Tag Archives: strike

The Budget and the DWP Employee Deal: Why it still matters and why members should vote ‘Yes’ to action in January!

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The chancellor has announced a rise in the statutory Living (minimum) wage for workers over 21 years old of 4.1%, to £12.77 an hour. For Civil Servants in the DWP who are contracted for 42 hours a week, this translates into an annual salary of £27890

This rise will take place in April.

Below is this year’s pay settlement for the 3 most junior grades in DWP. We have included the number of staff in each grade from the Government’s published figures.

Note that the London Living Wage as calculated by the Mayor of London stands at £14.80. This would translate into an annual salary of £31,168 for DWP staff contracted for 40.5 hours in London.

The figures include those who opted out of the Employee Deal, some of whose salaries are even less.

AAOpt-outSpot RateStaff in Post
National£27,774£27,774140
SLPZ£27,774£27,774
Outer London£27,774£27,77410
Inner London£27,774£27,774
AOOpt-outSpot RateStaff in Post
National£27,799£27,84419515
SLPZ£27,799£27,844
Outer London£27,799£29,722955
Inner London£27,799£29,722
EOOpt-outMinMaxStaff in Post
National£27,849£32,137£32,13739825
SLPZ£27,891£32,137£34,429
Outer London£27,992£35,615£37,0165290
Inner London£29,688£37,016£37,016

Our members know what this disgraceful situation means for them. But here are the headline figures:

  • 19,655 DWP staff (or around 22% of the workforce) are currently paid below the announced minimum wage.
  • All London based AA’s and AO’s are paid between £1,446 and £3,394 less a year than the London Living Wage.
  • All London based staff in all 3 grades who opted out of the Employee Deal are paid less than the London Living Wage.
  • Nationally employed AO’s who have to work weekends and earlier and later in the day as part of the Employee Deal, are only paid £45 more a year for the privilege.
  • The employer will be forced to increase the pay of 22% of it’s workforce in April because it won’t be paying them the statutory minimum.

The woeful spectacle of the largest government department being a poverty pay employer lies at the feat of the DWP management team and the Permanent Secretary. Who continually refuses to put a business case to the Cabinet Office to address structural low pay.

It’s nothing short of a scandal that the workers on the ground delivering social security aren’t even paid the minimum the government themselves believes is enough to live on! That the management of the department continue to refuse to address it is beyond contempt.

But PCS and specifically the leadership of the DWP Group have questions to answer here too.

In 2016, the current leadership negotiated and cheer-led for the DWP employee deal. They claimed that 4 years of above inflation pay rises for those who agreed to sell their weekends and evenings to the employer would address low pay in the department for the most junior grades.

PCS independent Left were the only group in the union that opposed the deal at the time. Among other criticisms, we made the point that the pay settlement was not future-proof and being handed over for the high-price of *permanently* selling off weekends to the employer wasn’t even ‘jam today’. The danger was that pay deals beyond the 4 years were not inflation proof, and the employer would return to bargain basement offers without a fight.

The Employee Deal was agreed (narrowly) and there has been no meaningful fight.

We have been criticised for bringing this up again, but it’s important in understanding the current situation.

Members will rightfully ask, why a unionised workforce, which are told repeatedly that PCS is a fighting union, are paid below the minimum wage and why we have negotiated and supported deals in the past that have ultimately resulted in this situation?

Why aren’t members who wish to take action over hybrid working and staffing, been armed with the opportunity by their leadership?

Unfortunately, union density in the DWP is waning as members answer these questions themselves.

We don’t think leaving is the right thing to do, in fact the only way to turn the tide on defending and extending our conditions and pay is having as many members in the union as possible.

We have the opportunity in the upcoming statutory ballot to demonstrate the strength of feeling of the rank-and-file on pay.

Members should vote in the ballot, encourage their colleagues to join and get involved in turning out members.

Branches should continue to agitate and organise members on the basis of their concerns, be it pay, hybrid working or jobs and staffing. And use that mobilisation to put pressure on the Group leadership to act.

And ultimately, when it comes to next years Group elections, branches and members should consider the long-term record of those in charge an whether the strategy has worked.

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.

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

Mark Serwotka attacks union activists but makes a key admission

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Once upon a time, the General Secretary would be provided with column inches in major newspapers like the Guardian and Independent to promote the interests of members and articulate the unions positions. Now, with the waning of our influence, the self-imposed collapse of our national dispute, the haemorrhaging of membership in the civil service and the lowest pay offer in the public sector, the relevance of our voice and the resulting offers of air time has dwindled.

It is somewhat telling, and not a little disheartening, that the end of his 23-year stint as head of the union is marked not by rallying calls to members and attacks on the government on TV and popular media, but by misleading claims about members’ pay and attacks on his own members in much smaller left-wing publications.

The most explicit example of this being this recent interview with the tribune magazine following the result of the pay strategy ballot.

More money from the government than in 40 years of the union?

In this interview, Mark attempts to justify shutting down the dispute on the basis that the 4.5% pay increase – the lowest in the public sector – was “more money from the government for the first time in 40 years”.

Of course, in purely percentage terms this is correct. However, the leadership mighty want to consider for a moment whether such a low percentage is something to be so publicly boastful of, considering they have been in control of the union for over half that time.

No, the obvious problem with this justification is that in real terms it’s a much worse settlement for members than in many of the last 20 years. Members are much worse off with the deal relative to the rise in the cost of living than in decades. Mark’s no fool – he understands how inflation works – but without a genuine reason for abandoning the dispute, obfuscation and spin that is well removed from the reality of the material conditions of his members, is the last refuge.

Not that Mark personally will have felt the pinch, after all, the subs of all members, including those who remain on the breadline, are contributing to his £100k salary and will continue to fund his significant pension well after he’s left.

“Being radical without representing the members”?

Whether prompted or not – we are convinced the former – the interviewer goes on to ask Mark why he’s supporting Fran Heathcote as his successor.

In a 7 paragraph response, which we can assume has been edited down, there is not a single reference to a policy or idea that Fran is putting forward to members.

Instead, it appears that the sole reasons for members to support Fran are 3-fold.

Firstly, that she’s a woman: But so is her opponent, Marion Lloyd.

Secondly, that she has shared responsibility for the state the union is currently in: a haemorrhaging density rate and the lowest % membership in the civil service in over half a century.

And lastly, that she is the joint architect of the strategy and outcome of the recent pay dispute – where, not to labour the point, the leadership won the worse pay deal in the public sector, nay entire economy.

In a nutshell, Vote Fran and Paul for more of the same. Are you not inspired?

With that taking up about 2 paragraphs, Mark spends the remainder of his answer to that question attacking his own members.

He talks about the “sectarianism from small elements… making the mistake of being radical without necessarily representing the people they’re there to represent”. Further stating that “the people in our union making the most noise hadn’t been on strike for a single day because they’d failed to get over the threshold”.

This attack line has been used previously by Mark within the union, but it’s the first time to our knowledge he’s been willing to publicly attack members.

Firstly, it’s demonstrably a lie. The author of this article was on strike, as were the overwhelming majority of Independent Left activists, in groups and branches which got over the threshold. But the attack is not only on Mark’s factional opponents.

There are many branches and activists who joined the PCS Say No campaign for example who were not connected to any faction, indeed there were activists who were members of the leadership faction, Left Unity who took part. We are aware of correspondence from these branches to Mark, left unanswered, raising concerns following huge members meetings on the direction of the dispute.

Entire regions of the union, notably the London and South East Region, with branches representing over 25% of the entire union membership, who organised the largest, most vibrant pickets and rally’s on strike days, voted unanimously at their AGM for a motion criticising the strategy of the leadership.

Attacking those branches and groups who failed to get over the threshold is equally irksome.

Obviously, we want maximum engagement with members, including in ballot turnouts. But the turnout threshold exists as part of Tory anti-union legislation meant to block unions from taking action. To valorise such legislation, which has prevented his own members from taking action, as a means to attack opponents is a right-wing attack line, more akin to the pages of The Sun and Daily Mail than the words of a notionally left-wing general secretary speaking to a left-wing publication.

Equally, the most disorganised areas of the union are not influenced by those Mark opposes, but those he supports. The Justice Group for example, long the base for Mark and Left Unity’s long-term allies, the PCS Democrats is an organisational basket case. Despite having some of the lowest paid, proletarian workers in the civil service, they not only spectacularly failed to get close to the threshold but have one of the lowest density rates at below 30%.

We are not gleeful about this situation, indeed we are supporting candidates who want to do something about it, but it demonstrates the hypocrisy of the attack-line. Where is the public criticism of his allies?

Why now?

With retirement in 3 months’ time, Mark has no incentive to maintain accountability. And without any significant policy deviation from the current leadership, it makes sense for them to instead rely on personal and ad-hominem attacks and slander against their opponents, hoping some of it sticks. We are dismayed but expect more of the same in the months ahead.

“If I had a regret if would be that it took us as long as it did to devise a strategy of industrial action that was finally effective”.

If members take away a single quote from this election period, if there is one sentence which will persuade you to vote for the alternative, it’s this one.

It is the closest we have got to an admission that over the past 20 years, the Independent Left were right about industrial strategy, and the leadership were wrong.

In the interview, Mark admits that both targeted action and the strike levy are key strategic choices which should have been used much earlier.

Both are things we have argued for years in branches and at conference, and each time were rejected by Mark and Fran and the Left Unity leadership.

The one-day strikes our members have taken for years – ineffective. The refusal to implement a strike levy until this year – ineffective. If we had been using effective targeted for decades we’d be in a much better industrial position. If we’d had a levy for decades, we’d have a war chest capable of supporting much more industrial action.

If our leaders are telling us they got the strategy wrong for so long and we have a choice to vote for those who got it right, we shouldn’t waste the opportunity.

If you agree, nominate and vote for Marion Lloyd for General Secretary and John Moloney for Assistant General Secretary.