Left Unity (LU) does not want a strike ballot over pay and other critical issues.
Their reluctance comes from:
• low union density (the proportion of members to non members), making collective action less effective. They believe the union is weak.
• LU is intent on keeping good relations with the Labour Party, fearing that a ballot or strike might strain those ties, and their hitherto ineffectual national talks. (Labour Ministers are well aware of the huge gap between the General Secretary’s bombastic claim that she would hold their feet to the flame and the total absence of national campaigning since they entered Government last year).
• They prefer a quiet life presiding over weakness than the busy and stressful life that is required to turn the union around and fight for improved terms and conditions.
LU’s mindset means that it responds negatively and with hostility to members and activists who push for more union ambition, a meaningful bargaining agenda, and for stronger action. Rather than engaging with members and activists, seriously challenging, for example, the lack of progression pay, they are wholly focused on maintaining internal control of PCS and preventing rivals from gaining influence. In the process they abuse the structures of PCS.
Whatever criticisms one might make of the British Medical Association’s leadership, the current contrast between that union and PCS is stark.
They have a long term agenda, most notably restoration of the value of their pay; activists won that agenda and the leadership have repeatedly called action on that basis (delivering the highest pay awards in the public sector), having carefully explained the reasoning and need for restoration to members; membership has risen as a result. Doctors know that the BMA is serious about the demands.
Government has been repeatedly told that the BMA needs clear proposals for rebuilding resident (formerly “junior”) doctors’ pay – not necessarily in a single year but delivering on the demand. In face of foot dragging by the Tory and now the Labour government the BMA shows a willingness to fight, they have a campaign plan, and they are always looking to build their membership.
PCS’ “left wing” leadership, however, projects a different image. ‘We implore the government to review the roadmap and work constructively with trade unions’ so says the President after the announcement that many of the provisions of the Employment Bill won’t be enacted until late 2026, early 2027. Yet he doesn’t have a concrete plan for what the union will do if ministers refuse to budge. This is not only around the Employment Bill but in fact on all things. PCS tends to beg, not fight. This gives the public impression of a union acting more as a humble petitioner than as a force ready to confront power.
The General Secretary writes ‘“… government hostility to public service workers have made it clear that we can’t rely on employers or ministers to do the right thing …. It’s only through collective strength that we can shift the balance of power.” So, if the Government is hostile, how does our LU General Secretary plan to deploy our collective strength? She promised to hold their feet to the flame, how and when does she plan to do so?
Not a word from her or the President or the LU NEC majority on such matters. LU hopes by playing nice this hostile government will give us concessions, and we will not have to use our collective strength. The results of their approach is obvious: members heading for standstill or below inflation pay awards; no pay progression; no return to national civil service rates of pay; no pay restoration; insistence on office attendance; job loss. If we want to make a difference as a Union we have to have the confidence to act like one.
PCS is a minority union in most workplaces. More members would indeed bring more negotiating leverage. An ambitious recruitment plan to bring in tens of thousands more members, backed by real resources, will boost our ability to impose accountability on ministers and employers.
The NEC has supposedly adopted a “ballot-ready” strategy – after wasting all of June and July – and arranged members’ meetings. But months of inactivity mean members approach these meetings unprepared, with no strike plan to consider, and little momentum to carry forward. LU are secretly hoping to blame members and so avoid holding the ballot mandated by the 2025 PCS conference.
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Where is the National Campaign?
PCS is at a cross roads. For months, Left Unity (LU) has done nothing to build amongst members for action on pay, jobs and working flexibility, and have only yesterday, belatedly, announced an activists forum (August 19th) to discuss the issue with members.
Motions carried at conference called for a ballot to be held by mid-September, why have they silent on the campaign since conference? There is a real risk we won’t hold a ballot at all, sending all the wrong signals to the Labour government, and to our own members about the strength and seriousness of PCS.
LU’s message of weakness is not simply about 2025/26. PCS has to have a meaningful bargaining agenda for longer term pay reform, addressing all the structural problems in civil service pay: wild variations in pay between the same grades in different departments and agencies; lack of progression pay arrangements; members trapped on the minimum wage; different grades of members being paid at the same rate of pay because they are all on the minimum wage; a lack of meaningful national negotiations over specialist members who are treated as a singleton specialism but within the delegated bargaining structure that breaks the civil service up in to a huge number of different pay systems.
Time for a serious plan
So, despite the LU leadership, what would “getting serious” actually look like?
First, it’s time for an all-hands-on-deck approach. Every full-time organiser and full time official needs to make the ballot their priority, putting aside non-essential work for now. At branch, town, and regional committee level, we should be calling urgent meetings and launching member discussions about the ballot. This can’t be business as usual anymore—everyone in the union needs to shift gears so we’re focused and ready to win.
But mobilisation isn’t just about what happens at the top. Communications need to be powered by activists and rooted in real-life experiences. HQ can’t reach everyone, and—let’s face it—mass emails from the centre are no substitute for a message from someone you actually know and trust. That’s why activists should be encouraged not only to draft their own messages, but to send them out, speaking in the language and style that members respond to. Local voices must take the lead. That’s how we build momentum and trust.
Of course, even the best-organised ballot is hampered by our low union density. We can’t shy away from recruitment—we have to bring more people into the union, quickly. That means inviting all staff—not just existing members—to meetings. Our message, our campaign, and our events should speak to everyone, showing them why joining PCS strengthens all of us. To build the power we need, every new recruit counts.
It’s also time to be honest about our demands. The current set simply isn’t connecting with enough members. We’re hearing that what really matters along with pay is meaningful progression, equal pay, the right to flexible and hybrid working, and a four-day week – let’s not forget: LU originally opposed the four-day week – now it’s clear we need demands that actually resonate with people’s real, everyday concerns. Consulting activists and using relatable, straightforward language will help us build a platform everyone can rally behind.
Above all, the strength of our union comes from the bottom up. Regional and town committees—along with branches—should be taking the reins on local ballot work, empowered with real resource and decision-making capacity. National leadership must support that by channelling power down, not hoarding it. Campaigns fuelled by members and activists at every level are the ones that win.
Yes, the hill we’re climbing is steeper because of past delays, but that doesn’t mean we can’t reach the top. If we keep our focus clear, act collectively, and trust in the power of our activists and members, we can still build a campaign that makes PCS a union everyone wants to join—and a force the government can’t ignore.
Let’s shift gears together and launch the campaign our members need and deserve.
An extraordinary National Executive Committee
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
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.
IL Statement On DWP Elections
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.
You can read our programme here, and see the candidates we endorse here.
Vote for change.
The Inequitable Churn: Civil Service Pay Disparities
The fact that civil servants are badly paid is basically axiomatic at this point. The report PCS commissioned Dr Mark Williams to produce on our pay confirmed this categorically.
But what is talked about less is just how much variation there is in how badly civil servants are paid. In-grade pay disparities within the civil service are a systemic and damaging injustice.
Mind the gaps
The Institute for Government’s (IfG) reported that civil service pay in each grade has fallen in real terms by between 12 and 26 percent since 2010 (‘Whitehall Monitor’, 16/01/2024). Pay disparities between different departments are striking. An IfG report (February 2023) showed that median AO/AA pay at MoD was £20,423, over £4,000 less than the median AO/AA salary in the Welsh Government. Pay at DCMS at every grade between AO/AA and SCS consistently lags median civil service pay by thousands of pounds.
The 2023 pay rise and limited sectoral/employer deals do little to unpick these disparities. Within departments, bargaining units, and workplaces, there are huge disparities in individual pay at the same grade and even in the same role.
Gender and disability pay gaps remain, too. Men were, on average, paid 9.1% more than women in 2023, according to Dr Williams’ report. This has shrunk since the mid-2000s but is still inexcusable. Even more worrying is the disability pay gap – 8.4%, and widening.
Aims without plans
Given all this, it is a positive that the PCS 2024/25 pay demands include ‘pay equality across departments on the best possible terms’. This, the current leadership tell us will provide ‘pay coherence’ via an end to delegated negotiations and a return to national pay bargaining, ‘a longstanding aim of PCS’.
There’s an aphorism in one of author and poet Antoine de Saint Exupery’s books that says our ‘task is not to foresee the future, but to enable it’. The leadership may say national pay bargaining is a longstanding aim, and indeed Left Unity members will occasionally mention it in a speech, but evidence of them actually doing anything to enable this aim is scarcer.
While it is progress that our pay claims are no longer a demand with a flat percentile increase and little detail, it is unlikely that making ‘demands’ over departmental pay equalities in pay claims will do much. The government will point at the 1995 Civil Service (transfer of functions) Order and case law to say that departments are separate employers, and so divergence, and local negotiations, are only natural. Dealing with inequality is something we will have to force either on the picket lines or in the court room.
The Law
How does the government legally justify the disaparites in our pay for work of equal value / grading given that all civil servants work for the same employer – the Crown? Salaries, Ts&Cs, and bargaining were delegated from the centre to departments by an Order in Council in 1995 – the employer uses this state of affairs to prove that civil servants in different departments in fact work for different employers.
In 2005, this approach was upheld in the Court of Appeal in Robertson & Others v DEFRA, a case in which the PCS supported male AOs and EOs at DEFRA making an equal pay claim on the basis that women at DETR earned more for work of equal value. They brought the claim not under the Equal Pay Act, but Article 141 of the European Community Treaty, which placed a duty on states to enforce equal pay not just within an establishment, but across an entire employer – the ‘single source’ of employees pay inequalities, and the authority capable of remedying it.
However, the presiding judge, John Mummery, ruled that while the ‘general proposition’ that the Crown was the ‘single source’ of civil servants pay, terms and conditions had ‘considerable force’ (paragraph 31), he ultimately found that because of delegated negotiations, ‘neither the Treasury nor the Cabinet Office is involved in the negotiations and their approval of settlements is not required. There is no co-ordination between the different sets of negotiations’ and so the Crown was therefore not the single source (paragraph 35).
No similar test case has been brought since. But a lot has changed in 20 years – bar a sectoral/flexibility deal (approved by Treasury), and some limited tinkering around how a headline percentage increase is distributed, civil service pay remits and set in stone by the centre, as any local negotiator will know. Terms and conditions are also delegated, but dictats from the centre like the 60% attendance policy show that this departmental independence is a fiction that can be done away with if need be.
In 2013 a Supreme Court judgement noted that the EHRC believed that Robertson was wrongly decided, ‘because it did lie within the power of the Crown to put matters right’ – there is a need to support branches via legal services to allow challenges on this and less novel disparities within departments and establishments. One victory could benefit every member.
Industrial options
Trade unionists and socialists would be wise to not have any illusions who the law is made for, though. As Marx and Engels remarked, it is just another tool through which the ‘ruling class assert their common interests’. Industrial power remains our greatest weapon.
Given the sheer scale of inequalities between and within departments, it remains unfathomable that the leadership has not sought to mobilise groups, departments, regions, and branches in the union to take industrial action against pay inequalities. GMB is currently pursuing such a course with the members it represents in ASDA (where shop workers are paid £3 less an hour than those in distribution centres), and with care workers employed by different Scottish councils (where the Scottish government is the ultimate arbiter of their pay). Both these campaigns are generating significant publicity, engaging members in action (including winning strike ballots) and exerting significant industrial pressure on the employers. Why isn’t PCS agitating for similar disputes in the civil service?
IL’s motion, legal services and pay policy provide a way – vote for us
One of the more memorable slogans of the Paris revolutionaries in May 1968 was, “be realistic, demand the impossible!” The current PCS leadership has seemingly heeded the second part of this advice in their recent pay claim but decided to ignore the concurrent requirement for realism. Expressing a desire for pay coherence means nothing without a coherent plan of how it will be achieved.
IL candidates are standing for NEC elections this year as part of a coalition for change in PCS including the BLN and other independent groups. We have a manifesto and strategy that will begin to create the conditions, industrial and legal, in which PCS can fight pay disparities.
Our platform is committed to assisting and empowering reps to pursue disputes and cases over discrimination and inequalities, to build pay claims which seek to address the detrimental pay, terms, and conditions on which newer members of staff have been recruited. To support such claims, we will strengthen and open up PCS’ legal services, also a key priority of the recently re-elected, IL backed, assistant general secretary, John Moloney.
To help fulfil these ambitions, IL members have submitted motion A4 to this year’s conference. It instructs the the NEC to collect and make available granular data on pay inequalities, empower to reps to agitate, mobilise, and rise disputes industrial and legal.
But all the motions in the world will be insufficient if we continue to have a leadership set on repeating the same failed industrial strategy again and again. We need a new, radical leadership. The IL/BLN slate offers just that.
PCS Independent Left 