Civil service union PCS and Unison have joined forces and signed a new memorandum of understanding setting out how they can both work together to address the challenge of change in UK public services.
The new agreement is intended to help the unions boost membership and organisation across the public sector.
Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: “With the challenges that workers in the public services face today, it is only right that two of the largest public sector unions work together to protect their members’ interests.”
Earlier this year, Personnel Today reported that the number of public sector job cuts could reach as many as 578,000 by 2012 – nearly 60% more than the CIPD’s prediction of 350,000 by 2014-15 – and will inevitably hit the HR function.
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The Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD) had forecast that the public sector would have to make 350,000 job cuts by 2014-15 – just over 6% of the 5.8 million workforce – to cope with increasingly restricted public spending.
At the time, the CIPD also warned that public sector unions need to be told to choose between higher pay deals or fewer redundancies as the recession sets in across the sector.
