PCS members on strike at Parliament Photo: Rob Williams
PCS members on strike at Parliament Photo: Rob Williams

Dave Semple, PCS vice president 2024-25, personal capacity

It has been almost a year since Keir Starmer’s government announced its plan to cut 15% or £2 billion from the staffing budgets of civil service departments. That means a minimum of 40,000 jobs cut and a knock-on impact to devolved government in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Government departments are under attack. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has announced 25% job cuts. The Cabinet Office has announced 30% job cuts and privatisation. Pay and conditions are under systematic attack across most employers, including the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the largest government department, which has not even utilised all the money made available as part of the civil service pay remit, let alone met a claim of 10%.

Grievance is not in short supply across government employers. The Office for National Statistics, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), Ofgem, Met Police, British Library, Houses of Parliament, the Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) and other areas are fighting on a mix of pay, office closures, job cuts and inflexible approaches to hybrid working.

It is also almost a year since the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) conference carried motion A383, which instructed the Left Unity/Democracy Alliance majority National Executive Committee (NEC) to build a serious campaign capable of winning on jobs, pay, conditions and the myriad other issues.

Valiant members and reps have been waging battles with all of these employers and more. Yet they are being left to fight on their own, each in their own silo, with no attempt to coordinate or widen the disputes.

On the contrary, the leadership dumped any pretence of building a campaign, arguing that there is no mood. Odd, since there are numerous areas across the union beating the undemocratic turnout thresholds and striking in their thousands. Even more odd, since the DWP, the largest group in the union, beat the threshold in their indicative ballot on pay and has now moved to a statutory ballot.

We need a leadership with backbone

It is crucial that we elect a union leadership that is not only committed to carrying out union policy, but has the backbone to build the campaign necessary to win for members, and stop the rot of cuts, low pay and poor working conditions which is creeping at an ever-increasing speed.

Not least because also pending is an announcement on civil service pay for 2026. Labour took office in 2024 on a pledge to “respect” the civil service, but has given the lie to this with persistently below-inflation pay awards, resulting in real-terms pay cuts for most civil servants: 4.5% in 2024, 3.25% in 2025. More pay cuts are on the way.

In April, the entire NEC of PCS will be up for election.

This is an opportunity for members to replace a leadership that has spent the last year asleep at the wheel. A leadership more interested in praising Labour’s weak Employment Rights Act as “a new era for UK workers” than fighting to overturn the oppressive anti-union regime in government departments.

Socialist Party members, as part of the Broad Left Network (BLN) in PCS, will be standing candidates. We are arguing for a coalition of the left, standing on a programme capable of winning for members, to defeat the current Left Unity/Democracy Alliance leadership.

Branch Annual General Meetings begin from late January. Every branch will have the opportunity to debate a serious industrial and political strategy to fight Labour’s cuts, and to nominate a fighting national union leadership.

To all those reading this who are as yet undecided, perhaps suspicious of factions in PCS: if you are determined to fight back for our members, we urge you to nominate BLN-supported candidates and join us in the struggle to build a fighting, democratic union.

Nominate candidates for PCS National Executive Committee who will fight job cuts, the pension crisis and austerity pay

£2 million cuts to civil service staffing budgets were announced by Starmer’s government last year. At least 40,000 jobs are at risk. In the upcoming national and group elections, Socialist Party members are standing candidates as part of the PCS Broad Left Network (BLN), alongside other activists who want a leadership that is committed to building a national campaign.

Nominations are open till 5 March. Please nominate the BLN-supported list:

President

  • Bev Laidlaw (DWP)

Vice Presidents

  • Ellie Clarke (CO)
  • Rachel Heemskerk (DWP)
  • Dave Semple (DfE)
  • Hector Wesley (HMRC)

NEC members

  • Eilonwy Awen (HMRC)
  • Fiona Brittle (Scottish Government)
  • Josh Chown (Home Office)
  • Abi Clark (DWP)
  • Ellie Clarke (Cabinet Office)
  • Gemma Criddle (HMRC) 
  • Joe Dale (MHCLG)
  • Chris Day (National Archives)
  • Pippa Evans (House of Commons)
  • Angie Foggett (HMRC)
  • Andrew Fry (Scottish Government)
  • Christian Goulart McNerney (Ofgem)
  • Chip Hamer (Sport England)
  • James Hawthorne (Ofwat)
  • Rachel Heemskerk (DWP)
  • Craig Hodgson (DWP)
  • Reece Lawton (DWP)
  • Bev Laidlaw (DWP)
  • Vijay Menezes-Jackson (DWP Edinburgh, Lothian and Borders)
  • Liat Norris (MOJ)
  • Puck Oseroff-Spicer (Security Industry Authority)
  • Rob Ritchie (Sopra Steria)
  • Jon-Paul Rosser (HMRC)
  • Dave Semple (Dept for Education)
  • H Sheridan (HMRC)
  • Pete Smullen (HMRC)
  • Gary Spencer-Guney (MHCLG)
  • Hector Wesley (HMRC)
  • Katrine Williams (DWP)
  • Bobby Young (HMRC)

Vote ‘yes’ in DWP ballot

PCS members in the DWP (the Department for Work and Pensions) are being balloted for strike action on pay from 19 January to 23 February. BLN supporters are working hard to turn out a ‘Yes’ vote and smash the 50% threshold imposed by the anti-trade union laws, disgracefully kept in place by Keir Starmer’s government.

DWP workers desperately need a pay rise. 30,000 will be on minimum wage for the fourth year in a row in April, and close to 50,000 are not far behind them.

Vote ‘Yes’ in the ballot to fight on pay, and demand that the union’s Group Executive Committee, currently controlled by the ‘Left Unity’ group that also has a majority on the National Executive Committee, takes action on hybrid working, job cuts, office closures, Saturday openings, staffing and workloads.

Broad Left Network conference in DWP

Campaign for a strong ‘yes’ vote in the DWP pay ballot and for a group leadership ready for the fight ahead

Katrine Williams, DWP rep, personal capacity

DWP PCS activists who attended the recent Broad Left Network conference were clear about the need for a fighting trade union leadership at both DWP group and national level, given the failure of the current Left Unity leadership to mobilise the strength of our union to defeat the attacks on our members.

Reps were determined to mobilise the anger of our members behind the strongest possible ‘yes’ vote in the delayed pay ballot, to demonstrate to the DWP bosses that our low pay needs to be addressed. Not just within the narrow confines of what is in the Treasury pay remit and rejigging a small amount of existing DWP budget into pay, but with a bold strategy of what is necessary to address the poverty pay levels in our department. Thousands of our members are heading back onto the minimum wage in April. 

Alongside that, there is an appetite to stand up and fight for all our conference policies: to address understaffing and the crushing workloads our members are working under, and to win access to hybrid-working for all staff instead of the increase in office attendance for back-of-house staff. The failed Left Unity approach to just campaign on one issue at a time does not resonate with members who are facing the full range of attacks from management.

Determination to tackle failings of the Group Executive Committee (GEC) negotiators come over strongly at the conference with the widespread complaint that branches and regions are lucky to even get an acknowledgement of escalations let alone response about how the issue is being addressed.

Group negotiators seem to take at face value management claims to introduce plans to improve terms and conditions for our members, when usually the opposite is true. The remote team set up to cut reasonable adjustments for our members is only being tackled two and a half years later after the PDAG team is spreading to other parts of operations from CMG. Similarly, negotiators were oblivious to the cut to our security guards until we raised with them how flawed the new guarding assessment is.

Our members in Universal Credit reviews continue to be micromanaged by a stats-driven management determined to cut benefits, rather than ensuring we are paying the correct amount to claimants.

There is a disconnect between the GEC Left Unity leadership seemingly acting to promote their own role, rather than genuinely working with branches to take up the issues, report back and mobilise the membership to win on our clear conference policies.

Our DWP BLN conference was united in the need to smash the anti-union threshold in this pay ballot to send a clear warning shot to management that we are determined to tackle low pay. But also to address the unwillingness of Left Unity leadership at group and national level to pursue the national campaign.

If you are fed up with pressure on you in our DWP workplaces, then work with us to build a strong ‘yes’ vote, but also crucially build the campaign for the election of a fighting leadership in our union with candidates on the left slate supported by the Broad Left Network.