It is now just a week to go until the PCS consultative pay and pensions ballot closes. Left Unity urges all our members and supporters to pull out all the stops to help get the union past the Tory imposed 50% threshold.

Every day that goes by brings new examples of the spiralling cost of living crisis – Petrol has risen by 20p per litre in the last week alone, and people are getting letters from their power providers with terrifying re-estimates of their bills.

Add to this the impending increase in National Insurance payments. It is claimed to be to fund the NHS and Care sector, but really it’s about pushing the cost of the government’s catastrophic Covid strategy onto working people. In a few weeks time millions of working class people will see our pay packet decrease!

Branches around the country have been working hard to get the vote out. We are experiencing that there isn’t a reluctance by members to vote, but many need reminding and this relies on good branch and office organisation.

Indicators show that we are getting close to the 50% threshold. This is excellent news. In the next week there are a number of activities we can all do to get the vote out:

• Log on, or sign up, for Callhub and help ringing members to remind them to vote, and to help record who has already voted.
• Organise physical or virtual office or branch meetings to remind people to vote.
• Use departmental systems if you can to remind people to vote.
• Where staff are in the office, walk the floors reminding people to vote.
• Send out WhatsApp or text messages and ask members to forward them to colleagues.
• If you are in a big building consider leafleting it while recognising Covid safety.

Use PCS digital to record who has voted. This helps your branch, and the national officers, identify how we are getting on. It allows you to see which areas of your branch need support and by recording the vote it means members won’t get called unnecessarily. It is addictive watching your branch percentage increasing!

Every step we make in the next week strengthens or negotiators hand, and it strengthens our office and branch organisation in preparation for the next phase, if we need to go to a statutory strike ballot.

Not only this but asking members to vote means we make sure every other concern that they have in the workplace, be it safety, workload, bullying, is discussed and fought over. This may be a pay and pensions ballot, but increasing our organisation and strength will affect every other area of our working and organising life.

This is not the time for the cynics, it is not the time for caution, it is the time to be bold, time to be creative and determined.

Let’s make sure we have a ballot result to be proud of.