UNION LEADERS have warned the Government faces a rough ride in the run-up to the election unless it backs down over plans to axe 104,000 civil service jobs.

The message was delivered on Saturday in Chancellor Gordon Brown’s Dunfermline East constituency during a Public and Commercial Services Union rally.

Public sector workers are furious at Labour’s proposal to cut one in five civil service jobs, force people to work until they are 65 and replace the final salary pension scheme.

Led by the GMB Pipe Band, more than 100 CPS members from all over Scotland marched through Dunfermline to Queen Anne High School. There they were addressed by PCS general-secretary Mark Serwotka, PCS national president Janice Godrich and Unison convener and STUC general council member Mike Kirby.

Mr Kirby said the Chancellor’s announcement in July that 104,000 jobs would go as part of a cost-cutting and efficiency drive could be an “expensive mistake.”

He had a message for Mr Brown. “If you want to be the next leader of the Labour Party you don’t go about it by cutting public sector jobs.

“There is something sickening about watching Labour and the Tories conducting a Dutch auction with the future of public services.”

He warned that Unison had already taken the first formal steps towards strike action in March.

Mr Serwotka said afterwards, “This campaign is vital, not just to defend jobs, but critically to defend services that the public currently take for granted.”

He added that the union found it difficult to stomach the fact that a Labour Government wanted to cut jobs in the public sector.

“It makes it even harder for people to swallow,” he said. “Most of our members were brought up believing that the Conservatives didn’t value public services and that Labour did.

“It’s extraordinary that a Labour Government is prepared to not just sack one in five of its own workforce, but also preside over a real deterioration of access to public services for pensioners, the sick, the unemployed ... those who depend on pensions and tax credits.

“These cuts will see the closure of many local offices and people being forced to use call centres.

“They’ll find it harder to access critical services.”

Mr Serwotka warned that last month’s one-day strike, which crippled public services across much of the country, was a taste of things to come unless the Government backed down.

“We’ve had the first national strike in the civil service since 1993, which was magnificently supported,” he said.

“We are now intending to have a major political campaign in the run-up to the election targeting every constituency MP in the UK, as well as MSPs and assembly members, to make it clear to them what the effect will be in their own constituency if these job cuts take place.

“We are also working closely with the other public sector unions to seek to mount a joint campaign over the attack on public sector pensions.

He urged the Chancellor to “stop and think again.”

“He should think about who has delivered all his key election promises since 1997, like the minimum wage, tax credits and the New Deal, and start valuing his own workforce.”