3:12 PM (18 hours ago)
 | ||||
Blimey, we won something! PCS won our legal challenge to Eric Pickles' decision to scrap check-off in he Department of Communities and Local Government.
I think this, posted in the PCS members' Facebook group, is going to be the statement on the PCS site later:
Eric Pickles costs taxpayers £90,000 in attack on union
Taxpayers face a £90,000 legal bill after communities secretary Eric
Pickles' "reckless and political" attack on the Public and
Commercial Services union was ruled unlawful.
The Department for Communities and Local Government had tried to
unilaterally end a decades-old system for collecting union
subscriptions through salaries -- an arrangement that costs the
department just £300 a year to administer.
But a High Court judge ruled today (3) the move was a breach of
contract and must be reversed, and that DCLG will have to pay the
union's legal costs as well as its own.
The judge agreed with the union that having union subscriptions
deducted through salaries -- known as 'check off' -- forms part of
DCLG staff members' contracts and therefore could not be withdrawn
without consent.
Pickles has previously advised local authorities to end check off
but was the first cabinet minister to attempt to apply it in the
civil service.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "It is staggering that
Eric Pickles pressed ahead with this reckless and political attempt
to undermine our union in his department.
"Pickles has very serious questions to answer about why he decided
to spend tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money fighting to
scrap something that costs less than £30 a month."
There'll be some video of this morning's protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice on the PCS Euston Tower Branch YouTube channel later (I ain't finished editing it yet!)
http://youtube.com/pcseuston
I think this, posted in the PCS members' Facebook group, is going to be the statement on the PCS site later:
Eric Pickles costs taxpayers £90,000 in attack on union
Taxpayers face a £90,000 legal bill after communities secretary Eric
Pickles' "reckless and political" attack on the Public and
Commercial Services union was ruled unlawful.
The Department for Communities and Local Government had tried to
unilaterally end a decades-old system for collecting union
subscriptions through salaries -- an arrangement that costs the
department just £300 a year to administer.
But a High Court judge ruled today (3) the move was a breach of
contract and must be reversed, and that DCLG will have to pay the
union's legal costs as well as its own.
The judge agreed with the union that having union subscriptions
deducted through salaries -- known as 'check off' -- forms part of
DCLG staff members' contracts and therefore could not be withdrawn
without consent.
Pickles has previously advised local authorities to end check off
but was the first cabinet minister to attempt to apply it in the
civil service.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "It is staggering that
Eric Pickles pressed ahead with this reckless and political attempt
to undermine our union in his department.
"Pickles has very serious questions to answer about why he decided
to spend tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money fighting to
scrap something that costs less than £30 a month."
There'll be some video of this morning's protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice on the PCS Euston Tower Branch YouTube channel later (I ain't finished editing it yet!)
http://youtube.com/pcseuston
No comments:
Post a Comment