From The Editorial Board

Commercial Break is your vehicle to spread the word about what our reps do in the private and commercial sectors of PCS. Our experience is that we all face the same issues: TUPE, hostile employers, difficult pay negotiations and overworked and underpaid staff. 

For example, in Atos we have two different TUPEs which are going to happen in the next year with the possibility of other government contracts going the same way as well. 

We know Fujitsu is balloting over a 15% pay claim and almost every other commercial sector group has had tough pay negotiations when inflation was much higher than normal.

Our PSMA forums this year (July and November) gave our reps a chance to network and share best practice with our civil service colleagues in the rest of PCS. We are looking to get more reps from the facilities management sector so we can better understand the problems they face organising in their workplaces and take the message to their members that we can fight for better pay and conditions.

“Our experience is that we all face the same issues, TUPE, hostile employers, difficult pay negotiations and overworked and underpaid staff.”

Our government champions the privatisation of the public sector and does not care whether that is a good idea or not, as long as the contracts cost less in the long run. This has proven to be disastrous in most cases but especially in the water and rail industries.

We can only hope that when a general election happens whatever party gets into power realises that a lot of these economies are false and can start to bring these jobs back into the public sector.