Forestry Commission Trade Unions - www.fctu.org.uk
PCS Forestry Commission Group
The Public and Commercial Services Union is the largest Union in the Civil Service and the Forestry Commission. The Forestry Commission Group is the section of the union which represents PCS members who work in the Forestry Commission. As trade union members we all value being part of a strong union, but that depends on three things:
- A high proportion of staff being members of the union.
- Having enough of us willing to help out and being actively involved in the union’s decision making processes.
- All of us being actively engaged in helping to resolve workplace issues.
The important point is that the union is not your representative or a person at the end of the phone, but all of us, including you. If we want the union to be strong and successful then we all have an important part to play.
Mary Irvine
Group President
News
Myth Busters 1st July 2010
Civil Servants are well paid? Our pensions are gold plated? We're secure in our jobs? Privitisation is efficient and cost-effective? This FACT sheet puts things straight.
Coalition Cuts to the Civil Service and Public Sector 25th June 2010
The PCS Group Executive Committee (GEC) met in Edinburgh this week to discuss the effects likely to result from the initial cuts in England and the detail emerging from the emergency budget that will affect the whole of GB. Notes of the meeting can be found here.
Danny Williamson, Negotiations Officer for FC
Danny is now the negotiations officer at PCS with responsibility for the Forestry Commission. He has a long and varied history in the trade union movement covering both the public and private sectors. He joined the civil service in 1974 when he was employed by the Department for National Savings in Glasgow. He first became a trade union representative in 1977 when he was Secretary of the CPSA youth committee at the National Savings Bank. In that role he led a national campaign which culminated in that union agreeing a policy to abolish long incremental pay scales – a pre-cursor to today’s arguments for accelerated pay progression.
He joined his branch BEC in 1978 and in 1985 he was elected branch secretary of what was then the second biggest branch in CPSA with almost 3000 members. In 1989 Danny became President of the CPSA National Savings section and, after the merger, PCS Group President, a post he held until 2009 when he left to join PCS as a full time officer.
Danny served on the CPSA and then PCS National Executive Committee for most of the period between 1987 and 2008.
In 1999 Danny was transferred to the global company Siemens when National Savings was privatised. He led the TUPE negotiations which ensured staff’s pay, conditions and pensions were fully protected a situation which remains 10 years after privatisation. He was elected to the Siemens UK and European Works Councils and led the campaign to extend PCS influence in the company both in the UK and abroad. During this time he negotiated agreements which protected the staff from off-shoring including a no compulsory redundancy agreement and ensured agency workers and workers in India received the full rate for the work they did.
From 2002 to 2008, Danny served as President of the PCS Commercial Sector which brought together PCS members across the companies where work had transferred after privatisation.
He was appointed as a permanent member of PCS staff in 2009. His areas of responsibility include UK and Scottish Government employers both civil service and non departmental government bodies, and private companies.