Personal statement from Dave Bartlett
I am on the MOJ Group Executive and a member of the Broad Left Network. I am opposed to the proposed MOJ pay deal and attach to this article a copy of the leaflet we are issuing to encourage a NO vote.
We’ve waited 2 years without any pay increase for this offer and to be honest its delivered very little. 10.3% over 3 years is not a lot especially as inflation is running at 3%. and many members will lose out in their conditions of employment.
This is the reality of concession bargaining. The pay offer is an average computation, depending on who you are and where you are. The lowest grades(AOs, AAS etc) do benefit, although the offer includes adjustments to fit in with the legal requirements of minimum and living wage. The scourge of regional pay does come to an end as employees now come under 2 brackets of a London wage and a new national wage but a number of members will suffer a loss from these arrangements.
To pay for the gains in this deal there is a cut in allowances, and overtime, affecting many such as DSOs, legal advisers, bailiffs . Those members on 35 and 36 hours (mainly in the GMB union) will have to move to a standard 37 hour week and will receive a non consolidated compensation package.
This is an offer subject to collective bargaining. In other words it will need to be accepted by all the unions and will apply to all members of staff.
This is an offer I feel we can’t support. Some grades may gain in the short term but sacrificing employment conditions is not my idea of what unions should be doing.
At the end of the day this is the price union members are paying for sectoral concession bargaining and above all the abysmal failure of the national leadership in abandoning any notion of a national pay campaign.
Five members of the current GEC sit on the NEC and supported a no strings 10% national pay claim for all PCS members in 2021. This deal comes nowhere near our union’s claim so why are they supporting it ?
And why has it all been done in secret ? Until the last minute hardly anything was known about the deal and then at an emergency August meeting of the Executive (which I missed as I was on leave) they recommended support ( PCS Democrats/Left Unity Alliance) with a really short period of consultation before the ballot starts on the 20th August.
I have written to the GEC calling for the ballot to be put back to give a chance to all members to have a say and to see where the balance is between winners and losers.
If the deal goes through in reality then the MOJ together with HMRC is another section taken out of national bargaining for the future. We should take a stand now to stop this happening . Demand from the MOJ and national union leadership a campaign to unite members around this year’s 10% claim and the action needed to secure it.
PCS Broad Left Network 