24 Jun Outsourced Workers’ Fight for Fairness

Outsourced workers are demanding dignity at work, a real living wage and workers’ rights within the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and HM Revenue and Customs.

PCS, supported by the Trade Union Coordinating Group (TUGC), will host a rally in Parliament on Tuesday 17 July between 6-8pm in the Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House.

The rally will focus on the number of growing disputes across the trade union movement involving outsourced workers fighting back and demanding to be brought back in-house. For example, the current disputes between PCS members working in BEIS, FCO and HMRC, and their private employers, Aramark, Interserve and ISS. The event supported by the TUCG will hear from strikers as well as supportive unions, NAPO and the RMT, both of whom continue to grapple with privatisation within their respective sectors.

PCS members from each dispute will talk about their experiences of working for these private companies and why they are on strike, some for the first time ever.

Speaking will be Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP, Shadow Secretary of State for BEIS, Rebecca Long-Bailey, alongside newly elected PCS President Fran Heathcote as well as PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka, RMT General Secretary Mick Cash, NAPO General Secretary Ian Lawrence.

We are inviting trade unionists and parliamentarians to work together to end the inequality between outsourced workers and core public sector staff pay and terms and conditions. For too long, unions have struggled with the implications of outsourcing across the UK. It is time we come together and demand an end to privatisation and bring staff back in-house. It is time for all workers to have dignity in work through a living wage, decent holiday and sick pay and pension and the recognition of their union in the workplace.