Month: Jul 2026

Our previous articles have laid out the position of the Left Coalition which now forms a majority on PCS’ National Executive Committee. They have also detailed the blocking tactics deployed by the Left Unity General Secretary, up to and including shutting down the 11th of June NEC and refusing to allow the National Disputes Committee to meet.

On the back of this, members and branches, mobilised by the Coalition for Change, wrote to the General Secretary to demand she stops her obstruction and meets with the President and the Deputy President to resolve this. As a result, the NEC finally met on the 7^{th of} July. At that meeting Coalition for Change NEC members allowed the adoption of the General Secretary’s undemocratic standing orders under protest, to enable notice to be served following the historic ballot result in the FCDO and further strike dates to be set to support strikers in Sodexo. The coalition, in which the BLN plays a leading role, put our reps’ and members’ issues first. And on the first morning of the full NEC which met on the 15^th/16^th July, members of the NEC attended the picket at the FCDO to stand shoulder to shoulder with our striking members. Dave Semple, Deputy president and BLN chair spoke at that picket with other unions reps and MPs.

The NEC majority have been consistent in our approach in that to win on pay, jobs, pensions and other issues that are set out in Motion A375 carried overwhelmingly at our May Conference, we need to build a huge campaign across PCS. And members need to see it – the total lack of Comms coming from PCS and the General Secretary on the NEC decisions to push forward is unacceptable.

In contrast the Democracy Alliance, including the General Secretary, argue that we should accept the pay remit and “welcome” it as a victory of their two years of backroom chats with the Cabinet Office. This is a remit which contains serious detriment to members including: accepting AA staff will be permanently on minimum wage; accepting that a 3.5% pay rise is “good enough” despite rocketing living costs; and accepting that pay in all areas currently calculated on a 41/42 hour working week will instead be calculated on 36/37 hours, meaning a £3300 a year reduction for new AAs in those areas. And accepting it also means no campaign, without achieving any of members’ most important demands on pay, terms and conditions, and job protection.

Democracy Alliance U-Turn

In a remarkable and stunning U-turn, the General Secretary’s office wrote to the Coalition’s Senior Officers in advance of the NEC, to try to align the General Secretary’s paper with the position set out in conference policy in A375 (and previous years), supported by the BLN and the Coalition majority.

Under normal circumstances this would be welcomed, but it begs the question as to why, given she and the rest of the Democracy Alliance shut down the national campaign in 2023. They have then spent the three years since doing all they can to avoid building a national campaign in line with conference policy, including using the undemocratic Standing Orders to block any discussion when the Coalition last had a majority, and cancelling it without even trying in October 2025 when they once again had control. However, the discussion took place, which resulted in an approach both presented and agreed by the NEC. A motion submitted by Deputy President Dave Semple prior to the General Secretary’s paper being drafted was also carried –here This was an important motion as, whilst it was reproduced almost exactly in the eventual General Secretary paper, it additionally set out opposition to the proposed reduction of contractual hours from gross to net, not least because it would leave future AAs £3300 worse off a year.

Astonishingly, Democracy Alliance members stated that the standardisation of contractual hours to 37 per week would be a step towards the long-held PCS demand for national pay bargaining! Whilst we want national pay bargaining, it is not at any cost and certainly not to the detriment of any member, let alone our lowest paid.

Most of the Democracy Alliance NEC minority voted for both the General Secretary’s paper and Dave Semple’s motion, despite both being entirely incompatible with the same old arguments they made in the debate, opposing the position of building for a national campaign on pay, job protection, terms and conditions, pensions, and more. Clearly despite the General Secretary starting to recognise she will at least need to try to recognize deliver what members have demanded, the Democracy Alliance views and intentions have not changed.

Build the Cost-of-Living Campaign

So, having agreed these, the stage is now set for a major Cost-of-Living campaign. Pay claims will be submitted in all groups and bargaining units on the basis of the national pay claim, including a 10% pay rise, for a pay compression framework flex cases which produce an £18 per hour Living Wage, measures to ensure that the Administrative Assistant (AA) grade are on more than the minimum wage, and reflect London Weighting arrangements in addition to the National Living Wage of £5,000 per annum. Motion A375 – here -sets out a set of demands around which the whole union can unite, campaign one and build the support necessary to win.

The General Secretary has agreed, at last, to end the silence surrounding the national campaign and to take the first practical steps towards building that campaign. We must make sure that happens. She has agreed to ensure that branch and members’ bulletins are produced, website articles are published and social media communications will be prepared. She has also agreed to urgently produce an NEC statement, for all members, without delay. She stood for election promising to hold the employers “feet to the fire.” There has been little evidence of that – so the NEC majority must hold her to the agreements she has made. The NEC has also agreed that a full programme of members meetings will be organised, right across our union. Further measures are being developed to give the campaign a wider political profile. These include a speakers’ brief for workplace meetings following the Pay Negotiators’ Forum; a letter to the PCS Parliamentary Group requesting support and the tabling of Early Day Motions; the preparation of Parliamentary Questions; and an examination of whether a parliamentary petition capable of securing a debate can be successfully launched. We are also seeking a meeting with Andy Burnham to advance the union’s case and apply pressure right from the start of his tenure, with the outcome to be reported back to the NEC.

These decisions mark an important advance. After months in which the national campaign existed on paper and little else, the NEC has met and agreed a full programme of activity to build our campaign. We must now ensure the General Secretary implements these agreements and stops blocking the NEC majority from doing what we were elected to do. It would be a serious mistake to confuse an agreement to do something with it actually being done.

Defending Trans+ Members Through Collective Action The NEC also agreed a motion, moved by Fiona Brittle, which set out PCS’ response to attacks on the rights and dignity of Trans+ members following the publication of harmful guidance published by Government People Group. This is here and commits the union to urgently bringing together the National Disputes Committee, PCS Proud and PCS legal to agree urgent advice for reps and to explore the potential of a judicial review, further legal interventions, and a campaign to overturn the Supreme Court ruling. It also commits the union to restoring the PCS Trans Awareness course under the direction of PCS Proud and encouraging widespread PCS participation in Pride events. Earlier versions of this motion had been submitted at every NEC since conference, including instructions to intervene while the Code of Practice underwent Parliamentary scrutiny – but due to the General Secretary’s blocking of the NEC, this instruction was not carried out. Shockingly, PCS therefore did nothing to halt the Code being brought into force.

The motion agreed commits PCS to making clear to negotiators that guidance at delegated level, following the publication of the EHRC guidance, should not be implemented as proposed. It instructs the National Disputes Committee to produce urgent bargaining guidance for branches and groups to resist exclusionary changes to workplace policies and to defend any members affected by attempts to impose them.

This represented a clear political dividing line within the NEC. Democracy Alliance argued instead for an approach centred primarily on legal test cases and surveys, as if members hadn’t been very clear at conference! This approach would in practice mean waiting until our members suffer discrimination rather than acting to prevent it. Democracy Alliance members voted against the motion.

The passing of this motion means that PCS now has a clear strategy which combines legal intervention, industrial bargaining and workplace organisation. The task now is to ensure that these commitments are translated into practical support for branches and reps, and into a determined defence of every Trans+ member facing discrimination at work.

Pensions

The General Secretary’s provided an update on the Capita takeover of MyCSP. This has clearly been a disaster, especially for the thousands of members waiting for payments and for those delaying retirement. The government has now committed to insourcing the pensions scheme and taking it back into public ownership, but how and when remains to be seen. BLN’s amendment that the National Disputes Committee urgently consider the advice of counsel sought by the GS, and determine what other measures can be taken to visibly step up our campaign, to achieve relief for members, was passed unanimously meaning the new NEC majority will look at ramping up the campaign to resolve the crisis and put the money our members are owed in their pockets.

Trade Unions Congress

A delegation to the TUC was agreed, as were motions to the Conference which takes place in September which focus on a coordinated approach to challenging privatisation, austerity, and racism/fascism – here

Build the BLN

We call on all reps who want to build a fighting, democratic union with a socialist programme that could win for members to join with us – to join the Broad Left Network – and unite to build a massive Cost-of-Living campaign.

After PCS members in the National Library of Wales smashed the anti-union threshold with over 81% turnout in their recent ballot with a tremendous 95% yes vote for strike action alongside our sister union Prospect who also had a successful ballot, management have caved in on introducing detrimental changes to the National Library pension scheme.

This is a fantastic victory for our members in the National Library and the determined stance the branch has taken since management indicated what they were planning.  This included reducing the accruals from 1/80 to 1/100, increasing the pension age to the state pension age, and introducing additional contributions from members to reduce the employer’s contributions to 12%!   Delegates at the Wales ADC in March were left in no doubt about the branch’s readiness to fight attacks on their pensions with a fighting speech moving motion A15 and the conference gave our full support to the branch. Whilst we are fighting to improve the civil service pension scheme, we must fight to ensure that no members have even worse terms.

We will continue to fight to ensure that we place our manifesto demands on the new Welsh Government to defend our culture sector members alongside all our members and services in Wales.

On culture PCS calls on the Welsh Government to: –

• Restore grant-in-aid to the National Library of Wales and Museum Wales to its previous real-terms level and for annual above inflation increases to meet the rising costs both organisations face each year.
• Establish a sustainable 5-year funding model that will allow both organisations to rebuild from the loss of skills and resources following over a decade of austerity.
• Fully fund pay increases at both organisations, so that threats of redundancies and reductions in staffing levels do not happen every year.
• Ensure a fair pension for workers at arms-length bodies that is on par with those offered to other branches of Welsh Government.

If you want to get involved in the fight for improved pay, pensions, job security and conditions across the union then join the Broad Left Network

The union’s NEC met on the 7th July to ensure that the National Disputes Committee (NDC) could clear urgent business. The NEC majority adopted the Standing Orders, in the face of the General Secretary’s obstruction.Dave Semple, Deputy President, on behalf of the NEC majority made the following statement to make clear that we prioritised members interests, and particularly those members fighting for their jobs-like those in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office who have now been given authority to take strike action:

“The NEC elected majority are enabling the adoption of these Standing Orders, under protest, in order to progress business and protect members’ interests, not because we agree with the content. We wish to have this reproduced in the record of this meeting.”

This was the first NEC meeting since the General Secretary’s walkout from the NEC meeting of 11 June. As she walked out Fran Heathcote cut off the Zoom meeting to prevent the NEC taking key decisions to progress union policy. Since then, the General Secretary has shut down all the national democratic bodies of PCS, including the NEC and NDC.

Against vociferous objections from the elected Senior Lay Officers of PCS – including Bev Laidlaw as President, Dave Semple as Deputy President and Rachel Heemskerk and Hector Wesley as Vice Presidents – the General Secretary instructed the union’s full-time officers not to permit the NDC to clear any business – meaning strike submissions and decisions on support for victimised PCS reps were delayed.

This decision to shut down the NDC is especially egregious as the NDC is constituted in the union’s rule book, which Heathcoteis willing to ignore.

She further abused her powers by publishing two one-sided videos on the union’s website and by sending out an incredibly biased all-members’ email. This material put employers across the country on notice about what was going on and will have damaged the credibility of the union as we try to prepare for a major national campaign on the cost of living, jobs, office closures and much else.

Coalition for Change NEC members – including those in Broad Left Network, Independent Left and Alliance for Change – convened a well-attended meeting for PCS members on 18 June to ensure that reps and members PCS were kept informed of events. Shortly thereafter, a leaflet was produced by the coalition, to take out to members, responding to Heathcote’s disgraceful public attack on the NEC.

Since then, a wide swathe of members and reps, mobilised by the Coalition for Change, have been writing into the General Secretary, copied to the President and Deputy President, to demand that she stops her obstructive behaviour and gets round the table with the leaders of the NEC to sort out this mess.

Further, pressure has been mounting on the General Secretary to reopen the NEC and NDC, in order that strike submissions can be agreed for members in FCDO and Sodexo in Belfast. There are almost certain to be other submissions that have been held back on Heathcote’s orders – orders that she gave shortly before heading to Greece for a holiday, leaving the union in crisis and members in limbo.

Senior Lay Officers repeatedly and loudly demanded an NDC meeting to ensure support for these.

For nearly a month, these entreaties to prioritise members’ business were ignored. However, with a key deadline approaching and pressure mounting, the national President, Bev Laidlaw, demanded a meeting with Heathcote on Monday 6 July.It was made clear by Heathcote that unless we adopt the previous Standing Orders, ignoring the President’s ruling and the will of the NEC majority, the NEC would not re-open and the NDC would not meet.

What is going on?

Heathcote’s walkout stunt was an attempt to ensure that the previous NEC’s Standing Orders (rules for debate) stayed in place – including the messy and undemocratic language that Heathcote and former president Martin Cavanagh often hid behind, to rule out anything that disagreed with Heathcote’s recommendations.

Since Heathcote would routinely propose ways to delay a cost-of-living campaign, this has meant that the NEC’s Standing Orders were turned into a bureaucratic blocker on doing much of anything. This year’s NEC, with a Coalition for Change majority, has no interest in being blocked by bureaucratic skullduggery – members want a campaign, and we intend to deliver it.

At the NEC of 11 June, the President issued a ruling that the previous Standing Orders did not bind the current NEC, freeing up the NEC to agree new Standing Orders by majority vote.Heathcote’s allies challenged the chair’s ruling and lost – a majority of the NEC upheld the chair’s ruling. It was at this point Heathcote walked out and shut down the NEC Zoom, to disrupt the validly convened meeting.

A reconvened NEC met a few hours later and agreed a new set of Standing Orders and cleared business to set the NEC up properly for the year – but Heathcote has instructed the union’s full time officers to refuse to carry out the instructions of the NEC, despite the union’s rulebook saying explicitly that full time staff of PCS are “subject to [the NEC’s] control and direction” (SR8.1).

Whether large issue or small, Heathcote’s obstructive position has been that lay reps in PCS don’t run the union. A small example of this was at the NDC of 3 June, prior to the 11 June NEC meeting. The President, Deputy President and 2 Vice Presidents proposed text for a briefing for the union’s negotiators, and Heathcote simply refused to publish it, arguing that lay reps writing briefings was a breach of her contract!

Stalemate has resulted, despite the efforts of the union’s elected leadership to overcome the General Secretary’s obstructions.

Ultimately this left us with a decision. Continue to fight on Standing Orders, to remove this bureaucratic hurdle, or adopt the old Standing Orders in order to clear urgent submissions for industrial action, whilst recognising that they will be used by Heathcote and by Left Unity to try to stymy the work of the NEC in matters both large (like building a campaign) and small (like re-establishing the Devolved Areas subcommittee).

The Coalition for Change, including BLN, unanimously agreed that while Heathcote’s obstruction is disgusting and wildly undemocratic, we cannot allow a continued stalemate that halts industrial action and which forces members to be re-balloted, e.g.because they did not take action within 28 days of winning their mandate.

On this basis, and with a statement agreed between the General Secretary and President that protects our position regarding all that has gone before, we have therefore agreed last year’s Standing Orders and cleared all of the outstanding industrial business via the National Disputes Committee.