100K Jobs to Go!

PCS are not affiliated to the Labour Party, so stopping your political fund payment will make no difference whatsoever. And even in unions which are affiliated, the majority of the political fund does not go to Labour, it goes to other political campaigns, strike funds in other unions etc. To opt out is to oppose unions campaigning politically at all (except in Unison, whre there is a seperate fund for Labour)

Thanks for that Belboid.

Sorry.

But the solution is clear - we must all join Labour and fight for it to adopt a socialist perspec.........oh shit, wrong boards....

Is this going to be just yet another Anti-War Protest and NUS flop?

I'm utterly depress a the moment.

This is a very serious issue. Labour are basically going to sack 110,000 people and move a further 20,000 out of London (whether they like it or not) to save money to avoid tax rises.

Civil service jobs are lost to pay for their votes!

While the PCS union are talking of strike action I am unclear whether any steps are being taken to deliver a ballot. There seems a real danger they will back off. Prospect and the FDA aren't even talking of strikes.

I think anarchists who belong to reformist trade unions not directly affected should be passing solidarity motions. If you belong to a civil service union you should be pushing for a ballot for all out action. I would also have thought that anarchist publications and nat feds would want to support.

While a leaflet is a good idea distribution would need to be thought through.

Richard

Yes - I know anarchists (including me) who would be interested in producing a leaflet I think if you could come up with the copy. The thing is though what would we do with them? Oddly I think a lot of anarchists work for the government in one form or another but we don't have organised networks through which leaflets can be distributed (this is why I tried to organise the Anarchist Workers Network.....)

If you have any ideas re distribution let me know. You should also write something for Freedom although I do believe they are all off on holiday for a few weeks (Tuscany no doubt!)

No....! are they all in London by any chance?

I thought they were simply being moved out of the South East to save money? makes some sense, I dont see why we should support the continuation of the dreaded 'north-south divide'. The last thing the south east needs is jobs, move them to Sunderland or Merseyside if anything.

Plus, London or not, civil servants are the blind minions of opression, rise up guys, rise fucking up!

Your narrow-minded views are somewhat insulting and save money? it will not.

Let me explain, I work for the Government whether I like it or not simply because I have bills to pay. I don't sit around under mum's thumb nor do I live in a "Fantasy world." Secondly I don't like the Government ordering me to uproot from my family or fiends, and to move my home or tell me via media that I might lose my job.

The latest update of my Government Department "move," is that I might have to face a four hour journey each day by train... that if I still have a job at the end of the day. I still have to pay the extra train fares.

Save Money! People seem to have this misconception that by moving you will save money. Sorry but were did you get that information from? The Government, they will sell you anything, save money it will not.

Most Government Building are now contracted out to private firms who "meant" to maintain the building at a profit. i.e. we give you "ex-millions" (I'm talking about eight figure sums here) pounds to look after this building for the next twenty years. For "ex-millions" of pounds you get a help-line.

So if there's a simple problem of a light bulb that has gone out, you ring the help-line and they will charge you a "small" fee for a simple task of changing a light bulb, together with the ex-millions of pound given to the contracted firm.

Because the building is contracted out you can only do business with that firm. So they can charge you what they like

One typical one is to move a cabinet from one room to another... You can't do it, mind, as it not in your contract... You ring the Help-line, they give you a call out charge of £50.00 an hour per person, as it is stated in the contract of the contracted-out firm you will need three people to move a single cabinet. Two to push one to open the door.

So that's £150 quid charge plus the top up charges, VAT, hourly rate, anything that they can find rate and even I kid you not a 10% charge on top for no reason other than it's a Government Department.

So we usually have to fight that 10% charge, they have openly admit trying to rip us off.

(The contractor workers who's are pushing the cabinets by the way don't see any of that "ex-millions of pounds." They just gets a very poor flat hourly rate and no pension.)

In the end you are looking at £170 fee to move a single cabinet, in my "little department" in my small section have got 50 of these things to move around. A bill of a cool £8000. As I said, My small department. The whole building, a rough guess over half a million. We have yet to included the tables, chairs, P. C's etc, etc.

Then you need a "New Building" to stick it all in. How much a new building going to cost?

The only area that the Government is going to save money is by not paying us "urban" wages but by paying us less "rural" wages. And you the tax-payers, well you still have to honor "ex-millions" pounds to look after the previously occupied building for the next twenty years, even if it is standing empty or sold on.

The Government has all the suddenly turned around and wondering why we haven't got any money left. Hence the move, due to our wonderful Senior Civil Servant Careerist (The worst kind) who sold this deal to the Contractors and have since move on to higher pay bands, leaving us the "real" workers to pick up the pieces.

All this, so that the Government can save money on "Pensions" which is the real reason for the building being contracting out in the first place.

Nobody in Government (I'm talking about MP's) realise what really goes on as they (My own Front Bencher MP's) live in a detach world of chauffer driven car and rarely wonders the corridor outside his/her own. My very own MP "lives" just two floors below me and I have only ever seen Him/her once outside his/her office since 1998, and three time "chauffer driven" one time nearly running me over.

The job loses are not just confine to London, quiet a few of them from "up north." If you're wondering my pay is crap and I mean crap. So the North/South will still exist and get worst.

The government holds a monopoly on a lot of essential services, so i don't see working for them as any worse than any other job. Arguably better than working for a non-essential private company. I once had a temp job at a council (quit without notice after 10 days) where the guy training me spent four hours looking for a lost stationery catologue - I estimate that cost well over 200 quid if you include the money paid to my agency, his salary, the energy used in the office we were in, the several minutes of other people's time that was spent asking them if they'd borrowed it, etc. etc. etc. After going round two large floors of the building, he picked up a spare catalogue from the couple of thousand piled up in the next room.