I am seeking your support to be re-elected National President, based on my record at every level of PCS for over 30 years, and ask for your support for all Democracy Alliance candidates in these important National Executive Committee (NEC) elections.
It has been an honour to serve as your President for the last two years, having previously been both Acting President and Deputy President of our union. During that time, I have fought to keep PCS at the forefront of various campaigns across the wider movement, as well as ensuring we prioritise the “bread and butter” issues of any trade union – members pay, term & conditions, and job security.
As an EO in DWP I know only too well the challenges you face day-to-day from a government still operating through an austerity lens and too often mimicking the Tories cuts agenda. Chronic low pay, understaffing, excessive workloads, the threat to jobs, and the politically driven return to the workplace, I know are keys issues for you, as they are for my comrades and I. We have lead campaigns on these issues and more and will continue to do so.
As a socialist and member of Left Unity, I am a strong advocate of protecting those who don’t otherwise have a voice – a fundamental in any trade union I believe – and have a track record of supporting and promoting under-represented groups both within our union, and throughout society. If as trade unionists we can’t do so, then I ask what do we stand for?
I wholeheartedly believe listening to and engaging with members is vital in not only gaining their trust, but in building the sort of collective strength that can win on the issues that matter to you. Understanding your concerns is critical in developing any sustainable strategy that can force concessions. Ensuring maximum pressure on the government, while protecting you financially was previously crucial in delivering our biggest ever mandate and the concessions that followed and can be again.
Rebuilding the trust of our members
Over the last year, since regaining a majority on the NEC, I and my Democracy Alliance comrades have worked hard to not only repay the faith you placed in us in last year’s elections, but also to repair the damage our opponents inflicted on our union in the previous twelve months.
During their chaotic year in charge of our national union, they prioritised blocking every meaningful recommendation put forward by your elected General Secretary; removing myself, as your elected President, and other NEC members from sub-committees of the national executive; and forcing you to continue payment of the strike fund levy, despite no action being taken; over seriously campaigning on the issues that mattered to you.
The Broad Left Network (BLN) and Independent Left (IL) coalition, working with others who see the removal of the Democracy Alliance as their main priority, should have focussed on what mattered to you, PCS members, rather than the sectarian and factional vendetta of others from outside our union – they did the opposite.
The best example being their deliberately ignoring your views regard the strike levy. Member after member, branch and branch, told them they must stop the payments – many members telling them of their financial struggle – but they refused to listen. Even when hundreds of members left PCS and activists, including some who had previously supported the coalition, told them to reverse their decision – they refused.
Our pledge to you, if elected with a majority on the NEC, was that we would right that wrong, refunding members’ levy payments from September to March, and consulting members on the building of a sustainable fighting fund for the future.
We delivered on the levy, allowing members to reclaim their payments as promised, and attempted to build a cross-faction consensus to take the conference this year on a proposal for a sustainable fighting fund.
Unfortunately, on the fighting fund proposal the BLN and those others who oppose the Democracy Alliance above all else, refused to engage in discussions that could have gained conference approval and the IL, who did engage, changed their position at the 11th hour to scupper any chance of a consensus view.
Thankfully for members, they were unable to scupper our refund of the levy, despite their voting against the proposal at the NEC.
Now is the time for serious leadership
The world feels precarious right now, with illegal wars in the Middle East, a genocide committed in plain sight in Palestine, and the politics of hate and division seemingly embedded across the planet and within our own communities.
At the same time our members face an uncertain future over pay, jobs, services and their pensions. You deserve a union leadership that will include you in discussing how we respond collectively to all of these challenges; because respond we must. You deserve a leadership that will prioritise how we build campaigns that will deliver better pay now and in the future, and a leadership that understands the critical importance of defencing your jobs and protecting the services you provide to the public, from the cuts forecasted by recent government announcements.
Only the below Democracy Alliance candidates will work with you to both build and deliver the campaigns necessary to win concessions on all of these issues and help create the sort of workplaces and communities you deserve. More tolerant, accepting places that change the environment you carry out your daily duties.
To deliver workplaces and communities that reject hostility and division, we must work together to eradicate those same negative traits our opponents bring to our union.
If that’s the sort of union you wish to be part of vote for the below Democracy Alliance candidates to lead our union.
President – Cavanagh
Vice-Presidents – David, Green, Owens, Shafiq
NEC – Alderson, Mark Baker, Paula Brown, Cahill, Corcoran, Dando, Darcan, Dwyer, Flynn, Gantschuk, Govind, Grant, Harney, Hegney, Hewitt, Jackson, Landeryou, Lawther, McDonough, McGachey, Marshall, Maxwell, Merry, Morton, Nurse, Pope, Reid, Stokoe, Thorley, Vallely