Socialist Party members in PCS
Reps and members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union would be forgiven for wondering what is happening with the union’s national campaign. Annual Delegate Conference, meeting in May, determined that the union needed to saddle up against the cuts raining down on the civil service from Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves’s Labour government.
Since conference concluded, the Labour government has announced a below-inflation pay rise for civil servants, with a pay remit of 3.25%. Further job cuts – including 25% job cuts at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office – have also been announced. Departments are expected to find 15% savings.
Faced with this, members might expect the leaders of the largest civil service union to be ready with a plan, including preparation for an urgent national strike ballot. With a bit of fight, a Labour government whose support in the last election was ‘a mile wide but an inch deep’ could be fended off and concessions won.
Leadership ‘optimistic’ in face of Starmer’s cuts
Instead, in a paper to the July National Executive Committee (NEC), general secretary Fran Heathcote (part of the misnamed ‘Left Unity’ grouping that now has the majority on the NEC) describes how “discussions with the Cabinet Office should give us some cause for optimism”. Worse, Heathcote went on to suggest that pay restoration “be funded through finding efficiencies within the civil service”, ie job cuts.
Heathcote and national president Martin Cavanagh take the willingness of the Cabinet Office to meet with them as indication that this Labour government is doing things differently from the Tories before them. But this is a government on the side of the bosses, not us.
The July NEC endorsed a ‘ballot-ready strategy’, but this seems to be light on actually building a campaign capable of winning amongst the membership itself – such as arming reps to have worker-to-worker conversations, with leaflets putting the union’s case. Members’ meetings will be arranged from mid-August.
The NEC majority agreed to put in place a mechanism to refund six months of levy that members were paying to support strike action; a maximum of £30. And meanwhile a consultation to create a ‘sustainable fighting fund’ will take place, to conclude by the end of November 2025. Hardly a deadline which gives confidence that a September ballot will proceed in line with conference policy.
And that is pretty much it. It could all have been agreed back in May.
Serious strategy put by BLN
Broad Left Network (BLN) supporters, and allies in the wider left coalition for change – seven out of 35 NEC members this year – opposed the above as not going far or fast enough, and proposed a motion that would have set PCS immediately on a ‘war-footing’, with preparations to match the urgency of the situation.
We need a national campaign ready to go quickly. That is not the course set by the current NEC.
We must fight for a genuine, serious national campaign. But if necessary, BLN members will support members to build campaigns in different groups and among a coalition of PCS branches and groups.
Political strategy motion
Given the U-turns by this Labour government, it is key that we exert even more pressure on Starmer and Reeves in order to win for members. In this context, Socialist Party members Marion Lloyd and Fiona Brittle put forward a motion to develop the union’s political strategy.
The motion urged the NEC to invite Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana to meet the NEC to discuss how PCS could be involved in building a new workers’ party, to carry our members’ struggles into parliament; as well as to contact Unite, the University and College Union, the bakers’ union BFAWU, and any other unions exploring the need for a new workers’ party. Together with other important issues, this was not discussed and will be carried over to the September NEC.
- Join the PCS Broad Left Network and work with us to build a fighting, democratic PCS and the campaign members deserve
