Against the better judgement and level-headed thinking of 89 Group Executive Committees including the Department for Work and Pensions, the Ministry of Justice the Home Office, and the Defence Sector within the Civil Service, the self-styled “Coalition for Change” (C4C), has voted to take PCS members into a national industrial action ballot which will begin on 20 October 2026.
Despite those 89 Groups stating this is not the right time to ballot – with some still in pay talks – the C4C holding the NEC majority are ploughing ahead, without any serious industrial campaign, which might actually win anything for members.
To hear the public pronouncements of the C4C, you would think that they had a ready-made masterplan for winning all 54 demands included the dispute notice, only for the ‘evil General Secretary’ to be putting obstacles in their way. This is demonstrably untrue; and is an attempt to get their excuses in early as the realities of running a national campaign have begun to dawn on them.
Fact is, the General Secretary has made every attempt to facilitate the national campaign that the C4C claims they want, but the lack of a coherent plan from the C4C has manifested itself in breathtaking confusion and indecision on their part.
Efforts to facilitate a ballot
At a specially convened post Conference NEC meeting in May, the General Secretary (GS) sought to take forward the instructions carried in Motion A375 on the national campaign.
Amongst other things, she invited the NEC to clearly define terms of the dispute and recommended that the National Disputes Committee (NDC) meet urgently to put in place plans to: prepare for a major national campaign covering issues of dispute; recommend the NEC instructs groups to identify areas for potential paid targeted action to support national action; and to formulate proposals for a levy.
In June, the C4C decided that the union must send a “meet our demands or else we will launch a trade dispute” letter to the Cabinet Office containing a range of demands on pay, jobs, pensions, terms & conditions, and industrial relations. Response time – one week. With no commitments from the employer forthcoming, the GS placed the required draft trade dispute letter before the NEC and invited them to pull the trigger to ballot on the issues they had sent to the Cabinet Office.
Rather than make good on its threat to the Cabinet Office, the C4C refused to launch a dispute at that time, choosing to instead, focus on an undemocratic attempt to change the NEC Standing Orders, in breach of the union’s rules. It was in fact July by the time the C4C finally agreed to accept the Standing Orders.
At a reconvened NEC, discussions were held with the C4C on what they wanted in the trade dispute letter, to help facilitate progress. They put forward a chaotic, incoherent, and wide-ranging set of 54 demands. Left Unity do not believe they are unifying demands that can all be won under a ‘national campaign’ – not all can be delivered within each employer group.
Despite her serious reservations about whether such an approach would resonate with members, the General Secretary tabled the letter to the NEC. Even then, the C4C declined to confirm that this would be the final version and reserved the right to amend it as the campaign developed.
It is not the General Secretary, but the confusion and indecision of the NEC C4C majority, which has hampered the union’s ability to communicate to members the detail of this dispute.
In August, a pay negotiators forum was convened to discuss the campaign. Numerous areas, including some of the largest groups in the union, expressed serious reservations about the strategy and indicated that they did not want to be included in a ballot at this stage. To inform deliberations, the General Secretary proposed that a list of all public sector bargaining units across the union be circulated inviting Group and National Branch Executive Committees to express a clear view on whether they should be included in, or excluded from, a ballot.
The aforementioned 89 bargaining units, and the entire Scottish and Welsh Devolved Sectors, made it clear that they did not want to be included.
Despite this, the C4C indicated its determination to press ahead with a ballot including those areas; and in a completely new development, decided that action short of strike would be a feature of the campaign, despite there being no apparent clamour for it amongst activists.
Having to be advised that PCS members working in the Scottish and Welsh devolved sectors are not covered by the UK Civil Service Pay Remit, the C4C climbed down on their insistence that those members be balloted. Small consolation for the members and activists in those other employer groups who have had their views ignored by the NEC majority.
The C4C submitted a further motion to the NEC in September, attempting to add to the 54 demands of the trade dispute. The new demands beggared belief:
Implementation by the government of all provisions of the Employment Rights Act, including the immediate abolition of the 50% ballot threshold.
The legalisation of secondary and solidarity action and true freedom of access and paid facility time for organising and recruitment.
Extension of the insourcing announcement to cover all outsourced government contracts
Introduction of legislation to overhaul the 2026 Supreme Court Judgement on biological Sex and subsequent statutory guidance for organisations and employers; and to strengthen the Equality Act 2010 with specific protections for trans and non-binary people.
Proper funding for public services and continuing to support the Ukrainian anti-imperialist struggle to not be mutually exclusive; with spending based on need rather than arbitrary rules; including the abolition of a nuclear deterrent.
We kid you not!
The GS intervened to point out that such issues could not form the basis of a lawful trade dispute with the employer and the motion was withdrawn.
The GS in her paper to that same NEC meeting made a final attempt to try to take forward the campaign in a coherent and constitutional manner, and to give it the best chance of success. The GS proposed an indicative ballot of all members in scope for the trade dispute asking three questions:
Are you prepared to take part in strike action?
Are you prepared to take part in action short of strike?
Are you prepared to pay into the proposed levy to fund targeted action?
This approach would have fulfilled Conference policy, instructing the NEC to obtain membership approval in advance of any levy and would have given the union a proper structure test on industrial action questions through which to build for a statutory ballot.
Unfortunately, this approach was rejected by the C4C, who instead agreed to press on with a statutory ballot on strike action and action short of strike. The ballot will run from 20 October to 1 December 2026 despite the overwhelming view of a majority of large groups that this is not the time to ballot members.
Levy
The C4C ballot timetable means that members will not be tested on a levy until after the statutory ballot has been held. Members will be asked to vote for industrial action despite not knowing what the union’s financial strategy for that action will be.
Democratically, this is a reversal of how the process should run. It is a recipe for confusion and causes potential further damage to the previously successful levy tactic. Members are already mistrusting of the NEC; establishing a mandate for action before details of a levy are available leaves room for accusations of duplicity.
In a further worrying development, the C4C also rejected the General Secretary’s proposal to run the Conference mandated consultation with Branches on a rule change on the fighting fund at the same time as a consultation with Branches on the levy. Instead, the C4C decided to run a consultation with branches on the levy alone, which will run from 17 September 2026 to 5 October 2026. A rather confused approach given it is the buy in of members required for the levy, and mainly the buy in of activists required for the rule change to the fighting fund.
Leverage
Despite agreeing to press on with a ballot for industrial action, the C4C have brought forward no actual action plan. Leverage submissions have been requested from all bargaining areas in scope for the dispute. Unsurprisingly, given the number of bargaining units requesting exclusion from the ballot, the responses are minimal.
This lack of response led to a rather churlish contribution from a C4C member, who labelled PCS activists in the DWP and the Home Office “a disgrace” for not providing leverage proposals. The DWP are yet to move into formal pay talks, the Home Office is subject to a 3 year pay deal – it is the duty of elected representatives to give honest feedback from members – the honest feedback is that the ballot might jeopardise the current position in both groups. This appalling attack on our activists in two of the best organised groups in the union conveniently ignores the fact that industrial leverage cannot exist in theory alone – we need membership support to exercise it.
It is also particularly audacious of an NEC member to criticise other groups when they have spectacularly failed to convince their own Group Executive Committee to participate in the campaign.
The absence of a coherent leverage plan should be deeply concerning for us all. During the national campaign in 2022/23, under the leadership of Left Unity and the Democracy Alliance, the union established and delivered a serious and substantial leverage plan which saw members take over 300 days of paid strike action, at a cost of around £6.5 million, winning significant concessions from the employer, including more than doubling the pay remit headline figure, a £1500 lump sum for members and securing the abandonment by the Tories of a manifesto commitment to cut the Civil Service Compensation Scheme by one third.
Those concessions, despite being democratically endorsed as serious progress by a majority of 90% in a membership ballot, were rubbished by the C4C and their supporters. It remains to be seen if they are capable of delivering anything remotely resembling action on the same scale, or winning concessions of the same magnitude. The current signs do not give us cause for optimism.
Disunity
Under the leadership of the Democracy Alliance, the PCS activist base was united in fighting a major national campaign capable of winning serious concessions from the employer.
Unfortunately, the C4C have spent a significant number of years carefully fostering disunity within the ranks of the PCS activist base in order to attain power. Now that they have it, they are reaping what they have sown.
The strategy that they have devised, in so far as it can be called a strategy, has led to them throwing a shopping list of demands at the employer in an attempt to portray themselves as more militant and radical than the previous leadership. This has manifested itself in the creation of a trade dispute so wide-ranging that most of the issues in it will have little resonance amongst members in most areas. It is also clear that this strategy has little support from activists in major areas of the union.
Given the widespread opposition to the strategy among groups and national branches, a serious trade Union leadership would have paused for thought, tried to build support and consensus, and perhaps tested members indicatively before rushing headlong into a national ballot.
The C4C has refused to take this reasonable path, insisting on pressing ahead. This is particularly reckless considering that of the c144,000 members earmarked to be in the ballot, over 75,000 of them reside in DWP, Home Office, Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Justice – all of whom have been clear that they believe this is the wrong strategy. That means that we have at least 52% of members in the ballot constituency residing in areas where the majority of reps are opposed to the strategy. The actual figure is even higher when counting areas outside of those larger groups.
Many activists will be incredulous that as well as 14 members of the NEC and the General Secretary having their opinions ignored, the NEC majority have deliberately dismissed the collective views of elected GEC members throughout our union – the very reps they will rely on to deliver in the ballot.
These are bad decisions by the NEC majority, with their dismissive attitude towards reps and members further compounded by failing to notify those Groups who had asked to be excluded, of the NDC’s decision to include them in the ballot.
Informing the employer before Groups raises serious questions as to whether the C4C NEC ‘majority’ have any confidence in their ability to justify their decisions.
Left Unity believe C4C’s handling of this entire process raises serious questions as to the suitability of the C4C to hold such senior positions in our union.
The lack of effort to bring Groups on board shows this for what it is – a tick box campaign, a vanity project that will cost our union millions.
It also calls into question the seriousness of this Coalition – do they want to deliver a campaign that can win, or will they settle for glorious failure. If the latter, it begs the question, who benefits from that. Certainly not our members or our union.
National Ballot
All of the above said, despite all of our reservations, Left Unity acknowledges that the C4C holds a majority on the NEC at this time and has exercised its democratic right to call a national ballot on the issues that it sees fit.
Left Unity also acknowledge that, were we to lose the ballot or fail to beat the statutory 50% thresholds (the ballot will be disaggregated), it will inevitably weaken our bargaining position with the employer and damage the confidence of our members and activists alike – putting us in the worst of all worlds.
For those reasons, we are asking activists within the union to work with us, to deliver a “yes” vote amongst members in the ballot.
In the meantime, Left Unity and our PCS Democrat allies will do all we can at the NEC table to press for a serious and coherent industrial strategy, and we will work within our Groups to deliver a mandate for action, while lobbying the NEC majority to minimise the financial sacrifice expected of you.
If you are concerned about the decision to press ahead with the statutory ballot, and are not a member of Left Unity, then we urge you to speak to us about joining Left Unity – or work with us to build a coalition of those willing to listen to and support PCS members. A movement within PCS that is ready to hold the NEC majority to account when they flagrantly disregard the demands of our reps and members, to answer to their own ego, their own vanity, and their outside organisations.