Vote ‘yes’ for strike action and ‘yes’ for action short of strike
PCS Broad Left Network says:
PCS members are facing another year of inadequate pay whilst prices are going up. Fuel prices will more than wipe out the 3.5% pay increase this year. That’s one of the many reasons we demand a fully funded 10% pay rise, with an £18-an-hour minimum. We want restoration of the pay lost through years of freezes and caps. We want national pay bargaining.
Job cuts, office closures, understaffing, increased workloads, stress levels at their highest. Members face unacceptable penalties for sickness, increased bullying and harassment, and performance management systems that penalise not support. This is why we are fighting to protect jobs, including on the use of AI, and stop compulsory redundancies. No office closures without union agreement.
The Cabinet Office is playing fast and loose with our pensions, outsourced to private company Capita. Thousands of members and their families are suffering severe hardship and massive stress and worry as a result of bad decisions and outsourcing. PCS must campaign to bring pensions administration back into the civil service.
On top of this, the Civil Service Pension Advisory Board recommended in 2019 to cut 2% from our contributions. This is still being blocked by government and members have been overpaying for seven years.
We’re fighting for better annual leave and sick pay, workload protections, and improvements to HR policies, especially on flexible working rights, hybrid working and all aspects of equality, including trans and non-binary support.
In 2023, over 100,000 PCS members took strike action and forced the government to put more money on the table. It wasn’t enough, but it shows that if we fight we can win.
The Broad Left Network has consistently argued for a serious national campaign. We have won that policy at consecutive national union conferences. We have fought to ensure that all our members can stand together to fight for the pay, jobs and conditions we all need.
We must get over the 50% turnout threshold. Members are angry. The best way to demonstrate that anger is to vote, and vote yes/yes, to increase the pressure on employers and win more money, better conditions, and protect jobs and pensions.
- The ballot runs 20 October to noon on 1 December
- Socialist Party members participate in the Broad Left Network which, alongside others, forms a left majority on the PCS National Executive Committee
