Civil Servants take action to defend jobs and services
Civil Servants in Tunbridge Wells and Hastings took part in the national day of strike action on 31 January. At Tunbridge Wells Land Registry, a PCS rep told The Socialist that industrial action was the only way to oppose the decimation of the wider civil service as proposed by the Lyons and Gershon reviews. He also exposed the contradiction in Blair and Brown’s false distinction between the relative importance of ‘frontline’ and ‘back office’ staff in the public sector, pointing out that ‘although the Government wants face-to-face public servants to provide constant results, such frontline staff have to be backed up by the machinery that currently exists to carry through such services’. Another rep accurately termed the Government’s drive to outsource and privatise parts of the Civil Service ‘dogmatic’. Anger was also shown at the attempt by Gordon Brown to hold public sector pay at a level that in no way reflects the increase in the cost of living.