The SDSR announcement of 25,000 civilian job losses in the Ministry of Defence is a devastating blow to staff, whose loyalty and commitment in support of the front line has been thrown away in pursuit of an ideologically driven slash and burn cuts exercise.These proposals will mean approximately 40% of the existing civilian workforce losing their jobs in the next five years. Not only will this permanently damage support to the front line, it will devastate families, communities and futures throughout the country.
Richard Murphy of the Tax Justice Network has revealed that 92 per cent of the cost of cutting public sector jobs when we have less than full employment is paid by the state, making it counter-productive economically.
The Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) was a missed opportunity. Instead of a strategic analysis of future defence needs, we have an incoherent mess which delivers cuts in expenditure and jobs where civilians have been seen as an easy political target. The opportunity to make significant savings, by replacing military staff carrying out civilian functions has been lost. Experts such as Gerry Grimstone (Margaret Thatcher’s privatisation guru) and Sir Richard Dannatt (the previous Chief of General Staff) agree. Civilianising the approximately 40,000 non-deployable military personnel in our department can protect bases, sites and jobs and deliver support to the front line more effectively.
Our union has put this alternative to the MoD and the government many times. Similarly we have asked that the government tackles the £120 billion of tax avoided, evade or uncollected annually in this country.
In the debate after the SDSR announcement, in a response to a question by the Labour leader, David Cameron stated, “the previous Government left more civil servants than we had sailors or airmen.”
Nothing to do with a more strategic defence department; nothing to do with making those who caused the economic deficit pay for it and little to do with the financial or operational state of the MoD. It is quite clear that the SDSR announcements and the wider public sector comprehensive spending review announcements are purely about ideological right wing policies to rid Britain of a worthwhile public sector.
The Chancellor, in his Comprehensive Spending Review announcement, confirms that half a million public sector jobs to go, with at least half a million more private sector jobs to follow.
What will happen if bases and sites close?
There is very little information in the Review about what bases and sites might close, with the detail to follow from the Levene Defence Reform Review. Defence activities are often located in remote and rural locations where any reductions negatively impact on the local economy.
However we can look at the only base closure announced, RAF Kinloss, as an example. RAF Kinloss in Moray, is situated in the north east of Scotland and makes a significant contribution to the local economy and social environment. Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Moray Council commissioned a major study into the economic impact of the RAF bases on Moray in 2005, and commissioned an update in 2010. The RAF has been in Moray for around 65 years and is therefore tightly woven into the social and economic fabric of the whole community. The RAF makes a significant contribution to the population and economic prosperity of the area, collectively supporting 5,710 FTE jobs in the local economy, some 16% of all FTE employment within Moray. Gross income from the bases is estimated at around £158m per annum.
Our union will be working with various regional agencies to get similar socio-economic assessments done in areas where MoD work is threatened and will be arguing that alternative jobs should be provided in locations where sites are closing to mitigate the impact of job losses on the local economy.
MoD senior management
Outgoing permanent under secretary (PUS), Bill Jeffrey wrote to our union today after the SDSR announcement stating “The Review makes clear that civilians play a critical role in Defence. They support Ministers in determining policy and strategy and in managing the resources allocated by Parliament. They also perform a range of vital roles in front line support to operations, from manning the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and providing fire safety to scientific knowledge, contracts expertise, logistics support and intelligence.”
As you will see from Mr Jeffrey's letter, he couldn't even be bothered writing his own words, he simply cut and paste what is in the White Paper!! We hope his successor values the MoD workforce much better.
Dealing with the job losses
The department states that there will be an early release scheme, to seek volunteers for redundancy, but expect there to be compulsory redundancies to meet the scale of the reductions. We will oppose enforced redundancies.
Our union has asked that the department starts the pre redundancy measures described in the Managing Surpluses policy, to mitigate the impact of job losses by ending the use of consultants and agency staff.
We have not been consulted on any early release scheme and will be seeking to ensure that any such scheme is based on an agreed compensation scheme terms, rather than the current Cabinet Office proposals.
Political campaigning
Last Wednesday (13 October), PCS reps went to the House of Commons to put the case for the PCS alternative to cuts to MP’s. A full report will be in the next issue of Defender, but two things we will be taking forward immediately are a further meeting with the chair of the Defence Select Committee and a further meeting with the Shadow Labour defence ministers.
Meeting such as these will allow our union to further advance the alternatives that we are putting forward and allows those who we meet to put these alternatives direct to the decision makers in government.
Our political campaigning however does not stop here. We have already asked branches to make contact with local trades councils and to work with them to put our alternatives forward at local and regional levels. We will also be seeking meetings with the political leaders in the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; we will seek meeting with those involved in the Public Accounts Committee and we will continue to seek to have meetings with the defence ministers in the coalition government
Media campaigning
Below are links of just a few of the media interviews PCS MoD reps have done in the last couple of days regarding the SDSR announcement (figures are where PCS rep starts speaking). Whilst it is welcome that we have got this coverage and our campaigning work does get plenty of coverage in local or regional papers and on regional TV and radio, it is quite a deliberate choice that mainstream national TV and the vast majority of the written national press deliberately choose not to give us air time or column inches.
It is no coincidence that many of the newspapers in this country are owned and run by right wing tycoons or conglomerates and it should be remembered that they will never support our (or any other) trade union, regardless of how good our arguments are.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-11565829
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00vc27t/Newsdrive_19_10_2010 1.42.40
http://www.itv.com/westcountry-east/fullprogramme/?intcmp=NAV_THEWESTC0_FULLPROG4 15.05
http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2010/10/19/raf-cosford-saved-from-the-axe/
http://www.itv.com/central-west/update-defence-review07914/ 1.15
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00bk2b0/Adam_Tomlinson_19_10_2010/ 1.41.50
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/content/view/full/96603
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00bk2b6/Elly_Fiorentini_19_10_2010/ 1.04.55
http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/news/David-Cameron-Spending-cuts-damage-Britain-defence/article-2775107-detail/article.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00bk3rq/Mark_ODonnell_19_10_2010/ 1.07.45
Follow our campaigning activities on Twitter (http://twitter.com/DefenceCutsCost), the PCS website (http://pcs.org.uk/mod) and our new defence cuts cost website (http://defencecutscost.blogspot.com/).
Next steps
Our union wants every member in every branch involved in both the MoD group and national campaigns against the Coalition’s attacks on the public sector. We need to put as much pressure on the Coalition government to fight back against the devastation announced for our department and the wider public service.
We are working with other unions and organisations. We know on the ground that our colleagues in other civil service unions have strong sympathies toward our union’s stand on issues like CSCS. As the effects of SDSR unfold, we will support members and branches locally in building cross union campaigns.
Our union’s national executive committee (NEC) and the MoD GEC will be meeting shortly to discuss the next stages of our campaign. If this government does not back down from these proposals, then both the NEC and GEC will discuss and debate all possible ways forward. Although it will be a last resort, we will also develop an industrial action strategy that may have to include industrial action.
We must use any and every means to fight such an employer.
Conclusion
One of our members when asked what they thought of the SDSR announcement said: “I have worked for the MOD for over twenty years, I have a mortgage, children. My family and I are terrified that in a very short time scale I will be unemployed; there are no jobs out there and if I lose my job my family will lose their home. I have one question. Why are civil servants the scapegoat, when we offer real value for money in supporting defence? It is clear to me that civil servants are not valued by the MoD. My pay was cut by £3000 when the MoD imposed cuts to the administrative grades pay scale, now they want to throw me on the scrap heap”.
This is the reality for members in the MoD and across the public sector. Add to this a pay freeze for those earning over £21,000; pensions contributions to rise so that you can work longer and get less and redundancy payments to be a fraction of what they currently are – ask yourself if you live in David Cameron’s fair big society?
If the answer is NO, then the fight back starts now. This will be the fight of our lives. Please get further involved in our union – sign up a non-member working alongside you. The stronger we are as a union, the more industrial power we have.
We are not alone; the Con Dem coalition government’s announcements this week will affect every public sector worker in the United Kingdom. This weekend there are major rallies planned for every main city across the country – please attend these and start the fightback.
THE TIME IS NOW TO SAVE JOBS, SITES AND COMMUNITIES
