The Charge of the PCS Brigade

The Public and Commercial Services Union (more commonly known as the PCS) has mounted its trusty steed in preparation for a glorious charge at the massed ranks of the British ministers of the Treasury. Alarming figures released by Treasury officials suggest that as many as 600,000 public sector workers will lose their jobs over the next five years. Indeed to be a civil servant at this present time could hardly be less attractive, those not culled by the coalition government will face drastic cuts in their pension schemes and severance options, this in combination with a three year salary freeze on all wages above £21,000 (some 72% of the public sector workforce) amounting to a 3% drop in annual pay.

Armed with this plethora of cheerful statistics, the PCS as the representative of nearly three quarters of all civil servants has little choice but to go on the offensive; In an interview with the BBC, Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS stated ‘I believe there's no argument for any cuts in public services at all at the moment, that it would be a massive backward step that would throw up to a million more people on to the dole queue.’ Union bosses now warn of impending strikes unless the current disagreements over the severance compensation scheme (CSCS) are soon ironed out. Talks between ministers and all civil service Unions are expected to be conducted this Wednesday, but it is unlikely that the PCS will seek room for compromise, it so far being the only Civil service union to have refused agreement over the planned changes to the CSCS redundancy packages.

The ensuing battle between the PCS Union and the Government brings with it eerie reminiscences of the Thatcher years, in which Arthur Scargill as president of the National Union of Miners locked horns with the Iron lady over planned redundancies to miners nationwide. The result was a crushing defeat for the NUM, and it is hard to see how any ensuing battle between Serwotka and Chancellor George Osborne could follow any other path. Information released this weekend reveals that Osborne has ordered most government departments to begin planning for budget cuts of as much as 40%. Given this staggering scale of fiscal downsizing it cannot be the case that the PCS will be able to protect its members from the butcher’s knife. Given the shocking state of the country’s finances, and the desire of the Government to encourage private entrepreneurialism and maintain a positive business climate, the crosshairs can only fall on upon those to whom state resources are allocated.

Given these austere times is unlikely that the PCS will be able to count upon mass public support in any ensuing battles. Virtually no home has been left unaffected by rises in VAT (sales tax), income tax, and unemployment. The trials and tribulations of civil servants who rely upon such taxation are therefore low on the list of popular grievances with government fiscal policy. Whilst it is unfair to expect the civil service to bear the brunt of the pain for the mistakes of the banking sector, (a fact which even the most fiscally conservative minded citizen cannot fail to acknowledge), it has long been the case that in the spendthrift years of the Labour government the number of public sector workers has expanded to horrendously bloated levels. The current level of public expenditure is not only unsustainable, but ruinous given the ten quarters of economic contraction preceding the budget outlined by the current government.

For Serwotka and his fellow PCS bigwigs these are ominous days, few relish the chance of a battle in which the odds are stacked against them, and even less so when the option to retreat is no option at all. Belligerent as their words may be they convince nobody, perhaps indeed the words are more to steel themselves than the general public. Therefore before Wednesday’s crucial meeting I suggest they reread Alfred Tennyson’s ‘The charge of the light brigade’ for it is truly into the valley of death that PCS rides.