PCS to vote on strike action over civil service job cuts

The
PCS unions will ballot almost 300,000 government staff on strike action over
massive job cuts in the civil service.

Chancellor
Gordon Brown has earmarked more than 100,000 cuts in the service, with most set
to hit the Inland Revenue, Customs and Excise and the Department of Work and
Pensions. HR has been earmarked as one of the groups in the firing line.

PCS  leader,
Mark Serwotka, said the
union was not against greater efficiency, but the cuts would decimate service
delivery, meaning poorer service for everyone.

"The
people the government is seeking to axe are not bowler-hatted ‘Sir Humphries’ or faceless bureaucrats –
they provide vital services that touch everyone’s lives from cradle to
grave," he said.

As
the TUC conference kicked off today in Brighton,
unionists threatened strike action over the ‘pensions time bomb’ that is looming in the UK.

Brendan
Barber, TUC general secretary, said: “Unions will fight to defend pensions benefits. We will
negotiate, we will campaign, and if we have to, we will strike.”

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Michael Millar