Socialist Party members in PCS DWP
The elections to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) group leadership in the PCS civil service union were largely a clean sweep for the increasingly rightwards drifting ‘Left Unity’ (LU) faction, defeating the candidates supported by the Broad Left Network who argued for a fighting strategy.
But if they concluded from that result that members don’t want a serious fight, then they had a major shock at the PCS DWP Group Conference on 19 May.
The LU DWP group leadership gave up building any campaign on pay after the national campaign was called off in May 2023.
LU senior officers on the union’s National Executive Committee (NEC) have also been instrumental in preventing any campaign on pay, pensions or conditions over the last 12 months. They bureaucratically blocked motions with a strategy to fight that were submitted by left NEC members, who held a majority on the NEC from 2024-25 as part of a left coalition.
Motion A1 – the only pay motion on the agenda – was moved by Broad Left Network member Reece Lawton. The motion instructed the Group Executive Committee (GEC) to recognise the necessity of moving towards a strike ballot; to build the mood for a serious campaign for a 10% pay rise, for a £15-an-hour starting wage, and for a sliding scale of wages.
The leadership asked for it to be remitted, then opposed it, because it criticised the inaction of the GEC – claiming that the GEC had been raising such demands over the last year! Delegates held their nerve, and made it clear that we must address low pay in DWP, which has left AA/AO grades on minimum wage for the third year in a row, with other grades sliding increasingly closer.
Again, left coalition supporters were opposed by the leadership when we moved an emergency motion on the announcement that DWP staff who are hybrid working will need to attend the office 60% of the time.
The motion took issue with the GEC engaging in embargoed talks which achieved nothing for members but gave management the opportunity to suggest that PCS had accepted this change. Most importantly, it laid out a clear timeline for moving to industrial action. The motion was passed despite opposition from the leadership.
Attempts by the leadership to water down existing DWP Group policy on negotiating improvements to the Employee Deal Collective Agreement were also firmly opposed by conference.
PCS Broad Left Network members will keep fighting for our DWP Group to adopt a fighting programme which is essential to stand up to the key attacks facing our membership.
- Join the Broad Left Network. bln.org.uk
- For reports from the start of PCS Annual Delegate Conference, see socialistparty.org.uk for future updates
