The ballot paper is misleading, it begins ‘Vote Yes to continue the campaign for fair pay, pensions, justice, and job security’ and if that was on offer we would vote yes as well, but it’s not.

The leadership is engaging in doublespeak and in reality a yes vote means ending this year’s campaign. We are reminded of the slogan from George Orwell’s 1984 that ‘war is peace’.

The ballot paper goes on to say that in the next stage the union will conclude pay negotiations ‘to get an acceptable 2023/24 consolidated pay increase’.

Of course, you won’t get an ‘acceptable‘ consolidated pay increase, unless you read ‘acceptable’ as sub-inflationary. With the treasury setting out pay instructions to departments that they can increase their pay bill by 4.5%, plus an extra 0.5% for the low paid, pay negotiators cannot ensure that pay deals for ALL members will match inflation or even match what others in the public sector will receive.

While headline figures of the pay offers made to date may look appealing on the surface, one must always pay attention to the detail and the operative clause ‘up to’ within these offers betrays the fact that this will not be the case for all. Indeed, we fear that in departments including the DWP and HMRC many members won’t even receive a 4.5% consolidated pay rise.

The ballot paper goes on to say the next phase of the campaign is to pause the strike action, which really means ending the strike action.

An analogy might make this clearer. If you walk up a hill and then pause, you stay where you are on the hill. If you have to march down the hill, then you do not pause, you are in retreat.

By the end of August all the strike mandates will have expired and therefore we will need to reballot everywhere. We have outlined previously why a yes vote means this will not happen this year. Voting Yes, supporting the leadership’s strategy, means retreating into 2024.

The other parts of the ballot paper are things we will do regardless of the vote; if members vote NO, then we are not going to stop the pension legal action etc.

An honest leadership would say openly that a yes vote means no action this year and into 2024. Indeed, you could make solid arguments for this position. Instead, the leadership relies on subterfuge and linguistic sleight of hand.

We are honest and will say it like it is. Voting NO means reviving the campaign and pushing on up the hill, and that is better than giving up.

Vote NO.