Craig Worswick, PCS DWP GEC, personal capacity
Civil servants organised in the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) are taking one day of national strike action on 28 April as part of our dispute over pay, pensions, job security and redundancy terms. Along with reps and activists all over the country, Socialist Party members have fought hard to make this day as successful as possible. Our members cannot go on with pay so low that many are effectively on the minimum wage.
Socialist Party members in PCS believe this is a dispute we can win. The anger of members can win major concessions from the government, but there must be a commitment from the leadership to escalating national action. We participate in the Broad Left Network (BLN), a rank-and-file socialist group in the union, which has campaigned for a serious and escalating strategy all along.
Socialist Party members in PCS have raised concerns with the strategy implemented by the ‘Left Unity’ grouping in the union’s leadership, and it is likely that this dispute will be the single most important issue in the minds of the membership as we move into the annual elections for both the National Executive Committee (NEC) and the Group Executive Committee (GEC) in the union’s two largest sections, DWP and HMRC. Socialist Party members are standing in these elections as part of the BLN list.
Since winning a strike mandate on 7 November 2022, the Left Unity strategy has been reliant on long periods of small-scale ‘targeted action’, involving relatively small groups of members taking paid strike action for weeks at a time, with national all-out action being called only three times, each a single day and with many weeks separating each of these days. The strategy to win the dispute has lacked clarity, momentum, and the mass mobilisation of the entire membership behind the union’s demands.
The union leadership recently suggested that the Cabinet Office had agreed to talks, when in reality this was the standard and regular meeting where the employer sets out the pay remit for the new financial year. We were offered nothing for 2022-23 and 4.5-5% for 2023-24.
More and more questions are being raised by members as to the logic and effectiveness of the current strategy. The mood amongst the members risks being affected. Reps and activists will work to make sure we win a renewed strike mandate in the current reballot. It is essential that members vote ‘yes’ in the reballot and fight for a serious campaign of escalating national strike action, with targeted action and action short of strikes to back that up.
A new factor has been added with the announcement by the senior managers’ union, the FDA, that they will ballot their members for strike action for the first time in 40 years. This presents a new opportunity for the three largest civil service unions – PCS, FDA and Prospect – to coordinate strike action to create the maximum pressure on a weak Tory government.
Fight for the union’s 2022-23 10% claim, and for an inflation-proof increase for 2023-24!
Vote Marion Lloyd for PCS president. The full set of NEC candidates can be seen here:
