The Majority of members who voted have voted Yes in the national campaign “consultation” ballot.

In a deluge of ballot material, including on the actual ballot paper, you were urged to ‘Vote Yes to continue the campaign for fair pay, pensions, justice, and job security.’

The dishonest, Orwellian slogan and question were chosen to confuse members and it did.

No other union in the public sector pay dispute has put such a duplicitous question to their members.

People who vote Yes to continue the campaign were unclear what that would mean when the leadership was claiming that it was only “pausing”, not ending, our action whilst also stating that in the event of a Yes vote they would cease to collect the levy required to fund selective/targeted action.

Nevertheless, on the basis of the ballot question and propaganda, the vote majority is to continue the campaign.

Unfortunately, the current leadership is not serious – or honest – about continuing our campaign. Infact they have inflicted immense damage on it by pausing action and destroying our leverage.

The campaign will not continue in any meaningful way if Fran Heathcoat and Paul O’Connor are elected, respectively, as General Secretary and Assistant General Secretary.

Fran Heathcote and Paul O’Connor are both part of the Left Unity (LU) leadership that runs PCS. The “strategy” of the LU leadership was largely in place many weeks before the ballot result was announced, and its purpose and effect has been to derail our pay and cost of living campaign.

The leadership’s “strategy” as supported by Fran and Paul has been to:

• Thank the Tories on 2^nd June for ‘hearing membership concerns’ (we have not heard a single member express that view – have you?).
• To accept on the 2^nd June, and in guidance to representatives issued on the 6 June by Paul O’Connor, that the highly restricted, one off, non-pensionable, lump sum payment of £1,500 should be paid on a pro rata basis and that consequentially part time civil servants, who are overwhelmingly women, should receive less than £1,500, even though the payment was in compensation for the pressure of inflation.
• Wait until the 30 June, after a massive membership backlash, to write to the Cabinet Office minister objecting to pro-rata payment. His reply was essentially that this was the basis of the guidance and that they never objected on 2^nd June. By this time of course, the leadership had given up all our strike leverage.
• Flog the £1,500 pro rata payments to members as a ‘major concession’. Despite after Tax, NI and Student Loan repayments it would be a lot less, and in the case of our lowest paid members claiming Universal Credit, would have a negative impact on their income.
• From June onwards, flog the Tories’ 2023-24 pay remit guidance (which sets the rules for non-senior civil service pay awards) as a major concession, having rightly previously denounced it before as guaranteeing another year of below inflation awards.
• Give up on our 2022/23 demands for a fully consolidated 10% cost of living award with a £15 per hour national living wage.
• Refuse to renew legal strike mandates.
• Call off strike action for our demands.
• Send PCS negotiators into this year’s pay negotiations without the leverage of civil service strike action, to get the “best possible deal” for members in 2023/24 (when the Government has been insisting since April that 2023/24 awards will be below the inflation rate).

This was a surrender note dressed up as a strategy.

The PCS Independent Left predicted where the leadership would “lead” members to: not a penny added to our 2022/23 salaries; the dire position of the lowest paid members (tens of thousands on or close to the minimum wage) unaddressed in 2022/23 and below inflation awards again in 2023/24.

In parallel to the consultation ballot, Group after Group (for example, DWP, HMRC, DfT, MoJ) have already rejected the 2023-24 pay settlements in their departments. So, we do not have to wait. We know what the 2023-24 pay round has brought us – falling living standards and the worse pay-rise in the public sector!

The Left Unity members, including Fran Heathcote, who sit on both the NEC and the DWP Group Executive Committee (GEC), and who have pushed the tosh that the Tories below inflation 2023/24 pay remit was a ‘significant concession’, voted to reject DWP management’s below inflation pay offer, an offer based on that same pay cutting Tory remit. But those same NEC/DWP GEC members are still pushing the line of “pausing the action” to see the results of the 2023-24 pay round! Farce upon farce.

Frankly, if the leadership of PCS really needs to see the detail of each civil service 2023/24 pay settlement before they realise that the outcomes will not be good for members, then they should not be leading PCS.

Do not mourn – Organise!

We see the current General and Assistant General Secretary elections as a continuance of the fight to defend and restore members living standards by another name.

If elected as GS and AGS respectively, Marion Lloyd and John Moloney will propose to the NEC that we start to re-mobilise members and activists over pay and we become strike ready as soon as possible, alongside a comprehensive joint programme for a fighting, democratic union.

By nominating Marion and John, and voting for them, you are ensuring that at least there is a possibility of a fight for better pay.

Please nominate Marion and John, not only on because of the damage the current leadership has done to our campaign and thereby to our pay, but also because members need a competent, professionally run, union.