PCS members and reps may have seen calls from the NEC Majority and the Broad Left Network for the convening of a Special Delegate Conference to determine next steps for the National Campaign. Here we set out why Left Unity believes its time the members were consulted directly.
Pause the Levy
Organising reports from across the Union reveal a significant increase in members leaving the Union citing either the levy or the general increased cost of membership as the reason for this. Some Groups and branches are reporting these factors to now be a serious barrier to recruiting new members as well.
Campaign strategy
Current members with an industrial action mandate voted in the Spring of this year. PCS ADC carried a motion which tabled a new set of demands. This effectively created a second dispute with the employer for the majority of our members in the largest PCS Groups.
Since these developments at ADC there has been a change of Government and the publication of the Civil Service pay remit of 5% which should deliver above inflation pay increases for most of our members.
The General Secretary tabled proposals to place key demands on the new government, to consult Groups on specific bargaining priorities for their departments based on this, and crucially to have a full membership consultation on the levy and the way forward for our campaign including a further national ballot should members determine that the offers they have received are not good enough.
What would a Special Delegate Conference achieve?
Our Opponents are calling for a Special Delegate Conference (SDC) to determine a way forward. What’s wrong with this approach?
The time and cost necessary to organise such an event creates further delays. There would be a series of different motions with varying positions from Branches to discuss. At our ADC in May two whole sections of the ADC agenda were lost whilst arguing over priorities. Concerns have already been raised that this would be the case again at an SDC.
Left Unity is also concerned that an SDC could be used as a platform to undermine the elected General Secretary and President and circumvent the Union’s rules, rather than decide a genuine way forward for the national campaign.
The NEC majority’s sectarianism is creating a paralysis at the top of the union which an SDC would perpetuate. Left Unity say that members should be directly consulted now to move us on from this.
Members should be consulted
Left Unity believe that a full membership consultation is now important given the changed circumstances since PCS ADC in May – the progression of pay talks at Departmental level in parallel with national talks with the new Government to seek longer term solutions (including pay restoration) and for a single new national dispute be created if that is what members want and that the levy be suspended until such time as this consultation is concluded.
The Alliance for Change are using their NEC majority to vote down these proposals and deny members their right to be consulted. Is that the change that members who voted for them wanted to see? Why don’t they want members to decide?
PCS Left Unity 