The following has been supplied by PCS HQ: A barrister hand-picked by the government to report on trade union campaigning has abandoned his review after the Tories jumped the gun.  Bruce Carr, leading what was widely seen as an anti-union inquiry, will produce only a scaled down report and make no recommendations.His official statement cites … Continue reading Tories sink their own anti-union inquiry

The following has been taken from The Guardian Website.PCS' Mark Serwotka is quoted at the end of the piece.Bruce Carr refuses to evaluate rules around strikes and trade disputes after policy announcements left his views 'meaningless'An independent review of laws governing industrial disputes has been dramatically scaled back after the QC in charge objected to … Continue reading Union law review frozen after barrister objects to ministerial statements

The following has been supplied by PCS HQ:The Tories remain intent on removing check-off in those departments which they control, with DWP, Home Office, DEFRA, DfID, and DFE, engaged in a consultation process on withdrawal.A number of other departments are likely to begin consultation soon.In response to this PCS are developing group action plans, targeted … Continue reading Direct Debit Campaign Update

The following has been supplied by PCS HQ:Employment Tribunal fees were introduced one year ago.Since then workers with an employment dispute have had to pay fees to take their case to an Employment Tribunal.As a result of these fees many people can no longer afford to use the Tribunal to seek justice in employment-related disputes. … Continue reading Employment Tribunal fees

The following has been supplied by PCS HQ:Last week PCS members in Bootle supported the first day in a 6-day strike against privatisation of MoJ shared services. The action, which includes 118 members and runs until 31 July, is part of our ongoing campaign to protect jobs and prevent offshoring in shared services, covering areas … Continue reading Save our Shared Services

Dear Colleagues (and potential colleagues)OVERTIME BAN FROM 11TH JULY TO 31ST JULY 2014.The purpose of this post is to inform members of the overtime ban following on from the PCS strike action across the Civil Service and many other Public Sector areas on the 10th July 2014 that there is now a Civil Service wide … Continue reading Civil Service-wide Overtime Ban

Organisers and Trade Union negotiators have cause to celebrate as ILO Convention C098, better known as the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention 1949, was adopted sixty five years ago (on July 1st) in Geneva, Switzerland.This protected workers in countries who were members of the International Labour Organisation, binding them to the articles in … Continue reading Happy 65th Anniversary to the Right to Organise and Collectively Bargain

PCS NW Regional Office have asked us to pass on the following message:ColleaguesPlease would you pass on this link to the website covering the petition launched to stop the potential sell off of the Highways Agency.http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/news_and_events/pcs_comment/index.cfm/oppose-highways-agency-sell-off-and-road-tolling If your members drive they will be very interested in this development, especially those who drive to work.We stopped the … Continue reading Stop Selling our Highways

The following details have been supplied by the PCS DWP Group:The Group Executive Committee (GEC) is continuing to implement national conference carried motion A15 which noted disciplinary action against George Thompson the DWP North East London branch secretary and called upon the union to support and publicise the case. The case has now been submitted … Continue reading Defending George Thompson – Petition