Civil service jobs: should workers be striking over redundancy pay cuts?
Wednesday, 10, Mar 2010 12:00
This week, over 200,000 civil servants completed a two-day strike across the UK in reaction to redundancy pay reforms.
Given the fact that all the major political parties have promised post-election public spending cuts, it's not surprising that those on the public payroll are concerned about the stability of their jobs and the reliability of their compensation packages.
Under the new rules, civil servants who earn a salary of up to £30,000 per year and lose their jobs will have their compensation capped at £60,000. And those earning more than £30,000 will receive no more than twice their annual salary.
The reform is expected to save the taxpayer £500 million over a three-year period, which will help to reduce the yawning budget deficit that is threatening our economic stability.
Civil servants feel 'robbed'
However, hundreds of thousands of civil servants who work in the country's courts, ports, job centres, benefit offices, tax centres and emergency police call centres believe that they are being 'robbed' of their hard-earned redundancy entitlements.
The members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) voted in favour of strike action in order to remind the country of the important role that they play in the running of society.
"Those on strike today deliver services that touch our everyday lives from the cradle to the grave. They face losing up to a third of their entitlements and tens of thousands of pounds if they are forced out of their job," the union's general secretary told People Management Magazine.
Five other trade unions accepted the changes
However, not all civil servants have chosen to protest against the changes. While PCS does represent the largest proportion of civil servants of any union, five other trade unions managed to reach agreements with government over redundancy pay-out terms after more than a year of negotiations. These bodies represent around 100,000 members of the civil service.
Commenting on the industrial action, cabinet office minister Tessa Jowell said she found it "very disappointing".
She certainly has a point. While it's understandable that many civil servants feel sidelined by the new redundancy pay rules, it's also necessary for them to accept few workers have been left unscathed by the effects of the recession. These individuals should not take the government's decision personally.
Savings have to be made somehow
During the downturn, thousands of private sector workers lost their jobs and saw their contracts being altered as their pay was cut or frozen. Considering the shaky state of the economy, it's essential that those on the public payroll make sacrifices too in order to ensure that the UK economy emerges from this murky climate intact.
Obviously, life will not be easy for those individuals who do lose their jobs, but our country is faced with a massive budget deficit, which will threaten our long-term economic stability if drastic action is not taken now. There is very little that any government can do to prevent this situation from affecting the salaries and job stability of its civil servants. Savings have to be made somehow in order to protect our vital frontline services.