David Semple, secretary, PCS Wigan Area branch (personal capacity)
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has announced 48 office closures affecting over 8,000 staff.
Management claim staff in these offices will be mostly accommodated elsewhere. We don’t believe this. Despite soothing words, we know management are making plans for redundancies.
Even if space does exist elsewhere, which we seriously doubt, members affected will be forced into costly, lengthy and difficult journeys. For those with caring responsibilities or health conditions these may be impossible journeys. The loss of local jobs and services from local communities is further reason to oppose the closures.
A Zoom meeting of over 100 DWP reps on 31 March should have been the occasion for the current Left Unity leadership to outline its plans for opposing the closures. It could have provided an opportunity for union reps to fully debate and agree a programme of action.
Instead, the meeting served to underline the woeful ‘do nothing’ record of the union’s leadership in DWP. A briefing issued on the day of the meeting failed to give any clear indication of what support offices directly affected could expect, or what steps the leadership envisage for opposing the closures.
The reps’ meeting lacked any semblance of democratic debate or accountability, controlled as it was from the top, with no opportunity for reps to chat. Reps were split up into regions with leadership-appointed facilitators, who then reported back to the reconvened full meeting.
We welcome union reps coming together and, in fact, have repeatedly called for this, and been opposed by the leadership for doing so. However, the absence of a fighting programme to combat the closures and defend jobs at the 31 March reps’ meeting, was an opportunity lost. A top-down approach, and the stifling of debate does nothing to build the confidence and understanding of reps.
Socialist Party members in the DWP and other supporters of the rank-and-file socialist group, the Broad Left Network, made clear our position within the limits of the meeting format. We oppose the closures. We oppose job losses. We believe the closures should form part of a campaign across the DWP to include pay, permanent contracts for fixed-term appointments, extra staff to ease work pressures, and an end to micro-management of staff.
This campaign should lead to a statutory strike ballot which we believe will be necessary to force the DWP and the government to fund the demands of the campaign.
Their previous record and failed response to the office closures announcement demonstrates the current Left Unity leadership is not up to the task that it faces. It should step aside. It won’t, but the DWP PCS Group elections which start 28 April give members an opportunity to replace this leadership. We urge support for the Broad Left Network candidates in this election – details can be found at pcsbln.wordpress.com.
