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 1st 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 1st. 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.
PCS Broad Left Network 