A recent DWP Group bulletin on national pay essentially says, the employee Deal stops most of us from getting involved, but we still have a claim for our SEO/G7 and G6 members.  This means then that the vast bulk of members in the DWP will not be involved in the national pay campaign. Now if that is not the case then we call on the LU leadership, who run the DWP GEC, to issue an immediate ‘corrective’ bulletin saying that they are in fact joining with the rest of the union.

Taking into account the current and forecast inflation rates, which the union has published as part of the ‘Pay Up’ campaign, the union negotiated 0.25% pay ‘offer’ to those opting-out in the DWP now means those staff (who number in the thousands) will see a very steep cut in their living standards.

In the ‘Pay Up’ material the union says ‘…the union has launched a new pay campaign to fight for a rise of more than 1%.

Given that the ‘opt outs’ will only get 0.25%, but the union wants all members to get more than 1%, will the DWP pay-team now recommend pulling-out of the Employee Deal on the basis it doesn’t deliver the 1% plus to all members?

If it doesn’t, or at least doesn’t ask for the Employee Deal to be re-opened to take account of the demands of the national pay campaign then that union wide campaign is undermined, perhaps fatally.

The irony of course is that many of the leading lights in the DWP leadership are leading lights in the national union as well. Therefore they agree a national campaign at the NEC but go to the DWP GEC and in essence kill that campaign dead in that department.

We are clear that the Employee Deal is poor and the union should demand that it be re-negotiated; also that all parts of the DWP should take part in national pay activities. If you think the same way then please vote for IL candidates both for the NEC but also in the GEC elections as well. Don’t condemn the ‘opts outs’ to the lowest pay rises in the entire civil service!