force make up

PCS currently has around 1300 members working in the border force. Following the transfer of Customs staff into the border force, PCS will have around 6000 members. We will also have a total of around 16000 members working in home office HQ/UKBA and around 300,000 members working in the public and commercial sectors.

The Immigration Service Union (ISU) currently has around 4300 members 4300 working in home office HQ/UKBA of which around 4000 work in border force. They do not have any members anywhere else in the public or commercial sector and are not organised anywhere else in the world of work.

Industrial position

In November 2007 PCS wrote to management seeking a number of guarantees and assurances, many of which were designed to protect the working lives of members in the border force.

Since that date, we have pressed management on these issues but they have not so far given our members the assurances they need. Instead, management have decided to press ahead with their change programme, ripping up shift patterns and changing ways of working in the process.

In June 2009, the ISU wrote to management seeking similar assurances that we had been pressing for since November 2007. They have been met with the same response from management as PCS has received.

What next?

In the absence of any guarantees about our members’ futures, and in light of the changes management are pressing ahead with, PCS are balloting members in the border force on a campaign of industrial action to protect their futures.

It is clear that if the ISU were to ballot its members in border force, our position would be immeasurably strengthened. The ISU leadership has not organized any such ballot of its members.

We understand that they are considering an “indicative” ballot. However, this will have no statutory weight and will not enable members of the ISU to take industrial action.

PCS publicly calls upon the ISU leadership to join our campaign by balloting their members in border force and joining our action.

Join PCS

We hope that the leadership of the ISU will ballot their members and join our fight. However, at this stage, the only way that workers in border force can be certain of being able to join the action to defend their interests is to join PCS. We call upon all workers in border force to do so.

The threat to your working lives is immediate and only by standing together will you be able to defeat it.

Fill in the PCS application form and join PCS today.

Together, we are stronger

Together, we can win!