The facts of our members pay and the case against Public Sector Pay Bodies

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Civil Service World reports that the FDA and Prospect ‘are working up plans for an independent pay review body for rank-and-file officials to plug a gap in the current system.’ Responding in Civil Service World, PCS General Secretary Fran Heathcote has set out her arguments for why civil servants do not need a Pay Review Body (PRB).

The PCS General Secretary spinning her failure on members’ pay

Although the PCS Independent Left (IL) is itself opposed to a Pay Review Board (PRB), and we explain why below, Heathcote supports her argument with misleading statements about the outcomes of the 2022/23 pay dispute, covering up the failure of the then Left Unity (LU) led NEC, to which Heathcote was central, to reverse the years of pay decline despite members striking and paying a levy into the Fighting Fund.

According to Heathcote, “Through our campaign of industrial action, last year our members managed to secure a pay deal that more than doubled last year’s pay remit, with a £1,500 one-off lump sum, and secured the abandonment of proposed cuts to the civil service compensation scheme.”

The facts are:

  • The strike action that we members were balloted for in 2022, and the action that we took in 2023, was in support of our demand for a 10% consolidated pay award for 2022/23 pay year, underpinned by our claim for a national minimum pay of £15 per hour. Yet the “scoresheet” shows that not one penny, consolidated or otherwise, was added to our 2022/23 salaries and that no other pay demand was won.
  • Heathcote and her Left Unity (LU) faction shipwrecked the 2022/23 strike campaign despite them failing to deliver our 2022/23 pay demands. Their mis-leadership of our 2022/23 pay campaign was overwhelmingly and roundly rejected by PCS delegates at the 2024 conference.
  • Heathcote glosses over the 2022/23 pay outcome by referring to the following year’s (2023/24) civil service pay remit, which we were not striking over and for which she and her LU allies did not submit a national pay claim.
  • Even then Heathcote fails to note that the 2023/24 civil service pay remit delivered the lowest pay award in the public sector to non-senior civil servants and once again condemned most PCS members to below inflation pay rises.
  • There is no evidence to show that our strikes over 2022 pay, and certainly not Heathcote’s/LU’s leadership, doubled the 2023/24 pay remit. No other, lower, pay remit for 2023/24 was ever put to PCS.
  • In fact Mark Serwotka, the then £103,000 pa General Secretary when Heathcote was national PCS President, originally condemned the 2023/24 pay remit because it guaranteed another year of below inflation awards for PCS members. Serwotka/Heathcote/LU only changed their tune when they decided to call off the industrial action over 2022/23 pay and abandon our pay demands.
  • Whilst the PCS IL believes that the then Tory Government decided to provide for a higher 2023/24 remit than it would otherwise have done because we were in dispute over the previous year’s pay award, the fact that that inflation was continuing to soar and that other unions were still in dispute and were about to be offered more money (and more than PCS), were also critical factors. Indeed, let us note that the senior civil service got a higher pay remit than we did and did not take a second of strike action.

Contrary to Heathcote’s statement, members didn’t get a £1,500 one-off lump sum, they got a non-pensionable, one off, pro-rated lump sum that was subjected to highly restrictive application rules. There is a big difference between the two. Despite the one-off payment supposedly being a flat payment compensation for high inflation, especially for the low paid, part time members, overwhelmingly female and concentrated in the lower grades, received lower (pro-rated) payment than full time staff. In a failure of their equality duties, Heathcote and her allies accepted this discriminatory pay decision

Heathcote further states in Civil Service World, “Last year, the government allowed for a remit of 4.5 to 5%. Our Home Office members, for example, in administrative grades won pay rises of more than double that level, and our executive officer members received 7.2% to 9.3%.”

This is so misleading it is outrageous. The outcome of the delegated pay talks for 2023/24 was that the vast majority of PCS members once again received below inflation pay awards, as the historic, unprecedented, 15 year decline of civil service salaries inevitably continued. Pay offers based on the 2023/24 pay remit that Heathcote is so proud off were rejected by PCS representatives in DWP, HMRC and elsewhere. When rejecting management’s 2023/24 pay offer, the then PCS HMRC Executive said that management’s pay offer fell significantly below its demands for a 10% increase to address the cost-of-living crisis, failed to secure consolidated and pensionable rises of a minimum of 4.5% for all staff, did not address issues of “endemic poverty pay”, and was “in effect a pay cut” because it was below inflation.

Heathcote focusses on the Home Office outlier (where members had been crucial to the selective strike action strategy) and ignores the brutal outcomes experienced by most members at a time of soaring inflation.

Interestingly if you read “Fixing the foundations: Public spending audit 2024-25”, which was published at the same time as Rachel Reeves made her announcement about public sector pay, you will see, at section “5.1 Costs from industrial action”, that the cost of the teachers and NHS strikes are calculated and used as a justification to accept the PRB reports, but PCS strikes are not even mentioned (and before you say it, the rail strikes were in the private sector).

So we ask the General Secretary, if the weak strike action and bargaining strategy you and your allies presided over was as effective as you claim it to be, why aren’t our strikes mentioned and costed in the document; why do tens of thousands of civil servants still languish f on or near the minimum wage; why did you and your allies fail to add a penny to 2022/23 salaries; and why did you preside over the poorest public sector settlement in 2023/24, leading to civil service wide PCS rejection of delegated pay offers?

Why we also oppose PRB
We oppose them because:

  • Such bodies are not independent as their terms of reference are set by the government of the day.
  • The workings of a PRB are opaque with unions not knowing how decisions are reached.
  • A PRB won’t resolve the fundamental demands we have as to harmonising pay, terms and conditions across the civil service.
  • Its recommendations can be rejected by the government of the day.
  • Few unions subject to a PRB actually support such a body. That’s why the NEU General Secretary said regarding the latest PRB recommendation, “The so-called independent pay review body is a failed process that has resulted in pay cuts over the last 14 years, contributing to a deepening recruitment and retention crisis.”
  • Unions act as supplicants to PRBs, making representations but not negotiating with the body.
  • In the end, a PRB is a distraction from the key task of PCS which is to build the union and persuade members to take the necessary action so that our demands are met.
  • A PRB stands in the way of our key strategic aim, which is to achieve national bargaining on pay, terms and conditions across the UK civil service.

In the next week, we will write further about the sheer importance of fighting for national bargaining. But in the here and now, we say no to Pay Review Bodies

IL supporters and the Coalition for Change majority put a motion outlining the above to the emergency NEC on the 12th of August. Unfortunately, just like the majority’s alternative strategy on the pay remit, the motion was undemocratically ruled out of order by the President against the will of the NEC majority.

Left Unity have once again prevented the members priorities being pursued by their union.

For a Trade Union strategy to defeat the far right

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Members and activists from across the labour movement will have been shocked by the violent responses to the terrible murders in Southport this month, including street violence in many communities where our members live and work.

The response to these far-right mobs in collectively organising cleaning and rebuilding work, and importantly solidarity protests to confront future violent mobilisations has been inspiring, but their are lessons to learnt too.

The labour and trade union movement has a unique role to play in combatting the far-right both ideologically and physically.

Ideologically, unions including PCS by their nature are both rooted in communities and workplaces and are are expressions of the unity – working-class unity – that the ideologues of the far-right like Tommy Robinson wish to divide on arbitrary lines. Lines of race, religion, gender etc.

Equally, trade unions are able to express and give voice to the interests and concerns of disillusioned workers who have faced the biggest collapse in living standards in centuries, having to cope with a low-pay economy where secure jobs and prospects are rapidly decreasing. Where the NHS is crumbling and where the cost of housing is skyrocketing and the supply of good quality housing is plummeting.

These are the conditions in which fascist and racist ideologies grow. A political alternative is required to combat them.

Unions need to be unwavering in their solidarity with those being persecuted. These attacks initially were against refugees and immigrants. Not an inch to this rhetoric: PCS is for freedom of movement. Refugees are welcome here and are not the cause of poverty, unemployment and austerity.

The mobs then went after our Muslim brothers and sisters. We will defend each and every mosque and home from these thugs. Muslims are not to blame either.

Many of the mob are also engaged in the ‘culture war’ against trans people. Again, no ground should be given to this pernicious attempt to divide working-class communities: Trans women are women, trans men are men, non-binary folks are non-binary.

Physically, the far right have been driven off the streets by mobilisations of much larger counter-protests. Trade Unions are again in the unique position as the largest membership bodies in the country, rooted in local workplaces and communities to mobilise at pace counter-protests to defend homes, workplaces and places of worship from far-right thugs.

Unfortunately, recent events have demonstrated that the trade unions in this country are not performing these roles as well as they need to. This week has shown we can’t simply farm-out our antiracist responsibilities to outside organisations, some of which don’t have the desire or will to articulate the social and economic demands which are required.

Many PCS activists and members, including IL supporters, have been active in mobilising our members over the last weeks, but PCS and the wider movement needs to act fast to ensure it’s organised for the future. On that basis IL supporters proposed the following motion to the unions emergency NEC on the 12th of August which was passed.

We hope it is enacted and in the meantime we hope branches are busy building their own antiracist/antifascist strategies.

NEC ARAF Motion August 2024

The NEC is gravely concerned about the mass mobilisations of the far right seen across the UK since Saturday 27th July.

Whilst most of these riots are being ostensibly presented as a response to misinformation surrounding the horrific murders of three little girls in Southport on Monday 29th July, it’s key to understand the far right have been on the ascent for years across the UK. Audiences for their racist, anti-immigration rhetoric have undoubtedly grown due economic crisis, crumbling public services and the collapse of living standards following austerity, Brexit and the economic impact of the covid pandemic.

However, we should also not fool ourselves into believing that this problem is purely one of economic disenfranchisement. Fascism and racism are ideologies which a growing cross section of the country are being (at least in part) convinced of. These ideas are also being further fuelled by the normalisation of anti-immigrant sentiment in the media and from prominent political figures.

Successive governments unwilling to provide positive alternatives to the brutality of Neoliberal economic policy have instead focused on attacking immigrants and refugees. This has all led to a situation where a rabidly right-wing, anti-immigration party is able to take the 3rd largest percentage of the vote share in the UK, Tommy Robinson is able to mobilise thousands on the streets of London and cities across England have seen over a week of racist rioting, including the attempted burnings of inhabited refugee hotels and mosques.

Keir Starmer’s ‘law and order/tough on crime’ response to these racist riots is wholly incapable of actually dealing with the spread of fascist ideas in our communities. The left cannot rely on the Labour Party or the Police to change the fact that we are losing an ideological battle.

There is only one force in British society that is capable of reversing this process and that is the organised labour movement.

We are of course heartened by the scenes from Wednesday 7th of August when thousands of anti-racist protestors took to cities and towns across the UK in order to defend their communities from the treat of the far-right. PCS members, including members of this NEC, played a significant role in mobilising for those protests.

We should feel proud because they were important mobilisations and indicative of what can happen when the labour movement, wider left and working-class unify around anti-racist and anti-fascist ideas. However, we can not afford to be complacent about the scale of the threat we face. We won one battle; the war is ongoing.  

Therefore, the NEC Instructs the General Secretary:

• To raise a motion at the TUC GC that calls for all affiliate unions to mobilise against all far-right mobilisations; a TUC-led national Saturday demonstration in London, with full mobilisation of all TUC unions; and a national week of action across the UK trade union movement.

• All these actions and mobilisations should all be based on raising positive workers’ demands such as (but not limited to) mass social housing programmes, a functioning and well-funded public healthcare system, fair wages, well-funded community services, an end to child poverty and the lifting of the two-child benefit cap etc. As well as the defence of migrants and other minorities under threat by the far-right.

The NEC further agrees:

• To work with all relevant bodies within the union to ensure PCS plays a leading role in building the broadest possible coalition of groups capable of mobilising against the far right whilst also ensuring our ARAF work is always under the democratic control of the union and not subsumed into any other organisation’s activities.

• To work with the Comms and Campaigns committee to fully implement the aims of the anti-racist and anti-fascist strategy 2022

• That any week of action called involve a series of workplace activities to explain what racism is, how workers can unite against it, and how workers can unite to defeat the underlying drivers of rage in our society – e.g., collapsing community and public services, falling living standards, rising prices especially of housing, loss of quality jobs, domination by hyper-exploitative “gig” work, and so on.

• To use that week of action to reassert our union’s position that attacks on the rights and freedoms of migrants do not protect British workers – they instead undermine all of us by making migrant workers more precarious and so vulnerable to hyper-exploitation, driving down wages and conditions for everyone.

• To use that week of action to reassert our union’s position that dividing the working-class with suspicion and hostility only makes it harder to unionise and push back against exploitation and low-wages – migrant workers have always been central to vibrant and successful trade union campaigns

• To work with all relevant bodies of the union to consider what materials would support such a week of action. It must be one of the union’s top priorities to win the support of workers in the civil service, devolved and not, and in our private sector areas, to an anti-racist, anti-xenophobic, anti-austerity agenda, and to involve the greatest possible number of members in that conversation.

• To work with all relevant bodies to create an educative comms strategy that is capable of dominating more media space and presenting our positive vision for the working class to the wider public beyond our membership

• To work with all relevant bodies of the union to consider how to link our anti-fascism work to the union’s national campaign

• To work with all relevant bodies of the union to consider how to apply pressure to the 

government to urgently meet our needs for housing, healthcare, benefits and fair wages

• To explore the possibility of providing basic self-defence training for members

• To ensure all mobilisation that our members are asked to attend are properly stewarded, providing our own stewards if necessary    

• To empower and work with branches to create their own ARAF strategy capable of creating the ability to mobilise large parts of their membership and communities in support of ARAF demonstrations and community defence

Latest from the NEC: A victory for the National Campaign but a defeat for union democracy

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At the initial NEC meeting of the year in June, the proposal of the NEC minority, led by the National President was not to hold an NEC meeting until the end of July. A whole 9 weeks after the national ballot results and the subsequent National Conference of the union.

The Coalition for Change majority agreed, that considering the ongoing political events and that the ballot mandates that we had secured were slowly running out of time, that it was imperative to have one earlier. So, invoking our right under the Standing Orders of the NEC we called an emergency meeting.

In calling the meeting we requested for this NEC to cover the following key issues in-line with both conference policy, the joint programme we were elected on and the key priorities of the membership:

  1. Progressing the National Campaign following the General election in line with Conference Policy.
  2. Implementing urgent, practical steps to support the sacked HMRC reps.
  3. Replacing the outgoing NEC’s Organising Plan which was rejected by delegates at conference.
  4. Beginning to improve the substandard legal services provided to reps and members.
  5. Rejecting the General Secretaries decision to spend members subs on huge pay-rises for senior Full-time Officers.
  6. Ensuring that the unions TUC General Council nominations reflected conference policy and the views of the majority of the union’s leadership.

For most of these, Coalition for Change NEC members had submitted amendments and motions (to be found here), outlining the direction forward and instructing the General Secretary accordingly.

In calling an emergency NEC, the Standing Orders outline that the purposes of the meeting should be summarised in the request. This was done.

Perhaps naively, we thought the National President would abide by the Standing Orders. However, immediately after opening the meeting he stated that he would be ruling the vast majority of our agenda out-of-order on the basis that he considered that only the National Campaign should be discussed.

As discussed in the report of the first meeting, the President continues to claim they can make any ruling and that a 2/3 majority of the NEC is required to overturn it. Despite having a significant majority, the Coalition does not have 2/3rds and so despite challenging the ruling on principle, it was upheld.

Your support in challenging this behaviour

Members and activists should be under no illusion. The Left Unity minority, having lost the election, are using purposeful misinterpretation of bureaucratic process to prevent the majority from progressing union business in support of the membership. It is, as was pointed out at the NEC, akin to the behaviour of the old right-wing moderate group in their attempts to prevent the then left majority from taking forward policy on the NEC.

We appeal to Left Unity members, including those on the NEC and specifically the new, younger members: Is this the sort of behaviour you came into Trade Unionism to enable and defend?

  1. Progressing the National Campaign

Graciously, the National President did allow the meeting to debate the national campaign.

Since the national ballot results and the union conference, there has not been the ability to take forward policy on the national union. The Coalition for Change, backed by Conference policy, knew activists and members were concerned about the inaction. This was backed-up by a timely email from a DEFRA branch to the NEC decrying the inertia and demanding their members be able to fight.

Taking this all into account, alongside the result of the General election, we submitted a comprehensive motion on taking the campaign forward which can be found here (Motion 2).

In summary, the motion sets out a timebound strategy of placing our democratically agreed demands on the government, allowing time for consideration, and ensuring that Labour understand that we are prepared to act if no meaningful ground is given.

This strategy or no strategy?

In contrast, the General Secretary’s paper offered no industrial strategy. As you can see, the recommendations asked for more consideration, further forums and in as much as there is to be communication with the new government it is to simply ask for more meetings.

This strategy amounts to inertia at a time that we have a duty to grasp the opportunity and put some timebound demands to the government, using the leverage of existing mandates and the threat of new ones.

Give Labour time?

We are glad that Labour beat the Tories. But we are not complacent, are acutely aware of the watering down of their commitment for workers rights and refusal to make commitments on public sector pay. We also don’t have short-memories and can remember the previous Labour administrations pay policy and the whooping of Labour backbenchers when Gordon Brown announced 100,000 civil service job cuts.

There is a need to put the new government to the test right away. They are already publicly dealing with the BMA, having been forced to do so by their ongoing ballot and strike action. They have said they want to negotiate with the unions and made the point during the campaign when confronted on the question.

At the NEC, Left Unity members were divided on the issue of how much time Labour should be given before we act, but they all wanted to allow some extended honeymoon period. The Coalition was not: The government has the ability right now to begin negotiations around the upcoming remit – if they are willing to then good, but if not, we must be ready.

When it came to the vote, the General Secretary’s strategy was voted down and the Coalitions Motion was passed. We will ensure as much as possible that the instructions are carried out.

2. Supporting sacked HMRC reps

Many members, particularly in the revenue, will be aware of the grotesque behaviour of that employer in sacking trade union activists at Benton Park View.

For both the branch and the Coalition, the response from the leadership, encapsulated by the General Secretaries paper to the NEC, has been too little, too late.

The Coalition submitted an amendment to that paper (Amendment 2), outlining practical steps which should be taken to support these members. Steps which were supported by the HMRC branch. Namely:

  • That steps would be made to move to industrial action.
  • That materials and speaker’s, chosen by the HMRC GEC and BPV Branch should made available.
  • That the NEC should support a mass lobby of key HMRC buildings.
  • That the Geneal Secretary report back to the next NEC to discuss escalation.

Despite being supported by the majority on the NEC, the National President ruled these amendments out of order.

We were left with the decision of either supporting or voting down the General Secretaries paper, which despite being wholly inadequate did commit union resources to the campaign. Obviously in that situation we voted to support the paper.

The decision of the President will no doubt be met with glee by HMRC management, even if it’s met with despair by our members and reps.

3. Replacing the rejected Organising Plan

National Delegate Conference rejected the outgoing NEC’s organising plan.

While growing in actual members since 2020, with a recent dip, union density, which is the main metric we measure our industrial strength has plummeted since 2015.

We know that we can’t be a proper representative body with these numbers and understand that we have much less leverage in negotiations if this situation continues.

The outgoing NEC’s organising strategy fell because it was largely a copy and paste job from previous years, attempting to do the same things again expecting different results. With the dire situation the unions density is in, we don’t have the luxury to continue this way. An alternative strategy is required.

While fixing the situation is not going to be done overnight, we need to start with the right objectives. Continually telling ourselves that 50% density will be enough is a lie. That is derecognition territory and does not provide enough leverage for us when we take strike action. Equally, while lip service is paid to joining the two, we do not treat bargaining and organising as co-dependent forces, and this certainly was reflected in the rejected Left Unity organising strategy.

On that basis the coalition produced a motion (Motion 3) to commence the development of a new strategy.

Again, despite being supported by the majority on the NEC, the National President ruled this motion, key to the future of our union, out of order. The union continues not to have an organising strategy.

4. Beginning to improve the substandard legal services provided to reps and members.

Members and reps alike will know the state of the union’s legal services. In the hustings during the GS and AGS elections it certainly was consistently raised. Advice is untimely, sometimes inaccurate and far too many cases are rejected.

As a result, the coalition ensured that improving legal services was a central plank of our joint platform.

We wanted to make some quick wins for members, so we submitted a motion to the NEC (Motion 4) instructing the General Secretary to:

  1. Ensure that arrangements are made to ensure claims are responded to and regular updates are provided.
  2. That branches are to be notified that they can appeal decisions they think are wrong to the Senior Officers Committee of the union.

In future we also want to discuss the SLA we have with Thompsons and whether it is fit for purpose as well as moving towards a more risk tolerant and combative position when it comes to legal cases, especially novel ones or ones done on matters of principle where we might want to test case law.

Again, despite being supported by the majority on the NEC, the National President ruled this motion, so important to the welfare of our members out of order. We will attempt to bring it to the next NEC.

5. Rejecting the General Secretaries decision to spend members subs on huge pay-rises for senior Full-time Officers.

The NEC is constitutionally empowered by Supplementary Rule 8.3 to approve all staff appointments and terms and conditions.

Last month the General Secretary announced significant changes to the unions staffing structure without informing the NEC or the wider membership. These changes include:

  • An increase of the total number of Full-time Officers (FTOs) by three.
  • The possibility of voluntary redundancy, with posts being backfilled.
  • The creation of a new ‘super grade’, 6A, without advising anyone on how the vacancy process for these new positions would be filled.
  • The possibility of some NEC sub-committees, and the Assistant General Secretary’s office having less or in some cases no formal FTO support.

We are in principle against more of members subs being directed towards staffing costs, especially if they are directed to creating a new band of super-paid full-time officers, paid well in excess of the salary of an average member.

According to the latest pay scales (page 66 of the 2024 Financial Report) these new staff will be paid in excess of £76k a year from membership subs which would otherwise go on things like strike-pay.

But even if you don’t share this principle, the changes will increase the proportion of income spent on staff costs. At 34.5% of income, the union is already in breach of 2021 conference motion A9 and the financial objectives of the union, which both rightfully ensure that staffing costs are kept at or below 33% of subscription income.

The potential for the AGS’ office and NEC subcommittees like Bargaining and Organising to be stripped of FTO support, presumably in favour of centralising power in the General Secretaries Office, is also concerning from a democratic perspective and is likely to deepen the ‘Jobs for the Boys’ culture endemic in the trade union movement in general and PCS in particular.

If there is any evidence more damning for that it will be the appointment to the new super-grade positions of the failed candidates in the 2019 and 2023 Assistant General Secretary elections, while John Moloney, twice elected, continues to take home the average worker’s wage.

We submitted a motion (Motion 5) to stop this, which was again ruled out of order by the National President.

6. Ensuring that the unions TUC General Council nominations reflected conference policy and the views of the majority of the union’s leadership.

The National Executive Committee has the duty to agree who from the union sits on the TUC General Council each year.

This year the General Secretary produced a paper which made a recommendation to the NEC that she should take the seat.

Considering the behaviour of the National President in this and the previous NEC, the Coalition for Change were not confident that the democratically decided positions of the National Union reflected in both National Conference Policy and the majority of the NEC would be faithfully represented at the TUC if this was agreed.

We therefore opposed this recommendation and submitted an amendment to the paper (Amendment 4), as is our right, for the Assistant General Secretary, himself with a mandate exceeding that of the General Secretary, to sit on the Council for this year.

The President, disgracefully ruled this amendment out of order, ruling that it was his opinion that the rule stating that the General Secretary should be on the TUC congress delegation meant that the General Secretary should also always hold the GC position. An outrageous, intentional abuse of his power.

If this was the case, why each year does the recommendation for the General Secretary to sit on the Council come to the NEC?

Clearly, in this situation we voted down the recommendation that is be the General Secretary. This left us with no nomination for the position.

In an extraordinary act, the President then ruled that *despite* being voted down by the NEC, he was simply going to ignore the vote and state that he was deciding against the will of the NEC that the General Secretary shouldn’t be the unions candidate.

We believe this goes one step further than the previous rulings. This is not the behaviour of a democrat. It is tyrannical behaviour which demonstrates a particular arrogance and contempt for union democracy, the votes of the members and the rules of the union.

What next?

Members and activists from all factions and none should be very clear about this. The semblance of democratic due process of the Mark Serwotka years are over. If you think this behaviour is beyond the pale, please make your voices heard.

You will not find a report like this from the central union, who’s staff is still controlled by the General Secretary. We were elected on being as transparent with the membership as possible, which is why we think it’s important you can read as much of the discussion and the relevant papers debated.

There is a face-to-face NEC next week where the Coalition for Change will continue to push the priorities above and those of our joint programme. We will of course report back.

I the meantime, please consider joining us.

Support G4S workers in DWP!

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A historic strike

This week has seen the first week of action by PCS G4S guards on the DWP contract since the result of the ballot last month.

The strike has been coordinated with the GMB and has seen big, vibrant picket lines that have caused significant disruption to the running of the Departments operations.

We congratulate all G4S strikers for taking this historic action. Never on the outsourced contract has such strike action been seen, and this has put both G4S and DWP on notice.

The disgraceful pay offer by the employer would put these workers, who protect civil servants at work, on barely the minimum wage.

At the same time G4S is syphoning off 100’s of millions in public money each year, continue to publish record profits for their shareholders and who’s CEO (who hasn’t walked a step in the shoes of his frontline workers) takes home over £2m in basic salary each year. We know they can afford to pay their staff properly.

DWP management are also complicit. They want G4S staff wages to remain low to keep the contract costs down and have refused to intervene to support the staff that keep its offices safe and open.

Once again, the workers who create the wealth for multinational leaches like G4S are demonstrating that without them, their business stops.

While this dispute is about pay, we know our members have many other demands and grievances which are very widely felt.

For example, disgracefully, G4S staff don’t get sick pay from day one, have a much longer working week than civil servants as well as a smaller annual leave entitlement. We need to fight minimally for parity with civil servants, which were the demands London G4S members wanted to fight on, but were previously blocked by the unions DWP Group.

Ultimately though, the real solution to these inefficient contracts is to bring the work in-house, stop these multinational crooks creaming off profit from the public and treating its workers like garbage and gain union recognition for PCS.

DWP Group slow to act

As we have written before, the DWP Group have been very slow to support these workers. IL supporters in London who have been central to ensuring that half of all PCS members on the contract are in the capital, have been arguing for months for a ballot and for it to include demands in addition to pay as discussed above.

We are happy that we held a successful ballot and that our members have risen to the challenge and been solid throughout this week of action. However…

An almighty cock-up

The DWP Group Executive has failed to serve the proper notice on G4S for the next round of strikes.

The National Disputes Committee (NDC) agreed that we would coordinate our strikes with the GMB for the 3 weeks commencing 17th June, 1st July and 15th July.

We were made aware yesterday that the DWP Group has not served notice for the 1st of July strike. Unbelievably, it appears that they were unaware they were legally required to provide 14 days’ notice of action to the employer!

Coalition for Change, of which PCS Independent Left is a proud part, members of the National Disputes Committee stepped-in to raise this as a matter of urgency, and managsed to get notice issued for the Thursday and Friday of that week – the only days which were still narrowly within the timescales.

What this means is that despite being told they would, PCS members now do not have official backing to act on the first 3 days of the next week of the strike.

This is a serious error by the DWP Group Executive and clearly brings the Group and national union into disrepute, but more importantly, it directly undermines the dispute itself.

We need urgent answers from the Group regarding how members will be told about this failure and how the group will be supporting them if they wish to take solidarity action with the GMB on the first 3 days of the next strike week.

Huge opportunities

Despite this, thanks to the quick action of the Coalition for Change NDC members, our members will still be on strike on the 4th and 5th of July, the day of and the day after the general election.

Big pickets outside government buildings, including a big Whitehall Office represents a significant and unmissable opportunity for leverage and publicity which comes around every 5 years and we need to put maximum effort into building the biggest possible turnout.

Our members have the ability to put real, industrial and public pressure on the likely incoming labour administration to minimally resolve the dispute in favour of our members but ultimately commit to insourcing the contract.

IL and Coalition for Change supporters are central to recruiting and organising G4S staff and pushing for this dispute to take place. We made a pledge as part of our joint programme to commit to supporting outsourced workers and we will continue to do just that.

An extraordinary National Executive Committee

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On Tuesday 4th June, PCS held its first NEC since a majority of candidates from the Coalition for Change, including IL members were elected. 

It was an extraordinary meeting, and not just because the NEC had not yet agreed its calendar for the year, but because of the way Left Unity, including the National President, conducted the meeting.

Or indeed didn’t conduct the meeting, because the meeting was a truncated one, suspended unilaterally by the President for over an hour, despite the pressing business this Union has before it. 

The President suspended the meeting because it could not agree standing orders (the rules governing how the meetings are run).

NEC members elected as part of the Coalition of Change slate had proposed a series of amendments to the standing orders such as making the NEC more accessible and removing gagging order preventing NEC members speaking to members publicly about debates.

IL have believed for years that NEC members being prohibited from reporting on NEC meetings is undemocratic, prevents accountability and removes a key method of engaging the membership on important decisions. 

We should be able talk to members about proceedings in a proportionate way, without undermining the communications strategy of the union; and to fulfil our elected mandate of democratising the NEC and the wider union so that a President who represents a minority of NEC members cannot ride roughshod over the majority. A copy of our proposed standing orders are below. 

Two of the key standing orders (SOs) we wished to amend were the ones concerning how amendments to standing orders are made, and another dealing with amendments to or motions on the same topic of papers moved by Senior Full Time Officers (SFTOs: the General Secretary and Assistant General Secretary). 

SOs 12.1-12.3 state that a two thirds majority is needed to adopt or amend the standing orders themselves. The Coalition moved an amendment that would mean only a simple majority was needed. This would be a democratic step that would attempt to avoid the farcical scenes we witnessed this week: where an NEC convened under standing orders that grant enormous and far-reaching discretion to a President who is himself a member of the NEC’s minority, and able to frustrate the majority with these powers. 

SO 11.4 states that amendments or motions counterposed to those moved by a SFTO, ‘shall not directly negative the substantive recommendations’. Who decides if they do? It is, of course, the President. Our proposed amendment would have allowed NEC members, with the same democratic mandate as the General Secretary (just not the £100k+ salary) to have their alternative papers and motions heard in general debate, with the NEC deciding democratically which was preferable.

The current standing orders allow the General Secretary and President to shoot down NEC-proposed motions on any given topic or issue simply by proposing their own, and then ruling “substantive recommendations had been negated”. You couldn’t make it up! 

Schrödinger’s Standing Orders

The NEC begins by agreeing its standing orders for the year. Because the new standing orders are not yet in place until agreed, the previous years are used to convene the first NEC meeting. The coalition began the debate by asking the President a question, if no standing orders were carried by a two thirds majority, would the previous years remain extant?

At first, the President, suggested they would. The coalition proposed our amendments, and while they were supported by a clear majority of 17 for and 14 against, they did not get a two thirds majority to be carried – the LU minority were obstructing what we believe is our democratic mandate for change.

When the Left Unity minority lost their motion to keep 2023’s standing orders (again 14-17) the President changed his mind. Apparently, the NEC cannot continue until there are new SOs agreed. Why the Damascene conversion? We believe, for factional reasons.

This is despite the fact that principal rule 8 and supplementary rules 7.1,  7.11, and 7.12 do not imply the need for standing orders – the NEC can conduct its business as it sees fit, within the rules. Sometimes the rules are silent – and that silence is the President’s discretion. But, their silence is for the NEC to determine. Rather than allow this, the President suspended the highest democratic body of the Union at a time when there were (and indeed are) vital issues that must be decided.

Successes for the coalition

After twiddling our thumbs for an hour, while refusing to leave the NEC Zoom to make sure we knew if the meeting was reconvened (we certainly weren’t told when it was going to happen) the Coalition reluctantly adopted the existing standing orders without being able to pass our vital amendments.

We collectively decided that it was more important to get to the substantive business of the membership. Th coalition reserve the right to attempt to democratise the Standing Orders in the future, and it’s likely that rule change motions to next year’s Annual Conference will be put.

Unfortunately, the President had other ideas, and immediately ruled that proposed changes to the NEC’s domestic arrangements, which would have made papers more accessible for disabled members, were not up for discussion. 

We then moved to business which couldn’t allow Left Unity to invoke super-majorities and abuse of Presidential discretion to subvert the majority.

Firstly, the allocation of sub-committees. The Coalition, committed to a democratic, radical union and industrial strategy now have a majority on the NEC’s key committees. These include the Policy and Resources Committee which sets the Union’s strategic direction, the UK Civil Service Bargaining Committee which directs negotiations with the Cabinet Office, and the Organising committee which we want to use to develop an ambitious plan to grow and strengthen the membership after years of decline.

The National Disputes Committee, which decides on industrial action, is made up of the President, Deputy and Vice Presidents, the General Secretary and Assistant General Secretary, now also has a Coalition majority.  This will be key in setting a program of action, selective or otherwise, which makes the most of our mandate while we assess and prepare to re-ballot other employers.

Next, the meeting then moved to General Election strategy. The General Secretary spent an unreasonably long time basically reciting their milquetoast paper on the topic. The PCS website has some initial details of the Union’s non-committal approach. If you’re expecting the information that it states is forthcoming to be much more scintillating… then you are likely to be disappointed.

There were another three motions from Coalition NEC members on alternative General Election strategy – which would have reaffirmed the right of branches to back candidates who had a track record of supporting our demands and values, with NEC approval, and in two cases stated the simple fact that it was likely Labour would win and that, while we are under no illusions that Starmer will enact socialism, his party in government would be preferable to another five years of the Tories.

The President ruled them out of order as is his prerogative under the undemocratic Standing Orders of the NEC.

An utterly bizarre decision. Annual Conference was not able to discuss the wider General Election strategy and now the NEC has also been prevented from doing so.

Nonetheless, an IL motion was heard and unanimously passed which will inject some reality into PCS’ political strategy at this critical time. After IL motion A12 was overwhelmingly carried at ADC, this motion called on the General Secretary to rapidly carry out its instructions and write to the Labour Party stating our industrial demands, asking for their commitment to them, and that they urgently meet with us, informing the membership of the responses we receive, or Labour’s silence.

The Coalition is clear – this is a NEC which will be active, radical, democratic, and not work in isolation – every motion will include instructions for the General Secretary to consult with and update groups, regions and branches – the true democratic locus of our union. 

PCS Left Unit have labelled us the ‘Coalition of Chaos’. The NEC meeting demonstrated that we constitute a cohesive majority. We will have disagreements, this is healthy, but we have a passion for delivering our programme for the membership and we will continue to push for it regardless of the bureaucratic blockers placed in our path.

Centralism without democracy

But it won’t always be easy. We planned to use the first NEC meeting to demand detailed updates on the National Campaign, and on what was being done to assist the sacked HMRC reps at Benton Park View, neither of which were on the agenda. Indeed, the President only accepted that the victimised reps should be discussed as part of Any Other Business after Coalition for Change NEC members wrote to him en masse to request they were.

However, due to the President’s suspension of the NEC and his insistence that the meeting had a ‘hard finish’ we didn’t get to them. We are now hoping to hear about another extraordinary NEC this month to deal with this and other issues. If we don’t hear, then the majority will demand one, as is our right under the standing orders.

During the NEC elections, we joked that Left Unity were practising the old Stalinist gospel of democratic centralism without democracy. This has now been proven, with the National President presiding over the NEC not for the benefit of the Union, but the minority faction.

Have no fear. The Independent Left has remained committed to principles set out in our manifesto for over a decade – if you want to support our campaign to make this a democratic union that wins victories by empowering lay reps, you should join us.

PCS Annual Delegate Conference 2024

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Following the election of a Coalition for Change majority NEC, this years Annual Delegate Conference was going to be very important for members and activists who wanted to secure that victory by ensuring the policy of the union reflected the change in mood amongst the membership.

In that regard, it was a success.

Ensuring motions were heard

The Standing Orders Committee had ruled out several motions for technical or constitutional reasons. Despite many years of conference choosing to ignore please to over-turn standing orders decisions, an unprecedented number of delegates rose to challenge the, this year and great many of them were then overturned by conference, and the motions re-added to the running order.

Conference was not prepared to have motions submitted by members and branches over-ruled on minor bureaucratic points.

The National Campaign

The outgoing Left Unity NEC proposed a motion in a self-congratulatory fashion, hailed the success of last year’s action, and the £1500 non-consolidated payment as a victory. It didn’t acknowledge any shortcomings in last year’s dispute and made no mention of any re-ballots.

The motion, and the leadership, received heavy criticism from conference floor, largely relating to the decision to pause action last year in response to the £1500.

Two rival motions were moved in opposition to outgoing NEC’s. There were some differences between them, but both condemned the NEC for its conduct of the dispute and for the misleading wording of the consultative ballot which led to the pause.

In the end, Emergency motion A315 was passed, defeating the outgoing NEC’s motion. It calls on the leadership to coordinate with branches to ‘develop a plan for sustained, targeted action across those areas with a mandate’ and to ‘maintain the mood for action in these areas while re-balloting elsewhere commences’. It also called on the union to make 100,000 additional staff and a commitment to hybrid working part of the dispute.

A solid basis for the incoming Coalition for Change NEC to build upon.

Organising

The leadership also lost its organising motion, largely due to criticism of how they have conducted organising so far. The motion refused to accept any issues with the current organising strategy which has led us to the lowest proportion of members in the union in living memory and puts us in a position in many areas where we have very reduced leverage when we strike and where we could potentially be at threat of recognition.

The incoming majority leadership recognise this and have put forward a strategy for changing the unions organising strategy.

Political Strategy

There was also a debate on the political strategy. There were 2 motions in this debate A12 and A13 moved by the outgoing NEC.

A12 called on the NEC to put pressure on the Labour Party over specific and identified goals for and demands for them to commit to and enact in government to improve our organising and bargaining positions and to implement the elements of its programme relating to expanding workers’ rights and trade union freedoms. It called to demand that an incoming Labour government should immediately impose its policy commitments in these areas on the Cabinet Office and Civil Service leadership, to repeal Departmental bans on onsite strike meetings and other anti-union restrictions.

A13 in contrast did not commit the union to any political strategy in the election and take a completely uninterested view in the outcome or the policies of the parties or candidates vying for members votes.

Solidarity with the Palestinians

In the international section, motion A99 committed the union to continue its opposition to Israel’s attack on Gaza, for ‘a free and independent Palestinian state’, and against the victimisation of our members who have spoken out for Palestine.

The motion condemned Hamas’ killing of civilians on October 7th, but also condemned the mass killing, starvation and displacement of civilians by Israel in response. It welcomed PCS’ decision to donate substantial amounts of money to Medical Aid for Palestinians, and it also called on the union to provide guidance to members on their rights to attend protests and express views in support of the Palestinians.

This motion had widespread support. To the extent that there was debate, it was in nuances expressed by speakers supporting the motion. The SOC ordered the motion, stating other motions were covered by it. This included a motion claiming ‘antizionism isn’t antisemitism’, an absolute which is patently untrue and potentially discriminatory as there are examples of antizionism being antisemitism. Equally, motions expressing a desire for a 2-state settlement were tagged alongside those calling for the destruction of Israel. These positions are counter-posed and it would have been better to have an open debate on the question if some activists wished to change the unions position.

Again, we hope this predicates a much more active year for PCS’ international solidarity work, which, especially over Gaza was slow to materialise.

Equality and Trans Rights

Motion A52, noted the Tories’ anti-trans scapegoating, and the leaked Cabinet Office guidance which would have led to the harassment of trans and non-binary people. The motion instructed the NEC oppose any guidance which would marginalise trans and non-binary workers, and to organise action to confront this guidance if introduced. The motion passed overwhelmingly.

Conference once again rightfully asserting it’s belief in trans rights over a historically poor leadership position on the question.

A worker’s representative

In the Finance section, Assistant General Secretary and supporter of the Independent Left, John Moloney, gave a run down on the union’s finances, which are soon to be boosted by the re-introduction of the strike levy. He also mentioned his pledge to take only an inner London EO’s wage on the basis that union officials should not gain financially by given the privilege of being elected. As a result, he has given the rest of the ridiculously high AGS salary back to the union. This has meant he has now paid back well over £100,000 to the strike fund.