Fiona Brittle, PCS NEC member, personal capacity

PCS members working for Sodexo in HMRC in Northern Ireland are out on strike again in the last week of July, against cuts to their hours and threatened job losses. These workers provide cleaning, porterage, kitchen and reception services in HMRC offices. Cuts to their jobs mean both detriment to them and to civil servants whose working environment will worsen as Sodexo colleagues are stretched thinner and thinner, all to maximise the bosses’ profits.

All cuts are unacceptable, but even more disgracefully, Sodexo has predominantly cut the hours of older women workers who already face the sharp end of austerity. PCS are demanding all cuts be reversed, the threat of redundancy rescinded, for full trade union recognition of PCS and proper consultation.

In an bid to undermine the industrial action, Sodexo is bringing in scab labour to cover the contract during the strike. Our members’ roles are being carried out by other Sodexo workers, many of them management on much higher wages!

But we would expect this from a massive corporation – even more appalling is that Erskine House is where the Labour Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is based. The UK government, run by the party which is allegedly ‘for the workers’, is allowing and tacitly encouraging strikebreaking, much like it is doing to the outstanding Birmingham bin strike of Unite members. This party of the bosses is not for workers.

Andy Burnham takes office, his own workers are in revolt across multiple areas. If he means what he’s been saying about dragging Labour to the Left, he can start in his own backyard. PCS calls on management in HMRC and the Labour government to intervene – insist that Sodexo immediately cease strikebreaking and comply with PCS’s demands to restore workers’ hours and recognise their trade union.

All that is just a first step, as PCS will continue to fight for our outsourced members until all of them are brought back in house, and privatisation in the civil service is ended.

Please send messages of solidarity for Sodexo strikers to HMRC Group Secretary Kim Hendry, [email protected]

Determined PCS strike at FCDO

PCS members who work for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in London and East Kilbride have taken five days of strike action so far against their bosses’ refusal to give assurances on compulsory redundancies. They have also refused to live up to union demands on the ongoing restructure of the department.

Many of the members have been out on the picket lines for the first time. Yet they are absolutely determined to force concessions and win their dispute. Fighting for transparency, regrading and dignity in the workplace during the restructuring, Socialist Party Scotland members have been regularly attending the picket lines at East Kilbride to bring our solidarity

Sign the union petition demanding action here