Although pay is one of the three demands, along with pensions and job cuts, that members were balloted on, in reality no effective campaigning concerning this demand has been undertaken by the PCS.

This, despite inflation eating into member’s real standards of living; a pay freeze for two years and delegated pay which allows members who do work of equal value to be paid unequal pay. Thus the objective conditions for an effective campaign exist.

That said we recognise that the lack of a national pay campaign for many years; the fact that PCS has not in effect even asked for national pay bargaining in the last years and the possibly wide spread feeling “well at least I have a job” make the task of effective pay campaigning very difficult.

Therefore the union should prepare the ground for a national campaign by the following actions:publicise, in the most imaginative and varied ways possible, the:

-pay differentials between departments and agencies;

-notion of the going rate; that that is there is a level of pay and related conditions which if you are being paid below then you are being underpaid;

-need for national pay and to make it a real matter of concern for the members that we do not have it;

-the effect of inflation on our living standards.

The Independent Left through publicity and this website will attempt (in admittedly a small way) to action the above points