Published: Wednesday, 10th March, 2010 6:23pm

Job centre staff want more talks after strike

WEST Fife civil servants are hoping the 48-hour strike this week will prompt further discussions on imposed cuts to redundancy terms.

Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) went on strike at the Job Centre and the HM Revenue and Customs office in Dunfermline on Monday and Tuesday to protest against changes to the civil service compensation scheme, which are set to come into force next month.

The PCS says that the changes will see staff "robbed" of up to a third of their entitlements and lead to them losing tens of thousands of pounds if they are forced out of a job.

Brian Nairn, acting chair of the PCS Fife branch, said, "There was strong support throughout Fife and that was reflected in the support from Dunfermline members.

"The Job Centre service was severely affected to the public and there was only a very basic service available.

"The HMRC was completely supported and didn't offer any sort of service at all.

"We also had a good number of people join the union before the dispute to support the staff there, which was great.

"What we have seen is members in the area totally outraged by what we see as our basic right, our condition of service, our redundancy terms, being ripped up by Gordon Brown. It's a contractual right.

"He was asked about the big bonuses for the banks and whether they should still be allowed to go ahead and he's saying they have to because it's a contractual right.

"So on the one hand he says it's a contractual right that has to go ahead but he does this to us."

Mr Nairn added, "The support we've had across Fife is the best we've ever had.

"The bottom line is that members in Dunfermline felt very strongly and came out and supported it.

"We would hope now that we can get more talks on this just to get it resolved."