Month: Dec 2020

BLN report of the NEC of 10.12.20

The NEC met on 10^th December. Key issues such as Covid-19, the union’s national campaign, the national union’s finances and arrangements for Conference 2021 were considered.

Covid-19 and workplace testing

The report from the General Secretary had no recommendations attached to it, but it laid out the union’s negotiating position in terms of testing in the workplace. BLN supporters on the NEC put forward a detailed motion on workplace testing which asked the negotiators to link discussions on workplace testing back to the previously sought collective agreement covering the response of Civil Service departments and related areas to the pandemic, including protecting people’s right to work from home.

Testing using the proposed lateral flow tests is deemed by medical professionals to only 50% accurate. With a high degree of training this can rise to 85% but the government has made clear it’s intention is to plan for workplace testing where individuals carry out their own test, overseen by other civil servants in their workplace who are trained by watching a video. Medical professionals also stress that the tests need to be repeated, to be effective in keeping a workplace secure from Covid-19, and this is not part of the government plans.

A staggering amount of money could very quickly be spent on this workplace testing, and similar on the mass testing being delivered in towns – an amount equivalent to 70% of the NHS budget has been mooted, with a staggering amount being siphoned off by private companies producing the tests. So making sure that if there is a testing regime, it’s about keeping people safe and not about private sector profiteering is essential. The motion put forward by BLN supporters pressed this point; this would have ramifications, should the government concede implementation of testing overseen by medics, instead of the current Do-It-Yourself plan. Despite all of this, the NEC majority voted against our motion.

Negotiators have indicated that they are pressing for concrete guarantees for the Cabinet Office that any staff on privatised government contracts should be mandatorily paid should they test positive for Covid-19. There have been examples where companies have refused to pay staff when they have to self-isolate, despite the Cabinet Office offering contractual relief, i.e. a subsidy that would cover the wages for those staff sent home. Negotiators are seeking a clear commitment from these private companies. In DWP for example, where testing may be trialled, this means G4S and Mitie.

BLN supporters on the NEC obviously agree with this, but our concern is that testing is not going to be effective – it has been trialled in parts of DWP, such as Blackpool, with little to no result on the model the government is pursuing. The best way to keep civil servants and contract staff safe remains to keep them at home where possible, to ensure social distancing, to allow for flexible working to ensure that people don’t have to travel during rush hour and for the implementation of full union and Health and Safety oversight of all working arrangements.

No decision has been taken on whether or not to endorse workplace testing and negotiations continue. This will happen in January.

National campaign

As this NEC meeting occurred just weeks after the union’s pay petition passing the 100,000 mark, NEC members were treated to the unedifying spectacle of much chest thumping about how wonderful this was, how much work it had entailed, how much it had helped the union build the pay campaign and so on. The proposal from the leadership was to have a Facebook event to advertise the parliamentary debate triggered by the passing of 100,000 signatures.

The General Secretary also proposed launching a judicial challenge to the proposed changes to the Civil Service Compensation scheme and to name now the three pay dates in January, February and March as payday protests. All other decisions were relegated to January, at which point the senior officers of the NEC pledged to come back with a detailed strategy on building the pay campaign. BLN supporters pointed out that we’ve been asking for this for months. A nettled Serwotka replied by saying he wasn’t proposing this because BLN had asked for it but because HMRC pay discussions had reached a certain stage.

BLN supporters sought to push the NEC leadership in terms of how we engage with other trade unions. The General Secretary reported back discussions at the Public Sector Liaison Group and the TUC General Council that poured ice cold water on the notion of any positive response from the other trade unions, in his view. The most that seemed to be on offer was a “mass lobby” of Parliament near the time of the government’s Spring Financial Statement. It’s clear that a small turnout as this will be used as justification by other unions to waver on any commitment to a serious pay campaign.

Our view was that simply attending PSLG or the TUC General Council was not sufficient. Trades councils have already been organising pay demonstrations, including at the weekend just past. We should issue guidance to branches to support engaging with trades councils and for branches affiliated to trades councils to discuss and propose joint working at a local level on pay. At a national level, before we simply name days of protest, we should at least write to individual unions and the TUC to seek joint protests – this may mean different dates to our own members’ pay days.

Rather than putting all of the decisions off until January, BLN supporters put forth a call to test out the other trade unions on a joint consultative ballot, with the purpose of focusing campaign activity in the early part of the year around this. This could be supplemented with a Special Delegate Conference on pay, to mobilise branches and seek branch approval of any NEC programme. We continue to oppose the insistence on a single-issue pay campaign that doesn’t take in any other issue and where the method of balloting is rigid and does not take into account the best methods of beating the Tory anti-strike ballot threshold.

NEC takes aim at the sovereignty of Annual Delegate Conference

Following a proposal from the General Secretary, the NEC has agreed to overturn the existing standing orders of Annual Delegate Conference. The NEC have decided that, given the likelihood of a virtual Conference in 2021, there will be four sessions at this Conference, with the topics of three of these being decided by the NEC.

Branches will only be allowed to submit four motions – three on the topics pre-determined by the NEC and one on any other item. The topics that come up in the fourth section, in which branches can submit one motion, will be decided by the National Standing Orders Committee, with no right for branches to appeal to the Conference itself against the decision of NSOC.

Broad Left Network supporters believe it would be perfectly possible to run a Conference where branches can submit as many motions as they like, as normal, with sections and the running order of motions within sections being decided by NSOC as usual, but with branches retaining the right to appeal to Conference if they disagree with the decision.

Ordinarily, when the deadline for motions passes, the National Standing Orders Committee meets to consider what has been sent in by branches, to allocate these to categories, to decide what order those categories should be heard and to decide what order motions should be heard within categories. They also decide if certain motions shouldn’t be heard or if passing one motion causes another motion later on the agenda to fail.

This part of the process would be truncated. The NEC would decide, rather than NSOC or the weight and number of branch motions submitted, what the agenda is for three-quarters of the Conference.

Again, ordinarily, branches can submit “reference backs” disagreeing with any decision of the National Standing Orders Committee. The NSOC hears these and makes a decision, but the final agenda is then put to the very first session of Annual Delegate Conference. Branches which still do not agree with the decision of NSOC have the right to speak against Conference adopting the proposed running order and in favour of specific changes to the agenda.

This part of the process will be eliminated. There will be no ability for Conference to determine its own agenda; Standing Orders will not be subject to amendments, they will be imposed.

BLN supporters flatly opposed this; we supported some Independent Left amendments which marginally improved the position outlined in Serwotka’s paper, but we also put up our own motion completely reversing Serwotka’s approach. The General Secretary has hung his hat on the idea that there will be a much higher turnout at this Conference than previous conferences, and there will be a more diverse group of speakers – on that basis he has called his proposals the basis for a Conference which is even more democratic than the one held annually in Brighton.

We fundamentally disagree. None of the work around building turnout needs to be sacrificed if our approach was adopted. Branches could still submit applications to speak on motions in advance, the National President could still have these to hand well in advance, and reference backs with a designated speaker could also be submitted well in advance.

If Conference chose to move a specific item up the agenda, or admitted it for debate against the recommendation of the National Standing Orders Committee, then with this preparation it would be readily apparent to the National President, as Chair of the Conference, and would be clear to all those listening what order motions would be heard in – and this could even be updated on the PCS website in real time to ensure every delegate was up to date. Mechanisms for voting are already going to be in place for any Delegate Conference held remotely anyway, so Conference could have its say.

Other issues

BLN supporters have asked some questions about the recent slew of promotions amongst PCS full time staff despite the leadership constantly banging the drum about saving money. We have also raised questions about where we are on the many legal cases that the union was supposed to be launching because of the unlawful removal of members’ contractual rights to pay their union subs by direct debit. The case against DWP resulted in a £3 million pay out to the union. The case relating to the Home Office has gone to the High Court but no further information was available.

Some steps were taken by the NEC to implement conference policy in respect of creating a Private Sector Association, expanding the current Commercial Sector Association to include employers beyond the main eight private sector companies where we’ve previously had members, and on creating a Public Sector group (PSg) conference. A motion proposed by BLN supporters on the Spycops scandal was guillotined from the agenda due to time, although promises were made that it will be brought back in January.

Since June of 2020, the union’s National Executive Committee (NEC) has been at work on what they refer to as the “strategic options” for the future of PCS. Over the last month or so, senior officers of the NEC, including the President and General Secretary, have been attending meetings across the union to lecture reps about these “strategic options” and to encourage reps to complete the consultation document that was published on 20^th October.

All of this has come out of several papers presented to the NEC by the General Secretary which laid out the failure of the union to achieve our 2020 recruitment target and the continued slide in membership of the union. The papers also covered the percentage of the money collected by the union spent on staff costs within the union, which the GS repeatedly asserted was too high. The GS asserted that as a result of this, the only two options open to the union going forward would be a merger or some kind of structural change.

Posed in this way, the NEC approach has been utterly dishonest. No analysis has been completed to show why the union has not achieved its 2020 recruitment target. The only arguments put forward by the NEC, such as a reduction in size of the biggest government departments, have proven to be untrue. In fact, since 2016 the Civil Service has increased by 28,000 jobs. Some big departments have shrunk, but other big departments have grown.

Having undertaken a grand total of zero analysis, the NEC has jumped straight to trying to interfere with the Group structures of the union. This is made clear by the first, most leading question asked in the NEC’s consultation document. “How can our group structures change to improve bargaining outcomes in the context of a reducing staff resource?” Are group structures holding us back somehow? The NEC has been unable to say.

“Reducing staff resource”, as posed in that question, is based on the General Secretary’s assertion – without evidence – that if we cut staffing costs, we will have money to spare to spend on campaigning. The reality is that, especially in small departments or disparate bargaining areas, Full Time Officers play a key role in supporting lay reps to run the union, including by bargaining with and winning concessions from the employers.

If such resource is reduced, as is assumed by the NEC consultation, then how will this work get done? This isn’t just about having Full Time Officer support for lay reps attending meetings with the employer, it also covers everything from designing, producing and printing leaflets to ensuring the union’s activities get good press coverage to supporting lay reps and members can use their political weight in through lobbying MPs, MSPs etc.

No one disagrees that we want more money to spend on campaigning, more money to put into the union’s strike funds, more money to make us as visible in and out of the workplace as it is possible to be. Getting more money is dependent upon improving our ability to recruit new members and improving our ability to retain old ones. This means we need to understand why we have not been able to do this in sufficient numbers.

None of the questions asked in the NEC’s consultation document are aimed at doing that. All of the questions asked are leading questions. The build assumptions into each question that have no evidence to support them – always the focus is on “structural change”, rather than drilling right down to the basics of trade unionism in the workplace. Are we asking people to join? Why are people not joining? Why do people leave?

The Broad Left Network has a range of political charges to lay at the door of the NEC, that we believe have had an impact on the shrinking size of the union. The NEC’s dogmatic insistence since 2018 on an aggregated single-issue ballot on pay in the Civil Service has all but paralysed the union’s national campaign. This policy was crowbarred through Conference with a tiny majority that depended on areas not covered by the pay dispute.

Since the advent of the Coronavirus pandemic in early 2020, the lacking leadership of the NEC has been very much in evidence. First came the decision that the union was not able to ballot because of the pandemic. Then came the decision to water down the union’s 10% pay claim at a time when the government was totally dependent upon public sector workers. Then came the total lack of a national strategy to protect the health and safety of those workers still in the workplace.

On top of this was the shameful decision of the NEC not to mobilise in support of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the UK, despite tens of thousands of young people – often young workers! – coming out on to the streets, a chance to show them that trade unions do have relevance and are very important. Underneath the immediate criticism that the NEC has lost its way, and is running the union into the sand, are also more far reaching questions which we think need to be asked.

One of the early achievements of a left-led NEC, in the early and mid-2000s, was the ability to put union organising on a systematic footing while ensuring all the work carried out in the name of organising was accountable to the union’s members and elected reps. It is this achievement that has been gradually eroded over time, as PCS Left Unity has degenerated further and further from its one-time ideals of a democratic, fighting union.

Are we doing the basics of organising like mapping workplaces, identifying who the members are, who the non-members are, identifying why the non-members haven’t joined, developing strategies to recruit them – like the classic tactic of identifying who their friends in the workplace are and getting the friends to ask them? Similarly, when reps meet with the employer, are we reporting this back to members? Are we ensuring members get a say?

These points are not being raised as a tick-list which will miraculously restore the union to 300,000 members if we follow them in every workplace – but it would be a start. It would also lead to serious questions about why these things aren’t happening quite so regularly, despite the official figures showing that only 60% of facility time is used in the civil service. What are the barriers to using union time and how do we smash through them?

Working out where the difficulties are and putting in place concrete plans to eliminate those difficulties is what an NEC determined to build a fighting PCS would do – not this rigged consultation chock full of leading questions. The speed of the NEC in carrying out this consultation, allegedly to get input from members and reps, contrasts unfavourably with the years it has taken the NEC to carry out the express will of members and reps when it comes to the election of the union’s senior management posts and making them accountable!

Building a union is a serious task. It requires genuine analysis, which is not what the current NEC majority offer. The starting point must be, why did we not grow, what are the barriers, what can we do better and how can we best support our reps and members in each workplace. The NEC have skipped this step and their biased consultation, which attempts to prefigure the answers through leading questions, is likely to add to the confusion.

It may be that through such detailed analysis, it becomes clear that reps and members in certain areas believe that the union’s structures in their area pose problems – but the solutions will be specific solutions, given how varied the union’s structures are, with DWP at one extreme and groups such as BEIS or Defence Sector at the other. As any serious-minded rep would be, BLN supporters are open to such discussions.

What we oppose fervently is the NEC’s attempt to skip crucial steps in determining how we can correct the course of the union, in favour of their preferred “solutions” which won’t actually address the key issue of recruiting and keeping members.

Further, we oppose the attempt by the NEC majority to suggest that anyone who opposes their view is suggesting we sit on our hands, or that we don’t take the future of the union seriously. Unfortunately, such political sectarianism has become the hallmark of PCS Left Unity and their NEC majority. We encourage all reps to complete the consultation, to reject the leading elements of each question and to give their honest appraisal of what will help to build participation in the union.