Although PCS is seen by many as one of, if not the most left wing union, in Britain we still pay our senior officials considerable more than the average wages of our members. Thus Mark Serwotka earns over 400% more than the bulk of the members. This cannot be right.

Accordingly we passed at our AGM the below (very mild) motion. For information our general secretary is at the maximum for what is called in the union, pay band 1. In the next weeks we will make the political and indeed economic arguments (we cannot afford in the long run the level of wages we pay FTOs) for why full time officer pay rates in PCS be much closer to the pay received by the majority of PCS members.

In such a left wing union we shouldn’t have to make these arguments but a lot of comrades in the Socialist Party and the SWP, now that they are being paid as full timers, seem to have forgotten them.

This AGM agrees to submit the following motion to PCSADC 2012:

“Conference notes that:

• According to Gus O’Donnell in a letter he sent to the Guardian in November 2010, “The median salary of a civil servant is £22,850”
• According to the 2011 PCS Financial report, the maximum for pay band 1 is £87,656.

Conference instructs the NEC to immediately commence negotiations with the GMB with the aim of ensuring that full time officer pay rates in PCS are much closer to the pay received by the majority of PCS members.”