Dave Semple, PCS national Vice President, personal capacity
Union reps and members gathered from 21 to 23 May for the Annual Delegate Conference (ADC) of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union.
Conference was always likely to be a stormy affair. Just days before, the ruling faction of the union, ‘Left Unity’, was defeated in elections to the union’s National Executive Committee (NEC) for the first time in over twenty years. Major debates beckoned on the way forward for the union!
In June 2023, Fran Heathcote (president until February 2024, now general secretary) and Martin Cavanagh (then deputy president, now national president), both part of the Left Unity group, took the decision to collapse the union’s national campaign on pay, pensions and jobs after a derisory offer of a one-off, non-consolidated, pro-rata £1,500.
They cancelled the strikes, the reballots that had only days earlier been ordered by the 2023 conference, and the strike levy. Ten months of total inactivity followed, which they justified by saying they were talking to the Cabinet Office. They took no steps to prepare the union for the ballot that would be necessary when talks led nowhere.
Conference also convened after the results of the hastily launched national strike ballot. Heroic efforts were unleashed by reps across the union to turn out the vote, including by Socialist Party members in PCS and our allies in the PCS Broad Left Network (BLN).
But of 171 areas balloted, just 64 areas, representing 19,160 members, got over the 50% Tory turnout threshold. The remaining areas, including the biggest groups, representing 127,800 members, did not get over the threshold. Conference’s palpable anger was driven by how unprepared the turn to a ballot had been. When the ballot launched, leaflets had not even arrived in branches.
Conference overturns general secretary’s campaign plan
Reps’ loss of confidence in the leadership resulted in staggering defeats for them at conference.
The most important motion debated was on the national campaign. The general secretary moved motion A134 from the outgoing NEC that did not lay out a campaigning approach.
In a stormy debate, during which the general secretary claimed that motion A315, supported by the BLN and moved by Socialist Party member Craig Worswick, would be disastrous, reps’ desire for a fighting strategy was plain.
Motion A315 passed decisively on a show of hands. It lays the basis for a massive campaign covering the many major issues facing civil servants and those workers in privatised or associated bodies: a 10% pay rise with a £15-per-hour minimum (and more in London), pensions justice, restoration of redundancy protections, 100,000 new civil service jobs, recovery of our union rights, halting the office closure juggernaut.
With a general election called just days after the conference, Keir Starmer must be in no doubt that the newly elected NEC intends to robustly fight for our members on all battlefields.
Any campaign must be predicated upon a serious strategy that considers how we can force the government to retreat using all of the means at our disposal, including political pressure.
Political strategy
It was significant, therefore, that the national president allowed Left Unity’s political strategy motion – which essentially abolished the union’s strategy – to be ‘talked out’, in order to avoid a further crushing defeat on the floor of conference.
The result is that the newly elected NEC retains the option to support candidates in the general election who have a proven track record of supporting our members, such as Jeremy Corbyn.
In the ‘block vote’ elections, which usually take place at conference but have been transferred to online voting, Left Unity supporters again lost out on spaces on the Trades Union Congress (TUC) delegation, Women’s TUC, Scottish TUC, Youth TUC and the union’s Editorial Board.
More defeats for outgoing NEC
Conference delegates also rejected the ‘Organising Strategy’ prepared by Heathcote and Cavanagh on a card vote. Discontent over the Organising Strategy has been building for years; the union has been losing reps and members.
Conference once again reaffirmed its commitment to equality and particularly to trans rights, with delegates giving the outgoing Left Unity-led NEC a grilling over their weak stances for the fifth year running. Conference also censured the ousted NEC majority for attempting to disband the Scottish Government group in the union without consultation with reps and members.
Conference closed with a new majority leadership on the NEC taking up post, composed of supporters of the PCS Broad Left Network (including Socialist Party members), Independent Left and left independents from the Revenue and Customs group.
This coalition stood on a platform of building a serious national campaign, and of reopening the union, so that it is responsive to the needs of reps and members in a way not seen for years.
As we prepare to fight for our members under a Starmer-led government, we face challenges, not least of which will be that the posts of general secretary and president are still in the hands of the Left Unity grouping.
We urge all activists prepared to campaign for a fighting, democratic PCS, armed with socialist policies, to join the PCS Broad Left Network, so we can campaign to transform our union at all levels.
