24th April 2008

The Green party have issued a statement ahead of tonights meeting in Gloucester where members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) will question candidates on how they will defend public services.

Green party statement

The Green party apologise for being unable to supply a representative this evening: we have several other planned commitments on this date. However we welcome that you are highlighting this important issue, which is another example of our Government "ripping the heart out of our public services."

Gloucestershire Greens support your campaign for a fair and coherent pay agreement and have issued such statements to the press. Separate pay negotiations can lead to invidious pay differentials, which particularly impact on already deprived groups. Greens have campaigned for fair pay and decent conditions for all workers. Our Green Party MEPs, for example, played a lead role in legislating for the right to refuse to work more than 48 hours per week, and the London Living Wage Unit was set up thanks to the Green Assembly Members. PCS's Mark Serwotka has in the past received a standing ovation at Green party conference.

We are strongly opposed to the sweeping job cuts and the Government's deeply divisive, costly and damaging privatisation and Private Finance Initiative programmes (i). The cuts will impact badly on service users as well as being potentially devastating for workers. The Greens support the "Public Services Not Private Profit" campaign launched previously by PCS and other unions. We are also the only main party to strongly support the "Keep our NHS public" campaign and are seeking to reverse some of the privatisations that have already taken place and return the services to full public control.

As an additional note we welcome that PCS are seeking to put members at the heart of reducing the environmental impact of their employers: for example through paid time off for members to work on reducing the environmental impact of the workplace - akin to the time off for health and safety. We can and must reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and tackle climate change if we are to avoid a very bleak future.

We urgently need to create the political will for real change: social justice and environmental justice go hand in hand. The civil service is not the place for Labour to find its money to pay for war on Iraq, ID cards or the £76 billion replacement for Trident nuclear weapons.

Cllr. Philip Booth, Stroud District Green Party.