In a twist on PCS Conference 2019, when the NEC flatly opposed motions to include pensions and redundancy rights in the union’s national campaign, this year their argument was that they’re taking a different tack now, because they will include pensions after all.
Despite the digital nature of the Conference, and the assiduous way in which speakers were prevented from interacting with Conference delegates, the guffaws were unmistakeable from across the union when the NEC said they have a strategy and it isn’t the same failed effort as before.
Day 2 of Conference, which was held online on 13th and 14th June, debated a number of important motions, the key of which were on the union’s national campaign. Two years late, the NEC finally acknowledged that a campaign on pay alone is unlikely to unite members.
This is especially true thanks to the NEC endorsement of a multi-year pay offer in HMRC, which involves the sale of terms and conditions in exchange for a moderate pay rise for some. In the last pay ballot, HMRC were the biggest group to get above the 50% anti-strike threshold.
Keeping HMRC involved in a battle on pay is possible, if the issue is posed correctly to members, i.e., that despite this purchase of terms and conditions by the employer, members in Revenue and Customs are still owed more to cancel out the effect of cuts since 2010.
This is an argument we simply do not believe the Left Unity NEC has the capacity to win – but which the Broad Left Network does.
Broad Left Network supporters have argued in favour of broadening the pay campaign from 2018, and were denounced as pursuing an unrealistic shopping list of demands. Without a campaign, any demands at all appear unrealistic, and any hope of a campaign in 2020 was sabotaged not by the pandemic but by a leadership whose first instinct was to write to the Cabinet Office early on during the pandemic to water down our pay demand from 10% to “above inflation”.
The very most the NEC managed in 2020 was their humble petition to Parliament, with 100,000 signatures that secured a debate attended by 17 MPs and then promptly forgotten. Even this wasn’t achieved by the current leadership.
It took Rishi Sunak to announce the pay freeze on the Sunday morning chat shows on 22nd November, and to follow up with the Autumn Statement confirming the pay freeze on 25th November to put the spotlight on pay and to get the petition over 100,000 on 27th November 2020.
The surge in signatures which followed this demonstrated that members were angry, but thanks to the total inanity of the NEC’s pay “campaign”, the union was not in a position to benefit from this or to be able to develop any leverage out of this surge in anger.
As on Day One of Conference, the majority of NEC-proposed motions were passed on Day Two, but delegates across the union have commented on just how lacklustre was the performance from the NEC top brass. Plenty of buzzwords and little of concrete worth was the order of the day.
Summing up A24, the NEC motion on pay, Glasgow R&C delegate and Broad Left Network supporter Bobby Young commented that “this flagship motion does nothing more than instruct the NEC to do its job!”
The NEC’s Motion A24 was carried, as was motion A25, a weak spoiler motion which confirmed a basic campaign demand of a national minimum wage of £12 per hour for all workers, rather than the £15 per hour proposed by Broad Left supporters, with more for London areas.
Other important motions which were debated included a review of the future political strategy, tax justice, the menopause and a key motion calling out the national leadership for the undemocratic nature of the conference, imposed by them despite the rules of the union.
Following a completely lacklustre speech from the NEC speaker it took Broad Left Network speakers including Nick Parker, from BEIS Midlands and Paul Suter from DWP Sheffield HQ to set out exactly what we expect of the leadership who have been remarkably quiet since their all or nothing approach to Labour during the last General Election. Not a whimper has been heard to defend the appalling attacks against Corbyn.
It is clear that we must have a political strategy that can reinforce our aims as a trade union – using our bargaining power to campaign for social and economic change in the interest of working people and their families.
The NEC decision to call for support for all Labour candidates in England and Wales was a serious error of judgment. It ignored the mandate given by ADC and the membership ballot by giving support to right wingers who had undermined Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and who were not sympathetic to PCS policies.
That blanket approval and support to Labour looks even more indefensible with the replacement of Corbyn by Starmer and Labour’s clear move to the right.
The NEC must ensure that the review includes:
However, the starting point must be current policy which gives PCS elected bodies the right to propose support for those candidates who support the union’s position on fighting against austerity, in respect of jobs, services and pay and pensions.
Overwhelmingly carried was a motion mandating the incoming NEC to fight for menopause rights at work. Instructions included developing a model policy for negotiation, ensuring flexible working is used to support menopausal staff, and pushing for training for managers.
This motion will provide much-needed support for menopausal members who shamefully have been ignored and abandoned by the employer.
The Broad Left Network welcomed the explicit inclusion of trans men alongside cisgender women in the moving speech, and further wish to highlight that menopause may be faced by anyone with a uterus including non-binary people.
While the written motion regrettably makes no reference to trans and non-binary workers, the mover clearly demonstrated that the express intention and spirit of the motion is that PCS’s work on menopause must be fully inclusive. The motion was passed on the express mandate that we must fight for menopause rights for every person who experiences it, of any gender. The incoming NEC must ensure that this is the case, and must consult including with PCS Proud and our trans members when developing menopause policy and strategy.
Astonishingly and despite a great deal of manoeuvring, a motion calling out the NEC for imposing conference arrangements on members despite the rules was finally discussed. In a complete re-write of history the NEC and other LU speakers bemoaned the fact that we are in very unusual circumstances and therefore the NEC should do as it likes. Completely missing the point about democracy and accountability as is becoming an increasing feature of the current NEC and their supporters. This was lost, but it was extremely close and should put the national union on notice that we will not tolerate their antics.
The Broad left network will continue to work to restore union democracy, ensure our leaders at all levels are accountable and put pressure to develop the campaigning fighting approach we need to ensure the union is equipped to deal with the huge challenges that are to come. Join us in that struggle.
Democracy is old fashioned, Serwotka tells PCS Annual Delegate Conference 2021
Spirited debate, marked the first day of PCS Annual Delegate Conference 2021, conducted online over 13th and 14th June.
Despite every effort to stitch up the Conference, including not permitting some well-known opponents to speak, and despite nominally getting the NEC motions through the Conference, margins were smaller than ever this year.
The cluster of motions from A9 to A12, which covered the debate on the future of PCS, as well as calls for the election of union Full Time Officers, to increase the accountability of the union to its members, is a good example.
Platitude after platitude, both in the text of motion A9, proposed by the NEC itself, and in the speeches from those , newly elected to the NEC for 2021/22, hand-picked to replace the flood of LU leaverswho got up to bray their allegiance to the Serwotka regime, was all that the NEC had to offer.
Despite bringing out what passes for big guns for this NEC, including the General Secretary himself, the NEC only won motion A9 by a hair, 60,617 for, 57,556 against and 2,156 abstentions.
That tiny majority was only achieved after the General Secretary publicly ruled out the very ideas he had hoped to push through, as part of the sham consultation run over late 2020, when reps were busy fighting to keep members out of the workplace, or safe if in them.
Serwotka promised that there would be no multi-employer branches, and that there would be no digital-by-default approach to union meetings.
What was of political significance during the debate was the moment where Serwotka lined up beside Reamsbottom and the right-wing General Secretaries of the past in arguing that electing full time officers is old fashioned and no one wants to elect the head of IT.
It might surprise a completely out of touch NEC to know that quite a few reps would probably like to elect that post and to make it properly accountable, given the wasteful gimmickry that has been the hallmark of PCS IT and the turn away from using the website for putting out information from negotiators in Groups, to keep members informed.
One of the larger branches in the union changing its vote would have been enough to sink A9, with its surfeit of vague buzzwords and meaningless action points, in favour of the far more definite A10, which sought to put focus where it needs to be: how we’re recruiting, why we’re not recruiting enough and why we’re losing members.
That is precisely the debate the NEC don’t want to have and which they have consistently ducked, because ultimately, it’s on their watch and they’re responsible.
Elections at the Conference did not go the way of Serwotka and his rubber stampers on the NEC.
Alan Dennis, national secretary of the Broad Left Network, and stalwart against the Moderates of CPSA, was elected to the PCS Standing Orders Committee, reflecting general discontent at the way this Conference has been handled.
Other important roles, elected by block vote from the Conference, went to Broad Left Network supporters, who are actually putting forward a strategy to deal with members’ concerns.
Given the way the Conference has been manipulated, and despite the narrow victories for the NEC motions, it’s clear that there is a significant group of reps and activists who sense that for all their self-congratulatory speeches, the emperor is a touch underdressed.
With around a third of branches not in attendance at the Conference, it’s also clear that a significant group of branches are utterly alienated by the way in which the union is being run, the huge centralisation, the closing down of debate, the stage management of important events.
Broad Left Network activists will spend the next year reaching out to branches, explaining the continuing political degeneration of Left Unity, who increasingly have no claim to be taken seriously as a left leadership, and renewing the battle for a fighting, democratic trade union from the ground up, one that engages all branches.
PCS Broad Left Network 