I know why I'm marching on the 20th October 2012

In addition to raiding your pension and freezing your pay, the government is now mounting unprecedented attacks on your terms and conditions.

 

The Cabinet Office has asked every civil service department to review all terms, conditions, policies and practices - essentially all the things you rely on to manage your working lives.

 

Watch and share the video opposing the assault on your terms and conditions.

 

Included in the attack are:

 

• Hours
• Leave

• Flexitime
• Childcare
• Volunteering
• Vacancy filling
• Attendance management.

 

Changes to part-time working and attacks on flexitime are likely to hit women and those with caring responsibilities the hardest. They are already bearing the brunt of the cuts and these changes will make it even harder for them to work and earn a living wage.

 

Amid an imposed pay freeze, and cuts to pensions and redundancy terms, the Cabinet Office now wants to undermine some very basic working conditions that any decent employer should offer.

 

It is impossible to separate this assault from the Tory-led government's wider political project to unpick the welfare state and drive down pay, conditions and employment rights across the economy, and we are determined to oppose it at every step.

 

Even the International Monetary Fund now admits that austerity is becoming counter-productive, instead of falling the UK budget deficit has risen by 22% this year.

 

PCS will resist changes to terms and conditions and the government’s wide-ranging cuts. On Saturday in London, Belfast and Glasgow tens of thousands of our members are marching against austerity, alongside hundreds of thousands of colleagues from other unions and community groups.

 

The union's leaders are meeting this week to consider our response which is bound to include talking to the other unions, raising the attacks on terms and conditions with the Cabinet Office and government ministers, in parliament through our parliamentary group, and with every civil service department.

 

If you are angry about these changes you should:

• March against austerity on 20 October – pcs.org.uk/20oct
• Recruit a colleague to the union – pcs.org.uk/join
• Use the austerity pay calculator – pcs.org.uk/austeritypay
• Read and share the PCS Guardian Comment is Free terms and conditions article.

 

Together we can defend the civil service and defeat the cuts.