Telford Jobcentre staff in 24-hour strike
Friday 8th April 2011, 3:07PM BST.
Hundreds of Jobcentre Plus staff in Telford are to stage a 24-hour strike in an escalating row over working conditions and a “target driven culture”, it was announced today.
More than 250 members of the Public and Commercial Services union based at Telford’s call centre at New Town House, in the town centre, will walk out on April 18 after accusing management of showing “little willingness” to resolve the dispute.
The drop-in centre in Telford and Shrewsbury will not be affected as only call centre staff will be striking.
A spokesman for PCS said there were 255 members in Telford, out of the centre’s 340 workforce.
The Telford workers will be joined by thousands of other Jobcentre Plus call centre staff from across the country for the walk out.
In a ballot of the union’s 7,000 members, 70 per cent of those who took part voted for strike action, with a turnout of members of 43 per cent.
The action follows a two-day strike in January by more than 2,000 workers in Jobcentre Plus’s seven newest contact centres who complained of being forcibly moved from processing benefit claims to handling inquiries by phone.
The union said it wanted to improve the levels of customer service in call centres, end a target driven culture, particularly by changing the way “unrealistic” average call times are used, and introduce proper flexible working arrangements.
Jane Aitchison, the union’s Department for Work and Pensions group president, said: “We are being prevented from providing a good quality service to the public because of unnecessary and unrealistic call centre targets.”
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irony,
when the governments forcing to sick to start working,
the ones you need to see for a job all take a day off lol.
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Well said!
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Who noticed any difference?
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Another inaccurate story by the star. There may be 250 staff at the building but doesn’t mean they’re all going to strike! In fact most of them don’t agree with the reasons for striking. Get your facts correct before publishing a story. Your source was certainly quick off the mark releasing this story to you.
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Talk about getting your facts wrong, there are actually 340 members of staff at the New Town House Contact Centre & 255 of those went on strike, it’s a good job you put yourself down as Anon, otherwise you would look rather stupid, The only ones that get their facts right & are worth listening to are the Shropshire Star & The person at the heart of it Rob Sloan.
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they should all go get a proper job
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The Report in the Star is accurate
Perhaps anon could identify themselves and I will discuss with them why my members do support this strike
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Why can’t you explain it on here, and why does Anon have to identify him/herself to you beforehand.
I see union bullying is still alive and well..
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“I see union bullying is still alive and well..”
Thank God that employers are so fair and reasonable – makes you wonder why people waste their money on union dues….oh yeah…
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so you can even pay for the privilage of being bullied by both unions and employers.
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Rob,
I will strike when matters such as job cuts or pay are at stake. I will not strike over the issues at the moment. I’m presuming that someone at PCS leaked this story to the paper, which seems quite unprofessional to me. I pay my union fees but that does not mean that I have to strike just because they say so and I will not be bullied by you or anyone else.
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Those members who know me would find the suggestion of me bullying anyone as just wrong
To make it clear the story that the Shropshire Star ran was not a leak,it was a press release from the Unions HQ
I consider that to be professional wholly correct
PCS is democratic union and we have won a legal ballot of our membership
As ever if members choose to not to support the action that is their right.
This site and the other 36 sites in the Contact Centre network is lose 2000 jobs in the next 12 months,perhaps Anon may see that this dispute is about job cuts
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So of 7,000 union members, 43% voted on whether or not to strike (3010 votes) and of those 70% voted to strike (2107 strikes to vote) …something about that doesn’t seem right, only 30% of the total union voted for a strike….as for being held to Call Centre targets….well, it’s a Call Centre, what other targets would you have them held to? You better hope they don’t target you on getting people into work because you seem to fail miserably at that.
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“We are being prevented from providing a good quality service to the public because of unnecessary and unrealistic call centre targets.” She says!
I say “list them!” Give the public the opportunity for a bit of insight & who knows we may support you. I for one want every service that deals with ‘the public’ to be the very best that’s possible.
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It’s interesting to me that Jane Aitchison, the union’s Department for Work and Pensions group president, says that “WE”: “We are being prevented ……….”
I reckon she’ll have never worked at a call centre!
Guess we all want our 5 minutes of fame ‘though!.
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