I joined PCS in my first week as a Civil Servant, in June 2022. I initially became a rep due to the environment that existed in my local office where my colleagues and I felt bullied, micromanaged and belittled by a system of unrealistic targets and an atmosphere of poisonous relations between workers and management. In a branch that had been desperately short of reps for several years, I worked to build a strong branch by recruiting numerous new reps and scores of new members. These efforts on the part of myself and my colleagues saw us successfully campaign to have the targets rescinded and our office become a significantly better place to work.

While I worked on my branch, waves of unrest across the country saw industrial action unseen for a generation, as millions of public sector workers downed tools to seek inflation proof pay rises, to prevent years of pay erosion being made all the worse by an inflation-driven plunge in real-terms pay.

As our members struggled with the mounting cost-of-living crisis, many could not afford any significant amount of unpaid strike days, but still needed a way to make their voices heard. Our Democracy Alliance NEC adopted the revolutionary strategy of the levy, where a temporary increase in subscription rates could fund fully paid extended strikes in pivotal work areas to create strike action with maximum impact and minimum costs to members.

I was so proud to play a role in our strategy, as the Passport Office delivered the largest single action of the campaign, where we took almost 2,000 staff for 4 weeks, and 4,000 out the week after. I played my part by organising and attending all 30 hours of picket lines at my office, giving interviews to local, national, and international media, answering hundreds of member queries, handling our branch strike pay and creating a guide on strike pay to be used in other branches, and addressing one of our union’s rallies outside Downing Street on a strike day.

Whilst not achieve all we had set out for, this strategy achieved a significant movement on pay, the likes of which had never been achieved by civil service industrial action before.

After the growth in my branch and our role in the strikes, I was humbled to win the New Activist award at our 2023 Conference. I have since then served on the Home Office Group Executive Committee, and in 2024 was made lead rep for the entire passport office, where we have campaigned to increase the allowances paid to members of staff working weekends and evenings, and created strong local branches in all of our offices. In this time our membership across the Home Office group has grown hugely, and PCS has also won many local victories across the department, showing the value of trade unionism in defending workers from erosions of their rights.

Membership fees/The Levy

 Unfortunately even after the successes achieved off the back of the levy in 2023, political shifts in our union saw the Democracy Alliance leadership that had led PCS for many years be replaced by a new grouping, referring to itself as the ‘Left Majority’. The most significant impact of this change in leadership has been the new NEC continuing to draw the wartime strike levy in the absence of national industrial action on pay. This levy has seen subscription rates raised by £3-£5 per month, which has been unaffordable to many members, seeing huge numbers leave and, in branches like mine, made recruitment of new members close to impossible. These increases in subscription rates may seem small to some, but to many members this is a difficult burden, especially when it yields no prospect of increased pay in the absence of industrial action. This money has to date not been touched, and members would be right to question why it had been levied from them in the first place.

When the Democracy Alliance first introduced the levy in 2022, it was intended to only be used during active periods of national campaign, a key difference which demonstrates how the Democracy Alliance approach to leadership of our union is both more pragmatic, and in touch with the everyday concerns of our members.

Rather than an NEC that gives us a year of inaction at great cost to our membership, we need an NEC with a track record of sound and pragmatic leadership to deliver results as a trying time for the trade union movement.

I urge you to lend your support to the Democracy Alliance and Left Unity.