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Why PCS should refuse to abandon our commitment to Ukrainian brothers and sisters

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In February, PCS sent a delegation to Kyiv as part of the unions continued commitment to solidarity with Ukraine and Ukrainian workers. A position that PCS Independent Left were central in ensuring was taken-up in the wake of the Russian invasion.

On the second evening, Kyiv came under ballistic attack from Russian missiles – now a weekly if not daily occurrence for the citizens of Ukraine.

2 ballistic missiles got through the Ukrainian air defences, causing the destruction of infrastructure and several fatalities and more casualties. Chris Marks, NEC member and delegation participant made this video the morning after.

On this evening, these 2 missiles were part of a wider attack of 8 – Ukrainian Air Defence was able to knock out the other 6.

It was only able to do so due to the weapons provided to Ukraine by other nations, including the UK. Weapons which have consistently been called for by all Ukrainian workers unions, including PCS’s sister unions since the beginning of Russia’s imperialist invasion in 2022.

Just like the Republic in the Spanish Civil War, the Ukrainian people have the right to ask for arms to defend themselves from tyranny wherever they can get them, as the Ukrainian unions do.

Not because they have any trust in the governments they come from, but because they are in a life and death fight against a much stronger imperialist power which has the self-stated desire to conquer and oppress them and destroy their democratic rights.

It is therefore wholly regrettable that the National Executive Committee decided by a slim majority to endorse motion A30, being debated at Annual Conference, which draws the same false moral equivalence between the Russian imperialists and the Ukrainian defenders that has been made by Donald Trump recently and forces the union to campaign to ‘end arms to Ukraine’.

The union hasn’t taken an explicit position on ‘arms to Ukraine’ until now. Some of us would argue that it should have done, but not doing so also allows the union not to conflict with the calls of our Ukrainian counterparts.

It is such a truism, it shouldn’t even need stating: If arms to Ukraine were successfully stopped, Ukraine would loose and the Russian imperialist venture will be victorious.

If PCS passes this motion, it will send a very dangerous message to our members, give a – however minor – propaganda victory to the Russian war effort and will represent a betrayal of our Ukrainian brothers and sisters.

Who are we to try and prevent the very thing the Ukranians are telling us they need?

The motion was only able to be endorsed because the Socialist Party joined all Left Unity NEC members in voting to support it. This was a huge mistake and has allowed the authoritarian international politics of Left Unity to win out for a motion which purposefully doesn’t reference the Ukrainian workers movement or any class demands.

It is a mistake to move PCS away from its position of consistent international solidarity and support of workers fighting imperialism. A position which has been recently re-iterated by the former General Secretary.

If you agree, please ensure:

  1. Your branch is mandated to oppose motion A30 and references back the incorrectly E-marked motion E194, which re-iterates the unions position in solidarity with the Ukrainian people. Please get in touch if you’d like support in doing this.
  2. Vote for candidates in the ongoing NEC elections with the record of consistent international solidarity.

Left Unity Scrape The Bottom Of The (Pork) Barrel

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We’ve said before that our opponents in the current NEC elections, Left Unity, are lacking in ideas of how the union might win for members.

Read their website if you don’t believe us. Wondering what LU will do about pay? Don’t worry, they’ll reach ‘an agreement on pay which restores members living standards to a decent level, tackling the scourge of low pay once and for all’. How? Unclear, and we would suggest they don’t know either. God knows they had 20 years to find a way, and have so far failed to arrive on something, anything. Perhaps because having a plan would entail them actually doing something, an anathema to a group of people who view trade unionism as a way to avoid work. 

They’ve tried nothing, and they’re all out of ideas.

So instead, in this election cycle, LU have dispensed with subtleties and have decided to engage in some good, ol’ fashioned pork barrel politics.

LU were planning for this year’s election to be all about pausing the levy – the levy that they previously introduced and which suddenly became an injustice to members when they didn’t have control of the union, and whilst the General Secretary and her coterie were doing everything they could to avoid industrial action during and after the General Election – sitting on leverage submissions that should have gone to the National Disputes Committee and NEC, to avoid them being actioned.

The problem for LU was, in February, the IL, tired of the politicking and acknowledging that LU would do everything they could to stymie the national campaign, paused the levy.

So, lacking an election slogan, LU has decided that ‘If elected, we will refund the levy’ (since September).

How much will this cost? And how will the Fighting Fund be effected?

LU likes to say that no money was paid out of the levy fund – this is untrue.

In 2024 the union expended £1,315,825 of levy funds on strike pay connected with the national campaign.

This leaves the levy fund (inclusive of sums collected under the previous LU levy of 2023) at £1,347,390.

Between September and December 2024 the levy collected £2,250,270, an average of around £562,568 per calendar month (we do not yet have accurate figures for January to March this year).

So, LU are proposing, should they win the election, to pay members some £3.9 million. More than double what remains in the levy account, and indeed a fair chunk of the £ 4,558,744 which is in the general fighting fund.

Before you even get into questions of practicalities (will you pay members who resigned? how? is there anything in the PCS rulebook that empowers the NEC to pay bungs?) ask yourself – if LU want to pay out 66% of the £5.9 million in the combined fighting fund accounts, leaving just £2 million in the accounts when the government are looking to cut jobs and give the rest of us a crap pay rise. It won’t be enough.

LU have no plans to attempt to amend the rule which sets out a 50p contribution to the Fighting Fund, and they have, for political reasons, made temporary levies poisonous. Sure, they could top up the fighting fund by drawing the £3.9 million from the general reserves, but that would leave those depleted too, after Heathcote has already bled them for her undemocratic staffing structure which saw her personally get a £12k pay rise.

And to what end? A payment of between £12 and £35, in exchange for your union ceasing to have sufficient funds to support strike action in a dispute.

Effectively what LU are saying indirectly they do not intend, or envisage fighting a national pay or jobs and conditions action this year.

Vote to end this madness

The Independent Left are not here to offer you ridiculous bungs – we opposed the taxable, pro-rated £1,500 quid ‘cost of living payment’ in 2023 which LU offered instead of a fight for decent pay rise; we oppose their (hopefully dishonest) promise to financially cripple our fighting fund for their electoral gain now.

Instead, we and our partners in the Coalition for Change offer an actual plan to make the union more democratic, build a campaign and fight the employer as they attempt to immiserate us further, and win a decent pay rise.

This NEC election is a simple choice between the Coalition for Change, who want a better union, one you deserve, or leaving Left Unity in control, which means more stagnation and no effective resistance.

The General Secretary Has Given Herself A £12k Pay Rise – Vote To End This Madness

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Throughout this year IL and Coalition for Change members of the National Executive Committee opposed the General Secretary’s staffing re-structure, as it poured members money into providing incredibly well remunerated jobs for their loyal factional allies.

The General Secretary, with the support of the National President and LU minority on the NEC ensured it was pushed through without scrutiny or a vote of the NEC.

We claimed at the time, that the creation of a new ‘super grade’ within the union was unnecessary and could not be justified while our lowest paid members receive derisory pay offers and languish on the minimum wage.

We also pointed out that the re-structure would mean that the General Secretary would have provided herself a significant overnight pay-rise, on top of a salary our members could only dream of.

This week the unions 2025 financial report has been published. It demonstrates the impact of the staffing and grading restructure on the salary of the General Secretary.

Below is the comparison between the last 2 years salaries. The lowest spine-point of Band B7, the General Secretaries salary, increased from £78,187 to £90,084 (highlighted). A 13.3% or £11,897 pay rise.

The Assistant General Secretary, John Moloney is the only other Full-time officer on that pay point. However, unlike the General Secretary, John has maintained the principle that elected officials should not gain financially, from members’ subs, on account of gaining office and has therefore consistently only taken the wage of a London EO, paying the rest back each month to PCS..

Members have a right to be angry. This is your money being spent by your union leadership, feathering their own nest. And doing so while so flagrantly ignoring your elected NEC members who have the mandate from you, the members, to prevent this from happening.

There may have been some consolation if the General Secretary and President had achieved a similar pay-rise for our members this year. There may then have been an argument that this was appropriate. But no, as with previous years, we have been imposed with the lowest pay-rise in the public sector, and more and more of our members are on the legal minimum employers can pay.

The only way to curtail the power of the General Secretary and President to prevent such wanton excesses, but to also fight for the interests of our members, is to elect a majority leadership who will do just that. This is why members should ensure they vote for the Coalition for Change candidates when ballots start landing though doors from April 16th.

We are tired of a union that doesn’t deliver for members. We are sure you are too.

P/S: We are aware that Left Unity have published an article refuting this information. Claiming that the General Secretary is no longer on the B7 rate, but on the same as the people she manages and therefore ‘only'(!) on £82,089.

We don’t accept that the GS is on the same money as those allies she’s given promotions to, but even if we did, it’s still the case that the General Secretary’s salary band maxima has increased by £6k to £113k! This is still an outrageous pay bump, which they are guaranteed to progress to! Why on earth should the General Secretary enrich themselves like this at the expense of the members?

So, What Have We Achieved?

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“What have you achieved?” is a legitimate question that members will put to the Coalition for Change (CfC), particularly in light of our opponents’ claim that we are the Coalition of Chaos (ho-ho-ho) and that we have not achieved anything.

Well, despite the best efforts from Left Unity’s General Secretary (GS) and President to obstruct us, the CfC has actually managed to get things done.

Of course, not in getting a national campaign off the ground. Between the General Secretary’s effective refusal to carry out the National Executive Committee’s (NEC) instructions and the President ruling CfC motions out of order, Left Unity (LU) ensured we have not really or effectively challenged the Labour government despite its attacks on the Civil Service. In later postings, we will set out why we think that was so, but for now, it is enough that it is so.

Despite all that, we have managed:

  • To draft PCS’ first-ever green claims, in which, the union, for the first time, makes demands on the UK Civil Service with regards to net zero and the green transition.
  • To draft a model AI and Robotics agreement, that places demands on the employer to ensure AI and new technologies are implemented in consultation with the union and sets out protections for staff.
  • To draft a disability rights agreement.

Again, though, the dead hand of LU holds things up. The President and the GS don’t want the NEC to meet to progress issues. Although the NEC is supposed to meet every month, this has not happened. Each NEC should last a day, but they have refused this as well. Despite all of the above agreements having been drafted and submitted for discussion, not one has been heard or discussed by the NEC. They just get moved from one NEC to another. They are still waiting to heard and agreed.

Even when motions are heard and agreed upon, the General Secretary doesn’t action them; partially because the union bureaucracy is incompetent. The GS obviously forgets what was agreed, but also because LU doesn’t want to do the work; they are lazy.

Nevertheless, the CfC pushed through a motion on pay and terms and conditions for digital staff, a group of members that LU has wholly ignored, and a motion adopting the four-day week as a demand – which, by the way, LU opposed!

We passed a motion instructing the GS to collect pay data so that we can equality audit the UK civil service and a motion instructing the GS to actually work up strategic legal cases, such as taking equal pay claims.

The CfC ensured that PCS actually replied to the Civil Service’s consultation on Trans rights. Not only did we make sure that we lodged a response, but we also ensured that Pride was properly consulted as to how the union would respond, and that our response reflected union policy.

The CfC prevented the GS from spending even more of your money on staff. The General Secretary, without informing the NEC, let alone talking to them, paid out over £600K on redundancies to create a new, top-heavy with senior managers, staffing structure which costs £1M more in salaries than the previous structure. Without the dogged resistance from the CfC, the GS certainly would have gone further.

Of course, if we have a majority on the NEC and the President’s position, then we can actually have a national campaign, ensure that equal pay claims are lodged, make sure we put the AI agreement to management, lodge our green claim, and so much more.

This, of course, all depends on your vote and the work you can help to put in on the ground to get the vote out to support of the ambitions of the CfC.

This NEC election is a simple choice between the CfC, who want a better union, one you deserve, or leaving Left Unity in control, which means more stagnation and no effective resistance.

London Faces A Jobs Massacre

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“Places for Growth”

 Late last year, without any fanfare, the Cabinet Office published an evaluation report on “Places for Growth” (PfG). PfG is the Tory initiated program, started in 2020, to relocate 22,000 roles outside of London by 2027 and to have 50% of UK-based Senior Civil Servants (SCS) based outside of the capital by 2030.

The real purpose of the plan, however, was to move civil service jobs into constituencies that the Tories wanted to win in the general election; of course, that plan failed miserably.

For us, the key conclusion in the report is (emphasis ours):

Conclusion: At risk: The ministerially agreed principle to reduce the number of civil servants based in London to 75,000 by 2030, a key aspect of the Plan for London program, is currently at risk based on current headcount data. It is noted, however, that the increase in Civil Service headcount in London should be viewed in the context of the increased demands preparing for EU Exit, and then management of the pandemic response during this period.

YearLondon (Headcount)Outside London
201778,070334,150
201883,530339,110
201989,100348,460
202091,660356,100
2021101,930 (FTE 98,000)375,470
2022104,830 (FTE 100,955)398,250
2023103,735 (FTE 99,790)409,820

Up until now, PfG has been relatively painless as the civil service was expanding at the same time as roles were supposedly being relocated out of London. Following recent announcements, however, we know that overall civil service headcount is set to reduce and, on the face of it, 25,000 jobs will have to be cut in London to meet the 75,000 target for London headcount.

We in the Independent Left take this seriously. Labour is desperate for savings and in many ways, they are more ruthless, callous, and rigid than the Tories.

This is amply demonstrated by today’s announcement that the Cabinet Office, mostly London-based, expects 2,100 out of its 6,500 jobs will be cut or moved to other parts of government over the next two years. Pat McFaden, the Minister in charge of the Cabinet Office, has been explicit that moving jobs out of London is “where the state can get better value for money.” Where the Cabinet Office goes, others will follow.

Also highlighted in the report is the target:

“London estate reduced to 20 buildings by 2026 and consolidation of regional estates into hubs”.

The report says of this target:

Evidence: The current count of buildings in the London estate is 63. This is expected to fall to 40 buildings by 2026 based on disposals planned, compared to a target of 20.

Such a sharp reduction in the number of buildings threatens our members working in facility management jobs. It stands to reason that you need fewer security guards, catering staff, cleaners, etc. if you have 20 buildings rather than 63 buildings.

What is to be done?

The Independent Left propose the following:

  • We ask the Labour Government to drop the 75K target, insource all FM work, and give a guarantee of employment for all FM workers. If they don’t, then we campaign in London, targeting Labour MPs in particular to support us;
  • We educate and agitate around this issue with London staff with an explicit goal to recruit civil servants and FM workers and to build an expanding cadre of civil service/FM activists;
  • Under the auspices of the London and SE Regional (LSE) committee, regular meetings are held with impacted London branches. FM worker reps must be part of these meetings. The LSE to be given a campaign budget so that local campaigning can be undertaken;
  • All relevant Groups, National branches, London branches, and the national union meet together regularly to plan bargaining and campaigning;
  • All the above is undertaken with the aim to build and win strikes in London.

If Left Unity wins a majority on the NEC, will any of the above happen? We are doubtful.

In DWP, where the LU has had complete control for decades, their standard operating procedure when faced with mass office closures/staffing cuts is to place the burden on individual branches to fight the closures/cuts on their own and to exclude local branches from any talks with management about local offices.

They will do the same with London

With a Coalition for Change NEC, our proposals stand a chance of being adopted. So, if you work in London, vote Cfc in the NEC elections.

“Our Work, Our Way” – No to Arbitrary Office Attendance Mandates, Yes to Workers’ Choice

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Labour Ministers reiterate the Tories’ office attendance mandate
In November 2023 the Cabinet office, under the direction of the then Conservative Government, issued the instruction that Civil Servants must return to in-person office based working for a minimum 60% of their working time. At the time the PCS Independent Left set out the unequal, unnecessary, and unworkable, nature of this arbitrary decision.

We highlighted how a Tory Government empowered by its earlier imposition on the Civil Service of the lowest pay award in the Public Sector during that year’s pay round, sought to rain down further blows upon Civil Servants to shore up its voting base and divert attentions from its own failings. We provided key equality and other arguments for a more flexible approach that covered members in operational roles and that would protect the rights of the many members who need to attend their workplace for personal or other reasons.

A year later, on 24 October 2024, despite General Secretary Fran Heathcote’s claim that she would hold their feet to the fire, Keir Starmer’s Labour Government has, in complicity with the Cabinet Office, reiterated the Tories decision that Civil Servants should spend a minimum of 60% of their contracted hours working from the office: irrespective of the nature of Civil Servants’ work and their personal circumstances or preferences, despite technology allowing for more flexible working practises, and ignoring the demonstrable successes of remote working during and since the COVID19 pandemic and the flexibility and adaptation shown by workers in delivering vital public services.

Labour’s League Table of office attendance
The Labour Government simultaneously reinitiated the publishing of departmental attendance data, despite the numerous flaws and inconsistencies with, and between, departments’ attendance recording systems, the intrusiveness upon staff, and the gap between the data and reality. The purpose of this competitive league-table approach is obvious: . Departments which frogmarch and cajole their workers back into offices are to be praised, whilst those who value a flexible approach to hybrid working, who trust their staff’s judgement as to how they might best work, are to be spotlighted, admonished, and pressurised.

Legal entitlement
Permanent Secretaries should have properly considered, and publicly set out their reasoning, whether civil servants who have long worked from home for 60% or more of their contacted hours have a contractual or custom and practice right to continue to do so. Instead, they have essentially ignored these legal issues and reserved their “right” to require greater than 60% workplace attendance in the future.

A weak response from the PCS General Secretary and her allies
The response from the PCS General Secretary, and her Left Unity allies – who together run PCS without regard for its rules, its democracy, and the views of the majority of PCS NEC members – has been poor at best. We will return to their failure in a future posting. Here we focus on key policy issues and what needs to be done.

PCS’s default position – “Workers’ Choice”
PCS’ default position must be that civil servants should have ultimate flexibility to choose whether and when to work from home or the office, including operational staff where this can be enabled by technology.

Protecting civil servants who need or prefer to attend the office
An essential aspect of this in principle position of “workers’ choice” must be that members who wish to attend the office, or need to do so for well-being reasons, should be provided with good quality accommodation, with appropriate H&S measures in place, and, where appropriate, with reasonable adjustments. They should also have the right to decide how long they will be in the office for on any particular day, making time up at home on the same day or later if that is their preference or need, especially if it enables them to avoid expensive, crowded, peak hours travel and more easily care for dependants.

Support the local disputes but launch a national campaign
PCS should have already launched, but must now launch, a collective national response to the mandating of 60% office attendance. Our employer’s decision is a national one and we should respond on the same level.

Existing campaigns by groups and branches within PCS such as the Office for National Statistics (ONS), His Majesty’s Land Registry (HMLR) and the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), and, most recently, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, who have incorporated demands regarding the 60% office mandates within their respective live disputes, are to be commended.

However, this issue cuts across all parts of the civil service and the government decision announced in October 2024 was declared to be a cross civil service decision, While national PCS should vigorously support all “local” campaigns against enforced office attendance, those struggles should be incorporated into an effective national campaign with clear, civil service wide demands and a civil service wide critique of the 60% policy.

The Independent Left believes:

  • Those who undertake their work know best how to structure that work.
  • Civil Servants, including operational staff with appropriate technological support, should have ultimate flexibility to choose whether and when to work from home or the office.
  • Member’s choice, the need for managers to trust and respect staff’s judgment as to when and where they undertake their work from, should be the lodestar of a nationally initiated and coordinated campaign, supporting business unit level PCS representatives with key National actions, messaging, and guidance.
  • Members’ choice must be the genuine lode star of a real PCS campaign, not some “nice to have” paper policy that occasionally gets read out as a “sound bite” by the Left Unity General Secretary.
  • That gains from technological developments must be shared by the workforce, and that jobs must be safeguarded for staff where technological developments are made.
  • Civil Servants should, where they choose to, be able to work from offices that are safe, comfortable and be afforded all the proper equipment and all necessary reasonable adjustments.
  • Civil Servants should, in accessing offices, be able to do so in a flexible manner, attending at the hours appropriate to them, allowing them to travel and plan around caring and other responsibilities.

How should the union develop its campaign?
On the basis of the above points, not least the need for a national campaign, PCS must:

  • Insist that the Cabinet Office comply with its duty to consider and publish, in consultation with PCS, all the equality evidence relevant to the 60% mandate.
  • Demand that the Cabinet Office produces a post-implementation impact assessment, which it can and should do from the November 2023 Tory decision to date.
  • Must demand that each Department works with the unions in equality impact assessing mandatory attendance, including differential impacts between operational staff and Corporate Centre/HQ staff.
  • Ask in each department for a breakdown of, for example, part-time and full-time workers, by grade, ethnicity, gender, and “disability” and consider the differential impacts of 60% office working by length of contracted hours.
  • Carry out its own equality impact assessments where possible because, even where PCS is nominally consulted, employer assessments are likely to be substandard.
  • Provide guidance and training to full time officers (FTO) and lay representatives and instruct FTO and the PCS legal department, to identify and pursue legal test cases.
  • Insist that workers should not be worse off than colleagues elsewhere because of the office they work in, noting that the Cabinet Office and individual departments have acknowledged that some buildings lack the space for 60% office working.
  • Produce guidance and templates for members who have caring responsibilities, health and other grounds for challenging mandatory attendance “rules”, with associated training provided to representatives and a default presumption of PCS support for legal challenges.
  • Use all communication avenues not just to publicise opposition to the latest attack but to make the political case for flexible working for civil servants and workers more generally, highlighting. The positive impacts on individuals and public services whilst pointing out the hypocrisy of;
    • MPs, who are not legally or contractually required to attend Parliament, ever!.
    • Successive governments, which have long reduced the civil service estate to “save money”, forcing staff to work in ridiculous conditions or work from home, but now demand that squeeze into our offices.
  • Enshrine terms and conditions, including rights to flexible working, within contracts of employment, as was done in the old DCLG, subsequently DfT/MHCLG, by Independent Left supporters, including the current AGS John Moloney, to ensure that they could not be unilaterally worsened..

The above positions should be developed through membership consultation – the Independent Left want PCS to challenge the arbitrary nature of office attendance mandates and to truly embed flexibility within the terms and conditions of Civil Servants.

Whether it be office attendance, or the rota-ing of shifts, we recognise that it is those who do the work who know best how to structure that work. Workers having a say in how their work is carried out is the basis of Trade Unionism and should underpin a nationally initiated and coordinate campaign, supporting business units with key National actions, messaging, and guidance on that basis.

“Our Work, Our Way”!