During the NEC elections earlier this year Left Unity candidates warned that the election of Coalition for Change candidates made up of different factions such as the Socialist Party and Alliance for Workers Liberty amongst others would move the Union towards more unpaid days of strike action being asked of PCS members.  These warnings were borne out by the first NEC decisions to emerge from them.   The Alliance argue that their small majority gives them a mandate for this changed approach but their election material made references to this merely talking about a more effective strategy designed to maximise pressure on the employer around a series of demands contained in ADC motion A315. The passage of that motion effectively left a number of smaller Bargaining Units who had achieved the ballot threshold with a mandate to take action and the majority of PCS members concentrated mainly in the larger employer Groups with a new list of different demands to construct a separate dispute around them.

Over 100 lay reps and Group Secretaries gathered at a Senior Lay Reps Forum (SLRF) to consider the next steps of the campaign and consider a set of proposals from the new NEC majority grouping. General Secretary Fran Heathcote set out a series of recommendations that she had made to the NEC which included tabling the demands from A315 to create new trade dispute with the employer; considering how to involve privatised and devolved areas into the national dispute recognising their different legal employer status;  opening a dispute on the assault on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the civil service;  an analysis of Labour’s stated commitments how they might impact in each of our spheres of influence and draw up a set of bargaining objectives related to them and writing to the new Minister for  the Cabinet Office seeking early negotiations on our bargaining objectives.  

The General Secretary’s proposals were voted down by the Coalition for Change groups and replaced with the new set of demands that included a 10% pay rise, pay restoration, £15p/h, additional money for London, meaningful pay bargaining, inflation protection for civil service wages, 100,000 new civil service jobs, flexible hybrid working, an end to job cuts, effective staffing levels, the creation of a national climate service, the reversal of attacks on Civil Service Jobs Protocols and all anti-union attacks undertaken against civil service unions since 2010, an end to office closures except by agreement, investment in local civil service offices and pensions justice.

Their proposals continued with a deadline of 24 July for the government to respond with concrete talks around all of these concerns and others or then to call out all of the Bargaining Units with a live mandate on a minimum of one day of strike action, followed by a limited amount of paid targeted action in certain areas and to re-ballot the areas that didn’t reach the ballot threshold with a proposed ballot timetable running from September to November.

It’s worth noting here that the areas with a successful live mandate are a number of smaller Bargaining Units amounting to less than 20,000 PCS members in total. Any strike action involving these members at this time would not include the five largest employer Groups of PCS members including the DWP, HMRC and Home Office.  

Most of the representatives (in different PCS political groupings as well as non-aligned) from the areas with mandates spoke in opposition to the idea of calling members out on one day of strike action which would be unpaid was not what their members had voted for in the spring, and would be unlikely to have much impact. Some of these areas had contributed periods of successful targeted action which had been instrumental in delivering the significant concessions won by the dispute strategy of the previous NEC supported by days of national unpaid actions involving larger numbers of members and other Unions where this could have an impact.

A number of concerns were raised about the widening scope of the dispute for other areas including things like the creation of 100,000 new civil service jobs, creation of a new climate service, and ending all anti-union attacks as objectives which although desirable would be unlikely to be seen by most members as achievable in the course of a national dispute. This would be repeating some of the old failed tactics of the past of a series of one or two day stoppages around a shopping list of different demands, with varying levels of membership support for each of them. Members would need to be convinced in sufficient numbers to win a ballot that they are being asked to take action for winnable demands with sustainable and realistic levels of industrial action to achieve them.

When members were voting in large numbers in the ballots last year under the strategy of our NEC leadership they could see dozens of other Unions taking action alongside them, they could see clear and focussed objectives around the most immediate priorities for them at the height of the cost of living crisis and they could see an NEC that was not going to take them out on endless days of unpaid strike action.    

A number of speakers reported that Ministers from the new Labour government had already addressed staff meetings in some Departments and these had been welcomed and well received by members. Of course we should place demands on the new Government as the General Secretary has proposed but it should also be recognised that tens of thousands of our members will have voted for them and would expect their Union to at least give them the opportunity to develop policies in constructive discussions with them. Both the junior doctors and ASLEF Train drivers Unions have already been invited into discussions with new Ministers with a view to ending their long running disputes.  

The biggest problem identified by the SLRF was the running of two different disputes concurrently tagged as a “National Campaign”. As referred to by the General Secretary at ADC it would be illegal to add a series of new demands into an existing Trade dispute with the employer.   What the NEC majority are proposing therefore is effectively two disputes run concurrently one for those employer groups with a mandate which expires in November and another involving the reballot of the other areas concluding also in November. This would effectively be one dispute for the small Groups and another one for the large Groups and hugely divisive.

There would also be no guarantees that the larger Groups would get over the required 50% threshold in a reballot especially without an Organising plan which the Coalition for Change representatives succeeded in defeating at ADC although they are promising to have a new one to put to ADC next year! This would leave smaller Groups completely exposed to taking on the Government alone without the support of the majority of PCS members. There are a whole host of other practical and industrial difficulties with trying to maintain two different disputes under the guise of a national campaign. So much so that even one of the Coalition for Change elected Vice-Presidents came in and expressed serious concerns with the strategy that he had supported at the NEC previously.

A couple of Broad Left Network members attempted to salvage their position. One of their leading NEC members complained that it’s a very difficult situation (such are the challenges of leadership!) and another argued that taking a day’s strike action was better than nothing.  In these contributions and the contrasting strategies put forward you can see the difference between a serious leadership prepared to make difficult decisions in order to win concessions for members, offered by Left Unity and the Democracy Alliance and those who see taking industrial action without any strategic objectives to be gained from but as means to an end in itself offered by our opponents in the Coalition for chaos.     

Members are aware that the new coalition has already caused chaos within PCS, having created unnecessary delays at the standard setting NEC meeting, seeing serious matters timed out. The emergency NEC saw the coalition label the national president a tyrant as he had the absolute audacity to protect the rules of the union; his duty to the members that elected him. Then came the continued assertions that the previous national campaign was rejected by the membership, and the more scandalous claim that our members won nothing by taking strike action last year, any gains won they believe are ‘paltry’.


What about pay?
In 2023, your Left Unity led NEC succeeded in delivering a campaign which saw the national pay remit more than double, and for the first time in history, a £1,500 cost of living payment negotiated. Though this was less than our demands, it showed the power of collective action as we stood side by side, facing down a hostile Tory government. Our members took unprecedented levels of paid strike action with just three days of unpaid action when there was opportunity for the whole of PCS to protest along with other unions.


The emergency NEC was held to discuss some of the urgent issues that were filibustered by the coalition at the inaugural meeting and as expected, the coalition now brought amendments to the General Secretary’s National Campaign paper. Despite Left Unity NEC members stressing how vital a unified national campaign is to winning for us all, to avoid our employers taking a tactic of divide and conquer, the Broad Left/Independent Left called on their ‘majority’ to support a nonsensical motion that would end the national campaign. Clearly refusing to own their past mistakes (ADC article) where they had misled conference to win the motion that in effect would end the national campaign, the new ‘majority’ on the NEC decided it is more important to give the outgoing NEC a kicking, and the current members of Left Unity on the NEC a continued headache, than to create a well thought out strategic campaign plan that can build on the gains PCS has made. 


The motion tabled by the BLN, seconded by one of their supporters, was passed by their small three vote majority leaving PCS with a two-tier campaign; a reballot of the members that did not clear the threshold last timeout, to run alongside action that they expect will be taken by members in the 62 employer groups that have an existing strike mandate. The coalition hung onto the fact that we can ‘legally have two ballots running’. This of course is true – but anyone with any understanding will recognise that two separate campaigns do not make for a ‘national’ campaign. They believe that two-tier action will deliver the best results.


The coalition flat out refused to await the announcement of the government’s pay remit, their sense being that members want to move to a ballot now, the coalition do not trust the Labour Party yet in saying that also stated in the same contribution that they would want to see affiliation to the Labour Party. Confused? You should be. Certainly since another leading light of the coalition came in to agree with Left Unity on the points made regarding the Labour Party. A coalition of chaos, each working to their political masters be they the Socialist Party or the Alliance for Workers Liberty, there is no coherence, but for in their hatred of Left Unity.


The coalition also pushed for a return to the approach of limited one day unpaid action, despite members from groups with live mandates providing clear accounts of how we can maximise the impact of our campaign with longer term targeted paid action. Also despite members in their thousands telling the union they do not want to move back to unpaid days of protest action.


It is clear this approach is beyond tactically naive and risks dividing our membership, and that demonstrating our industrial strength as a class is the best way to win this fight. Left Unity are clear in our belief that we must do all we can to win any upcoming ballots and deliver the most unified action possible so that we can win. The counter actions are a dereliction of duty on the part of this new majority.


What about the levy?
The coalition decided to continue with the levy again, despite their acknowledging members’ confusion about why it has been reinstated.


It was especially frustrating to hear one member of the alliance offer no positive examples of how we can use the levy while, at the same time, saying it should continue. No recognition has been paid to how member confidence appears to be undermined by the lack of justification for keeping it in place, just vague lip service to a consultation on its implementation.


Left Unity is clear that a levy and the targeted action it supports must play a central role in winning our dispute, but we must ensure that we collect the levy at the right time and allow members to see the benefit that it will achieve. We saw the impact of the targeted paid action in the Border Force last summer. We saw strikes in the Passport Office, Rural Payment Agency and HMRC helpline bring real progress.


Left Unity will continue to fight to ensure the Broad Left Network/Independent Left alliance learn to understand the importance of a wide-based campaign which can have maximum impact.


A clear attack on your elected General Secretary
Not only the pay campaign, the coalition have stooped to a new low in the attacks on the PCS General Secretary.


Members elected Fran Heathcote as General Secretary as she is one of the most-hard working and highly respected figures in the trade union movement. A strong woman, highly experienced in the political arena, members are fully aware that there is no-one better placed in our union to fight for our interests, nationally and especially within the TUC.


It was therefore depressing to see that while Fran, our first woman General Secretary was nominated to sit on the TUC General Council, the coalition nominated a man to replace her. The alliance that has long stated they are ‘not bothered’ about equality, was determined to undermine Fran, remove her as the incumbent from the TUC General Council, and continue to put PCS in a bad light. The coalition were even prepared to have no one from PCS sit on the TUC General Council rather than our General Secretary, in a shameful act of sectarianism.


Left Unity rejects this cheap sectarianism of the alliance which sought to remove Fran, purely because, in the words of one of their members, they didn’t personally vote for her. Your national president ensured that the rules of our Union were upheld to allow our elected General Secretary to speak for all our members in the position on the TUC General Council, and ensured the coalition’s attempts to leave PCS without a voice at TUC were defeated. Fran Heathcote will continue to use this position to directly hold our new government to account over pay.


HMRC Reps receive massive support


The GS moved a paper reiterating the NECs unequivocal support for the sacked and victimised reps in HMRC.


The paper followed discussions the national have held with the victimised reps themselves, their representatives, and the the group, who have created a sub-committee to oversee the campaign for their reinstatement and stop further victimisations.


Disappointingly, the new NEC majority sought to create further division by tabling amendments that would have undermined the group’s sub-committee ability to create their own campaign plan, but common sense prevailed in the best interests of those impacted.


The NEC sits again on 17th of June. Watch this space for further updates. 


If you want to ensure that you have a union that works for you, for your colleagues, and that campaigns to support your families and friends in your communities, please join Left Unity and help us build for better in the coming years.