The following is an edited extract from the Socialist Party bulletin for PCS conference taking place 23-25 May 2023
The 88% ‘yes’ vote declared after the closure of our national strike re-ballot on 9 May is a clear instruction from PCS members to get serious about the fight on pay, pensions, redundancy rights and jobs. Despite the blow of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) group going so close but not getting over the 50% participation threshold, tens of thousands of members have renewed their mandate to fight back.
This can be no surprise. The cost-of-living crisis has continued, as the prices of basic necessities continue to skyrocket. The official measure of inflation is around 10%, but for millions of working-class families, price rises will be higher. The government has stepped away from its commitment to halve inflation by next year.
Members know very well, therefore, that the recent Treasury Pay Remit for 2023-24, allowing for 4.5% to 5% average pay rises for departments, is going to mean a further real-terms pay cut. On top of the obvious attack on pay, the removal of the 91,000 job cut quota has not changed the threat of redundancies, even while the civil service grows.
The union’s National Executive Committee (NEC) made a mistake in not immediately announcing national action when our initial strike mandate was won on 7 November 2022. This was in contrast to every other major union, from the railways to the posties, from the nurses to the teachers, and it left members wondering when we were going to act.
Instead of acknowledging their error, the ‘Left Unity’ (LU) majority on the NEC have argued that members will not support sustained national strike action since it will mean losing pay.
Socialist Party members in PCS do not accept the view that union members won’t tolerate losing pay. There is no evidence for this. Members are smarter than LU give them credit for; first and foremost, members want tactics that work.
Equally mistaken has been the NEC’s repeated failure to add ‘action short of strike’ to the ballots. This too is under the misapprehension that members would not be willing to lose overtime payments, in pursuit of the biggest prize – a pay rise that protects us against inflation and agreements on all of our other major issues, including jobs.
This error on the part of the NEC has allowed for the undermining of our selective strikes. If a small number of key sites take five, ten or thirty days of strike action, but other sites merely put on overtime to clear the backlogs, or the striking sites go back to work and clear the backlogs on overtime, it massively reduces the pressure on the Tories to negotiate.
As yet, there is no evidence of any movement on the part of the government on any of our key issues, including pay. The recent Pay Remit was imposed after the most cursory discussions imaginable. Socialist Party members in PCS call on all delegates at PCS Conference 2023 to vote for the measures needed to force the government back.
Delegates, vote for a programme of sustained national strike action; vote for targeted action that really hurts the government; vote for action short of strike action; vote to put maximum pressure on the government to secure our 10% pay claim for 2022 and at least a guaranteed inflation proof increase for 2023.
Conference set to debate strategy, union democracy and political representation
JP Rosser, branch secretary HMRC West Mercia PCS (personal capacity)
Top of the agenda at PCS conference is the national campaign on pay, pensions, jobs and the compensation scheme. Activists worked tirelessly resulting in a successful re-ballot in over 100 employer groups, despite the anti-union laws, ensuring the campaign can continue.
Broad Left Network (BLN) supporters have consistently argued that the scope of the current dispute needs to go further to include issues such as jobs, office closures, and workloads. Despite the Left Unity group decrying this for years, in 2022, under significant pressure, it finally adopted some but not all of our approach. Now we need to urgently discuss and agree the best strategy to win. The BLN will be putting forward an emergency motion to address these matters.
Equally important are the issues around democracy and lay control. The national campaign is an illustration of the top-down, full-time officer controlled approach of the current leadership. Meanwhile, lay activists can’t access membership details to help us build and organise effectively. Without this we are fighting with one hand tied behind our back. We also see Left Unity, in an echo of the right-wing Moderates of the past, seeking to water down annual elections.
There are BLN motions to give lay activists access to members’ data, transfer control of website and social media to the editorial board, campaigning for workplace ballots, and extending elections to ensure increased accountability among the currently unelected full-time officers.
Trans rights
Another significant debate will be the issue of trans rights. Left Unity has deliberately sidelined ‘Proud’ (PCS LGBT+ equality group) to stifle criticism of the general secretary’s gender critical views. Now Left Unity is seeking a ‘compliant’ Proud structure and has pre-empted the debate, producing a branch briefing to justify their actions.
The briefing is full of inaccuracies and attempts to hide from the legitimate criticisms raised by Proud members. The NEC motion must be defeated to restore the trust of PCS LGBT+ members.
Left Unity’s watered down political ‘strategy’ put at the 2022 conference amounted to asking Keir Starmer to be nice to us while PCS might criticise his failings. This demonstrates a complete lack of understanding about how a political plan might support winning policies and gains for members.
We will be putting forward an emergency motion to support Corbyn if he chooses to stand as an independent, together with other genuine pro-trade union, anti-austerity candidates in the next general election.
The Tories’ minimum service levels bill could become law during conference. PCS must take the lead in demanding that the Trades Union Congress calls a huge national demo to prepare for mass co-ordinated strike action to defeat the Tory anti-union laws and their cost-of-living squeeze.
This conference agenda illustrates the growing divide between the BLN and Left Unity. If PCS is to reclaim its mantle as a left-led, campaigning union that wins for members, then a new leadership equipped with BLN policies will be essential.
Election results – left increases NEC representation
Dave Semple, PCS branch secretary Wigan (personal capacity)
Left-wing representation on the civil servants’ union PCS National Executive Committee (NEC) has doubled from two to four. The majority group in the union’s leadership remains the ‘Democracy Alliance’, of which ‘Left Unity’ is part, with 31 seats.
Socialist Party members in PCS and fellow independent socialists organised in the BLN had established a united slate with ‘Independent Left’ (IL) for the 2023 elections. Both sides recognised it was necessary to challenge the current leadership.
The electoral coalition clearly yielded results; in addition to the four elected, four others standing on the united left slate received enough votes to be elected but fell short due to limits on the total number of NEC members from the same department. Work remains to be done, but this is a promising start for an alliance built on political principle.
BLN and IL agreed a united programme geared towards escalating the union’s strike campaign, including through national action and action short of strike action, which the existing leadership has frustrated at every turn. The programme also focused on the election and accountability of the union’s full-time officers.
Turnout in the elections was 7.6%, a small uptick from the previous year’s 7.2%, but still very low given the massive efforts unleashed across the union, at the same time as the elections, to win a strike re-ballot.
The Democracy Alliance leadership has leant on the increased profile afforded to it by the strikes. Individuals who have played a part in frustrating the campaign for national action have been able to appear on social media and in the union’s mailings heading up picket lines.
They have been forced to do so by the determination of members to fight, and under pressure from the BLN-IL challenge.
The Democracy Alliance leadership can’t stop members and reps learning from experience – drawing lessons from setbacks about what kind of action and what kind of leadership is needed to win. They can’t stop the reorganisation proceeding at the bottom of the union.
The work continues, and membership of the Broad Left Network and the Socialist Party in PCS is steadily rising.
