PCS Follow

OVER 50 union activists attended a meeting in central London on the Tuesday before Christmas to celebrate the election of socialist Mark Serwotka as the general secretary of the 260,000-strong civil servants' union, the PCS. Mark argued that his election victory against a Blairite candidate showed the anger ordinary members feel over the betrayals of New Labour and the right wing leadership of the union.

UP TO 100 members of the PCS civil service union attended a lunchtime rally over pay on Friday of last week. They gathered outside deputy prime minister John Prescott's office at the Department of the Environment, Transport and Regions (DETR). PCS members in the DETR have had a pay deal imposed on them after rejecting it in a ballot. The dispute is not just about the small amount of money on offer, but also over Performance Related Pay, which has been shown to discriminate against black staff and people with disabilities.

WORKERS IN the Inland Revenue took action which crashed the entire national tax computer system last Friday. The workers, members of the PCS union, staged what they dubbed a "Flexi-Protest Day". This meant all workers sticking to their core hours of 10am to 4pm with a half hour lunch break. In Leeds over 200 staff marched into the Castle House office at 10am.