Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
Groucho said:Guineveretoo - thanks for very positive posts on the strike.
Er, you are welcome!
Industrial Action in the Civil Service!
- Thread starter Guineveretoo
- Start date
Er, you are welcome!
Zeppo said:
......Was caused by poor staff processes rather than a failure in the IT.
"Holmes told MPs the failure to pay the subsidies was down to "business processes".
"Our contract was to deliver a system that met a specification and to demonstrate that the system met that specification, which it did."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/24/accenture_payments_stuffup/
E.G. if Accenture was at fault, then why didn't the government sue them into the ground, not just for the cost of the system but also for consequential losses???????
Cobbles said:
Oh ffs it was a typical story of an IT company screwing a Govt. department. The computer system did not do what was needed to process the single payments but in theory it met the specification which was too vague. IT companies are better at negotiating IT contracts than Govt. Departments are.
The real problem was not the computer system costing three times the original estimate (or the contract that allowed them to get away with it). The real problem was that the Govt. required that the computer system would facilitate job cuts. It didn't. When it was clear that it wouldn't the response of those on high was to insist that it would. The cuts were an imposed target regardless of impact. The staff were thus not in place to process the payments and the IT system was not up to replacing them. So rather than admit a mistake the Treasury imposed cuts went on, warnings (e.g. from unions) that it was on course for an almighty crash went unheeded. Finally when disaster hit home the IT system was dissed, a senior Civil Servant was sacked, the Minister in charge denied all knowledge and the cuts stopped* and staff who went on voluntary redundancy were rapidly replaced by inexperienced poorly trained casuals...and the disaster continued to unfold.
*Of course Govt,. targets would not allow the cuts to really stop. Rather the rest of the cuts had to be shifted elsewhere within the parent Department - Defra. So cross yer fingers there's no avian flu outbreak.
End result? Civil Service jobs cut and replaced by low paid casuals at greater cost to the tax payer and an IT system that cost three times as much as anticipated but doesn't do what it was claimed it would do. The tax payer pays out, jobs have been downgraded, the service being delivered is fucked up but hey! at least the headcount staff reductions have been forced through!
Groucho said:Oh ffs it was a typical story of an IT company screwing a Govt. department. The computer system did not do what was needed to process the single payments but in theory it met the specification which was too vague. IT companies are better at negotiating IT contracts than Govt. Departments are.
The real problem was not the computer system costing three times the original estimate (or the contract that allowed them to get away with it). The real problem was that the Govt. required that the computer system would facilitate job cuts. It didn't. When it was clear that it wouldn't the response of those on high was to insist that it would. The cuts were an imposed target regardless of impact. The staff were thus not in place to process the payments and the IT system was not up to replacing them. So rather than admit a mistake the Treasury imposed cuts went on, warnings (e.g. from unions) that it was on course for an almighty crash went unheeded. Finally when disaster hit home the IT system was dissed, a senior Civil Servant was sacked, the Minister in charge denied all knowledge and the cuts stopped* and staff who went on voluntary redundancy were rapidly replaced by inexperienced poorly trained casuals...and the disaster continued to unfold.
*Of course Govt,. targets would not allow the cuts to really stop. Rather the rest of the cuts had to be shifted elsewhere within the parent Department - Defra. So cross yer fingers there's no avian flu outbreak.
End result? Civil Service jobs cut and replaced by low paid casuals at greater cost to the tax payer and an IT system that cost three times as much as anticipated but doesn't do what it was claimed it would do. The tax payer pays out, jobs have been downgraded, the service being delivered is fucked up but hey! at least the headcount staff reductions have been forced through!
That's funny, that's not what the article says.....
If a substantial Government department can't dredge up the talent to work up a decent IT specification and a binding contract then those are functions that clearly need to be outsourced.
It's funny how most private sector IT projects of a similar scale don't seem to be so spectacularly fouled up. Presumably it must be something to do with the evil IT supplier - no wait, they supply the private sector as well.
If you read the article, a lot of the problems flowed from piss poor specification of requirements (hardly the fault of the supplier) and an inability by the department to recognise that as Payments are driven by EU policy they're fluid so that a flexible system would be required rather than one that suited a snapshot in time.
Cobbles said:
Presumably, pay taxes too. Let's hope that they're correctly calculated, otherwise, you'll need to call a civil servant to put it right.
No, wait; you can get onto the Indian call centre, they'll fix it, right?
Yep, they're so much cheaper and more efficient than anything we've got here. If only they could email the correct information back to the UK, on time.
See, the smaller the civil service becomes, the more expensive it becomes. The work that it has to do, has to be done by somebody. Private sector employees cost more than public sector ones; the civil servants have been trying to get parity with private sector workers' pay for many a year.
Personally, I can't wait to get privatised. It'll mean a decent wage, at last.
Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
*shoo* get off my thread, you!
Okay, PCS folks - hope you are all ready for the strike.
Good luck!
PCS members - remember that you are members of a democracy so, whether or not you voted in favour, or even agree with the strike, it's your duty (imho, of course) to follow the instruction of your union, after a legal ballot, to withdraw your labour.
Okay, PCS folks - hope you are all ready for the strike.
Good luck!
PCS members - remember that you are members of a democracy so, whether or not you voted in favour, or even agree with the strike, it's your duty (imho, of course) to follow the instruction of your union, after a legal ballot, to withdraw your labour.
Guineveretoo said:*shoo* get off my thread, you!
Okay, PCS folks - hope you are all ready for the strike.
Good luck!
PCS members - remember that you are members of a democracy so, whether or not you voted in favour, or even agree with the strike, it's your duty (imho, of course) to follow the instruction of your union, after a legal ballot, to withdraw your labour.
We must also take issue with the spurious figures given in Gus O'Donnell's letter. The actual ballot result is that on 38.2% turnout 61.3% voted yes to take strike action on 31 January, and 77.93% voted yes to take industrial action short of a strike.
The full figures are given below.
The turnout contrasts favourably with Parliamentary elections, by-elections and local elections. The government was elected in 2005 with a share of the vote of 35.3%, with only 21.9% of the electorate voting for them.
http://www.pcs.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=907309
(from the PCS website)
So the 75% of PCS members who didn't vote for a strike are perfectlt entitled to turn up for work without being branded as "scabs" by the small minority who fancied a day off.
Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
Cobbles said:
You don't know how trade unions work, do you? Or the implications of an official strike, sanctioned by an official ballot.
Yes, people do have the right to ignore the picket line and to turn up for work but, if they are members of the PCS and do so, they will correctly be labelled as "scabs" because their union, having followed the legitimate and legally sanctioned process, has instructed them to withhold their labour.
It is not correct to label someone who is a member of another trade union, or someone who is not a member of any trade union, as a "scab", because they are not officially part of the strike, although there are some trade unionists (like myself) who will not cross picket lines regardless. I would be very disappointed to hear that PCS pickets were labelling non PCS members as "scabs", and I hope it doesn't happen.
Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
Cobbles said:
Why?
As with every other democratic process, members of that trade union have the right to vote. If they choose not to exercise that right, then they have to face the consequences, really.
This country has always been run by people who are elected by a minority of the population.
In both cases, it's better than a dictatorship, innit!
Guineveretoo said:
However, voting for a representative is different from a vote that commits individuals to a specific course of action.
Sure, if people clearly are so demotivated by the union that they can't be bothered to vote then that's an issue. On the other hand, it's ridiculous for the union to try to pretend that it has the wholehearted support of its membership when all it has is the backing of less than a quarter of them.
Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
Cobbles said:
There are lots of reasons why people don't vote, but I doubt many would say it is because they are "demotivated by the union"! If people don't want to take industrial action, or think it is the wrong thing to do, they need to vote against it. If enough of them had done, there would not be a strike today. Since people do have that right, and have not said that they will NOT take industrial action, I think it is quite appropriate for a trade union to use the majority vote they did get, and call people out on strike.
Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
So now we move on to the publicity machinery of the union!
I would love to spend the whole day arguing with you and others about the strike, but I am not actually a civil servant, so I am not on strike, and I need to work
I would love to spend the whole day arguing with you and others about the strike, but I am not actually a civil servant, so I am not on strike, and I need to work
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
just back from the Sheffield rally. About 75 there, with good reports of a solid strike at the DWP offices, Income & Revenue & not bad at the courts. The top table took a bit of a slagging for only callng for such limited action, and they responded by (apparently) making things up about what the critics had been calling for.
Geoff Collier
Active Member
Cobbles said:
I'd accept that, but only if it was made illegal to cross an official picket line and the police were there in force to uphold the law.
Geoff Collier
Active Member
belboid said:
There's another alternative - he could be in the SPGB. They believe that a strike need at least 50% of the membership voting positively for it to be legitimate. Or, at least, they did last time I read anything on it.
Geoff Collier said:
That's nonsense, a strike ballot only gives the union members the right to withdraw their labour, not rights allowing members to be obstructing others who have nothing to do with the union from accessing a location.
If this was the case, you could have a tiny union representing, say, 5% of the workforce in a company going on strike and preventing the other 95% of the workers who were rnot unionised being prevented from accessing their workplace - nuts.
Geoff Collier
Active Member
Cobbles said:
Yes, that's the point of a strike picket. I'd go further actually. I'd re-introduce public stocks for anybody attempting to scab.
And I'd imprison the board of directors until such time as they accepted the express wishes of the majority of their workforce. After all, you'd have to make a few concessions before we accept your threshold.
some ok up to the minute online reports here
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=10620
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=10620
Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
There are more reports on the PCS site itself, but factual rather than chatty.
Some photos there, too.
http://www.pcs.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=907374
Some photos there, too.
http://www.pcs.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=907374
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