Month: Jan 2023

Over 100,000 PCS members voted  for strike action to force the government to pay us our 10% wage claim, stop job cuts, attacks on redundancy and get pensions justice.

• As things stand a 2-3% pay increase is the limit imposed by the Tories. This makes no sense with inflation at way over 10%, energy prices going through the roof and increased interest rates pushing up mortgage costs.

• We are not alone. Across the public service and the private sector too, union members are demanding cost of living pay increases. Many of these unions are also calling strike action on 1st February including teachers in the NEU, train drivers in ASLEF and RMT and university workers in UCU. As well as the TUC calling a National Day of Protest on the same day to defend our right to strike

• So, we have a choice. Do nothing and get nothing. Or make a stand now for decent wages and protection of jobs, offices and services. We have nothing to lose and much to gain.

• Support 1st February strike. Let’s make it a day the Tories will not forget. Let’s make 1st February a stepping stone to a major escalation of our action on pay and jobs – of further national action supported by targeted strikes 

• We can win – make the fat cat, tax avoiding Tory Government pay up. ALL OUT on 1st February 

PCS members across the UK will take strike action on February 1st, in the first national strike action since the union gained a legal mandate on November 7th. All Broad Left Network supporters have been working hard since this was announced on 11th January to mobilise their branches and to link up with other striking unions – NEU, UCU and ASLEF.

Members are extremely angry with the government, and they support the goals of the campaign – particularly a 10% pay rise to undo the 10% pay cut imposed by rocketing inflation. Many are also angry with the leadership of the union for a litany of failures, in a rocky start to our industrial campaign but this should not be allowed to cut across a huge turnout on 1^st February.

A strong showing allows PCS members to link up with striking teachers, lecturers and train drivers, and mass pickets will allow for a discussion on tactics and what way forward to build the campaign. It will draw more members into an active role in the campaign than has hitherto been possible, thanks to NEC refusal of national action up to this point.

All branches should consider convening meetings of members to explain how strike action works, particularly as most areas have not organised strikes since large-scale homeworking came in. Zoom can be used for this. The other common pre-strike work, of identifying pickets, making sure members can ask questions and winning over doubters is under way.

Changing situation – a serious campaign means national action

On 16th January, the National Education Union (NEU) secured a decisive mandate for strike action and their executive has announced 7 days of strikes, a mixture of national all-members’ action and some geographical action, targeting specific locations, so that no member will lose more than 4 days’ pay. This bold approach is exactly what BLN has argued PCS should do.

Since November, BLN supporters have argued that national action would bring all members into the campaign in a very direct way, extremely important given that tens of thousands have not taken strike action since 2015. Targeted strikes, of smaller areas taken out for longer periods, could be used to supplement this – but cannot be used to replace it.

Members have played a heroic role, mobilising for targeted action in different areas – including Border Force, Highways Agency, Rural Payments Agency, DVSA and in small areas of the Department for Work and Pensions. Targeted action, like rolling action and other forms of action have a role to play. Yet they have been left isolated by the absence of national action, that could involve all PCS members and would unite the union behind our campaign.

Our opponents, a group called “Left Unity”, who currently have a majority on the union’s NEC, have replaced national action with targeted action. They would likely disagree with this assessment, but the facts speak for themselves. We are now three months into a six-month mandate and only now are we pivoting towards national strike action.

Branches and regions have been writing to the NEC, condemning how they’ve handled the dispute so far. Now, exposed by the audacious decision of the NEU executive, the PCS NEC majority feel pushed towards national action. BLN supporter Fiona Brittle, a current NEC member, has consistently argued that we need to expand this national action.

Some of these criticisms have not been shared with the NEC; paranoia and unaccountability seem increasingly common amongst certain NEC officers. All branches need to keep the pressure on the NEC for a programme of further national action which is absolutely necessary to win.  

Branch reps work hard to convince angry members

At all NEC meetings since the first post-ballot NEC on 10th November, the Left Unity majority of the NEC majority have launched attack after attack against BLN supporter Fiona Brittle, who has been the most consistent voice for national action. Meanwhile the genuine activists of the union have been working hard to retain the support of very angry members.

The absence of a mandate to take action short of strike action, including an overtime ban, has left many members asking why they should strike when the work will be covered by others on overtime. The NEC’s arrogant reply to this was that so long as it increases the cost of clearing the work, it is still worth going on strike. This is not good enough.

A re-ballot of those areas with a mandate could have been organised, as BLN supporters have suggested, at the NEC and other committees, to include a further question on action short of strike action. This could have been done in concert with the re-ballot of those areas which did not gain a mandate on 7th November, including large groups such as HMRC group. Instead, the NEC has defaulted to a laissez-faire “let us know if you want to do anything” attitude. This is simply not good enough.

We need to raise money to support selective strikes but the NEC’s incompetent job of explaining the launch of the union’s strike levy, agreed late last year, and which temporarily raises monthly subs by £3 or £5 (for members earning over £24,000 per year), has also been a source of frustration. This has been made worse by repeatedly incorrect emails sent to members since December about their subs.

Branch reps know that the NEC is not the union. PCS members are the union. This is our campaign, and we can win it. The NEC can be bent to the will of branches – but this requires re-building the tool that can accomplish that, a PCS Broad Left, bringing together all of the socialist activists in PCS to fight for a campaigning, democratic trade union.

We need a Broad Left, stretching the length and breadth of the union, speaking up for socialist politics, for the hard-working activists of the union and for members, to hold the NEC to account, regardless of who is elected to it.

Report from NEC on 18th and 19th January

The recent NEC involved extended discussion of the union’s industrial strategy. We do not intend to report publicly what the NEC has decided, because this could aid the employer. Fiona Brittle made it absolutely clear that she fully supports the decision to call national strike action on February 1^st. This is what Broad Left Network have been calling for since November and we will all do everything we can to make it a success.

However, Fiona raised significant concerns about the way targeted action is being handled by the current Left Unity leadership and called for further national action.

Serwotka and the NEC leadership did not propose further national action, only Fiona did. The NEC leadership did not address any of the organising issues raised by branches, including lack of access to members’ contact details. Instead, they rubbished any critique of the strategy as “posturing”. They refused to accept that the implementation of the levy was poorly handled, insisting that the NEC “must make difficult decisions”.

The NEC leadership have repeatedly hidden behind members difficult financial circumstances, arguing that the cowardice of the NEC is justified because members cannot afford to take national action. This disgraceful argument makes mockery of the sacrifice of nurses, posties, railway workers and others who have taken substantial unpaid strike action, and of the teachers who are about to. This is how we can defy and beat a government intent on destroying the public sector, and how we defeat their allies in the private sector.

Lack of confidence in members’ desire for all-out action is indicative both of what the PCS leadership really think about the capacity of workers to win against bosses, and of how little they understand the current mood and needs of members.

Fiona proposed amendments which remedied all the NEC’s failures. She also proposed:

• a proper analysis (including costings) of the impact of targeted action undertaken so far, both industrially and in forcing the government to return to negotiations,
• detailed analysis for any new targeted action, in order to assess whether this would be effective in moving Ministers towards putting money on the table,
• a special NEC immediately after the Feb 1st strike to assess the impact of the strike and to call substantial national action, with the General Secretary – as is his role – tasked with identifying dates of high impact and possible coordination with other unions,
• reballots to add action short of strike to our mandate,
• a campaign of education and agitation around the new anti-union laws,
• insistence that pressure be put on Scottish Ministers to bring concrete proposals to the current talks on Scottish Sector pay, and a deadline imposed.
• including Scottish MSPs and Welsh Members of Senedd (MS) in the union’s e-action as part of publicity for the 1st February strike.

All of Fiona’s proposals, including those which are uncontentious, were voted down by the Left Unity majority on the NEC, amidst highly personal comments about how Fiona was “undermining the campaign” by daring to put forward an alternative view about how to fight and win. During a live ballot mandate, engaging with debate and discussion on strategy is not “disunity. Wide debate builds confidence in our approach and builds unity amongst members.

The Broad Left Network stands against the personal abuse which has for many years been a common technique of Left Unity in PCS. They are not socialists and so they do not have a political understanding of the battle we are in, or why only mass opposition to the government will win that battle. Personal abuse is the last refuge of those bereft of ideas.

PCS Broad Left Network supporters will be opposing the Left Unity leadership in the union’s 2023 elections – it is time for them to go. Our immediate priority, however, must be to strengthen the union’s national campaign and make 1st February a massive success as a step toward the programme of further national action that is required to force the government to meet our demands.

I was privileged to chair our BLN Conference on Saturday (14th January). The conference was a great success with activists from all parts of the union discussing the important issues facing our members. The discussion was great and really demonstrated the serious attitude and commitment of the BLN membership and also the wider periphery who attended.

National Campaign 

First up on the agenda was the union’s campaign on pay and jobs against the background of a government pay limit of 2-3% and the cost of living crisis faced by our members. The conference made clear BLN support for a national campaign on pay and jobs. It applauded PCS members striking and sacrificing on behalf of all of us but disappointed that national action uniting all those areas who had won the mandate and co-ordinated action with other unions had barely featured in the union’s strategy and demonstrated a lack of understanding about what is required to win.

The conference sent solidarity to all workers across the movement, committed to do everything possible to encourage members to support the levy, to support those areas re-balloting and to work tirelessly to ensure that the 1^{st of} February was a huge success.

However, escalation is needed, and conference agreed BLN will call/campaign to include:

• Immediate and continuing all-members national strike action – preferably when we can but not exclusively alongside other unions – to maximise pressure on the employer.
• Selective strikes supported by a levy consented to by members.
• Immediate re-ballot of all those groups of members who failed to secure a strike mandate.
• Immediate further ballot for action short of strikes to support the pressure of all-members national strikes and to increase the effectiveness of the targeted action.

Under the Tory anti-union laws our ballot mandate runs out on 7 May. Conference agreed BLN should argue for a fresh ballot beginning no later than 7 April if our campaign demands are not met by then.

Conference agreed that the national campaign needs to be under the democratic control of the union’s members and for this purpose BLN should argue for a special conference in mid-March to review the progress of the dispute and determine what strategy is needed to win.

Tory Anti-Union Legislation 

The Tories are planning further attacks on our right to strike with legislation giving them the power to impose minimum service levels and removing the already limited protection from dismissal for workers judged not to have complied. The conference agreed to continue to campaign for the repeal of all Tory anti-union legislation and that the TUC should “prepare for the maximum co-ordinated industrial action, up to and including a 24 hour general strike if the Tory Government moves to implement new anti-union laws and restrictions”.

NEC Report 

Fiona Brittle is currently playing a fantastic role as the lone BLN supporter on the National Executive Committee. Fiona’s report to the conference concentrated on the national campaign and in particular her consistent efforts to persuade the Executive to take the fight to the government with a bold strike strategy the major part of which would involve all member national action. She meets, she said, with repeated rejection, but would not be deterred from putting forward a strategy which put us in the best possible position to win our demands on pay, jobs, pensions, and the compensation scheme.

BLN Secretary Report 

Alan Dennis, BLN Secretary, reported on the work of the BLN Steering Committee over the preceding twelve months which he said had contributed to the BLN becoming a major force in the union and to it being seen as the left opposition to the current leadership. Alan identified a major challenge for the BLN in the period ahead of challenging and changing the top down approach of the current leadership and democratising the working of the union.

Guest Speaker-Sheila Caffrey (NEU)

I was really pleased to welcome Sheila to our conference. Sheila is an NEU Executive Committee member and supporter of the left group Education Solidarity. Sheila expressed the hope that the NEU statutory strike ballot (NB: which is now has and we will all join up on the 1^st February) would give them a mandate for action and that PCS and NEU would shortly be sharing picket lines. She explained that support for the left had grown in the NEU based on an approach expressed in their slogan – “Lead from the front and build from below “. Sheila thanked us for the opportunity to address the conference and suggested we should more regularly link up left groups across the unions.

Conference Motions 

A number of motions were discussed which have determined BLN policy and which BLN supporters will take to their Branch Annual General Meetings for discussion. These included: Covid – the threat has not gone away and the union needs to act collectively. On tax justice the enormous tax gap from evasion which if collected would fund a fair health and benefits system. A bigger and better union by linking organising and bargaining. PCS digitalneeds to be designed around the needs of branches and members. Proper access to members mobile and email addresses for lay reps is vital to build the union and coordinate action. Need to rebuild the Proud structures in the union. What we need to do and campaign for to ensure trans equality. No to privatisation /outsourcing. Need for a better health service fully resourced free from privatisation and outsourcing. Need an Anti- Austerity Charter.

BEIS Group – NEC Impose New Constitution 

A motion rejecting the imposition of an unagreed constitution by the Left Unity led NEC was agreed. This has no precedent in the twenty year plus history of PCS and takes our union back to the undemocratic practices of the old CPSA right wing. Conference agreed full support to BEIS Group.

Regional Committee Structures-Consultation

The conference noted that the NEC were consulting on the union’s regional committee structure and urged BLN supporters to respond by the 20th January deadline making the case for properly funded and democratically controlled regional committees.

Election candidates agreed

The conference agreed the composition of the BLN Steering Committee for the twelve months ahead and the candidates that BLN will support in the 2023 PCS elections.

That’s It

In bringing our conference to a conclusion it seemed right to emphasise the critical role we will play individually and collectively in the period ahead securing our national campaign demands and a fairer, better – socialist – society for all workers and their families. 

If you read this report and are not yet a BLN member, please consider joining us.

If you would like to join the Broad Left Network, please fill in the form below and post it to – “PCS BLN, 11 Carr Road, Sheffield S6 2WY”

BLN Membership FormDOWNLOAD

The Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill (the Bill) is a piece of legislation which simplifies and demedicalises the process by which trans men and women in Scotland can obtain legal gender recognition via a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), which allows them to change the sex marker on their birth certificate.

Legal gender recognition is an existing right which has been available since 2004, and the Bill does not change the effect of a GRC or introduce new rights for trans people, it simply allows them to change their legal gender on the basis of self-determination. This means the applicant giving a solemn and serious statutory declaration (a common legally binding mechanism similar to an affidavit) to a solicitor or justice of the peace that they intend to live in their “acquired gender” for the rest of their lives and have already done so for a minimum time period. It does not, as opponents have tried to claim, allow just anyone to declare that they are a different gender

The current system for obtaining a GRC is totally unfit for purpose, and fails to provide many trans people with access to the right of legal gender recognition. It involves a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, a minimum two-year waiting period (though in reality this can be more like 3-5 years given waiting times for accessing gender identity healthcare to receive a diagnosis) and requires a person to make an application to a Gender Recognition Panel – a UK tribunal comprised of lawyers and doctors who never meet the applicant, and who pass judgment on a person’s identity without any right of appeal. This has been described as invasive, demeaning, onerous and dehumanising by trans rights groups, and is significantly outdated in comparison to international best practice (self-determination) as outlined by multiple bodies including the UN and the World Health Organisation, who haven’t recognised gender dysphoria as a mental disorder since 2019.

The Scottish parliament passed the Bill with over a two-thirds majority, and with cross-party support from members of every political party in the chamber. This followed six years of public consultation and numerous Parliamentary evidence sessions, making it one of the most consulted-on pieces of legislation in the history of the Scottish Parliament. It does not affect reserved legislation such as the Equality Act 2010, which still applies precisely as it does under the current system. Indeed a Labour amendment was accepted and placed on the face of the Bill which states that for the avoidance of doubt, the Bill does not modify Equality Act.

Single-sex services catering to women have the option under the Equality Act to exclude trans women (with or without a GRC) from women’s services on a case-by-case basis if to do so would be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. The Bill does not change this, and organisations would still be able to use those exclusions. It is worth noting however that Rape Crisis Scotland, Women’s Aid and Engender all gave evidence in strong support of the Bill, and gave the view that it would not make any change to their already inclusive policies – no one in Scotland has to show a birth certificate to access a rape crisis centre or a hospital ward, and never has.

Despite all this diligence and care, and the obvious will of the Scottish people, the UK Tory government has chosen to use section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 to veto the Bill by blocking it from being submitted for Royal Assent and thereby preventing it becoming Scots law. This unprecedented and undemocratic action is one of the most serious constitutional issues to have arisen since devolution, and has provoked outrage. At the very least it makes a mockery of the concept of devolved government if the UK Parliament can veto any bill they do not like, even if it is wholly in relation to matters devolved to the Scottish Parliament.

Many commentators have said that this overriding of the Scottish Parliament’s authority signals an absolute guarantee of Scotland gaining independence. So why would the Tories risk something which they have vehemently opposed (most notably by refusing to allow a second independence referendum) in order to veto a very short Bill which introduces measures comparable to those already in place in multiple jurisdictions including Norway, Belgium, the Republic of Ireland, Malta, India and some states in the USA? Especially when there is no evidence at all from these countries to show that using a self-determination model for legal gender recognition causes any increase in risks to women or girls, and simply allows trans people to live, marry and be buried with dignity in their affirmed gender.

The answer is clear:

The Tory Government has managed to produce a huge economic and social crisis where many workers are on strike just so they can heat their homes, put food on the table, and clothe their families. The use of food banks has rocketed, excess hospital deaths are at more than 500 per week, and essential care services are falling apart increasing pressure on an already failing NHS service. The NHS is not failing through bad management within the service, but through chronic under-funding and a disastrous management of the economy by this Tory government. At the same time huge tax breaks have been given to private schools, energy companies, and city bankers meaning the rich are getting richer while the hard working British citizen is struggling with an energy crisis and a cost of living gap too huge to bridge.

Amidst all this economic carnage, what better than a manufactured culture war against a tiny misunderstood minority using the false flag battle cry of anti-woke and protection of women and children? The compliant right-wing media headlines will once more focus public attention away from the economy and onto this constructed constitutional crisis and the ongoing demonisation of trans and non-binary people.

We must not be fooled by this tactic of distraction. Self-ID for trans and non-binary people is accepted best practice and demonstrates no increased dangers when it has been introduced elsewhere around the world. Indeed, the Scottish Parliament’s Bill was only a first step on the path to properly enshrining the rights of trans people and is hardly world-leading; the Bill made no provision for legal gender recognition of non-binary people, which is absolutely vital to ensure all people are able to live in dignity as their authentic selves, and must be urgently demanded of both nation’s governments by the labour movement.

The Broad Left Network and the wider PCS union are absolutely clear in their support for trans rights, as is demonstrated year on year by our support for trans inclusive policies at Annual Delegate Conference. Recent attempts by “gender critical” groups to weaken support for our trans comrades within our trade unions and wider society must be rooted out and rejected. Questions about the validity of trans lives have been allowed to drive a wedge into society under the guise of “legitimate concerns”, and we can now see the fruits of that in the disgusting and transphobic so-called debate around the Bill.

Trans lives are not up for debate. Trans people are valid, they are welcome, and they are deserving of the same rights as anybody else. As one trans person who told Scottish Parliament the heartbreaking story of not being able to marry their partner before they died due to the failures of the current system put it: “Reforms are badly needed…it would have allowed me just to be ordinary, which is all we ever wanted.”

The blame for any constitutional crisis must be laid squarely at the door of the UK Tory Government, and we must keep up pressure to remove them from office just as soon as possible for their utterly destructive and inhumane handling of the British economy which has put so many hard-working people into poverty. We must never forget that it is they who have led us to the place where children are going hungry, people are dying needlessly, pensioners are freezing in their own homes, and workers cannot earn enough to cover basic bills when working full-time.

At the same time, the Tories’ friends in big business are making obscene record profits for themselves and their share-holders. This is the same Government who slash public spending, thereby beggaring the very services that provide the healthcare and support for women that they so desperately and dishonestly claim to champion as they stick the boot into trans people. This is where truly legitimate concerns should be focused – on the consequences of successive austerity governments and parties on local authorities, starving our public services, facilities and amenities, causing the poverty and deficiencies that serve to fuel the fire of this debate.

The right wing used the same arguments against equal marriage and the repeal of section 28 as they are using today against gender recognition. Reject it, and reject the hate-filled austerity politics inherent in the functioning of capitalism.