Our comrades in PCS are on strike this week on Thursday and Friday over the issue of cuts. Please show support on the picket lines on Thursday and Friday (from 7:00 'til about 10:00). The staff entrance is in Wilton Way behind the Hackney Empire.

Info about the strike from PCS General Secretary, Mark Serwotka, follows...

To All DWP Members

JOBS, RIGHTS AND SERVICES CAMPAIGN - SUPPORT THE STRIKE

I am writing to every member in DWP to urge you to support the strike planned for 26 and 27 January.

PCS is calling on members in DWP to support the two day strike to defend jobs, protect your rights at work and save the services we provide from failure. Services are suffering from the serious staff shortages and the operational chaos arising from the way the "Modernisation" Programme is being implemented.

Already 15,000 jobs in DWP have been cut and another 15,000 more jobs cuts are planned by 2008. Management refuse to guarantee that this will not mean compulsory redundancies. To make matters worse, management are pressing ahead with attacks on terms and conditions including, for example, Managing Attendance. Stress and pressure for staff is at an all-time high.

As services to the public deteriorate, a growing chorus of MPs and community organisations are telling the government that the Department is in crisis.

Strike is a last resort

PCS has tried hard to resolve this dispute. Your Group Officers met new Permanent Secretary, Leigh Lewis, within days of his appointment last November and pressed him on our demands. In December, together with your Group President and Secretary, I met with John Hutton MP, Secretary of State for the DWP, to press him to halt the cuts programme.

We proposed to him that he work with us to evaluate the effect of the cuts so far and develop a joint review system for establishing appropriate staffing levels across the Department. This would be an important step forward.
Regrettably Mr Hutton would not consider these demands saying only that it was his role to deliver the £1 billion a year cuts programme dictated by the Chancellor. He denied that the Department was in crisis and claimed that the department could cope with the further cuts planned.

Parliamentary campaign

The union has lobbied MP's, put parliamentary questions to ministers and recently secured a debate in Parliament on the cuts programme and the failing IT systems in DWP.

We have also submitted a detailed submission to the DWP Select Committee of MP's about the cuts and will be giving oral evidence early this year.

Our PCS Parliamentary Group of MP's has worked tirelessly to press the government to halt the damaging cuts programme and has requested a further meeting with John Hutton.

Together we can win

We have learned recently that it is possible to change the government's position by being united and campaigning vigorously. Only last year we won significant concessions over the government's pension plans for existing civil servants.

If we stand together the government will have no choice but to listen to us. Our demands are clear and reasonable and we will continue to fight to protect jobs and the services we provide to some of the most vulnerable members of our society. We must stop the attacks on our terms and conditions that are tied in with the cuts programme.

I would urge you to support the two day strike, to join your local picket line and to encourage your colleagues to do so too.

Yours in solidarity,

Mark Serwotka

General Secretary