STRIKING PCS members in Harrow, north-west London, staged pickets at the Land Registry, the local Jobcentre, Harrow Magistrates and Harrow Crown Court from early Wednesday morning at the start of the one-day national strike by 280,000 civil and public servants.
At 11.30am they held a demonstration at St Anne’s shopping centre, where they leafleted the local shoppers and workers.
They then marched down the high street to a rally.
On the picket lines, Adrian Ali told News Line: ‘We are out to stop cuts in the civil service, to protect jobs and for a better pay deal.
‘We are opposed to a lot of the relocation and destruction of our jobs.
‘We are out solid today and we will work to rule in the next two weeks.’
David Stoddart, another picket, said: ‘We have utter contempt for the way the government has treated us.
‘We are on strike today to show we are not going to take it.
‘We want a fair pay deal, no job cuts or forced relocation, and we want it now.
‘I think we need a general strike in order to force the government to comply, because this is the only language they understand.’
Mark Benjamin, from HM Revenue and Customs, Land Registry and Valuation department, told News Line: ‘The government wants to close Lyon House in Harrow, which is the only local tax and valuation office in Harrow.
‘Why should the public have to travel to central London when they have a local service, which they are entitled to?
‘The government want to centralise everything.
‘They spent £105 million on private consultants but they will save £160 million when they sack the workers.’
John Maloney, from the PCS executive, opened the rally in Harrow.
He said: ‘The Department of Transport in Glasgow was solid this morning. 140 workers there refused to go in.
‘Six people turned up and when they saw what was happening they went home.
‘The striking civil servants have stopped several thousand driving tests.
‘There are two villains: Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.
‘When the job cuts were announced in parliament the Labour MPs cheered.
‘We are campaigning for John McDonnell to win the leadership of the Labour Party.
‘It is not only the PCS that is threatened, it’s NHS, council workers.
‘It is a wider struggle, concerning all workers.
‘Our task is to fight all cuts.
‘When (civil service chief) Gus McDonald sent out letters to the DVLC in Swansea telling staff to cross picket lines, 200 workers immediately joined the PCS.
‘The government is not going to capitulate, we must think what we are going to do next.
‘No one should leave their employment against their will.
‘None of our living standards should be cut.
‘These are very modest demands.’
Graham O’Hanley, from the Land Registry, said: ‘We face closure, with the loss of 800 jobs.
‘Our staff are to be relocated to Stevenage.
‘Our members don’t know what to do, they’ve got kids.
‘The Land Registry is a cash cow, it always makes money.
‘We pay the highest taxes, yet all our public services are being stripped away.
‘The government sees itself as a private sector practice with a public service face.’
Theresa Rafferty, PCS branch secretary for Brent, Harrow and Hillingdon DWP, told the rally: ‘We are being hit the hardest in Harrow.
‘We have lost 109 jobs, when our jobs were centralised.
‘Staff were relocated to a call centre with multilingual and multi-ethnic skills for translation purposes, but this was closed down by the government and it’s done now by Big Word, an international company.
‘We don’t know the security of this organisation, and yet claimants have to give their bank details and passport numbers and such things to it.
‘We lost 80 jobs with this contact centre being shut and the 40 social fund and crisis loans staff face compulsory redundancy.
‘It is very scary in my office.’
Perry Miles, Harrow Trades Council, said: ‘We support all the trade unions in struggle.
‘Years ago you would never have heard of civil servants going on strike.
‘This government says everything public is rubbish and everything private is wonderful.
‘All manufacturing is being closed under Labour and Brown is the architect of these job cuts.
‘I’m supporting John McDonnell, we need to get 44 nominations so he can go forward to the ballot (to elect a new Labour leader).
‘If Brown gets his way there will be deliberate destruction of jobs,’ he said.
Phil, from Acton Jobcentre, said: ‘There is a proposal to centralise social fund jobs in Balham, so we are facing a lot of sackings.
‘There was not a single scab at Acton.
‘The loss of 800 jobs in Land Registry will have an enormous effect on the whole community.
‘This is an opportunity to bring people on our side because it affects everyone in the community.
‘We are preparing a strike action to save our jobs in Acton and Harrow DWP and we should also do that in the Land Registry and HMRC.
‘There’s no reason to cut jobs, because we are the fourth richest economy.
‘But money is spent on Iraq and Afghanistan, which is a war they are losing.
‘We need to put people first and stand up for the rights of workers.
‘We need to put pressure on our leaders for more national action.’
Christine Hulme, from Hammersmith and Fulham, said: ‘The government is taking workers off the government register and contracting all the work out.
‘Brown needs to be challenged and the local MP in Harrow, John McNulty, who is the Home Office junior minister, must be hounded.’
Another speaker warned that Northwick Park hospital faces closure with 650 workers facing the sack.
‘How can we possibly travel to Ealing hospital?’ he asked.
Karen Johnson, branch secretary of the PCS at the DCLG (Department of Communities and Local Government), told News Line on the picket line yesterday: ‘At the DCLG it’s about pay.
‘We’ve had below-inflation pay rises for the last couple of years.
‘The government has a policy of holding down pay in some departments, including ours, because they have been better paid – mainly because of the union campaigning.
‘However, the only way to get proper pay increases is national disputes and an escalation of the current action to get a re-introduction of national pay bargaining – to get rid of the divide-and-rule strategy brought in by the Tories and kept by Labour.
‘We should have a national levy across the union to support strategic strikes targeted on areas that will really hurt the government.’
Leon Bord, another PCS picket, said: ‘The union will be discussing the lessons of today and how to go forward.
‘I personally think we need more national action and we should name the dates within days.’
There were five PCS members on the picket line outside Hounslow JobCentre in west London early yesterday morning.
PCS DWP West London Branch Secretary Declan Power told News Line: ‘We’ve got about 600 members in west London.
‘The DWP has borne the brunt of the government’s job cuts.
‘The DWP is in line to lose a total of 30,000.
‘We’ve already lost 20,000 and 10,000 to go.
‘So far it’s been natural wastage and voluntary redundancies, but we do have fears that it will be compulsory in the future.
‘We have a policy of complete opposition to all compulsory redundancies.
‘That’s why today’s action has been called.
‘You can’t cut this level of jobs without causing a massive impact and it is the most vulnerable who suffer the most.’
PCS rep Pete Mayor added: ‘The services have been so eroded by the government.
‘We have to stand up and fight.
‘I’m a socialist. I support the rights of workers and the right to a decent living and proper state support.’
Pickets were also out from 8.00am in the morning in Stratford in east London, determined to defend their jobs and conditions.
Sue Blar, a PCS member at Stratford, said: ‘I’ve joined the picket line in an attempt to make the government take notice of the PCS, to safeguard our jobs and keep us providing an excellent service to the public.
‘Because of staff shortages, even now a lot of people are putting in overtime.
‘If they carry out the proposal of 100,000 staff cutbacks the whole service will probably grind to a halt.
‘I deal with incapacity benefit and this government are striking at the most vulnerable people in the community, they need us or they wouldn’t get their incapacity benefit.
‘Incapacity benefit is so essential because it supports people who, through illness and an incapacity, are unable to support themselves in any other way.
‘We want to ensure that we provide the best service for the public and if our jobs aren’t here, then these vulnerable people will suffer.’
At the Hackney Jobcentre in Dalston, there were pickets covering all the entrances.
Daniel Otuonye, PCS rep for Dalston Jobcentre-plus, told News Line: ‘If the job cuts go ahead there’ll be a lot of backlog in assessing and processing claims.
‘A lot of people will have great difficulty with their unemployment benefits.
‘It’s pathetic the way civil servants are being treated by the government.
‘Several times we have had meetings and the meetings have not been fruitful.
‘Common sense has to prevail.
‘This government has to accept what we are asking for, and that is that we are needed to do a certain job.
‘It is the public that need us.’
There were eight PCS pickets out at the two entrances to the Euston Tower by 7.30am on Wednesday.
The Euston Tower is one of the main centres for the Inland Revenue as well as home to ACAS.
As News Line spoke to two of the strikers, the day’s post was turned away in a gesture of solidarity.
John Barnes, a civil servant, said, ‘UNISON should come out with the PCS to defend the public sector.
‘It’s too easy to cut civil service staff, but then we have to take on agency workers!
‘People may think that we’re just out for ourselves, but it is the defence of the whole service.
‘There’s no job security.’
Lane Taylor, the PCS Branch President HMRC at Euston Tower, also thought that the UNISON leadership needed to support the PCS in action so that the unions do not fight alone.
‘UNISON should stop bankrolling the Labour Party.
‘Big unions like that should threaten to withdraw money from the Labour Party.
‘Gordon Brown is seen as worse than Blair.
‘He argues about how many civil servants should be cut without even consulting anybody!’
Pickets were out early yesterday at the two main government offices in Luton.
At both the JobCentre and Benefit Processing Centre and the Revenue and Customs office in the town PCS representatives reported a solid response to the union’s call for a one day strike against 100,000 job cuts being demanded by the government.
At the JobCentre Dave Slater, Secretary of the Bedford Branch, told News Line: ‘These cuts are just a headcount reduction that takes no account of the actual work being done by our members, it’s a political headcount.
‘The current staff can’t cope with the amount of work at the moment but still they insist on staffing cuts of 20 per cent followed by another 20 per cent with the government justifying it by claiming that everything is working fine and that targets are being met.
‘But the fact remains that even with the present staffing numbers, if someone goes sick their claim is supposed to be met in seven days but the reality is it could take much longer to process the claim simply because of a shortage of trained staff.
‘The Luton office should be processing claims for the whole of Bedfordshire but we are so short of staff the claims are having to be sent all over the country to be dealt with.’
Outside the Revenue offices, Mark Smith, Secretary of the Lea Valley PCS branch, said ‘The turnout today has been excellent we have had absolutely solid support from our members and from the public.
‘The one day strike is not the end of the action, from tomorrow we will be operating a two week overtime ban as part of the continuous action we voted for to stop job cuts.
‘Until now the service has been run on overtime because of staff shortages so this will really hit home.’
PCS representative Geoff Webb expressed the anger of the pickets saying: ‘This strike sets down a marker for the government that we are deadly serious in fighting for our jobs.
‘The proposed cuts are not really about saving money, it’s all about selling public services down the river to consultants and international computer companies.
‘These people are making a fortune out of the civil service.
‘£7.2 billion has been spent on consultancy fees in the civil service, in the year 2004/2005 alone £2.8 billion was spent.
‘And when the Public Accounts Committee enquired into this they reported that they could not determine whether or not this expenditure had any effect on services.
‘If they had spent the same amount on staff – and the committee had found it had no effect on the service – there would have been uproar. In lining the pockets of private business the government is selling the country.
At Shepherds Bush Jobcentre, Christine Hulme, PCS branch chair for West London, said: ‘I think there should be an end to all jobs cuts in the civil service and proper resources to offer a decent service to the public – instead of call centres, a face-to-face service.
‘In London 3,500 staff have been lost in Jobcentres since Brown’s 2004 Budget statement.
‘Twenty per cent of all cuts have been in London, which has the highest unemployment.’
Before the central London march at midday Wednesday, Tony Page, a PCS member at English Heritage, said before the march: ‘A lot of people have moved out of London because they can’t afford to live here.
‘There will have to be more action. We’re having an overtime ban and work to rule but there will probably be more strike action.
‘I can’t see the government giving in over one day’s action, it has to be sustained.
‘People feel very strongly. We’re determined to win decent pay, pensions and defend our jobs.’
At the British Library picket line, PCS member Dale Stuart told News Line: ‘We’re on strike because we don’t want compulsory redundancies.
‘We want better pensions and better pay. We should be getting a ten per cent rise, not 2.2 per cent.’
Librarian Irina Lester added: ‘This is the first time I’m on the picket line in my life.
‘It’s very important to fight for civil service jobs and to oppose job cuts and funding cuts.
‘If we want to continue providing an excellent service in the library, we need more state funding not less – and more jobs, not job cuts.
‘Library money should not be spent on private consultants it should go to the librarians.
‘The pay is very low and our pay rise was very small.’
Adam Burton, a PCS member on the Ofsted picket line in Kingsway, London, said: ‘We’re on strike because of the pay freeze which means a cut and the threat of future redundancies.
‘We’ve already had a lot of redundancies and we’re worried about more.
‘It might take more than a day’s strike to defeat the government.
‘We won’t be surprised if we are out again.’
At the Qualifications and Curriculum Agency, Piccadilly, PCS rep Andy Allcorn told News Line: ‘People are supporting colleagues who haven’t got a specific dispute.
‘This is against job and pay cuts.’
Vince Maples, PCS ID and Passport Service group assistant secretary, said: ‘Quarter of a million people are standing up and saying they’ve had enough.
‘We want fair pay and decent public services.’
Science Museum, Kensington picket Trudy Allen said: ‘We are suffering cuts in funding in the culture sector.
‘A lot of museums face privatisation and we face cuts in wages.’
HM’s Revenue and Customs PCS London Customs and Excise branch secretary Kevin Eaton said: ‘We’ve been pushed into this.
‘Negotiations aren’t making progress, neither is the pressure in parliament.
‘So we’re out on the streets to protect public services and jobs.
‘There will be more action, this is just the start.’
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