I am honoured once again to be standing for re-election to the DWP GEC member. I am an active in my local branch and in the Scotland region as an organiser for Glasgow and Scotland. I am also and Assistant Secretary of the DWP Glasgow branch working now in Working Age. Previous to my time in Glasgow Branch I was an organiser for the then DWP Clydeside and Argyll Branch and have been an active rep for many years.

In the last year as part of the GEC I have helped to deliver on results for Scotland in the National Campaign and with that gained improvements for members of the DWP. I have a track record on delivering and would like to continue my work moving the agenda of Left Unity forward in the department. I have also been involved locally in Anti Racism campaigning for the last year working with local organisations and other trade unions to oppose the far right who have been trying to infiltrate my hometown of Erskine, opposing them from trying to get a foot hold in local politics and from using the crisis caused by the current UK government to scapegoat Asylum Seekers for the problems caused by their failed policy.

The national campaign is important and something that I will work hard on going forward, with the prospect of the lowest grades being put back onto national minimum wage once again we need to push back hard to make the government see that this is unacceptable. DWP must have a plan for the lowest paid staff and it’s not acceptable that every year AA and AO staff end up being uplifted in April to meet the national living wage. We as the leadership will campaign and fight on this issue with management to move them.

The staffing campaign will also form part of this strategy as we move forward. Management themselves are admitting that we are in a staffing crisis and simply moving one staff member to another job is not fixing any of the problems we have it’s simply firefighting. I will work hard to push on this and to make sure that we can get the best terms and conditions for our members. The chronic pay issue is a big factor in recruitment and indeed with the announcement by the government on the 60% hybrid it’s no wonder that the department is struggling to recruit staff. We need a strong leadership to get us more staff with a pay increase to fix the ongoing issues. Simply putting band aids on the situation has not helped anyone and is only leading to ongoing stress and increased levels of sickness. We need real plans put in place by this department to make sure that staff are looked after.

I want to use the skills I have learned in my time working as a rep to continue the work organising for the best ballot turnouts and increasing our strength in the department to deliver for all our members. Driving larger and better turn outs using my skills as a representative and organiser.

Voting for left unity in the upcoming elections will do what members need us to do allow us to have a strong team that can and will work for members on the issues that face them. Indeed, it’s thanks to us that we have helped to stop any changes to the civil service compensation scheme forcing the conservative party to drop a pledge that they made on there manifesto.

I ask every member to vote for the strong, experienced and determined Left Unity candidates in the forthcoming DWP group elections.