OVER 5,000 members have been recruited to civil
service union PCS since our pay campaign started. It has inspired a new
layer of members and activists. Members see their willingness to take
action has forced management to make concessions.
[Since
this article was written negotiations broke down and on Friday 6 February
the strike was back on]
Rob Williams, PCS National Executive (NEC), personal capacity
But management’s offer to the Group Executive
Committee (GEC) of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) two days
before the strike, was conditional on action being called off in that
department. The GEC saw the offer was not good enough to settle on but it
could not be dismissed. It was obvious that if the GEC pressed ahead with
the strike, management would have told members and the public, that we
were hell-bent on striking no matter what and unwilling to negotiate.
Management wanted to sow division amongst the membership.
The Left Unity-led GEC decided to suspend the action
for two weeks. This gave us the opportunity for detailed negotiations on
the hated Performance and Development System (PDS) and to squeeze every
last penny out of management.
PDS is a system which links the annual pay increase to
a discriminatory performance mark decided in secret by a panel of
managers.
DWP management had previously provoked members’ fury
by attempting to introduce a discriminatory five-day rule, which would
have docked pay for any special leave above five days, such as for
sickness, bereavement leave, study leave and even maternity leave. They
also imposed a below-inflation pay rise to those on the maximum of the pay
scale – in real terms amounting to a pay cut.
Management were forced to withdraw the five-day rule
when members voted to reject the offer. They then made another offer at
the 11th hour, under the threat of strike action.
The GEC will push the negotiations onto the open
stage, to expose the management’s tactics. At the end of two weeks, there
will either be enough concessions to ballot members on or strike action
will be called.
Concessions have already been extracted. This is a
significant gain from the position of an imposed pay offer.
Members have found that the threat of industrial
action is a powerful tool against the employer and this new-found
confidence is a valuable for those previously hesitant and some bruised by
previous defeats.
The NEC worked hard to co ordinate action across
departments. Clearly the left-led GEC had to take into account the effect
of not striking with the other departments. But pressing ahead with the
strike would have allowed management to say the union had ignored fresh
talks and an improved offer.
Nothing demonstrates more clearly the need for
national pay bargaining for the whole civil service. This is the major
campaign of the Left Unity-led NEC for 2004.
+The DWP Left Unity conference on 31 January discussed
pay and the programme for the coming year. Delegates voted to endorse the
GEC’s strategy on pay. All the Socialist Party members standing were
re-elected to stand for the GEC as Left Unity candidates.
Strong support for civil service strike
MARK SERWOTKA, Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) general secretary spoke to a 300-strong civil servants’ pay rally on 29 January. Having gone round the picket lines that morning, he said it was clear that their two-day strike had widespread support.
Bill Mullins, Socialist Party industrial organiser
The strike involved workers from the courts, the Home Office, the Prison Service and the Treasury Solicitors.
He told them: “Civil servants are some of the lowest-paid in the land with 25% on no more than £13,750, 41% on £15,775 and 81% on less than the europoean union decency threshold.”
He reported that at the Royal Courts of Justice, a Group Four prison van was held up with the prisoners inside for over an hour. The pickets demanded that this be taken off their time in prison! In Shoreditch, postal workers and a number of casual workers refused to cross the picket lines.”
As a result of the workers’ action the Department for Constitutional Affairs have asked for talks, starting on 2 February.
Mark outlined the situation in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and why the strike there had been suspended: “The DWP are the worst management in the civil service.”
They had refused talks before and had imposed a below-inflation pay increase and a divisive performance scheme. The threat of action forced them to the negotiating table on the eve of the strike. “The offer is not good enough and the strike remains live if there is no improvement over the next fortnight”.
He realised the workers who were on strike were disappointed that the 90,000 PCS members in the DWP were not on strike with them: “But it is inevitable if there is to be any talks.”
Later on, Tom Taylor of the PCS DWP Group Executive (GEC) explained more to a carefully listening audience: “The issue in the DWP was not just pay but more importantly the full-blown performance appraisal system that management have imposed. It makes 70% of the members worse off. There was bigger vote against this than there was against the imposed pay increase.
“We were told at 3pm on the eve of the strike that the management wanted talks and were suspending the performance system.
“The new offers are unacceptable and if there is no movement we will set the strike dates again.”
Mark in his summing up said: “If the union had rejected the talks then the management would undoubtedly have publicised this amongst the membership.”
