Stage set for battle for a fighting PCS union
PCS member in DWP
Socialist Party member and Broad Left Network (BLN) chair Marion Lloyd has won 71 nominations from branches to stand for national president of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS).
Marion is neck and neck with her opponent, the outgoing president Martin Cavanagh. She is heading up a full list of campaigning National Executive Committee (NEC) candidates. This is the chance for PCS members to vote for a serious, fighting and democratic leadership.
On top of the threat to 10,000 jobs, now Starmer’s Labour government threatens “radical reforms” to the civil service, including that it would be “smaller” (ie more job cuts), with staff moved to work outside London. Minister for the Cabinet Office Pat McFadden is likely to attempt to bring in performance-related pay for senior civil servants. We know this will trickle down to extra pressure on our members and is the thin end of the wedge.
All this further stresses the need for a fighting leadership of the PCS, that represents over 190,000 civil servants and outsourced government workers.
The position of president is key, as it is currently being used by the misnamed Left Unity grouping (which stands in PCS elections as part of the Democracy Alliance), to block the democratically elected majority of the union’s National Executive Committee (NEC).
Socialist Party members are part of the BLN, which is working with a broad range of reps from across the union to push for a fighting campaign on pay, jobs and working conditions. This coalition of the BLN and others won a 19-16 majority on the NEC in the 2024 elections, when members ousted Left Unity/Democracy Alliance from their majority. But we have been blocked in implementing any major policies due to rulings of the national president Martin Cavanagh, who is a member of Left Unity.
Leadership needed
In the March NEC meeting, general secretary Fran Heathcote, also a Left Unity member, reported back on discussions with the Cabinet Office. There were no significant steps forward but she proposed no plans to build a serious campaign to combat not just future attacks on our members, but also the currently tabled job cuts in various government departments, including the Ministry of Defence, and the ongoing dispute between outsourced staff and their private employers (despite the promise by this government to be the most insourcing government in a generation).
Left Unity/Democracy Alliance will not provide the leadership we need. In the 2023 strike wave, when the Tories offered a paltry non-consolidated, taxed £1,500 payment, the Left Unity/Democracy Alliance leadership called off all strikes, cancelled reballots and cancelled the strike levy that funded targeted action.
This year, they have not taken a step forward to build the campaign needed. The BLN has pushed every step of the way to begin the fight on pay, pensions, jobs, hybrid working, and at each step they have been blocked by Cavanagh and Heathcote, with the support of the Left Unity/Democracy Alliance minority on the executive.
The choice in this election is between two groups: one that wants to mobilise the membership to win, and one that has shown it does not.
Vote Marion Lloyd for president, and vote for BLN-supported candidates in the NEC and group executive elections!
- PCS national elections take place 16 April – 9 May by postal ballot
- PCS group elections take place 24 April – 13 May by electronic ballot
