Vote Marion Lloyd for president and for a fighting NEC
PCS members
Members are currently voting for the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS). A lot is at stake, as the Labour government prepares huge attacks on our members.
The two-day PCS NEC on 16-17 April demonstrated again why change is imperative, and why it is extremely important that members vote for Marion Lloyd and the full list of candidates that form a ‘coalition for change’ in the union elections that close on 9 May.
Since the February NEC, government announcements have signalled a full-frontal attack on civil service staffing, with expectation of 15% cuts to ‘administrative’ budgets by 2030. This follows announcements of 2% cuts in July 2024, and of 5% cuts in October.
What is the General Secretary’s response? Fran Heathcote moved a wildly complacent paper which proposed no meaningful actions. It even noted the government’s attack on Arm’s Length Bodies (ALBs) across government as an “opportunity” but did not outline a national strategy to resist threats to jobs, deferring this until late May.
When Marion Lloyd proposed recommendations to improve the paper, including with measures to proactively build the confidence of members and reps to fight back, the proposals were vetoed by President Martin Cavanagh. This anti-democratic measure has been used again and again by Cavanagh against the majority of the NEC that was elected last year. Actions agreed in January, which at the time Cavanagh described as having “unanimous” support, have still not been carried out.
This is the context in which ‘Democracy Alliance’ – the electoral grouping which includes Heathcote and Cavanagh’s ‘Left Unity’ group – has offered members a strike levy refund. This strike fund is the money that would be used to fund any serious action to defeat the government’s cuts and to win us a pay rise. The pledge is nothing more than a desperate bribe, worth no more than £35 per member. A democratic union with a fighting leadership is worth far more than that.
Having collapsed the union’s national campaign in 2023 and vetoed every attempt to build one in 2024, Democracy Alliance/Left Unity is seeking to distract members from their lack of response to potentially 80,000 job cuts and a below-inflation 2025 pay rise.
In contrast, at the NEC, the majority proposed some simple steps to get things going now, some of which had already been agreed but not implemented. This includes: issuing a branch briefing on discussions with the government’s Cabinet Office, and urging all branches to call members’ meetings before conference to explain the need for a campaign; to produce leaflets to support that; and an extended May NEC to allow thorough discussion of the campaign against government attacks.
There is no room for the complacency Cavanagh and Heathcote are showing.
In the current national and group elections we urge all activists and members in all parts of the union to vote for Marion Lloyd and the team of candidates that make up the coalition for change, which includes the PCS Broad Left Network (in which Socialist Party members participate), the Independent Left group, and independent socialists. This coalition won a majority last year, but this year we need to strive to increase that majority so it cannot simply be overruled by the president – and even better, to win a fighting socialist president! It is absolutely time for a change.
