It’s been nearly five months since PCS members instructed the NEC via motion A383 to build a campaign on the widest possible basis to fight for better pay and pensions, job security, and working conditions. If there was insufficient progress towards members’ demands, the NEC were instructed to move to a ballot for industrial action in mid-September.
At the NEC on October 23rd, General Secretary Fran Heathcote tabled a paper which recommended that the NEC agree PCS “will not be moving to action at this stage.” Instead, the General Secretary simply recommended that PCS:
- “Continues to engage in talks”
- issues a branch briefing to highlight “some of the positive outcomes in the delegated pay round” and advising members of the “consultation” on pay and NEC decision
- issues a members briefing to say that we will not be moving to action at this stage, will continue to speak to the Cabinet Office, and will “keep the position under review in light of any progress in negotiations and changes to our organisational position.
Her reasoning for this, now sadly very familiar, is to allege members have “limited appetite for action”. This view was based on their three “structure tests”, their view from a hastily arranged activist forum and “ballot-ready” schools in late August and pay meetings which branches were asked to call from mid-August to mid-September.
All this was far too late considering the mandate was to ballot members in September and run during a peak leave period. Conference adjourned on 23rd May so this lacklustre eleventh-hour gesture towards organising, following three months of complete silence, cannot be considered a reliable gauge of members’ desire and need for a fight on pay.
BLN NEC members strongly opposed this passive approach and abandonment of the national campaign. The paper contains no plans to build the campaign required, to mobilise members and build the necessary industrial campaign to see off the threats to job and pay levels from the Tories and now Labour. Our organising position is utterly within our control – and yet according to Fran Heathcote the best we can do is wait and see if it magically improves.
Make no mistake – this is Left Unity giving up the fight on the national campaign without achieving members’ demands, as they have done many times before.
Failure to launch the campaign
The NEC Left Unity/Democracy Alliance majority, led by President Martin Cavanagh and General Secretary Fran Heathcote, has refused since May 2025 to build for and deliver any campaign to win on pay, jobs, pensions and conditions, in line with union policy. Rather than implement the necessary steps, including preparations for a statutory ballot, to improve the pay remit set by the UK Government (3.25% plus 0.5% to address low pay), they sent departmental negotiators immediately into delegated talks to “see what they can get”. It is blindingly obvious that a pay remit set at under 4% is not anywhere near our 10% claim or an £18/hour minimum wage.
No remit increase means money available to employers to fund pay rises will not change – anything over 3.75% (even if this were permitted), would be funded by more budget cuts. That means job cuts, higher workloads, and/or selling off terms and conditions. A coordinated campaign, including preparation to ballot for strikes, is the only chance to force the government to increase the pay remit.
Only one area in the whole union, the office for nuclear regulation, has increased pay bill to more than 5% but even that is only half our 10% claim. Inflation is running at CPI(Housing) rate of 4.1%. When BLN NEC members raised this Fran Heathcote, scoffed and said that “the government uses CPI” and some of these deals beat that – cold comfort for members who will be paying prices for essential groceries which are rising at 5.4% for Quarter 3 of 2025.
PCS’s demand has always been to use RPI inflation as a benchmark, because it is a more realistic measure of price rises. The GS either doesn’t understand the significance of this, or her salary is now so high that she no longer feels any of the pressure familiar to PCS members.
Time for more than just talks
NEC member Fiona Brittle moved a motion which censured the NEC for failure to deliver a pay campaign and set out the steps necessary to build the campaign on pay. See motion attached.
For months, the General Secretary’s papers have shown that talks with the Cabinet Office have produced no commitments from the employer to increase the remit. The employer has simply “recognised” that the Civil Service pay bargaining could be improved in future, without any commitment to do that. However, the GS continues to give platitudes that even talking to the government is a win over the previous Tory government, and a whole two hours has been set aside for their next meeting. However, there remains no indication that they will produce anything different than they have for the last 6 months.
Pleasantries and warm words from the employer without concrete commitments mean nothing. When asked by BLN NEC members whether it had been made clear that without an increase to the 2025/26 pay remit we would seek to enter a dispute, Fran Heathcote sarcastically said “what do you want me to say, no we’ve sat there and done nothing?”. Notably, that doesn’t answer the question and certainly isn’t a yes.
In moving the motion, the BLN asked for answers as to how anything contained in her paper would concretely move us towards winning on pay, jobs and conditions and prepare members for a successful ballot. Given that we know we must have one or leave members to face real terms pay cuts, how does her plan to “do nothing”, develop the mood and build confidence. We are not researchers conducting a neutral study, we are a trade union and have a particular objective; we want our members geared up, willing and ready to strike to defend and improve their pay and job security.
Heathcote’s response to this was to once again blame members, and that many areas of PCS not covered by the Cabinet Office pay remit have “already settled for less than 10%”. So, there is it – the General Secretary is not particularly interested in achieving members demands (which she repeatedly calls “aspirations”), but rather a race to the bottom.
Left Unity believe members “aren’t angry” about pay!
NEC members from the Left Unity and PCS Democrats (together known as the Democracy Alliance) “wish (ed) it hadn’t taken this long but (members) aren’t angry about 3%”, and that “everyone wants a pay rise, but members are not willing to do anything about it.”
This rhetoric is as insulting as it is wrong. It fits into a now-familiar pattern from the General Secretary and President of refusing to build a campaign, ‘testing the mood’ at the last moment after months of silence, declaring members have ‘no appetite to fight’, and abandoning the campaign. This argument goes back many years and was the same used by former General Secretary Mark Serwotka when running down the 2022/23 campaign to force acceptance of the non-consolidated £1500. No wonder members are discouraged – their trade union consistently signals to them that we aren’t up to the task of challenging the government, and even when we do get a successful mandate to strike, we will jump at any small improvement offered to return to industrial peace.
The Broad Left Network believes that members are prepared to fight. Ballots taking place right across the union demonstrate this. It is evidenced by the 2022/2023 ballot results and the numerous successful ballots run this year in PCS – Ofgem, Met Police, FM workers, Land Registry, MyCSP, British Library to name just a few. The General Secretary’s assertion that members don’t understand the link between their anger on pay and the need to fight is wrong – members understand that completely, but they have no faith that their union will wage that necessary war against the UK government.
Elect a new, socialist leadership for PCS
It has been clear for a long time that the Democracy Alliance leadership of Left Unity and PCS Democrats do not have the political will or ability to stand up to the employer. They have watched the value of our pay continue to erode and threats to our jobs increase, without any resistance. Shockingly, they know this. Last year Cavanagh blocked any motions that disagreed with the General Secretary, because his faction was in a minority. This year, Groups and other executive committees writing to the General Secretary to express disagreement with her direction have received boilerplate responses saying it’s not their constitutional role to hold the NEC to account. They have also rejected efforts and requests from some Groups such as Department for Education, and HMRC to press forward with their own challenges to the Cabinet Office pay remit, on the basis that it would “undermine the national campaign”, which the General Secretary now seeks to cancel.
Who runs this union? Who makes the decisions about what we fight on? Heathcote believes it is her and a select few who agree with her. The Broad Left Network disagree – it is PCS members. Cavanagh and the NEC majority this year were elected on a turnout of 6.4%, showing how disenchanted members are with the same old inaction and lack of transparency from their leadership.
PCS members who want to fight the government on pay rather than simply thank them for meeting with us at all must unite to elect a different, socialist leadership for our union.
Join the BLN, help us to transform this union into a fighting campaigning body capable of winning for members.
PCS Broad Left Network 