Paul Williams was invited to speak at a meeting hosted by People Before Profit in Swansea about the Covid outbreak in the DVLA.

“Thanks for arranging this meeting and I bring solidarity greetings from PCS to you all.

For those who may not know a vast majority of PCS members across the nations are currently working from home, that includes in my own area of DVSA where Driving Examiner members have been sent home, but as you may know obviously cannot work from home. That is testament to the work our PCS reps and officials have done in making sure our members are protected, and are safe.

However, there are a few areas where that has not been the case specifically in the Courts and of course in DVLA. And it shouldn’t be forgotten by the way, that our members don’t simply work for DVLA they are ultimately Government employees.

Following extensive negotiations with PCS, HMRC published its long-anticipated Pay and Contract Reform offer on 1^st February.

The offer is time limited. In order for HMRC to be allowed to access the money, they must meet the timescales set out in the 2020 Cabinet Office Pay remit. This means that if the deal is not both accepted and money paid to staff by 31^st March 2021, then the offer will be withdrawn and any increase will be constrained by the Cabinet Office cap of 2% for 20/21 and 0% for 21/22.

The offer is a complex package, which offers substantial pay increases across the board, and in line with longstanding PCS policy, is weighted towards the lowest paid. In addition, the offer contains real gains to terms and conditions for all staff, including those on CSEP terms, new recruits and future joiners, however, we recognise that the offer does contain some unwelcome changes for staff recruited or promoted before CSEP terms came into force.

Ministry of Justice staff are not notorious for wanting to go on strike at the drop of a hat. But current conditions in HM Courts and Tribunals Service are so bad that there is a demand from PCS union members for an adequate response to the dangers they face. Following the impressive engagement of teachers and school-workers that the National Education Union recently achieved (leading to a significant government climb-down and U-turn), it will be interesting to see if section 44 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 also gets invoked on a mass scale in HMCTS.

Some areas of the MoJ have been well set up and workers have been using laptop computers and mobile phones to work flexibly (including from home) for years. Courts and Tribunals have been less fortunate: 70% of HMCTS staff have been required to continue going into workplaces since March 2020.

We celebrate this February and every February to inform and educate around a simple truth : LGBT+ people exist, have always existed and will forever exist. This month is used to profile figures from history that are not always known to the general population as being from our community. It has had good success in raising the profile of Alan Turing, for example, revealing narratives of oppression that can shock and dismay a naive heteronormative mind. We aim to gather recognition and understanding from the majority society. And to embrace our history and our present with pride  – not to be merely tolerated, to have full equality and respect. 

The simple act of identification as LGBT+ can inspire a sense of solidarity, an idea of shared culture and worth. An invaluable act when far too often, LGBT+  community history has been steeped in ridicule and discrimination. As socialists we should  always align with the power of  hidden stories and the strength of social history. 

Russel T. Davies is an amazing writer. The characters he creates and the sense of time and place he evokes are so spot on. You can tell he is really writing about things that he understands. Just listening to friends rave about “It’s a Sin” and seeing their Facebook comments about how brilliant it is; how it made them laugh and cry and how the soundtrack takes them back, has convinced me that I can’t watch it. The reason I am unable to steel myself to watch it is because I just don’t feel capable of watching something so real about being LGBT in the 1980s. Television drama may be shocking enough, but the reality was much worse.

Fair enough it wasn’t all bad. I certainly made friends with people who remain friends to this day. In fact, I think it may even be true to say that I met a range of characters who I probably wouldn’t have met in today’s more inclusive society. Apart from Gay Bars there were little out of the way (usually seedy) pubs where you could often find LGBT folks, an array of sex workers, a few armed robbers and people from all over the globe having a whale of a time. But the only thing that united us really, was our otherness, being different was our common denominator.

PCS members in the Home Office group working at Heathrow Airport have delivered a stunning vote in favour of strike action.

In a ballot closing on 29 January members voted by 96% to take strike action and 98% for action short of strike on a turnout of 68%.

This means that the results beat the 50% turnout threshold, but also crucially, the additional requirement of 40% total of those covered by the dispute voting in favour of action. This additional restrictive measure being imposed by the Tory anti-Trade Union Act on the basis that border security is deemed an “important public service”.

The dispute originates in Border Force management’s decision to impose a fixed shift roster at the airport, replacing the more flexible arrangements preceding it. The local Heathrow and West London Branch clearly set out reasons why the new rostering was unacceptable including how reduced flexibility would affect carers, work-life balance, disabled members and that these would be further exacerbated by compulsory midnight shift starts.

The PCS – Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) Group has joined the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) Group – for HM Courts and Tribunal Service in calling for the temporary closure of courts during lockdown.

If courts aren’t to close, the CPS Group has called for the withdrawal of all prosecutors, paralegals, court managers and administrators from physical deployment – deferring to virtual hearings as default. The respective Departmental management’s failure to meet these demands has led to the Union in both Groups moving to official industrial disputes.

The Lord Chief Justice’s recent announcement that all hearings should be held virtually over the Cloud Video Platform or CVP by default is with the exception of contested trials, where physical attendance of all parties and agencies is still expected. We have said that while we accept it’s more difficult to hold a trial virtually, it is possible and was in fact trialled in 2019 with some degree of success. We accept that the virtual attendance of witnesses may be problematic in terms of security, but PCS believes we can negotiate an agreed solution to this issue.