Tag Archives: pay

For active, not passive pay meetings

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Pay meetings are a powerful opportunity for PCS branches to put union democracy and organising into practice. These sessions should be more than an exercise in top-down, passive reporting—they are a space for real dialogue, decision-making, and mobilisation for winning a fair deal for our members.

Branches do best starting by distributing background information and campaign materials in advance, so the meeting time is focused on open discussion and action. For the best results, avoid spending too long recounting what’s already happened or why the meeting is being held; let members bring their own ideas and priorities to the table.

Meetings work best when everyone feels able to contribute. Borrowing from American union best practice, adopt the norm: “Challenge ideas, not people.” PCS, rightly, is asking branches to invite non-members to the meetings. So encourage not only PCS members, but also non-members and new joiners to speak—this helps ensure meetings are welcoming, and aids recruitment. Certainly at the meeting, any non-members should be asked to join.

Critically, meetings must address the fundamentals: the need for a ballot, readiness for strike action, and transparent planning for collective campaigns. Even if PCS’ leadership is reluctant to discuss these topics, members should insist they are aired; otherwise what’s the point of hold the meeting?

Finally, end every meeting with clear, agreed next steps: forming ballot committees, planning leafleting, organizing solidarity actions, or even practice picketing. Keeping meetings member-driven and outcome-focused is how PCS branches can build the strength needed to secure decent pay for all.

Whether it’s pay, hybrid working or wider political issues, PCS and other unions usually default to a passive top-down mechanism for engaging with members. This isn’t the way things need to happen and it doesn’t reap the best results. We know many branches are already taking the steps laid out in this article, but we hope more will do so. It’s imperative we change our organising mindset if we are going to win as a union.

If you agree, please consider joining the PCS Independent Left.

A Ballot Ready NEC?

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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.

A Better Deal for PCS members in DWP: Vote for a new leadership in 2025

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The union in DWP is collapsing and becoming more irrelevant to staff.

The proportion of members in the union is the lowest in living memory and continues to fall. The employer is able to implement one of the most unequal pay settlement in the civil service without adequate challenge and nothing is being done about the departments draconian attendance management policies – one of the worst and most discriminatory in the public sector.

To reverse this, we need to become relevant to the needs of members and begin to fight and win on issues specific to our members in DWP. We also need an independent industrial strategy which includes targeted paid strike action and action short of strike where necessary to win.

If you agree with us, please nominate and vote for these candidates in the upcoming DWP Group Executive elections. These candidates come from a variety of different groups, including the Independent Left, and some are independent. What brings us together isn’t a single factional loyalty but a commitment to the following ideas and programme for members:

Pay

With many members on the minimum wage, DWP is poverty wage employer. Since 2009 our pay has been cut in real terms by 30% on average. The principle of pay restoration needs to be forcefully made to DWP management.

Alongside an immediate 10% pay rise, we will demand negotiations for a meaningful medium-term plan to reverse decades of pay cuts and an increase in the inadequate London weighting.

We will campaign to abolish the 2-tier workforce with staff restored to the highest pay scales and best terms and conditions.

Last year we accepted the lowest pay offer in the public sector and refused to reject a remit which demanded ‘efficiencies’ (job cuts).

We will not accept another top-down offer from DWP which gives our lowest paid members the smallest increases and keeps them on the poverty line.

Equality at the heart

The union formally has a position that equality is at the heart of everything PCS does. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen nationally or at a DWP Group level.

We will insist that any changes to staffing, terms and conditions, pay etc is thoroughly equality impact assessed. We will not accept deals which further entrench inequality among our membership, including offers which sell terms and conditions for crumbs in pay.

We will utilise all legal avenues to address the poor compliance in the DWP with Equality legislation and proper application of DWP policies and procedures to support staff and back this up with campaigning work with our branches to mobilise our members to know their rights and stand up together against all forms of discrimination and bullying and harassment.

The international and domestic attack on DEI has not been opposed robustly enough by the current union and group leaderships. We will defend and extend effective Diversity, Equality and Inclusion policies.

Simply recruiting a more diverse workforce to poverty-wage, administrative roles is not an adequate answer to inequality or the rise in racism. We will ensure the equality agenda is explicitly linked to all areas of bargaining including pay.

For a proper campaign on Staffing

DWP are recruiting, but it’s too little too late. The union needs to urgently address the worsening staff to manager ratio. At present this is anything up to 1:15 – at this rate managers are unable to provide the support staff require. We will demand this is reduced urgently to 1:10 and the department urgently recruit to meet demand in operational roles and recruit permanent, skilled civil servants into corporate and supporting roles instead of continually wasting public money on private contractors.

We will campaign for all staff to be made permanent, promotion exercises to be run to utilise the experience of members rather than competing with everyone in external exercises and will end the misuse of TDA.

We are acutely aware of overcrowding in many Jobcentres, leading to a stressful and unsafe working environment. There is no room on the ever-shrinking estate for the staff they want to recruit, let alone the amount we need. We will negotiate for proper, flexible and hybrid working for staff and demand the re-opening of appropriate sites to better serve and provide jobs to our staff and our communities.

The principle of Flexible working

Staff should have the ultimate flexibility to choose to work from home or the office, including operational staff where this can be enabled by technology. When we stepped-up and delivered during the pandemic, we proved that this was possible.

For most job roles, a policy of mandating any arbitrary percentage in the office is unnecessary, unworkable and inequal.

The current leadership did little to oppose the implementation of the arbitrary 40% office working dictat. We will organise an evidence-led campaign, including industrial pressure to oppose any attempt to increase 40% office attendance and to make the case for flexible working, based on workers choice for all staff where it can be enabled by technology.

A 4-day week

The principle of a 4-day week with no loss-in pay is a fast-growing demand with an increasing number of successful trials taking place across the world. Despite it being an overwhelmingly popular policy, the union has not attempted to negotiate with the DWP on this issue.

We will make demands on the employer for a trail of a 4-day week with no loss in pay, employing evidence from similar trials and the ever-growing number of academic papers conducted on the subject.

The use of Artificial Intelligence

The threat of Artificial Intelligence to our jobs is very real, but it doesn’t have to be. We will demand AI is only implemented in a way which serves citizens and staff, that reduces work, not jobs, and acts as an enabler for a reduction in the working week with no detriment to members.

We will start by immediately seeking an agreement with DWP that AI systems only be implemented with consultation with the union and that they should meet strict criteria on their use.

Organising outsourced workers

It’s essential that we organise our outsourced security, cleaning, and facilities management workers and fight for them to be insourced onto DWP contracts.

These workers are some of the lowest paid in our workplaces with the worst terms and conditions yet have some of the most industrial strength. Without them, our offices could not function.

Unfortunately, the union in DWP did not share this view until recently and even now has no robust strategy to win for our member.

In London, reps have recruited more than half of all PCS organised G4S guards on the DWP contract in the UK. Last year members formed demands on pay, holiday & sickness allowances and union recognition and have taken part in an unprecedented wave of strike action. This dispute should continue to be supported and extended.

The DWP Group leadership initially blocked them from carrying out a statutory ballot. The reasons given were that they hadn’t recruited outside of London and that it would anger the GMB.

Saturday and unsocial working hours

It’s been 9 years since the start of the Employee Deal and we are still feeling the hurt. This leadership permanently sold our weekends and evenings to the employer for a pay deal which has now been totally wiped-out by the rise in the cost of living.

Anyone who works in Jobcentre or Service Centre understands that is no legitimate business need to keep staff away from their friends and family on a Saturday. The 2-tier workforce created between those who must and those who don’t is an affront to basic trade union principles.

Having supported the Employee Deal, the current leadership feel unable to revisit this with the employer. We have no such qualms.

As part of a wide DWP campaign on flexible working and a reduction in hours we will renegotiate ED and include demands to reduce and phase out Saturday working and working after 5pm, to be supported by industrial action including action short of a strike where appropriate.

Attendance Management

The DWP has one of the most draconian and discriminatory attendance management policies in the civil service.

We will bring legal and industrial challenges to the Department to increase trigger points and abolish unfair attendance management procedures.

DWP Pay Award: Another kick in the teeth

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The long-awaited delegated pay award for DWP staff was published today, weeks after most other departments.

The worst many of our lowest paid members were expecting was for the 5% to be applied evenly across the grades. Across the rest of the civil service the union has largely managed to ensure that the award is either spread evenly, or that our lowest paid members are given a greater increase, such as in HMRC.

Not in DWP.

Unequal, unfair and top-heavy

The headline figure is that the lowest paid AA grade will see an increase of only 4%. Most AA’s to HEO’s on legacy contracts will only receive 4.5% increases, while SEO’s and Grade 7’s will receive a 6% increase to their minimum.

From the Depoartment’s perspective they have at least resolved one issue. Screwing over the most junior grade fixes the problem with the overlap with the AO pay scale… by making AA colleagues even poorer relatively. We’re not convinced this race to the bottom is going to improve staff morale as we are asked to implement the new governments welfare agenda.

A humiliating bonus

Most staff will receive a £90 non-consolidated ‘bonus’. Which for many will be wiped out by tax, student loan repayments and Universal Credit deductions.

It appears you can put a price on all the hard work we are told we are performing, and it can be counted in 2 figures.

Further pain for members

If this insult wasn’t enough, a further kick in the teeth for the lowest paid comes on payday and next April.

Due to the length of time it’s taken to conclude ‘negotiations’, the backdated award will be paid in a lump-sum in November. As with the ‘cost of living’ lump sum of 2023, this will screw with the UC payments that thousands of DWP employees are disgracefully forced to claim to keep up with the poverty line. An issue remarkably left completely out of the union’s members bulletin, much as it was an after thought in 2023.

In April, the National Living Wage is likely to rise. If it does so by the same as last year the DWP will be forced to increase the pay of AA’s and AO’s. And once again, the workers on the front-line of delivering social security will be paid the lowest their employer is legally allowed to get away with.

The role of PCS DWP Group negotiators

This bizarre trickle-down approach to the pay structure is unfortunately not new behaviour from DWP, but it does raise the question what did PCS negotiators argue for?

Showing DWP our hand

When the 5% Cabinet Office remit was announced back in July, the majority of the union’s NEC were clear that it should be rejected and plans drawn up for a national fightback on pay, pensions, flexible working and staffing amongst other issues.

We have continued to argue that we couldn’t accept the lowest pay offer in the public sector, and that rejecting a remit which demanded ‘efficiencies’ (job cuts) in exchange for the money should be a trade union red line.

There was and is the need for continued industrial leverage across employer groups on pay and the other priorities of the membership.

The National President, who is concurrently a DWP Group Vice-President, has ruled out of order each and every motion or amendment supporting this position from the majority.

As a result, union negotiators across the civil service in general and in DWP specifically, went into these negotiations having one hand tied behind their backs by the National President and DWP Group President.

With a tacit acceptance of the 5% remit, and no intention to campaign for anything better, we had lost all leverage and it’s now painfully clear that the DWP smelt blood.

But why is it worse in DWP?

There is no way of sugarcoating this award. Despite the national picture, it is an obvious bargaining failure.

The Group have stated that it could have been ‘much worse’, but that’s little succour to the thousands of members faced with the reality of the final award.

The bulletin put out to members does not criticise the cabinet office pay remit – the direct cause of this pay award, because the Group leadership accepts the remit.

It rightfully rejects the award but offers absolutely no strategy for how we can improve it, because the Group leadership have consistently opposed and undermined any attempt by the NEC majority to devise a strategy to do so.

Finally, the Group use a union bulletin to wage a factional war, wrongly implying that an NEC majority decision would have prevented them from pushing back against an earlier offer.

If DWP management can continue to be such an outlier in the civil service and propose such ludicrous top-down pay offers, it is due to the bargaining and organisational weakness of the union in DWP caused – in part – by decades of poor leadership, not the NEC majority who have no responsibility for these failed negotiations.

No communication with members

The leadership of the DWP Group Executive have long been proponents of secretive negotiations and embargoed communications with members. But this pay round has been excruciatingly bad. There hasn’t been a single meeting since the commencement of pay negotiations with members and not a single branch bulletin providing an update, not even a holding message.

Secret negotiations and embargo agreements only benefit the employer, proven again by this years’ experience.

We need a union and a DWP group executive who will consult members throughout negotiations and communicate openly about their progress. Ensuring members could be mobilised to exert pressure on the employer rather than being treated by the employer and union alike as a passive observers to their fate.

Hybrid Working, Saturday opening, pay progression…

As the NEC majority has attempted with negotiations around the initial Cabinet Office remit. Other than tradition, there is no reason why these discussions have to be kept to pay.

If the employer claims their hands are tied on the remit, we should be demanding that negotiations are widened to include things like commitments on allowing hybrid working for all staff, phasing out Saturday opening, and re-introducing pay progression up the scales. Things we know the Department can change and all things that are currently deprioritised on the union’s bargaining agenda.

The current unimaginative and conservative approach to bargaining, done entirely on the employers’ terms is not good enough.

We need a Group leadership who understand this.

Where are the Labour ministers?

The Labour Party promised to ‘Make work pay’.

Does the Secretary of State and DWP ministers support what is being done in their name? The largest department, with the greatest amount of operational staff in the lowest grades being paid the minimum wage? Continuing to rely on Universal Credit to make ends meet?

We’d hope not and would hope the Group Executive Committee are targeting Labour ministers about this both directly and through the PCS Parliamentary group. We also hope Labour Party members and constituents are making this hypocrisy well known. There appears to be a desperate need for some goodwill towards the government at the moment.

The problem is bigger than DWP

This ultimate responsibility for this pay award and the pay awards across the civil service, the vast majority being the lowest in the entire public sector lies with the employer.

But at every step of the way the union has been lacking.

Because the General Secretary wanted to tacitly accept the pay remit, run-out live ballots and refuse to re-ballot, and because the National President has undemocratically blocked any attempt by the NEC majority to put forward an alternative strategy, our members have to put-up with the lowest pay-rise in the public sector and the government, and employers across the civil service have had a free-ride to implement the remit as they see fit.

Because the Group Executive has failed to stop the unions organisational rot in the DWP, leverage with the employer has waned.

Because the unions negotiators in DWP refused to open-up negotiations to the membership and prevented them from being involved, we were neutered from the very start.

What can we do?

We desperately need a new leadership and a new strategy. But in the immediate term we need to stop the NEC minority from blocking such a strategy.

That’s why we are calling on all branches to pass motions calling for a Special Delegate Conference, so members and reps start calling the shots, not a minority of the NEC.

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.

PCS National Campaign Strategy: Sabotage or Incompetence?

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The PCS NEC met last week to discuss last minute proposals from the General Secretary for this year’s national campaign strategy.

Observant members will notice that last year’s national campaign, which we were told was merely ‘paused’ has, as we predicted, been swept under the carpet, never to be spoken of again. But as a reminder – we settled on the lowest pay offer in the public sector and a £1500 bonus which the failed candidate for Assistant General Secretary told bargaining units to accept being paid pro-rata’d.

The NEC decided on a pay-claim and a national consultative ballot for strike action, which they have described as a ‘survey’, which would be carried out over 2-weeks from the 20th of February, which may or may not result in a disaggregated Civil Service statutory ballot before May.

Ballot timetable

To put this in context, branches were asked to agitate around a consultative ballot on pay, which would commence less than a week after it was announced, would last only 10 working-days and who’s demands have been sprung on members and activists at the last minute without any consultation or rationale.

The formula of a short, rushed consultative ballot with little preparation time and minimal rank-and-file engagement, followed by the potential of a statutory ballot if the response is positive is paint-by-numbers Left Unity industrial strategy. But this timetable is particularly galling.

Such a rushed ballot strategy presents 3 key issues:

Firstly, the incompetent administration of the ballot is already causing problems. From members not being sent the links on the day the ballot started, to being asked for their National Insurance Number rather than membership number to vote and hosting the ballot site on a none ‘https’ secure server. All are unnecessary barriers to participation and will reduce turnout.

Secondly, a predictably poor turnout does not provide an accurate measure of members feelings. It also provides those who would rather not move to a statutory ballot the ammunition to argue that members are not sufficiently prepared for action. The leadership have used this argument previously not to move to a statutory ballot and we should be conscious this may be the case again.

Thirdly, running potentially 2 ballots in such a short space of time is a recipe for unnecessary confusion and fatigue among members and activists. Members are potentially being asked to take part in two ballots, asking the same question within weeks of each other, and activists are being asked to turnout the vote twice over. As both ballots are conducted in different ways, more confusion is likely.

The Academic Study

The foundation of the pay claim was an academic study commissioned by the union on pay trends in the civil service overtime, but specifically since 2007. For transparency, we attach the study at the bottom of this article.

This was received by the union in January, but not shared with the NEC until just before the meeting and not shared with branches until this week.

The study illustrates the serious loss in real-terms wages since 2007, summarising that just to restore real-term earnings to 2010 levels, an average of 35% pay increases at grades AA-EO would be required.

This figure does not surprise us. Independent Left comrades both in branches and on the NEC have consistently argued that pay restoration is a key demand and that to continually carry over the same pay claim year-on-year while pay shrinks, is a tacit endorsement of real term pay losses. Historically, this has been met with ridicule, with the leadership stating that members would find a 35% pay demand to be absurd.

Pay Restoration

They say good things come in groups of 3. During the last years national campaign, the union adopted 2 tactics we had been advancing for years. Namely selective/targeted action in areas which were industrially disruptive and a levy on members subs to ensure such action could be supported.

This year, the NEC has rightfully adopted the demand of pay restoration, although one could argue too little too late considering years of real-terms pay degradation.

Pay restoration is a key demand. It’s not an arbitrary percentage rise which has no basis in the material reality of members experiences, and which isn’t tied to the increase in the cost of living. It’s asserting the principle that workers’ salaries should at a bare minimum always keep up with the cost of living. It is good it’s finally been adopted.

Lowest paid left out

Why then, hasn’t the £15/r under-pin for our worst paid members been uprated? £15/hr was in the 2022 claim and since then, we’ve had historically high inflation. It would be excellent if we simply won on pay restoration, but if we don’t achieve that, the point of the underpin was to act as a separate bargaining point for our lowest paid.

They have been sadly ignored by this claim.

Hybrid working

Many thousands of our members have since the end of the pandemic, little choice by to attend the office daily, despite proving during the pandemic they were able to do much of their work from home.

One of the key issues for hybrid workers is the move to increase office attendance from 40% to 60%. This is a widely and deeply held grievance, which if included in the claim would help to increase participation.

For non-hybrid workers a specific demand advancing the principle for flexible working where possible should be included.

Exclusion of FM workers

Once again outsourced and facilities management workers are left out of the claim. We understand this pay claim is for Civil Service Workers, but there is no reason why the demands we’ve made nationally for our outsourced workers should not sit-beside them in a joint campaign.

As it is we have a national campaign, into which most of the union’s effort is focussed with a much more secondary and in many groups like the DWP, non-existent campaign for Facilities Management workers. Workers which hold significant industrial power in our workplaces and who through a coordinated campaign could bolster leverage for all members.

So, incompetence or sabotage? Or a mixture of both?

The question for us is, is this strategy designed to sabotage the campaign from the start or is it simply a poor, incompetent plan? We will give the new leadership the benefit of the doubt and go with the latter, but there may well be members of the leadership faction who do have the inclination or capability to fight an industrial campaign.

What is telling, is that numerous NEC members have admitted in various forums that they hadn’t even read the study before voting on the claim, preferring to simply accept the claim as presented by the general secretary. Whatever your faction, the role of an NEC member is to scrutinise decisions based on the total amount of evidence. It is depressing, but not surprising that NEC members do not think this is important.

Regardless, we have a lot of work to do over the next weeks to ensure the maximum membership turnout. Vote Yes to industrial action.

What’s the alternative?

If the aim is to have a live mandate by conference in order to be able to take action in a timely fashion during this year’s pay round, we should have begun the process much earlier, on the safe assumption that the pay-remit would not be acceptable to us.

As we are where we are, we believe a better option would be to use the coming weeks to continue to ensure the foundations in branches are prepared for a statutory ballot, not to agitate around a superfluous consultative ballot.

In terms of the claim, pay restoration is good (but needs to be explained to members), but the refusal to uprate the underpin and the omittance of one of the key workplace issues of the day – flexible working – are serious oversights which could have been caught if the process wasn’t so rushed or we had a different leadership.

pcs-pay-studyDownload