PCS Representatives and activists have to ask themselves, “is this as good as it gets or is there a better way of dealing with the employer’s attacks?” The Independent Left wants a membership led union, championing membership interests, strong on policy delivery rather than self glorifying, windy leadership rhetoric.
Our supporters:
• Have delivered some of the best pay, terms and conditions in the civil service;
• Have delivered 30 days annual leave on entry across a number of bargaining units, providing the basis for other areas to do the same;
• Have uniquely delivered Staff Handbooks that explicitly incorporate agreements with the
employer into contracts of employment;
• Initiated and resolved the legal case that established the Crown as the employer of all civil
servants;
• Initiated the PCS DWP campaign for a fight back on jobs with a decision to ballot in London whilst the PCS DWP leadership fiddled as jobs were slashed;
• Initiated the legal campaign to compare pay rates across civil service bargaining units;
• Initiated key and now commonplace PCS equality policies, (for instance, the equality proofing of all personnel policies – started in DETR by our supporters; challenging discriminatory distribution of box marks – started in DTLR by our supporters and resulting in a Whitehall-wide study of discrimination in appraisal systems; legally challenging discriminatory PRP);
• Have been central to the current legal challenge seeking to force DfT to carry out a Departmental wide equality audit as opposed to separate audits in each of its bargaining units;
• Formulated the policy for Departmental pay as one way of significantly reducing the number of delegated bargaining units;
• Were absolutely central to Mark Serwotka’s election in 2000 against the opposition of the Left Unity leadership who, until the midnight hour, supported Hugh Lanning.
The Independent Left have made Equality central to it’s programme and campaigning agenda. See our Equality page for more detail.
If you agree with our analysis and are objective enough to recognise our achievements then join the Independent Left!
To those who say, “you should have stayed in Left Unity” we reply – let us see you fighting in Left Unity for a different leadership and different policies and working with us around the policies that will deliver for members.
