Fair Pay for All!

Following the joint public sector strike on 10 July, yesterday almost quarter million civil servants in the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) took strike action in a dispute concerning everyone’s fight for fair pay.

Since 2010, taking into account pay cuts, the increase in monthly pension contributions and the cost of living, many civil servants will have suffered a 20% cut in their incomes by next year, the union explained.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said:

“These figures prove what people in low paid households already know, that the real cost of living is soaring while wages are being cut year after year. Our action this week demands an end to these cuts that are slashing the public servants’ living standards at the same time as millionaires are handed tax cuts and tens of billions of pounds is stolen from our public finances every year through tax evasion.”

Astoundingly, HM Revenue and Customs has just announced that they will be closing 14 offices on the same day it says £34 billion in tax was uncollected last year; that is, they are closing those offices which are committed to trying their best to make sure that the rich pay their tax.

PCS, which last month published a new report on the extent of tax evasion, says £34 billion is a serious underestimation, but collecting even this would change the debate about the funding of public services overnight. As Serwotka said:

“It makes absolutely no economic sense to continue cutting in the department that collects the taxes that fund the public services we all rely on.”

Local TUSC councillor Wayne Naylor visited PCS pickets in Leicester to show his support for the strike action. In a press release written with his fellow anti-cuts councillor, Barbara Potter, they showed their active support for the strikes, but also pointed out the need for even greater organization in the future between all unions. Writing that…

“…ultimately it is through organising such united action across different workplaces that unions are best able to address the collective problems facing all workers in the private and public sector alike. Yet with all the mainstream party’s refusing to act in the interests of Britain’s workers, ultimately it will be necessary for all unions to take firm measures to organize a 24 hour General Strike to show that they mean business.”