The recent DWP Group pay ballot achieved an 85% vote in favour of strike action on pay, but with a 37% turnout fell far short of the 50% threshold set by the 2016 anti-trade union laws. This means there is no legal mandate for the strike action which we need to achieve our pay demands.
It is disgraceful that Starmer has still failed to scrap this anti-union legislation. With this crisis in political representation our union should be giving the lead in challenging the Starmer Government.
But the key questions are why did we fail to breach the threshold, and what is to be done?
There is a strong mood for action on pay. That is clear from the members’ meetings that have taken place across the country and from the overwhelming yes vote in the ballot. 40,000 DWP members are facing the fourth year in a row on minimum wage, pay eroded by over a third, effects of chronic understaffing, and being forced to go back into the office an extra 20% of their working time. The need for an industrial fight back is clear, so why wasn’t the threshold achieved?
The PCS DWP Group leadership have pinned the blame largely on postage delays. More than a dozen delivery offices have reported having to prioritize parcels over letters, meaning post has been delayed in some areas over the 6-week ballot. However, this is unlikely to account for the 5,000 additional ballot papers needed to reach the 50% strike ballot threshold.
Too Little, Too Late
PCS conference back in May voted for a national campaign on the widest possible basis to re-win support for the key demands of a 10% pay rise, genuine hybrid working for all, opposition to job cuts and restoration of pension overpayments. But no national campaign has been forthcoming. Rather than challenge the Treasury pay remit the LU national leadership (which includes a number of DWP members) decided to meekly accept it.
The DWP Group conference also voted for a group campaign on pay for a 10% pay rise and a sliding scale of wages to stop our members repeatedly falling to minimum wage. Conference was clear that this needed to be done with the DWP union leadership working closely with branches and regions.
The pay ballot was planned to launch 5th Jan but was then delayed by a fortnight after a challenge from the employer. This meant members were being balloted on a pay rise over four months after it had hit their pay packets.
The demands put forward by the LU group leadership did not inspire members, and was not what conference instructed the GEC to campaign on. Instead of campaigning around our 10% pay demand, the GEC decided to demand that the employer submit a pay flexibility case to award more money to the lower grades and increase the pay gap between grades. Such a vague demand and loose strategy failed to inspire members.
Rather than challenge the Treasury pay remit the Left Unity DWP Group, like the LU national leadership, tried to fit their demands within the Treasury pay remit which could never deliver our policies on pay. Any genuine business case to address low pay in the department and ensure pay for all grades not sliding backwards would mean forcing DWP Management to challenge the Treasury.
In addition, members had been crying out for action on pay months prior yet the leadership did nothing to mobilise the membership to build for industrial action. When increased hybrid attendance was imposed, the leadership just sent out a survey and mounted no opposition to these changes nor to the office closures announced at 4 sites with entire directorates now being dissolved.
The membership is not a tap that can be turned on and off at the whims of a union leadership, as shown by the low turnout. To win, we need a serious, concerted campaign that inspires the confidence of members.
It is clear that in this badly organised and much delayed pay ballot members were not convinced in sufficient numbers of the union’s demands and had little confidence in the union’s leadership.
What next?
The issues of low pay have not gone away, nor has the understaffing, hybrid working restrictions, workloads, mandatory Saturday and late working, and a myriad of other issues.
We have DWP group conference policy for a fighting campaign on pay with concrete demands, for 30,000 new staff, for an end to the two-tier workforce that exists within the department from years of conditions being eroded. The policies are all there, but we need a leadership who will campaign for them, place demands on the employer, mobilise members to fight for them and work with branches to give reps the tools to do so.
Broad Left Network stands for a fighting, democratic union. We urge members to vote for candidates standing on the Coalition for Change slate at national level and in DWP. NEC candidates DWP candidates
PCS Broad Left Network 