Tag Archives: PCS

Why a Special Delegate Conference?

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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.

A response to the General Secretary and President

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In an unprecedented move, the General Secretary and President have today by-passed branch committees to email all members in branches that have passed motions calling for a special delegate conference.

The leaders of the minority faction on the NEC are now openly utilising the unions machinery, paid by members subs, to wage an internal political war against members who seek a different direction in terms of union strategy and priorities.

In response today, many branch committees have rightfully written to their members countering the inaccuracies sent unsolicited to members’ personal email addresses.

We will write more direct responses soon. In the meantime, below is an example of the responses lay reps, who do not have the wealth of the union machinery and full-time officers behind them, have provided to their members today. We encourage reps to use this to respond to their members if they feel it useful.

Dear Member,

You will have received an email to your personal email address today from the President and General Secretary of the union titled, ‘CALL FOR A SPECIAL DELEGATE CONFERENCE BY YOUR BRANCH – THE FACTS’ (not our caps) asking you to mistrust your reps.

Unfortunately, they have made the decision to go over the heads of your locally elected reps and use the unions communications infrastructure, paid by your subs, to wage an internal political war against members who seek a different direction in terms of union strategy and priorities.

Whilst we would rather spend our time as reps, representing and supporting you as members, unfortunately as the email was sent to all of you without right of reply and contained some significant inaccuracies, we only felt it right to respond.

Our branch did pass a motion (attached) at a branch meeting in September. This was done following many other branches of our union across other employer groups and regions passing similar motions.

We passed the motion because we have 3 main concerns which we set out below. The email sent to members claims to refute the facts of the motion. We’d like to briefly set-out why it doesn’t:

1) Pay: The General Secretary and President are content with not challenging the 5% cabinet office pay remit – once again the worse pay offer in the public sector and one which comes with strings attached – job cuts.

Proposals to change this position have the support of the majority of the NEC which you elected last year. Proposals to reject the remit, request negotiations are broadened out to include pay progression, flexible working etc and to begin a national campaign to achieve such objectives have been ruled-out-of-order by the National President.

This much is admitted in the email you will have received. We don’t accept these proposals ‘contravene the rules of the union’ and are happy to supply them to members on request.

2) More union staff on much higher salaries: The General Secretary has made the executive decision, without NEC oversight, to create a new super-grade in the union and more senior roles.

The successful candidates for the 2 new super-grade vacancies are coincidentally current, or recent members of the General Secretaries grouping in the union. These 2 individuals were also, again coincidently, the 2 failed candidates from the last 2 elections for Assistant General Secretary.

The additional vacancies below the new super grade also went to current or recent members of the General Secretary and President’s group in the union.

Disregarding the political connections for the moment. Increasing the number and salaries of paid employees of the union, who’s salaries are paid for by members subscriptions constitutes ‘major financial changes’ and liabilities in any language. And represents a much larger percentage of members subs – including many on the poverty line – spent on staff rather than waging effective campaigns to improve the interests of our members.

All of this done without the consent of the elected NEC or the elected National Treasurer, the Assistant General Secretary.

3) Union Democracy: With no way forward on either question, the only way the deadlock can be broken is for the union to hold an extraordinary conference – conducted online to save the £250k quoted in the email – to put the power and control of the union back in the hands of members and local reps.

Even if you were to accept the arguments in the email, that is surely something everyone who believes in a member led union can support.

Lastly, the email refers to ‘certain organisations operating in the union’. We can assure you that the only organisation which discussed and passed the motion on your behalf was the Branch Executive – elected by you every year. And we did so with the interests of members at the forefront of our minds.

We sincerely hope that this doesn’t dissuade you from continued union membership. This doesn’t change the dedication of reps on the ground to ensure you are represented and supported.

If you have any concerns, please get in touch,


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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your support in challenging this behaviour

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

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

  1. Progressing the National Campaign

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

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

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

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

This strategy or no strategy?

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

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

Give Labour time?

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

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

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

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

2. Supporting sacked HMRC reps

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Replacing the rejected Organising Plan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What next?

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

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

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

I the meantime, please consider joining us.

Support G4S workers in DWP!

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A historic strike

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DWP Group slow to act

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

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

An almighty cock-up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Huge opportunities

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

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

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

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

An extraordinary National Executive Committee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Schrödinger’s Standing Orders

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

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

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

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

Successes for the coalition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Centralism without democracy

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

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

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

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