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Defend public services in the North West

26th March - An overwhelming success

More than 600 PCS members from across the region made their way safely to London and back on 26th March to participate in the 500,000 strong March for the Alternative. For many, it was their first time on such a demonstration and the feedback we have received has been entirely positive, despite some skewed reporting of the event in the mainstream media.

Regional Secretary Peter Middleman paid tribute to the PCS marchers, "This was an unprecedented mobilisation from the north west. In total we covered over a quarter of a million miles to demand an alternative to cuts and all those who gave up part of their valuable weekend to do so should be very proud of their contribution".

We had worked in advance with a number of local journalists including one from BBC Radio Manchester who followed our 50 strong delegation on the 08.55 train from Manchester Piccadilly on Saturday morning.

Images from Saturday can be viewed on the PCS gallery page or via the PCS north west Flickr pages. 

Cabinet Minister's Tax Dodge - Sign the Petition


When it comes to cuts, George Osborne likes to say "we're all in this together". But Channel 4 has revealed that along with two other Cabinet ministers, he's avoiding paying tax.  He pays accountants to find loopholes which help him dodge £1.6 million.

"Legal" tax dodges like this cost the rest of us billions.  They mean some of the richest people in the UK get away with paying less tax than the poorest. How can we trust George Osborne to be doing all he can to close tax loopholes when he is using them himself?

Together we need to expose George Osborne’s hypocrisy. Let’s build a huge petition against George Osborne's tax dodges. We’ll show that as long as he fails to pay his fair share of tax, the public won’t buy his claims that "we're all in this together".

Sign the petition to George Osborne - "pay your fair share of taxes, George", at the 38 degrees website.

At the moment too many politicians think it's fine to dodge tax. They do it and their friends do too. George Osborne seems to think it’s OK to have one rule for him and his friends and another rule for everybody else.

We need to combat this relaxed attitude to tax dodging, and that means starting with the Chancellor. If thousands of us sign the petition against our tax-dodging Chancellor, we can shame him into paying his taxes. That would be a real breakthrough in our campaign to stop the UK's richest people dodging their fair share of tax.

We don’t think it's fair for the UK's richest to be dodging their fair share of tax whilst the rest of us face cuts and tax rises. Let’s turn up the heat on our tax dodging chancellor.

Tell George Osborne to drop his double standards and pay his fair share of taxes - visit the 38 degrees website and sign the petition today.

PCS and Unison - joint statement

PCS in the north west welcomes the publication of a joint statement with sister union, Unison, which provides the basis for co-ordinated campaigning to defeat the coalition government cuts.  Specifically, Regional Officers of the respective unions will be "twinned" and Peter Middleman, PCS Regional Secretary, believes this is essential in building an effective fightback.  He said, "In the north west we already enjoy an excellent relationship with Unison and indeed other TUC-affiliated unions.  However, this statement is symbolically important and it will be valuable to our local branches and activists in building alliances at a community level.  All the local unions recognise that we need to work together to demonstrate to politicians and indeed the public that there is an alternative to cuts to our essential public services."

The statement, signed by the President and General Secretary of each union, was enthusiastically endorsed by the PCS NW Regional Committee at their last meeting in Wigan on 22nd September.

PCS North West in the media

Question time - Thursday, 23 September 2010
Graham Woodhouse, Dft Group, appears on the subject of CSCS and the tax gap at 43.12 minutes.

Save our Courts

Aday after the budget, which planned 25% cuts to government departments, a court closure programme was announced. This programme consisted of a consultation on the closure of 103 Magistrates Courts and 54 County Courts nationwide.

PCS are campaigning against the closures. Our aim is to defend jobs and to keep access to local justice possible. Help supporting the campaign against the closures by sending a message to your MP.

Campaigning against GO closure

0n 20 May 2010 the coalition government announced the closure of GO London, and a review to test the case for abolition of the rest of the GO network.

PCS is campaigning to protect jobs by ensuring no compulsory redundancies or transfers, and ensuring no detrimental changes to terms and conditions.

Help to support the campaign by taking a moment to complete the e-action and contact your local MP.

Defending the Civil Service Compensation Scheme

A High Court judge has dealt the final blow to the government's unlawful cuts to civil service redundancy pay.

Mr Justic Sales confirmed that PCS was right to challenge the way the terms of the civil service compensation scheme, which governs redundancy payments, were slashed.

The decision quashes an amendment to the scheme that the previous government had claimed was effective from 1 April, and requires the new government to enter negotiations with PCS if it wants to change the scheme in future.

Tory Peer meets PCS members

A delegation of PCS members greeted Lord Heseltine on his visit to Liverpool Chamber of Commerce on Thursday 2nd December.

As the former Tory Minister arrived to deliver the Chamber's address to business leaders, costing £90 per head to attend, PCS Regional Secretary Peter Middleman took the opportunity to ask if "closing the £125bn tax gap as an alternative to cuts would feature in [his] speech".  Lord Heseltine repied that he "didn't know about it" and was then swiftly presented with a Christmas card, signed on behalf of 650,000 public sector workers in the region, which contained a copy of the PCS "There is an alternative" pamphlet.

View an image of PCS at the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce on flickr