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Can I afford to strike on 24 March?

17 March 2010

As we go into a third day of national strike action in defence of our contractually entitled accrued rights in our existing civil service compensation scheme it is worth reflecting and considering the position we are in.

The statement we are faced with most often at times of industrial action is that members can’t afford to take strike action. Our union knows that it is never an easy decision to take strike action.

PCS members in the Ministry of Defence are generally on low pay and for most of us every penny counts when bringing in the bare necessities to keep our households going. Therefore to face the loss of three days pay is rightly deliberated and discussed within families because of the sacrifice we have to make.

We are not born with silver spoons in our mouths. Nor do we live off the back of others’ financial hardship, as the senior executives of banks do. Bankers get their ‘contractually entitled’ bonuses through the profits they make on the extortionate interest they charge us to pay back loans, mortgages and credit cards, but the government does little to challenge them.

Therefore the gains we make and the terms and conditions we defend are fought for every step of the way. This is the reality. So to defend our redundancy compensation scheme it will require every one of us to play our part and stand shoulder to shoulder with each other in taking action together.

MoD figures v PCS figures

Tessa Jowell, minister for the Cabinet Office joyfully proclaimed that only one in five PCS members took strike action. The fact is that the figures that were paraded about were highly inaccurate, and at least for MoD based on HRMS. In our previous circular, we gave a snapshot of some of the 70+ picket lines held across MoD, and the members and activists on those picket lines observed very few PCS members attending work on 8 and 9 March.

The Cabinet Office and MoD figures showed that more people were on strike on the 9th March than the previous day, showing that support for the strike is building as members recognise the issues at stake.

Today we are faced with a choice. Do we simply accept the ripping up of our current terms and accrued rights or are we going to stand up for ourselves?

In years to come will people look back and say how PCS members fought to defend their redundancy rights or will they just think how did we come to being worse off?

All our on 24 March - No job cuts on the scheme

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