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.
“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.
Left Unity (LU) – the dominant grouping within PCS for the last 20 years – has moved to the right, not only in terms of further bureaucratising the union but also in attacking reps, activists and democratic norms.
Jobs for the boys, on your dime
The General Secretary, without seeking permission from the NEC, reorganised Full Time Officer (FTO) structures. She created more senior management positions at the cost of at least an extra £169K a year, all from your subs. The aim of this new bureaucracy being to insulate them against the non-LU NEC majority. It also created senior positions for the failed candidates in the last 2 AGS elections.
An additional bulwark against democracy is the National President. Acting as an LU partisan, he has misused his powers to rule out of order most motions put forward by the NEC majority. He has paralysed PCS as a result.
Not that LU are worried, because they actually don’t want to do anything, a prime example being the 5% pay remit figure for the UK civil service.
The minority continue to block a campaign on pay
In response to the remit, the NEC majority put forward a motion saying that the 5% was not enough and that we should go back to Ministers asking for more.
Predictably, the President ruled that motion out of order, which meant that the union has not challenged the national remit figure. When the majority challenged the President’s ruling (which requires 2/3rds of NEC members to overturn), all the LU NEC members voted against overturning the ruling. That means they were against challenging the 5% remit figure.
If it is argued that they found other parts of the motion objectionable, why not move amendments to take those out? In any case, why didn’t the General Secretary in the paper to the NEC, just say we reject the 5% and we will ask for more?
She didn’t and the LU don’t, as they are content with the 5%, following as it does off last’s years pay ‘victory’ (as least according to LU).
Hypocrisy in DWP
So we see the deep hypocrisy whereby LU in DWP (who control the unions DWP Group Executive Committee) denounce the pay offer there, saying 5% is not enough, yet on the NEC didn’t challenge the remit!
Put control and power back in the hands of members
To break the deadlock we are in, the NEC majority is urging branches to ask for a Special Delegate Conference (SDC). The aim of the SDC is to pass motions which allow the NEC majority to actually make policy and to restrict the General Secretary to only using such powers as allowed by the constitution.
In response, in the last few days, a joint Branch Bulletin from the GS and President has been issued to branches telling them the ‘true facts’ of what is happening, which is nothing more than LU propaganda. Along with the bulletin, members have been emailed with the ‘truth’ (Pravda), as defined by LU, and members in branches that have passed SDC motions have also been emailed querying the legitimacy of their branches SDC motion.
This shows that LU are panicking but also that they now will use the union machinery to campaign for LU in next year’s NEC election.
We will continue to tell members that their money is being misspent, that LU’s actions mean that the union cannot respond to imposition of pay but also to the staff cuts soon to be announced in the Autumn statement.
Even if an SDC is stopped, we still have our annual conference next year where hopefully there will be a day of reckoning, most importantly LU have to be decisively defeated in the NEC elections, in particular we have to win the President’s position.
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.
The PCS NEC election results have now been published.
The Coalition for Change, which brought together the PCS Independent Left (IL), Broad Left Network (BLN) and other groups and independents, has secured a clear NEC majority on a principled programme that addresses the key issues facing members and our trade union.
We thank the many branches that nominated Change candidates, the activists and members who voted and campaigned for them, and all the members who took part in PCS’ democracy.
Members have clearly voted for change in these NEC elections, confirming the mood for radical change within PCS that was evidenced during last year’s senior officer elections.
There is a great deal of work to be done by the incoming NEC, not least because:
Civil Service pay is in unprecedented long term decline.
Tens of thousands of members are stuck on and near the legal minimum wage.
The civil service is strong arming members into office working pattens that are unnecessary and discriminatory.
Non-civil service members all too often have poor terms and conditions, woeful employer regimes, and are under organised and under supported by national union.
Membership levels are too low, damaging our leverage.
The Coalition NEC members cannot overnight put right all that has been put right wrong, but they can and will start that work.
Our most immediate challenge is to respond to the results of the civil service wide ballots on pay and other issues, which will conclude on 13 May. It is unfortunate that we will have to undertake that task when the decisions of Left Unity NEC members and senior PCS officials have left our union in a weaker position today than we were in a year ago, but it is vital that PCS begins to rebuild the purchasing power of our wages.
Independent Left NEC members will:
Seek sharp debates on policy issues and collaborative working on delivering for members.
Place equality genuinely at the heart of everything PCS does.
Seek to end the spin culture that has too long dominated PCS and insist on timely, comprehensive, national negotiating reports to members.
Never forget that the lives of PCS members are affected by events outside of our workplaces and that social and international solidarity must be a PCS lode star.
IL supporters have long played a critical role in PCS. We pioneered equality impact assessments of employer policies; established that the Crown is the legal employer of all civil servants; pioneered cross departmental equal pay claims; led fightbacks against office closures; argued alone for many years that a Fighting Fund War Chest and paid selective action must be vital parts of PCS’ armoury; sought the contractualisation of terms and conditions so that they cannot be arbitrarily changed by our employer, and have long fought for a membership led union. Please join us.
At present, the joint Independent Left/Broad Left Network candidate standing for DWP President, Bev Laidlaw, will be omitted from the DWP Group Executive Committee ballot paper on the stated grounds that she did not accept the nomination within the deadline.
Bev does not agree with this view and decision. Without going into all the detail here, Bev indicated her acceptance within the deadline, stating “please find attached my election addresses for DWP Elections 2024; DWP Group President and Ordinary GEC member.” On any reasonable reading a candidate stating that are attaching election addresses and identification the posts they cover is a statement that they do accept nomination for those posts.
Supported by IL and BLN colleagues (who are also standing as part of the Coalition for Change in the NEC elections), Bev has challenged this decision, although the “procedure” allowed for challenge is not one we would recommend and the HQ decision, as it stands at present, will mean that the LU candidate will be elected unopposed.
The wider view we take, and that Bev has expressed, is that trade unions should favour the maximisation of democracy, reduce obstacles to candidates standing, and promote contested elections rather than omit candidates for reasons unconnected to the key issues of whether a candidate is in membership, is a member in the relevant constituency, has been properly nominated, and has accepted nomination. Going forward after the election, we will therefore be looking to ensure PCS’ election arrangements reflect these fundamental democratic principles.
In the here and now, it is crucial that everyone of us, who wants change in our union, who is serious about winning on pay and wants democratic, accountable leaders, redouble our efforts to vote for and campaign for BLN/IL/Change candidates in Group and National Executive Committee elections.
PCS Independent Left 