Kevan Jones responds over Kentigern House

Kevan Jones has responded to our concerns over the future of Kentigern House.

You can read his response by downloading the PDF scan of his letter here.

This particular response was sent via Dr Liam Fox, who as Shadow for Defence was the first to gain a reply on the issue. Closely followed by Brian Simpson MEP for the North West.

Fylde defence jobs fear

In 'The Gazette' Thursday 17th December, an MoD spokesman confirmed that the number of civilian personnel would be reducing in the Fylde.

Interestingly there was no official denial that more than 400 SPVA jobs could be under threat following Defence Secretary's Bob Ainsworth's announcement of a further 10,000 job cuts in the civilian workforce. The MoD say that, "There are no plans for any compulsory redundancies", but as we know, that is a meaningless statement especially given the recent attack on the Principal Civil Service Compensation Scheme, that has been engineered precisely in order to reduce the cost of making redundancies.

The Branch will actively campaign against any arbitrary staffing cuts.

Mark Serwotka Re-elected as PCS General Secretary

Mark has won a clear victory in the GS election with 63.4% of the vote.

Mark's response to the result:

"PCS members had a clear choice about whether they wanted a union which would stand up for them and fight back against attacks on their jobs, pay and terms and conditions, or a union that would hold its hands up and say nothing could be done. Through this overwhelming show of support for me, members have shown that they want a union that will campaign and organise against the damaging consensus amongst the main political parties, which champions public sector cuts, pay freezes and privatisation. There are massive challenges facing PCS and its members in the year ahead. PCS will remain united in rising to them and PCS members can be confident that their union continue to stand up for them and the public services they care passionately about.”

Thanks go to everyone who helped in whatever way in the election campaign. This is a victory not just for Mark as General Secretary, but for all those in PCS, and across the union movement, who believe that ordinary people should not have to pay for the greed of bankers and corporate executives, that we must build fighting, democratic unions to defend working people, and that a better world is possible.