Oxford Rally to Defend Jobs and Public Services May 1st

OXFORD RALLY
TO DEFEND
OUR JOBS AND
PUBLIC
SERVICES
Tuesday
1st May
Outdoor Rally
at 12:00 noon
Bonn Square
Oxford


Speakers:
Andy Reid - PCS National Executive Committee
Mark Fysh - Unison County and TUC General Council
Dona Velluti - Oxford and District Trades Council

Tuesday 1 May is a key date for the fight to break Gordon Brown’s 2 percent public sector wage freeze and to defend public services.

This May Day will see 250,000 PCS civil service workers’ union members striking against job cuts that will devastate services, and against low pay and privatisation. Other groups of workers will protest and show solidarity with us.

The PCS is leading the revolt against Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s plans to give workers an effective pay cut while forcing us to work harder.

But other groups of workers look set to join us. NHS workers in the Unison and RCN unions are planning to ballot to take action over pay. The Unison health conference also supported protests on 1 May.

The teachers’ NUT and NASUWT unions have both recently voted at their conferences to ballot their members if a 2 percent pay offer is made to members. Postal workers in the CWU union are also moving towards confrontation over the issue.

The Labour government stands behind the attacks on public sector workers and the services we provide. The same government that is proud to spend billions of pounds on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is refusing to give its workers a decent pay rise.

The government is fighting hard against us. The Cabinet Office has declared that talks between the government and the PCS will not take place until the union calls off its industrial action.
Blair may be going very soon, but things aren’t going to get better under Brown, the architect of the cuts in the civil service, the pay limit and New Labour’s wider free market policies.
We will need to fight even harder under Brown. May Day will take place two days before local government elections across Britain, and elections to the Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly.

The strike and events on May Day will highlight the threat the public sector faces from New Labour. The PCS’s strategy in this dispute is based on raising the political issues to hit New Labour, and fighting for the biggest possible unity of public sector workers in action.

Kate Douglas, Oxford Respect and joint branch secretary of the PCS Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire DWP branch (pers Cap)

Oxford civil servants set to strike

Thousands of civil servants working in Oxfordshire will be taking part in a one day strike this Wednesday (31st January) over government plans to axe over 100,000 jobs, which will decimate public services.

The one-day strike, which is the biggest in a generation, has been called by Britain’s largest civil service union, the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS). The strike also comes at a time when civil servants are not only facing losing their jobs but changes to their terms and conditions, sick absence arrangements and the prospect of working longer to receive their pension as the pension age could rise from 60 to 65.

Kate Douglas, Joint Branch Secretary in Department for Work and Pensions explains the reason for the strike:

“The message of our campaign is that the government can’t arbitrarily cut staff without it having a negative impact on local public services such as benefit payment, as well as the local economy. The people the government are seeking to axe aren’t bowler hatted Sir Humphries based in Whitehall or faceless bureaucrats, they provide vital services that touch everybody’s lives from cradle to grave. They work as a team delivering the things we take for granted, such as your driving licence, passport or child benefit. Collecting the taxes to pay for hospitals and schools, stopping drugs from flowing into the country and making sure people get their winter fuel payments doesn’t happen by magic.”

For example due to the job cuts, Crisis Loans, paid to the most vulnerable and desperate, is now a telephone based service. Some people spend days trying to get through and when they do are often cut off due to the overloaded telephone system. Before the cuts we had dedicated staff in local offices who could deal with these claims.

There will be picket lines at all government offices including Brize Norton air base! If you would like to show your support the best picket line to come along to is at the Jobcentre at corner of Worcester St and George St from 7.30 to about 10am.

There will be a rally at Bonn Square, Oxford at 12 noon on 31st January, with Mark Ladbrooke of Oxford Trades Council, and Lorna Merry of HMRC Group Executive Committee.

Please come and show your support.