With hard-pressed PCS members still paying £3 or £5 a month extra into the Strike Levy for action that can no longer take place, Left Unity member and PCS General Secretary, Fran Heathcote, moved a recommendation at this week’s NEC to pause the levy.

This followed branches, groups, and many ordinary members from across the union, writing in recent months to the General Secretary and National President, to demand it ceased as no action was likely to be taken in the foreseeable future as part of the national campaign.

In defence of the levy, Broad Left Network, Independent Left, and other coalition members repeated the debunked myth that the levy is funding G4S and other strikes across the union.

This is simply not true – and it would be against the terms of the ringfenced national campaign levy to fund those areas currently taking industrial action.

In a moment that would be comical if it wasn’t so serious, one member of the ‘NEC majority’ said that he would vote to pause the levy if the General Secretary could demonstrate it was not being used to fund those currently taking action. To rebut this, again, the General Secretary and President called in the union’s Head of Finance.

He set out that strike pay for those workers came from the general fund, not the levy, and confirmed that the last time funds from the levy fund were drawn down was in the Spring to support members in The Pensions Regulator and National Museums Liverpool, as part of the national campaign.

Despite being given these assurances, for the second time in less than a month, as the NEC was talked through the finance paper which set out the union’s funds, the ‘NEC majority’ member still voted with his bloc against pausing the levy. As a result members will continue to pay an extra £3 or £5 a month to a levy that was introduced to support action for which there is no longer a live mandate.

NEC members heard directly, once again, that the continuation of the levy is causing members to leave the union and hindering recruitment, and it is now over two months since the National Disputes Committee – on which the BLN/IL coalition also has a majority – agreed that there was no prospect of meaningful industrial action under the National Campaign – yet, irrationally, they still vote to keep members paying extra.

Left Unity members and our PCS Democrat comrades on the NEC, voted to support the General Secretary’s call to pause the levy, having already tried to force the issue at last months NEC, and demanded a roll call of the vote.

Sadly, the coalition’s reckless disregard for members’ money was an ongoing theme of this latest NEC.

NEC majority claim to know better than the ICO

The union’s Data Protection Officer presented a paper reporting that PCS has been found in violation of the GDPR, particularly with regard to Subject Access Requests. The paper asked the NEC to implement the instructions of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

A routine matter you might think? Not so. According to one Broad Left Network member, the union is preventing reps from communicating with members, and the paper should not be agreed, but remitted to a sub-committee – even though the paper recommended “final proposals will be presented at the relevant NEC sub-committee meeting.”

We look forward to hearing the evidence of how our General Secretary is conspiring with the Information Commissioners’ Office to obstruct PCS reps from consulting with members. Even more interesting will be the story, when it comes out, of how PCS officers managed to convince the entire European Union to adopt the GDPR legislation to achieve apparent factional gains within PCS!

But beyond the farcical conspiracies, there is a serious point that the longer the union drags its feet in implementing the ICO’s instructions, the more likely it becomes that PCS could face fines for non-implementation.

Court victory on check-off

Earlier this month, the union won a comprehensive victory in the courts on the Government’s decision to end check-off. In 2016 the union won a case against the DWP for its improper ending of this contractual agreement, which resulted in a £3m payout in 2018. This latest ruling opens the door for further settlements with other departments.

The senior officer presenting the paper, noted that the campaign to re-sign every member and to resist government union-busting had shown the best of PCS, with members, reps, elected officials and staff working together in a united way.

This implicit call for unity was too much for one senior member of the Broad Left Network who came in to suggest that there could be no such unity now.

Rather than celebrate an unqualified victory for the union – and consider what more we can collectively do to build union density, the NEC member thought it was important to strike a note of discord and division – which is at least consistent with their modus operandi.

Row, row, row it back, part 94

As we reported last month, the NEC majority had proposed to impose real terms cuts to every budget in the union by setting a 0% increase, and to freeze the pay of PCS staff by setting a 0% budget increase. After strong push back from LU members, the NEC unanimously agreed the revised finance paper, which increases subs by between 5p and 23p per week depending on members’ salaries.

One thing that was now not disputed, despite the hyperbolic misinformation for weeks, was that staffing costs will remain within 33% of total costs in line with ADC policy.

This unanimous acceptance by the NEC clearly shows the majority’s recent public claims, that the General Secretary’s review of staffing had put PCS’ finances in serious danger, doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

…and finally!

The coalition and their supporters have in recent weeks, became obsessed with the demand for a Special Delegate Conference early in the new year. They have lobbied and convinced a small number of branches to write into the General Secretary with the request, on the back of the above alleged risk to the unions financial health, and in order to “hold the President and General Secretary to account”, in front of reps from across the union.

As it has now been established that the union’s finances are in fact in a healthier position than they have been in decades, the only logical reason for holding a SDC, is to use it as a platform to attack our elected National President and General Secretary.

As previously reported to Left Unity members, the President, has been forced to rule a number of motions, submitted by NEC members, out of order as they breached either the rules of the union or the NECs own Standing Orders.

We have also previously covered the General Secretary’s legitimate review of PCS staffing, against the backdrop of scandalous misinformation and accusation by supporters of the BLN/IL fronted coalition.

It is interesting that the NEC majority and their supporters have consistently complained about official union communications to members, having blocked previous attempts by the GS and President to directly consult with members about national pay and the pausing of the levy, and yet they actively lobby their supporters to push for a SDC that would cost thousands of pounds of members money, only a few months before we would gather in Brighton for our Annual Delegate Conference.

It’s bad enough they insist on forcing our members to pay extra money to the union unnecessarily every month, but to compound that by now risking squandering thousands of pounds of members subs on a vanity conference is unforgiveable.

We hope PCS members will see through their façade and false indignation, and remember the damage they continue to seek to do to our union’s reputation and standing.

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