Whilst the Left Unity-led NEC maintains its efforts to destroy PCS’ pay campaign, it is clear that the arguments being put forward by PCS’ Broad Left Network (BLN) to escalate the campaign are resonating with members throughout PCS. This was particularly evident in PCS’s recent Facebook livestream, a farcical affair which saw the President & General Secretary repeatedly trot out their line about canvassing members’ views, whilst completely ignoring the views of members commenting during the livestream – the vast majority of who were calling for the campaign to continue.
Evidently, members’ anger during the livestream was fuelled not just by the NEC’s obvious (if not directly stated) desire to abandon PCS’ pay campaign, but also by the speakers’ notes the NEC issued to branches ahead of branch members’ meetings. Activists throughout PCS not only saw through the NEC’s blatant attempt to control the narrative of the members’ meetings, but roundly condemned the NEC for producing a document so defeatist that it could have been written by the Cabinet Office.
In response to BLN calls for branches to ignore the NEC speakers’ notes and conduct open & honest members’ meetings, the Left Unity-led GEC within Revenue & Customs went even further than their NEC overlords. R&C Branch Briefing 026-23 saw the GEC patronisingly claim that it would be far too difficult for R&C branches to organise their own members’ meetings and instead undermined every branch within the group by organising these meetings instead of branches.
The format of these meetings consists of…
- 30 minutes of GEC members talking.
- PCS members being forcibly muted so they cannot speak during the meeting.
- PCS members being unable to communicate with each other via the chat function – instead only being able to send messages to a PCS administrator account.
Let’s be clear – these are not members’ meetings, but simply GEC talking shops which represent nothing more than Left Unity’s desperation to ensure that it remains in total control of the narrative. And if this wasn’t bad enough, by asking members to consider whether they believe we are in now in a position to settle, the GEC is falsely implying that members have to decide between accepting the Cabinet Office’s position or continue the fight. Nothing could be further from the truth.
What the GEC neglected to say is that the Cabinet Office hasn’t made a pay offer to settle the dispute – the Cabinet Office is unconditionally imposing the pay award & Cost of Living payment. In short, receipt of the pay award is not contingent upon PCS abandoning its pay campaign and were members to be informed of this, it would quite clearly have a massive impact on their views as to how we proceed.
Clearly – and as is now widely understood with the PACR agreement – the Left Unity-led R&C GEC cannot be trusted to tell members the whole truth – a lie by omission is still a lie. This is why all branches in R&C must organise their own members’ meetings. As democratically elected reps in R&C, we are obliged to represent the best interests of our members and given that the GEC has proven itself unwilling to do so, we must do this ourselves. The BLN calls on all branches within R&C to organise their own members’ meetings, tell their members everything the GEC withheld and let the NEC know what our members actually think of their desire to capitulate.
Let’s reject Left Unity defeatism and win the pay rise that our members deserve!
PCS Broad Left Network 