DWP Group Executive Committee met over two days in January (26th and 27th) to discuss the key industrial issues facing members. Despite doing their best to avoid confronting the mounting crises across most areas of the Department, from staffing to working conditions to COVID-19 safety measures, it was clear that the pressure being applied by dissatisfied branches and activists forced the GEC Left Unity (LU) majority into producing a self-congratulatory motion that offered a meek and mild commitment of “campaigning” on such issues.
Three motions were debated on the Thursday afternoon, one submitted by each of the three groups represented on the GEC, and the difference in the motions was stark. The motion put forward by the Left Unity majority failed to outline even a shred of detail about how they would campaign, whereas the Broad Left Network motion sought to commit the GEC to industrial action, building a campaign in an effort to win concessions on staffing, working conditions and health and safety. The IL motion called on the GEC to call an immediate statutory ballot, but that is a risky move considering the current leadership have not yet even placed formal demands on the employer and the necessary building work – mass meetings and leafleting – has yet to be done. The BLN approach was to place four demands on the employer:
- That the employer engaged in a full re-negotiation of all COVID-19 safety measures
- That the employer offers permanent jobs to the thousands of EO staff and remaining 183 AO staff on Fixed-Term contracts
- That the employer commits to a root-and-branch assessment of working conditions in all areas of the Department
- That the employer opens up negotiations to offer hybrid working arrangements to all staff, including those in front-facing areas, such as Jobcentres
The motion further called for immediate preparations for a statutory ballot across the whole of the DWP but on a disaggregated basis. This means that individual workplaces would be balloted and those workplaces that beat the anti-trade union legislation and achieve over a 50% ballot turnout would have a legal mandate for strike action, allowing for the union to commence a fightback in those areas where we are strongest but also ensuring resources can be targeted to specific branches and workplaces in any subsequent re-ballot. Any campaign has to include mass meetings, intense leafleting and other forms of high-tempo communication, such as social media campaigning led by the GEC leadership. During the debate, the BLN referenced an ongoing dispute in higher education between the University and College Union (UCU) and universities. The UCU’s Four Fights campaign tied together casualisation and excessive workloads and similar tactics have been used. A significant number of universities achieved a legal mandate for strike action when the union balloted all members across all universities on a disaggregated basis and then re-balloted others who initially did not achieve the minimum turnout. That approach allowed for a further 12 universities to beat the anti-union laws. Strangely, the national president, who sits on the GEC and moved the Left Unity motion, raised a point about the UCU campaign and declared there are significant differences but did not elaborate. Of course all disputes, especially in different sectors, have their differences, but the central points are almost identical and similar strategies pursued.
The motion was proposed by Broad Left Network activist, Craig Worswick, whose Greater Manchester Branch had convened a national reps and activist meeting to raise the urgent need for a national campaign that connects three important issues. The meeting was formally sponsored by a dozen branches (and attended by representatives of others) and two regions. This is indicative of considerable dissatisfaction amongst the activist layer working in the DWP and a statement calling for action was unanimously supported.
Unsurprisingly, given that Left Unity have the majority on the GEC, their motion was voted through and so it is clear there will be no central leadership, that co-ordinates branches and regions, and no meaningful attempt to mobilise our membership at a time when the government is showing immense signs of weakness. The leverage conditions are there for a victorious campaign, that wins permanent jobs for thousands of members, improves working conditions, and protects the health and safety of staff.
Inevitably, the GEC majority have been quick to claim credit for the Department acting of its own volition when they announced that 6,000 AO staff would be offered a permanent job and that there will be a mass EO selection exercise and offers of permanency to lots of staff. However, there are still a 183 AO staff who face losing their job and, at this stage, the Department has committed to a “majority” of permanent offers to EO grades.
True to form, the GEC LU majority did not pre-warn branches of the nature of the announcement and their only comment has been to “cautiously welcome” the employer’s decision and to “continue to argue for all FTA EOs to be made permanent”. This, again, fails to recognise the balance of forces argument and that our collective power and willingness to act as one is what will knock the Department off balance and not the self-perceived brilliance of individual negotiators. It is plain to see that the negotiators have failed to mobilise members in a campaign backed up with the threat of industrial action. Shockingly,, no evidence has been produced from the LU negotiators to the GEC about when meetings have taken place or what precisely has been raised and discussed during employee relations meetings with GEC Officers and what, if anything, has been agreed. This, unfortunately, highlights a contemptuous attitude reflecting their continued ignoring of representations from branches and regions.
The DWP staffing announcement has predictably riled many of our members, with reports already of staff in tears, in an anxious state or lambasting the employer for their walking-us-up-the-garden-path approach. Moreover, the announcement does not deal with the response from permanent members of staff, who will quite understandably be worried about what their daily working conditions will be like if thousands of staff are removed either from employment or redeployed to other areas of the organisation. The GEC needs to respond urgently and build the campaign to bring together all staff and build for action involving all staff and wage the fight on permanent jobs for all and improved working conditions for all. Only a highly charged and energetic campaign, which brings together all members, will help reverse the years of rotten decline that has hampered the union’s ability to extract significant, well-meaning and lasting concessions from the employer. A victory would galvanise the membership, recruit hundreds, if not thousands of members, and help re-build branches by the identification of new activists.
In the absence of leadership it is now necessary to reconvene the meeting of reps to discuss next steps given the pitiful response from the GEC. This meeting needs to focus on how branches can meaningfully work together to develop the campaign and co-ordinate their activity, such as identifying areas of strength, calling mass meetings and working together to ensure the necessary correspondence is completed to enter into a formal trade dispute.
In developing the campaign we need to follow the lead of strike waves that has developed outside of the civil service during the last few months of 2021 that is growing in 2022. It has claimed significant victories for workers. The stored-up anger that has developed through the Covid pandemic has started to burst open. Yet, at the beginning of Covid nearly two years ago, the unions in an official sense seemingly collapsed. Many union leaderships capitulated to the idea of ‘national unity’, the false claim by the Tories that there is a joint interest between workers and their unions on one side, and the employers and their Tory government on the other.
Virtually all official industrial action between March and July 2020 was suspended or cancelled, although many union reps and members heroically took, or threatened, unofficial action to ensure workplace safety. Even unions which in the past period have been seen as more militant succumbed to national unity. Notably, the Left Unity leadership of our own PCS civil service union ‘parked’ the union’s full national pay claim, even before the national executive had met. Only now, two years later, is the union even consulting members nationally on pay but still not linking it to safety and staffing key issues in DWP.
But we are serious about longer term change for the unions. Given the cost of living crisis and the continual attacks from a government who wants to make us pay for austerity and covid it is crucial that we elect a leadership at all levels of the union prepared to take them on. The Broad Left Network is asking you to nominate the following candidates and issue Branch recommendations for a new fighting leadership. For a leadership what will work, coordinate and support Branches such as yours.
THE BROAD LEFT NETWORK IS ASKING YOU TO NOMINATE THE FOLLOWING CANDIDATES FOR THE DWP GEC
| PRESIDENT | Semple Dave | |
| VICE PRESIDENTS | Heemskerk Rachel, Suter Paul, Williams Katrine | |
| ASST SECRETARIES | Brown Ian, Burke Dave, Fearn Jill, Rees Dave, Tweedale Saorsa-Amatheia, Worswick Craig | |
| EDITOR | Johnson Sam | |
| TREASURER | Scott Emma | |
| GEC MEMBERS | Brown Ian | |
| Campbell William | Evison Chris | |
| Fearn Jill | Hamer Peter | |
| Heemskerk Rachel | Ilesanmi Yemisi | |
| Johnston Sam | McGuckian Stephen | |
| Semple Dave | Rees Dave | |
| Scott Emma | Suter Paul | |
| Toomer Catherine | Tweedale Saorsa-Amatheia | |
| Williams Katrine | Worswick Craig |
FOR THE NATIONAL ELECTIONS PLEASE NOMINATE THE FOLLOWING CANDIDATES
| PRESIDENT | Lloyd Marion: (BEIS) | |
| VICE PRESIDENTS | Brittle Fiona: (Scot Gov), Brown Sarah: (Met Police), Semple Dave: (DWP); Rosser Jon-Paul | |
| Bartlett Dave – MOJ | Brittle Fiona – SG | Brown Alex – NHS Digital |
| Bridges Andi – HMRC | Brown Sarah – Met Police | Davies Jaime – HMRC |
| Denman Kevin – Met Police | Dennis Alan – DSG | Doyle Nick – HMRC |
| Exley Matt – Culture Sector | Foxton Gill – DfE | Francis Sue – UKSBS |
| Heemskerk Rachel – DWP | Lloyd Marion – BEIS | McDougall Rachelle – Crown Office |
| Parker Nick – ACAS | Rees Dave – DWP | Ritchie Rob – Met Police |
| Rosser Jon-Paul – HMRC | Semple Dave – DWP | Tweedale Saorsa-Amatheia – DWP |
| Suter Paul – DWP | Williams Katrine – DWP | Worswick Craig – DWP |
| Young Colin DfE | Young Bobby – HMRC |
PCS Broad Left Network 