FOUR years into the Con-Dem coalition’s term of office, 20,000 PCS members in Wales — like their 200,000 plus colleagues elsewhere — face ever-increasing attacks on their job security, living standards and employment rights, as well as on the public services they deliver.

The majority of our members in Wales work for British government departments like HM Revenue and Customs, which is in the process of closing every tax enquiry counter from Bangor to Brecon as well as four major offices, and the Department for Transport, which is set to close Swansea coastguard station and has already shut vehicle registration offices in Bangor and Cardiff.

A hundred DWP shared services jobs in Cardiff have been privatised and will now be cut altogether, as their work is offshored to India. 

A similar fate awaits 700 Ministry of Justice shared services jobs in Newport if we cannot stop it.

The threat of privatisation also hangs over the Land Registry, which has operated successfully in the public sector for 150 years. 

The agency employs more than 3,000 staff, 420 of them in Swansea, who face an uncertain future.

And it is not, of course, only the employees directly involved who would suffer if these jobs were lost.

The wider public would lose out both by the withdrawal of these services and by the loss of the workers’ wages to local economies.

Since 2010, all Civil Service staff have had their living standards undermined by a two-year pay freeze, followed by a 1 per cent annual cap on pay increases.

Changes to their pension schemes oblige them to work longer, make greater employee contributions and receive a smaller payout at the end of their careers.

Pay levels are so low in the DWP that it is estimated that 40 per cent of the department’s staff will themselves claim the new Universal Credit that they will be responsible for administering.

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude has also encouraged Whitehall departments to “review” all departmental policies, terms and conditions, with the aim of tearing up hard-won workplace rights.

Not content with driving through these detrimental changes, the Westminster government has systematically sought to undermine the union’s capacity to resist by slashing the facility time union reps are allocated to organise and represent members.

And Maude is now pushing for departments to end the check-off arrangement, whereby union subscriptions are paid directly from members’ wages through the co-operation of the employer. 

If this threat were realised, it could destabilise the union financially, so PCS has responded by launching a major campaign to transfer all of our members from check-off to direct debit.

The ferocious and wide-ranging character of these attacks reflects their political motivation.

PCS members have been at the forefront of resistance to the Con-Dems’ austerity programme, resisting cuts through industrial action, political campaigning and the presentation of a clear and viable alternative, which includes a demand for action to close the £120bn tax gap by cracking down on evasion and avoidance.

To some extent, those PCS members who work for the Welsh government and other devolved public bodies inhabit a different world from their counterparts in Whitehall departments like the DWP and HMRC.

The Welsh government, both as a political administration and as an employer, does not display the same hostility as the Westminster coalition either to trade unions or to the notion of public services to which most of us subscribe. 

Ministers and senior managers in Cardiff Bay and Cathays Park have chosen not to follow the lead of their London equivalents in tearing up long-established Civil Service terms and conditions, discarding incremental pay progression arrangements, slashing facility time or withdrawing check-off facilities.

Nevertheless, workers in the Welsh devolved government sector remain part of the British Civil Service and, as such, are subject to British coalition policy in many ways.

As members of the Civil Service pension schemes, they have not been exempt from the erosion of their retirement income and Westminster’s cut to the block grant that funds Welsh services has resulted in cuts to staffing levels and the imposition of Treasury-sanctioned pay restraint.

While no compulsory redundancies have taken place yet, job cuts have put greater pressure on staff who remain.

With London ministers tightening the screw on public services, there is no sign of things getting any easier and every likelihood that decision-makers in Cardiff will be put under increasing political and financial pressure to follow Westminster’s lead.

Hence, PCS has a motion to this week’s Wales TUC conference, which welcomes devolution of financial powers following the recommendations of the Silk Commission but calls also for the replacement of the Barnett Formula by a fairer funding mechanism that would meet the needs of the people of Wales.

Ultimately, the policies of the Westminster government have to be challenged head-on and PCS members have continued to do that with resilience and determination.

Members in the Land Registry took two days’ strike action against privatisation last week. 

HMRC members have just voted on action in opposition to office closures and members in National Museum Wales are currently being balloted over walkouts against cuts to allowances.

Cross-union action has the capacity to exert even greater pressure, of course, and the prospect of such action taking place nationally on July 10 presents a significant opportunity in this regard.

PCS members at our annual conference in Brighton this week will consider whether they want to take part in this action.

Darren Williams is acting PCS Wales secretary.