Author: pcsbln

Strong Showing for PCS Broad Left Network ln First National Elections

Elections in the Public and Commercial Services union concluded on Friday 14th May with the election of a commanding majority for the Democracy Alliance on the union’s National Executive Committee for 2021-22. This means that the incumbent NEC, a leadership that is moving decisively to the right, has, with some exceptions, secured its own re-election, although on a very low turnout of 7.5%, with around 13,000 out of 170,000 members voting.

Broad Left Network activists, contesting the elections as an independent socialist group for the first time, secured one place on the 35-strong body, with young member Rachelle McDougall being elected. BLN activist Dave Semple secured sufficient votes to be elected to the NEC but due to a limitation on the maximum number of members from DWP, is knocked off in favour of the next highest candidate from outside DWP or HMRC.

Impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, during which tens of thousands of Civil Service PCS members have not been in their offices, and where the ability of activists to get out to workplaces to campaign has been drastically curtailed, Broad Left Network activists are far from despondent at securing one place on the National Executive Committee. This post will allow the left to continue to scrutinise and exert pressure on the re-elected leadership.

Broad Left candidate for PCS President Marion Lloyd finished a strong third, with around 2,500 votes – only 4000 votes behind the incumbent. From one of the smallest employer groups in the union, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Marion had sought to capitalise on nearly 10,000 votes in the November 2019 General Secretary election – but the Covid-19 pandemic has decisively cut across the ability of socialists to mobilise the workers who voted in the GS election.

BLN supporters proposed discussions with the Independent Left on an electoral agreement that the results show, could have made inroads into the DA majority. However, the IL’s lack of seriousness has been revealed by their refusal to properly engage with this.

Dirty tricks by the current executive have also played their role. Despite ensuring masks were worn, hand sanitiser was used and social distancing was observed during leafleting, activists from the Broad Left Network and our supporters were publicly condemned by the executive as having undermined the dispute between the union and management in the Swansea Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency.

As well as being simply untrue, this use of union resources such as the national website to publicly smear one of the factions standing in the election is an example of the worst kind of interference.

Standing on our record: building a left alternative in PCS

Far from undermining the strike in DVLA, Broad Left Network activists – including current NEC members Marion Lloyd, Alan Dennis, Fiona Brittle and Dave Semple – sought to strengthen the strike by ensuring that the most senior leadership in the union had a serious strategy. The Democracy Alliance NEC resorted to scurrilous public attacks to cover for their failure to ballot much earlier rather than their “too little, too late” approach.

This lack of seriousness is repeated in virtually everything the leadership of PCS has done for the last two years. To defend against the danger of a premature return to work during the successive peaks of the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK, Broad Left Network activists called for the union to prepare a serious industrial response. Democracy Alliance, and its component parts the PCS Democrats and PCS Left Unity, argued for months that the Tories were not seeking a swift return to work, and then that it simply wouldn’t be possible to ballot during the pandemic.

As the big civil service areas, such as the courts and Jobcentres, began to force people back into the office and to insist upon resumption of face-to-face activities, it was belatedly discovered a ballot was vital to protect members safety, but the leadership had already squandered the momentum that could have been built up while the union’s leadership dithered. Even then, in DWP, this was limited to a consultative ballot, with no teeth. But for the intervention of the second wave of Covid-19 in late 2020, Jobcentre staff would have been forced back into the office. This seems to be exactly what is happening now, as the second wave has receded and renewed pressure is exerted by the bosses to drastically scale up face to face work in Jobcentres.

Faced with Tory and senior management indifference to the threat to staff of reopening Jobcentres and dragging in unvaccinated 18-to-24-year-olds, as well as the danger of reinstituting benefit sanctions amidst the continuing pandemic, the answer of the union’s right-wing leadership is exactly the same: a consultative ballot. That this move is months overdue, that it has no force and effect as members cannot take strike action afterwards, that it was launched after the Jobcentres actually reopened just emphasises how ill equipped the current leadership of the union is , even while they talk about defending members.

Coincidentally, the ballot in DWP, the largest group of members in the union, despite being weeks or even months later than would have been prudent, has fallen right in the middle of the election period, enabling the incumbent majority to use the machinery of the union to raise their profiles.

On pay, since 2019 the union’s National Executive Committee have done absolutely nothing that resembles building a meaningful campaign. At  Annual Delegate Conference in 2019, they put forward a hugely divisive motion to exclude pensions and redundancy rights from being added to the national pay campaign. These are all issues that require serious national struggle. By that point, three different ballots had failed to pass the 50% participation threshold imposed by the Tories and the result was a pay campaign stuck in the mud while pensions was returning to the minds of many members, as a result of legal campaigns and new information highlighting our overpayment of pension contributions. BLN activists argued we should use this to build momentum. The current leadership continued not to listen.

Meanwhile, with some employer groups getting over the 50% threshold and others not, BLN argued that it might be necessary to hold a disaggregated ballot, to allow some areas to establish their mandate for action and to take action in a coordinated way, whilst the union continued to agitate and build in areas which fell short. This would have enabled the launching of a dispute with a Tory government caught in a particularly weak position. 

This was not just opposed but denounced as industrial sabotage. It was also used as a dishonest excuse by some in Left Unity not to support the democratically elected LU candidate for AGS Chris Baugh. This not only effectively split LU but was a portent for the rightward shift of the union’s leadership that we’ve seen during Covid.

When the pandemic began, Broad Left Network activists recognised the extreme dependence of the Tory government upon Civil Servants, and the certainty that once the pandemic passed, austerity would resume. We argued that the pay campaign should be stepped up, linked directly with other issues and that the union should exploit the weakness of the Tories. This could start to undo more than a decade of pay austerity that had blighted the lives of many workers, especially at the lowest grades in the Civil Service, who now get a pay rise only when the minimum wage goes up.

Not only were we denounced as insensitive to anyone who would lose relatives to Covid-19, but the cabal at the top of the union threw out the union’s pay demand of 10% and wrote to the Cabinet Office – without the approval of the NEC – to tug their forelock and ask for an “above inflation” pay rise. The subsequent endorsement of this capitulation to national unity by the NEC, opposed only by BLN members, is an indictment of the Left Unity/Democracy Alliance NEC majority as well as the Independent Left who supported it.

The Tory grandees, sensing their weakness and recognising the weakness of the PCS leadership, offered what they thought would be enough to delay any renewed pay campaign. This succeeded. In the following months the most the NEC managed was a petition and a debate in parliament that was attended by a dozen MPs, not even a majority of MPs in the “PCS Parliamentary Group”. This is held up as a huge success despite the extra pennies that have found their way into members pockets is precisely nothing.

For every single issue the union has faced over the last several years, there is a clear divide between the PCS Broad Left Network, on the one hand, seeking to build a fighting, democratic trade union, and the increasingly rightwards moving PCS Left Unity and their PCS Democrat allies.

 Nowhere is this more apparent than in the struggle to ensure the accountability of the tops of the union’s full-time structure to the ordinary members of the union. Once upon a time, PCS Left Unity believed in electing all Senior National Officers in the union, and this has repeatedly passed the union’s Annual Delegate Conference – but for the Democracy Alliance this is merely a rhetorical pose, never meant to be acted upon.

The General Secretary himself has indicated clearly why this, despite commanding the support of the union’s membership and activist base, is forever on ice. His view is that the full- time officers answer to him, and he answers to the NEC. This really is a re-hash of the days of Barry Reamsbottom and the total resistance of the old right wing Moderates to the lay reps exercising any hands-on control of the union

Build the Broad Left Network, Build the Union

Broad Left Network activists recognise that, even had we taken control of the National Executive Committee in the 2021 elections, it would have had to be a platform to transform the union. The vibrant, combative, instinctively democratic culture of PCS has been rotting from the top down and stopping that rot is a fight that needs to be taken into every branch and every workplace, so that members see that there can be a union which is prepared to stand up and fight.

Broad Left Network activists have a serious programme for change. We are not interested in being a token opposition to the current leadership of our union which is bereft of any idea about how to build and develop a campaign with a serious chance of winning for members. 

We want to win our union back on the basis of a socialist programme, which is the only one that can ensure we have a fighting, democratic PCS and that can secure serious victories against a vicious Tory government and against the private sector bosses who with one hand grab an ever-bigger slice of public services while the other holds the whip they wield over our privatised members.

Over the next year we intend to take this fight into every single branch, to every single workplace in every single department and every single employer where there are workers represented by the union. One of the biggest things that divides us from the re-elected Democracy Alliance leadership is that they look for excuses not to fight blaming an absence of mood amongst members whereas we look to build the confidence of activists to fight and to win industrially and politically with the ideas of socialism.

If, like us, you know that our members want to fight, have the power to win and you want to help unite workers across this union, then join the Broad Left network.

By Marion Lloyd, PCS National President candidate

On Saturday 13^th March, young women and men from many backgrounds gathered on Clapham Common in protest at domestic violence, sexual harassment, violence against women more generally and against the indifference and hostility women face when they seek justice and safety.

Sparked by the murder of Sarah Everard, who appears to have been kidnapped when walking home, protests erupted across the UK. For the most part these protests seem to have passed off peacefully, in a socially distanced way, with police showing restraint and good judgment in terms of how they were handled – except in London.

Police were filmed handcuffing demonstrators, shoving women in attendance at the Saturday night vigil from behind and corralling demonstrators together regardless of social distancing. A statement from the activists who attempted to organise the “Reclaim these Streets” vigil suggested those in senior posts with the Metropolitan Police had refused to engage with them, when they were notified of the plans.

“Reclaim these Streets” had organised fifty stewards and had plans to ensure that the protest could happen safely even in the era of Covid-19.

Our right to protest is under attack.

The right to protest is under threat, a matter that should be of a major concern to all PCS members. Under the cover of a pandemic, the government are moving against our democratic rights – including the right to protest. It has already moved against workers taking industrial action. The threat is not just from heavy-handed policing on the ground, it is a systematic threat from the Tory government.

At the same time as protests were emerging following the murder of Sarah Everard, the government has been rushing through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. This passed its second reading on Tuesday 16^th March. This gives police sweeping powers to curtail protests and imposes a new criminal penalty for causing “serious annoyance.”

Earlier this month, the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Act received royal assent and became law. The CHIS Act, also known as the “Spycops Bill”, authorises agents of the state to commit crimes when undercover. At the same time as this new lawbreaker’s charter was being passed, the Undercover Policing Inquiry is continuing its investigation into the actions of 139 spies from different branches of the police.

These actions included launching sexual and romantic relationships with women involved in anti-racist, trade unionist, socialist and environmentalist causes. It included the fathering and abandonment of children as part of developing their cover. There is also evidence that police spies sought to actively instigate disorder, urging extreme and violent courses of action on those they met as part of their official duties.

A serious, campaigning trade union leadership would have sought to mobilise working-class people to oppose these measures. This is not just based on some abstract notion of civil liberties. It is based on the fact that workers will be the first to suffer from the ability of a Tory government to wield without hindrance the enormous and increasing power of the state.

Already, we have seen police use COVID rules to justify breaking up pickets. Before Christmas, Unite successfully legally challenged the police using these rules to disperse their picket in Leeds. Now their picket in Edinburgh has also been dispersed by police. The workers’ movement had to fight for the right to protest, strike and picket and we have to fight to keep these rights.

Mobilise a Trade Union response

Repeatedly during the pandemic, trade union leaders have shirked their responsibilities to tackle head-on attacks from the Tory government. In PCS, this can be seen from the decision by the NEC under Fran Heathcote, the current national President to throw out the union’s national pay claim for a 10% pay rise, the abandonment of any attempt to build a serious campaign and the decision instead to organise a petition in the hope of getting a debate in parliament. In the event this was attended by a bare handful of MPs.

Elsewhere, we’ve seen the decision by healthcare unions to call for a “slow clap” for the government, when they announced a 1% pay raise for swathes of the NHS, meaning a pay cut. This isn’t just an abdication of leadership; it is an attempt to demoralise workers by persuading them that nothing more can be done, because of the pandemic.

When a small group of nurses in Manchester organised a protest – socially distanced, with personal protective equipment – against the announcement that they’d receive a real-terms pay cut after literally risking their lives throughout the pandemic, they were fined by Greater Manchester Police and people were arrested at the scene. Such heavy-handed tactics are being driven by the government, to crack down on dissent.

While there is enormous pressure – including from worried people who might otherwise be supportive – not to demonstrate publicly, the reality is that the pandemic has not stopped the bosses from pursuing their agenda of job cuts, of wage cuts and of maximising profits at the expense of workers. It has not stopped the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, from seeking cuts to public services even while billions in contracts are being handed out to Tory donors.

Workers and working-class communities must respond, and the kind of political policing we have witnessed during the pandemic must be halted.

There is no end-date for the pandemic. Millions of people – billions around the world – are hoping that as the vaccine is rolled out, there can be a return to some sort of normality, but there are no guarantees, particularly as the current vaccines are less effective at some variants. The consequence of a return to normality is increased transmission – so to argue that we cannot protest during a pandemic is to put protests on hold indefinitely.

Meanwhile women’s refuges are facing cuts, rape crisis centres are facing cuts and many have already closed their books to new referrals because they have been overwhelmed. Trauma counselling services are facing cuts. Street lighting is being cut. The Crown Prosecution Service, which needs enormous investment to be able to reliably handle crimes like sexual assault and rape, is being cut. Protesting this is not optional.

With trained trade union stewards, social distancing, personal protective equipment, antibacterial substances and, crucially, with supportive, community-focused, democratically accountable policing, such protests would not add to the burden everyone faces in trying to get through the pandemic.

Mobilising in our workplaces to fight these cuts is not optional either. We need emergency services, social services and mental health services that are fit for purpose – and the only way to get these is for workers to fight, and for the communities that rely on these services to be mobilised behind the workers at the sharp end.

We need a campaigning leadership in PCS: join the Broad Left Network

The worst from amongst the trade union leaders have openly said that there is no possibility of building any serious campaigns to defend workers’ rights until after the pandemic is over. They hide behind the difficulties imposed by people working from home, they hide behind the restrictions on travel and public gatherings, and the shallow reach of social media – but, even if there wasn’t a pandemic, these leaders would find other excuses to hide behind.

The has been replicated in PCS. For the last year, the union’s National Executive Committee under Fran Heathcote has done absolutely nothing to advance the national campaign on pay. The result has been that bosses in HMRC have seen the opportunity to divide off members of the second biggest group in the union by offering them a small pay rise in exchange for the sale of certain terms and conditions.

Broad Left Network was formed by activists from across the union, in large groups and small groups, both in the public sector and the private sector, who simply could not sit back and allow the massive betrayal of members being perpetrated by the current leadership. Leadership is about building strong union branches, strong employer-based groups, about giving reps and union members the tools, they need to defend themselves and to fight for their rights.

If you want to be a part of this battle, please contact us and get involved in the fight.

BLN View 

The HMRC pay offer is the most significant issue to hit the department since it was formed in 2005. The deal itself promises a pay rise which whilst better than normal offers, also strips away a myriad of T&Cs and protections which are massively beneficial to members. The BLN utterly condemns HMRC’s behaviour – members have faced a decade of unnecessary real-terms wage cuts and whilst departmental rhetoric suggests that this offer has been put together to address this, what it really represents is the department trying to capitalise on the desperate financial position that many members find themselves in by launching an assault on members’ T&Cs. The BLN reiterates its calls for fully funded pay rises which wipe out the pay deficit suffered by members over the last decade, without any detriment to T&Cs. We call on all members to unite and reject this attack.

The Deal 

The deal itself covers a three year period from 2020/21 to 2022/23 and financially, offers an average 13% pay rise over that period. The pay award is weighted towards the lower paid grades, meaning clerical grades will benefit most – although it can’t be missed that many staff in these grades would have required minimum uplifts to keep them in line with National Minimum Wage legislation over this period, irrespective of the pay award. 

Were there no strings attached, the pay offer (whilst it may not meet the National Pay Claim), doubtless represent progress. Additionally, the introduction of home working policies, contractual flexi & reduced time to accrue annual leave will also be welcome to most members. What will be less welcome however is… 

• The removal of the MIS Agreement – an agreement which was won as a result of a successful industrial action ballot and ensures protections against management harassment for front-facing staff 
• The removal of one hour’s Reasonable Daily Travel – this protection exists specifically to ensure that when an office closes, staff cannot be forcibly redeployed to a new office if it takes more than an hour to travel to that new office – loss of this is particularly dangerous during the department’s UK-wide office closure programme  
• Mandatory Unpaid Overtime – an aspect of current contracts which will not change is the ability of the department to compel staff to work overtime – however it is rarely invoked due to being prohibitively expensive. The removal of paid overtime makes it significantly easier for the department to force staff to work regular mandatory overtime 
• Alternative Working Patterns (AWPs) – all staff on AWPs will have to reapply every five years – many staff have held these working patterns for decades and will now potentially find themselves being forced to work full-time hours, including evenings & weekends 
• The end of traditional (trad) contracts – these members are doubtless worse affected than any other group, particularly in front-line services. Again, these staff will suddenly lose aforementioned protections meaning it will no longer be prohibitively expensive for them to be compelled to work overtime, alongside suddenly losing all control they have over their working patterns and being forced onto standard rotations 
• Working week – the working week for staff in London will increase from 36 to 37 hours per week, which has a particular impact when considering the difficulties in travelling across London and other areas. Whilst this represents an increase of one hour working time, the increased travel time will be significantly higher for many London-based staff and seriously affect their work-life balance 
• Annual Leave – despite the increased accrual rate described above, members in Scotland previously had two bank holidays converted to annual leave, giving a maximum of 32 days’ leave a year. With a departmental-wide cap of 30 days, those members in Scotland will lose two days’ annual leave
• Protections – it is clear that many members with caring responsibilities and with protected characteristics will suffer most from these changes. An obvious example is how carers & parents will face major problems trying to balance their working life around their other obligations, given the lack of any specific notice periods and protections against shift changes & mandatory overtime. It is quite likely that this deal actually falls foul of indirect discrimination legislation and carriage of the deal would put PCS in the ridiculous position of having to take legal action against a deal that it recommended to members. 

Customer Services Group (CSG) 

The worst-hit members are clearly those who work in the department’s front-facing CSG. If we ask why (at a time where front-line services are so heavily understaffed to the extent that staff are continually redeployed from one helpline to the next in a desperate bid to meet demand) the CSG wants to stop traditional staff having control over their working patterns and force them onto evening & weekend working, to remove an agreement which stops telephony staff from being harassed, to introduce mandatory unpaid overtime and to remove minimum notice periods for working pattern changes – it is clear that despite PCS’ long-standing demand for HMRC to be fully staffed, the CSG’s approach is to squeeze every last drop out of their hard-pressed staff. There is no question that should these changes go through, they amount to CSG members becoming second-class citizens. 

National Campaign 

After the deal ends, there is no guarantee that the dept won’t again impose real-terms pay cuts, whilst the T&Cs lost can only be won back through a concerted & sustained industrial campaign. Members have been put in an extremely difficult position whereby they have to consider if they can personally afford to withstand the assault against their T&Cs by rejecting this deal – the BLN is here to support you in any way we can. 

The R&C GEC was split down the middle over the question of whether or not to recommend this deal to members, with 14 GEC members voting in favour and 11 voting against. We believe that many GEC members made decisions in good faith, however it is also clear that the earlier GEC decision to hold “in confidence” talks with the employer was a strategic mistake, with important detriments not coming to light until the morning that the GEC was required to make a decision. What is also clear is that this ambiguity has allowed the SV’s GEC Caucus to pursue an agenda of pushing this deal through at any cost – with members now being asked to vote on an offer which at the time of writing, still hasn’t been fully communicated to them. Members must know what they’re being asked to vote on and with the ballot due to commence on 8^th February, the full collective agreement needs to be published to members now. PCS should be arranging full members meetings where all information is available and in effect, should be holding a full membership consultation over this issue. Any ballot put to members whereby they are unable to fully scrutinise the deal they’re being offered is nothing more than a sham – and in the long term will be severely damaging to PCS.

Whilst it is appalling that the department would not use the money already present in their coffers to level up T&Cs and pay so their hard-working staff can enjoy a decent living wage, much of the blame for this mess also has to be attributed to the SV leadership within PCS, who have failed miserably to mount a proper National Pay Campaign. Given that in the last two years, the National Pay Campaign has amounted to nothing more than a parliamentary petition & failed industrial action ballot, it is clear that the SV’s national leadership (including their representatives on the R&C GEC) has been keen for this deal to go through as it will allow them climb down from the position they put to ADC 2019 – namely that the only way to progress the national campaign was via an aggregated Civil Service-wide ballot. Specifically, readers will recall that the SV desperately avoided any attempt to have a genuine debate about the best way forward and instead engaged in puerile ad hominem attacks against anyone who advocated a position contrary to theirs, claiming that those who spoke in favour of disaggregation were simply trying to score political points and in doing so were undermining the union. 

It should be pointed out that had ADC 2019 voted for disaggregation, the R&C Group (along with a number of other groups which successfully beat the ballot threshold), would have taken industrial action over pay two years ago and in doing so, would have been able to deliver a much better deal for its members than what is currently on offer. However unlike the SV, who are now so scared of conference exercising its sovereignty that its NEC members (which includes members of the R&C GEC) have scrapped the union’s constitution, the BLN fully supports the sovereignty of conference and accepted the outcome of the 2019 pay motions. Even given the limitations within the motions which were carried, the SV’s NEC caucus has still managed to do a spectacularly bad job of leading the union’s pay campaign. The SV recognises this and has calculated that it’s best way out of the situation is to use the HMRC pay deal to push for a series of departmental deals which offset pay versus T&Cs – and claim this as a resounding victory. We have already seen a great deal of opposition to this deal from many members in HMRC (particularly from those members on trad contracts) and whilst it is too early to say which way the ballot will go, it is clear that PCS stands to lose a hell of a lot of long-serving members – we cannot let this be repeated in group after group. 

BLN has consistently argued for a national pay campaign that actually listens to what members and grass roots activists want, building from the ground up rather than dictating to them from an office in Clapham. The SV has shown time and again that they are unfit to lead this union and their current position on how to take the national pay campaign forward is actively dangerous. Come the NEC elections, it is abundantly clear that the leadership needs to be replaced. The BLN urges R&C members to oppose this divisive pay offer and urges all PCS members to support BLN candidates in the forthcoming NEC elections. 

Thousands of people throughout the DVLA catchment area will have been
concerned at recent media reports of 535 COVID cases at the Agency. DVLA
has contested the reported figures, but then were forced to admit the figures
were right and apologise at the Transport Select Committee. They stated the
figure was from the whole period of the pandemic, but this masks that fact that
the vast bulk of the covid-19 cases have happened more recently in the
second wave. Also it remains the case that still making staff attend work in
person at a massive Government complex like this poses a risk at a time
when the infection rate is so high.
While many are working from home, most of the operational staff in the lower
grades are having to attend work because management say outdated IT
systems cannot be adapted for homeworking. Attending work involves using
buses in many cases.
As in any large office building, everyone knows how easily even ordinary
viruses like the cold can spread, but COVID puts a new and deadly slant on
an old problem. There is even more risk now with the new variants of Covid-
19 which spread even faster and the lack of proper ventilation in workplaces.
Every time staff speak this can help spread airborne particles of Covid-19
which can fill up indoor spaces and go further than 2 metres if fresh air is not
brought into the area. Call centre work poses are real risk of spreading covid-
19 as workers are speaking all day for their jobs.
The overriding ethos of DVLA is to maintain output and productivity and their
attitude towards everything else including health and safety is coloured by
this. Sick absence is punished in the same way as misconduct, with formal
warnings and dismissal.
The safety of workers cannot be entrusted to DVLA or any other Government
Department or Agency. PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka says he has
intervened with Ministers regarding DVLA, but more is needed. PCS must
give a lead now and take collective action to get workers out of an unsafe
environment.
Broad Left Network

The Broad Left Network is the Socialist Group inside PCS and our immediate
concerns are the employment and workplace issues that face members,
particularly health and safety at this time.
During this pandemic, we say:
 all staff should work from home unless they are key workers and their
work can only be delivered from the workplace. The definition of a key
worker must be agreed with the union, not just imposed by
management.
 Special leave with pay for all those who cannot work from home and
are not key workers.
 All sick leave related to Covid-19 to be written off including conditions
related to long-covid
 Additional compensation for extra expenses incurred through working
at home eg fuel bills.
The current Left Unity led National Executive Committee has failed to
organise members to respond collectively to achieve a national collective
agreement from the employer. Rather they have left branches like DVLA and
individual members to manage on their own. Their advice to members at the
outset of the pandemic reads “This Briefing provides general information
about statutory rights which are available to all employees. We are not
advising you to do or refrain from doing anything.” In other words, you are on
your own. This is not good enough!
From the start of the outbreak, members meetings should have been
called to make it clear that they have a legal right to refuse to work in an
unsafe environment.
Workers have the right not to go into a work area where they face serious and
imminent danger and should immediately proceed to a place of safety. The
covid-19 outbreak in the DVLA workplaces has clearly shown how dangerous
it is for staff to remain travelling to and working in these buildings with the
serious and imminent threat to public health which is posed by the incidence
and the spread of this severe acute respiratory syndrome Covid-19. Union
safety reps should assist individuals in expressing and reporting fears about
the serious and imminent danger they face and why they need to invoke their
rights to proceed to a place of safety and stay at home. There is protection
and legal rights under both Section 8 of The Management of Health and
Safety at Work Regulations 1999 and Section 44 of the Employment Rights
Act 1996.The union must throw its full weight behind members rights to be
safe, tackle DVLA management to negotiate what needs to be done to protect
the whole workforce from the risk of contracting Covid-19 and take a lead in
organising members to act collectively if management fail to respond.
Working together and with a lead from the top of PCS we can keep
members and the wider community safe during this pandemic.

ACTION NOT WORDS

Nominate Marion Lloyd for PCS National President

Nominate a fighting, democratic leadership

The Broad Left Network believes that the union needs to change if we are to mount an effective challenge to the attacks from the employer. We say:

• Members safety is paramount. Working from home must continue, exceptions only with union agreement. Mental health, well-being and stress levels addressed as a priority.
• Extend homeworking to improve work/life balance: not to close offices and save money.
• Build a national campaign to end the pay freeze, stop the attacks on our pensions and ensure a safe working environment both now and in the future.
• End privatisation, return out-sourced work to the public sector, protect jobs and conditions.
• Protect and improve lay democracy – not by an NEC stage managed 2021 conference – but by promoting an inclusive, tolerant and listening union which takes members with it.
• Protect the future of our union – not by mergers and restructures, but by developing and implementing a programme capable of building the membership and winning improvements. 

Please nominate the following candidates…

President: Marion Lloyd (BEIS)

Vice Presidents: Fiona Brittle (ScotGov), Sarah Brown (Met Police), Dave Semple (DWP)

NEC: Dave Barlett (MoJ), Rebecca Borland (Home Office), Fiona Brittle (ScotGov), Alex Brown (Health), Sarah Brown (Met Police), Kevin Denman (Met Police), Alan Dennis (DSG), Gill Foxton (DfE), Sue Francis (BEIS), Paul Guinnane (DfE), Rachel Heemskerk (DWP), Tom Lowry (DWP), Marion Lloyd (BEIS), Nick Parker (BEIS), Dave Rees (DWP), Rob Ritchie (Met Police), Dave Semple (DWP), Paul Suter (DWP), Saorsa-Amatheia Tweedale (DWP), Katrine Williams (DWP), Craig Worswick (DWP), Colin Young (DfE)

“This has been a year when we’ve had to fight for our lives and livelihoods. Regrettably, on too many occasions our leadership has failed us. If I am elected as President, I promise you the NEC will never be a party to parking and watering down our full pay claim as they did in 2020 giving the employer confidence and letting down members. The work that reps and members have taken to protect our safety is inspirational. It is this, that gives me the confidence that under a new leadership, with a fresh approach, PCS can regain its fighting culture and win for members.” Marion Lloyd.

What is the Broad Left Network?

We have supporters across all groups including the Commercial Sector and from every region and nation in the UK. We are socialists united by one purpose: reclaiming the union for members to build a serious campaign that reverses the erosion of union power and wins for members.

Re-building the Broad Left in PCS in 2021:

Collective struggle and socialist ideas are needed

As we write, Scotland and England have both returned to the national lockdown conditions that were first implemented in April 2020 and Wales has extended their lockdown. A lot of noise is being made about the new variant of Covid-19 and about the massive spike in hospital admissions justifying the new lockdown, but both had been a feature of the situation for several weeks while the government dithered. What changed?

400,000 workers in England and Wales took part in a national meeting on Zoom on January 3^rd. Called by the National Education Union (NEU), the meeting advised teachers across the UK on how to collectively and simultaneously exercise their right not to be put in serious and imminent danger by their employer. The NEU even provided a form letter for teachers to email in, all at the same time.

Faced with the prospect of a mass struggle by teachers over safety, the UK government finally called a national lockdown in England. In Scotland, where pressure amongst teachers has been gradually mounting, with individual EIS branches submitting notices of trade disputes to their corresponding local authorities, the Scottish Government acted scant hours ahead of the decision by the UK government covering England. Under similar pressure, the Welsh government also u-turned, delaying the re-opening of schools.

SAGE and other government bodies have been recording the huge spike in cases for some time. We knew about the variant before Christmas. What finally forced the governments to act was collective struggle by workers. In the case of the NEU it was collective struggle under the cover provided by Section 44 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, which grants workers the right to refuse to put themselves in serious and imminent danger.

In PCS, this has been the argument and position of the Broad Left Network since the beginning of the Coronavirus crisis. Supporters on the NEC have repeatedly put forward the view that Section 44 allows us the cover to struggle collectively – not just workplace by workplace, as our supporters across the union have been doing, but across entire areas of work, across departments and private sector contractors and across the civil service.

The current NEC majority, have not once but repeatedly tried to smack down this view. Every possible argument has been used, from denouncing us all as “posturing” to citing legal advice (which is never shared) that Section 44 can’t be used in this way. As the NEU have shown, there is no need to wait for a test case to prove the value of S.44 when workers are willing to fight, and teachers were clearly ready to fight.

The PCS NEC should build on this success with revised advice to Branches and Groups, backed up by national negotiations with the Cabinet Office and other employers. This is particularly important for the members in areas where there has been substantial attendance at workplaces throughout the pandemic. The government have walked across line after line drawn by the union’s National Executive and it’s “five tests” to ensure member safety. The government have repeatedly refused to come to agreements with the union. The NEC must learn from the successful NEU action and act now.

Unfolding economic and social catastrophe: they say cut back, we say fight back

Public services, including housing and the NHS, have faced constant attacks through austerity since the crisis of 2007-8. While the UK government are handing out contracts to the private sector, resulting in a profits bonanza for the bosses, nowhere close to enough is being done to dramatically improve NHS staffing levels, to fill the tens of thousands of jobs that remain unfilled even by the government’s own estimates. The most obvious lever for this is a serious pay rise, to correct for years of underinvestment.

Local authorities have endured punishing cuts to the block grant they are paid either by Westminster or the devolved nations, yet even while they oversee areas crucial to a comprehensive Covid-19 response, such as homelessness, adult social care and social housing, they are being faced with further cuts. Some councils had sought to make investments in airports and property, to reduce the impact of cuts, but of course they have now been hit too. Thousands of jobs are threatened, and years of pay cuts loom.

Civil servants and their privatised brothers and sisters face exactly the same thing. Job cuts have already been announced in areas as diverse as the British Council and the Tate London. Swingeing pay cuts are being imposed on workers in the Commonwealth and War Graves Commission. Nationally, the Chancellor has already announced a general 1-year pay freeze, and everything we know so far suggests this is going to last for three years, one year longer than George Osborne’s 2-year freeze of 2010-12. Austerity is back with a vengeance.

While some departments, notably the Department for Work and Pensions and HMRC, have added thousands of jobs to cover the additional work involved in maintaining a benefit system that’s now supporting double the previous number of workers, there’s already a clear indication that this is temporary. Some staff have been brought in as agency staff, others as fixed term contracts. The writing is already on the wall, unless there is a concerted battle to prevent the further running down of, and privatisation of, chunks of public services.

There is a clear, objective basis for united industrial action on the question of pay, jobs and services – and, lest we forget, public sector pensions are still a burning issue. No doubt the Tories, the media and the right-wing leaders of the labour movement will chastise us for daring to demand pay rises, full restoration of our pension rights and job security at a time when private sector workers are being hammered by the capitalists, who are growing fat off billions in tax cuts in the last ten years and further billions in private sector contracts handed out with zero accountability by the Johnson government.

Regardless, a struggle must be built – and we must work to connect it to the same battles that are being fought in the private sector. It takes bosses the first few days of a year to earn as much as their employees earn in a whole year. Low pay, job insecurity and poor treatment of workers are endemic problems across the private sector. It is possible to get the other trade unions lined up behind us, however.

By organising a resolute response and mobilising teachers decisively, the NEU was able to force the hand of the other unions, both for teachers and for support staff. Even GMB, although still hiding behind legal advice that use of S.44 can’t be collective, was forced to give advice to members that collectivised their struggle in all but name. This is one model of how united struggle can be built.

The response of the NEC majority has been to launch the PCS petition. This was simply decreed by the NEC, in place of any kind of serious campaign on pay. The absence of any campaign was foreshadowed by the lead negotiators on behalf of the union throwing the pay demands agreed by Conference into the trash even before they met with Ministers. The NEC also issued a public declaration that the union couldn’t run a ballot during Covid-19. Rather than the 10% rise, General Secretary Mark Serwotka dangled the prospect of the union agreeing to “an above inflation pay rise” and, seeing a way to neutralise such a half-hearted trade union leader, this is exactly what the Tories offered. The 2020 pay rise was marginally above the Government’s preferred measure of inflation.

So, with a decision by the government that was seen by many members as at least giving them something, it isn’t much of a surprise that the union’s activists were facing a totally different direction when the NEC ordered the pay petition launched. It wasn’t until resource-intensive phone-banking and texting was employed that the number of signatures finally crossed 100,000, assisted at the last minute by the Tory decision to announce a year long pay freeze across swathes of the public sector.

The result? For an hour and twenty-one minutes, a grand total of 17 MPs debated civil service and keyworker pay. Two of the MPs were already amongst PCS’ strongest supporters in Parliament. This is eloquent testimony to the impact of the union’s pay campaign: even the trade unions of a century ago, whose tactics have been described as “humble petition”, were able to make a much larger impact than the PCS NEC.

For a member-led, fighting, democratic union with socialist policies

The PCS NEC majority cancelled the union’s elections in 2020, despite the fact that these postal ballots could be carried out safely. Other unions which also initially suspended their own elections have now proceeded to hold these elections.

The NEC have now removed the right of branches to determine the content and running order of the union’s Annual Delegate Conference. The new restrictions imposed by the NEC will allow them to manipulate the agenda. Even if they aren’t yet confident enough to try throwing out motions on topics like trans rights and the union’s political strategy, they will feel tempted to bury them lower down the agenda. Meanwhile, they will be able to control debate on the union’s national campaigns on pay and other matters.

Their defence, already heard on social media, is that it is not the NEC that will make these decisions but the National Standing Orders Committee. However the NEC have decided to restrict motions to one per branch in each of 5 sections determined by the NEC. And there seems to be no provision for reference back. Both these restrictions should be removed. Branches should be permitted to submit motions as normal, the SOC should construct the agenda, and Conference should have the usual reference back procedures. There should be no requirement to ask to speak in advance. This simply enables the President to hide from delegates who she is not calling in to speak. If delegates are required to state their name, gender, Group and Branch on their profile, it is actually easier at an online event to get a good balance of speakers.

PCS activists also need to prepare to resist proposals to reduce the number of Full Time Officers at work supporting our members and the proposals to restructure branches and the union’s employer groups, which form the backbone of how negotiations are handled and how members hold their elected negotiators to account. The PCS Revenue and Customs Group have already told the NEC that they oppose breaking up their branches into multi-employer branches, and that they want to maintain the current structure of their branches and their Group. The NEC consultation has ended, but BLN activists should be alerting other active members to this threat, and gearing up to oppose any motions at national conference that try to implement this.

There is much to do in 2021 and this is what will be debated by the Broad Left Network Conference that meets on 16^th January this year. We call on you to join us.

BLN report of the NEC of 10.12.20

The NEC met on 10^th December. Key issues such as Covid-19, the union’s national campaign, the national union’s finances and arrangements for Conference 2021 were considered.

Covid-19 and workplace testing

The report from the General Secretary had no recommendations attached to it, but it laid out the union’s negotiating position in terms of testing in the workplace. BLN supporters on the NEC put forward a detailed motion on workplace testing which asked the negotiators to link discussions on workplace testing back to the previously sought collective agreement covering the response of Civil Service departments and related areas to the pandemic, including protecting people’s right to work from home.

Testing using the proposed lateral flow tests is deemed by medical professionals to only 50% accurate. With a high degree of training this can rise to 85% but the government has made clear it’s intention is to plan for workplace testing where individuals carry out their own test, overseen by other civil servants in their workplace who are trained by watching a video. Medical professionals also stress that the tests need to be repeated, to be effective in keeping a workplace secure from Covid-19, and this is not part of the government plans.

A staggering amount of money could very quickly be spent on this workplace testing, and similar on the mass testing being delivered in towns – an amount equivalent to 70% of the NHS budget has been mooted, with a staggering amount being siphoned off by private companies producing the tests. So making sure that if there is a testing regime, it’s about keeping people safe and not about private sector profiteering is essential. The motion put forward by BLN supporters pressed this point; this would have ramifications, should the government concede implementation of testing overseen by medics, instead of the current Do-It-Yourself plan. Despite all of this, the NEC majority voted against our motion.

Negotiators have indicated that they are pressing for concrete guarantees for the Cabinet Office that any staff on privatised government contracts should be mandatorily paid should they test positive for Covid-19. There have been examples where companies have refused to pay staff when they have to self-isolate, despite the Cabinet Office offering contractual relief, i.e. a subsidy that would cover the wages for those staff sent home. Negotiators are seeking a clear commitment from these private companies. In DWP for example, where testing may be trialled, this means G4S and Mitie.

BLN supporters on the NEC obviously agree with this, but our concern is that testing is not going to be effective – it has been trialled in parts of DWP, such as Blackpool, with little to no result on the model the government is pursuing. The best way to keep civil servants and contract staff safe remains to keep them at home where possible, to ensure social distancing, to allow for flexible working to ensure that people don’t have to travel during rush hour and for the implementation of full union and Health and Safety oversight of all working arrangements.

No decision has been taken on whether or not to endorse workplace testing and negotiations continue. This will happen in January.

National campaign

As this NEC meeting occurred just weeks after the union’s pay petition passing the 100,000 mark, NEC members were treated to the unedifying spectacle of much chest thumping about how wonderful this was, how much work it had entailed, how much it had helped the union build the pay campaign and so on. The proposal from the leadership was to have a Facebook event to advertise the parliamentary debate triggered by the passing of 100,000 signatures.

The General Secretary also proposed launching a judicial challenge to the proposed changes to the Civil Service Compensation scheme and to name now the three pay dates in January, February and March as payday protests. All other decisions were relegated to January, at which point the senior officers of the NEC pledged to come back with a detailed strategy on building the pay campaign. BLN supporters pointed out that we’ve been asking for this for months. A nettled Serwotka replied by saying he wasn’t proposing this because BLN had asked for it but because HMRC pay discussions had reached a certain stage.

BLN supporters sought to push the NEC leadership in terms of how we engage with other trade unions. The General Secretary reported back discussions at the Public Sector Liaison Group and the TUC General Council that poured ice cold water on the notion of any positive response from the other trade unions, in his view. The most that seemed to be on offer was a “mass lobby” of Parliament near the time of the government’s Spring Financial Statement. It’s clear that a small turnout as this will be used as justification by other unions to waver on any commitment to a serious pay campaign.

Our view was that simply attending PSLG or the TUC General Council was not sufficient. Trades councils have already been organising pay demonstrations, including at the weekend just past. We should issue guidance to branches to support engaging with trades councils and for branches affiliated to trades councils to discuss and propose joint working at a local level on pay. At a national level, before we simply name days of protest, we should at least write to individual unions and the TUC to seek joint protests – this may mean different dates to our own members’ pay days.

Rather than putting all of the decisions off until January, BLN supporters put forth a call to test out the other trade unions on a joint consultative ballot, with the purpose of focusing campaign activity in the early part of the year around this. This could be supplemented with a Special Delegate Conference on pay, to mobilise branches and seek branch approval of any NEC programme. We continue to oppose the insistence on a single-issue pay campaign that doesn’t take in any other issue and where the method of balloting is rigid and does not take into account the best methods of beating the Tory anti-strike ballot threshold.

NEC takes aim at the sovereignty of Annual Delegate Conference

Following a proposal from the General Secretary, the NEC has agreed to overturn the existing standing orders of Annual Delegate Conference. The NEC have decided that, given the likelihood of a virtual Conference in 2021, there will be four sessions at this Conference, with the topics of three of these being decided by the NEC.

Branches will only be allowed to submit four motions – three on the topics pre-determined by the NEC and one on any other item. The topics that come up in the fourth section, in which branches can submit one motion, will be decided by the National Standing Orders Committee, with no right for branches to appeal to the Conference itself against the decision of NSOC.

Broad Left Network supporters believe it would be perfectly possible to run a Conference where branches can submit as many motions as they like, as normal, with sections and the running order of motions within sections being decided by NSOC as usual, but with branches retaining the right to appeal to Conference if they disagree with the decision.

Ordinarily, when the deadline for motions passes, the National Standing Orders Committee meets to consider what has been sent in by branches, to allocate these to categories, to decide what order those categories should be heard and to decide what order motions should be heard within categories. They also decide if certain motions shouldn’t be heard or if passing one motion causes another motion later on the agenda to fail.

This part of the process would be truncated. The NEC would decide, rather than NSOC or the weight and number of branch motions submitted, what the agenda is for three-quarters of the Conference.

Again, ordinarily, branches can submit “reference backs” disagreeing with any decision of the National Standing Orders Committee. The NSOC hears these and makes a decision, but the final agenda is then put to the very first session of Annual Delegate Conference. Branches which still do not agree with the decision of NSOC have the right to speak against Conference adopting the proposed running order and in favour of specific changes to the agenda.

This part of the process will be eliminated. There will be no ability for Conference to determine its own agenda; Standing Orders will not be subject to amendments, they will be imposed.

BLN supporters flatly opposed this; we supported some Independent Left amendments which marginally improved the position outlined in Serwotka’s paper, but we also put up our own motion completely reversing Serwotka’s approach. The General Secretary has hung his hat on the idea that there will be a much higher turnout at this Conference than previous conferences, and there will be a more diverse group of speakers – on that basis he has called his proposals the basis for a Conference which is even more democratic than the one held annually in Brighton.

We fundamentally disagree. None of the work around building turnout needs to be sacrificed if our approach was adopted. Branches could still submit applications to speak on motions in advance, the National President could still have these to hand well in advance, and reference backs with a designated speaker could also be submitted well in advance.

If Conference chose to move a specific item up the agenda, or admitted it for debate against the recommendation of the National Standing Orders Committee, then with this preparation it would be readily apparent to the National President, as Chair of the Conference, and would be clear to all those listening what order motions would be heard in – and this could even be updated on the PCS website in real time to ensure every delegate was up to date. Mechanisms for voting are already going to be in place for any Delegate Conference held remotely anyway, so Conference could have its say.

Other issues

BLN supporters have asked some questions about the recent slew of promotions amongst PCS full time staff despite the leadership constantly banging the drum about saving money. We have also raised questions about where we are on the many legal cases that the union was supposed to be launching because of the unlawful removal of members’ contractual rights to pay their union subs by direct debit. The case against DWP resulted in a £3 million pay out to the union. The case relating to the Home Office has gone to the High Court but no further information was available.

Some steps were taken by the NEC to implement conference policy in respect of creating a Private Sector Association, expanding the current Commercial Sector Association to include employers beyond the main eight private sector companies where we’ve previously had members, and on creating a Public Sector group (PSg) conference. A motion proposed by BLN supporters on the Spycops scandal was guillotined from the agenda due to time, although promises were made that it will be brought back in January.

Since June of 2020, the union’s National Executive Committee (NEC) has been at work on what they refer to as the “strategic options” for the future of PCS. Over the last month or so, senior officers of the NEC, including the President and General Secretary, have been attending meetings across the union to lecture reps about these “strategic options” and to encourage reps to complete the consultation document that was published on 20^th October.

All of this has come out of several papers presented to the NEC by the General Secretary which laid out the failure of the union to achieve our 2020 recruitment target and the continued slide in membership of the union. The papers also covered the percentage of the money collected by the union spent on staff costs within the union, which the GS repeatedly asserted was too high. The GS asserted that as a result of this, the only two options open to the union going forward would be a merger or some kind of structural change.

Posed in this way, the NEC approach has been utterly dishonest. No analysis has been completed to show why the union has not achieved its 2020 recruitment target. The only arguments put forward by the NEC, such as a reduction in size of the biggest government departments, have proven to be untrue. In fact, since 2016 the Civil Service has increased by 28,000 jobs. Some big departments have shrunk, but other big departments have grown.

Having undertaken a grand total of zero analysis, the NEC has jumped straight to trying to interfere with the Group structures of the union. This is made clear by the first, most leading question asked in the NEC’s consultation document. “How can our group structures change to improve bargaining outcomes in the context of a reducing staff resource?” Are group structures holding us back somehow? The NEC has been unable to say.

“Reducing staff resource”, as posed in that question, is based on the General Secretary’s assertion – without evidence – that if we cut staffing costs, we will have money to spare to spend on campaigning. The reality is that, especially in small departments or disparate bargaining areas, Full Time Officers play a key role in supporting lay reps to run the union, including by bargaining with and winning concessions from the employers.

If such resource is reduced, as is assumed by the NEC consultation, then how will this work get done? This isn’t just about having Full Time Officer support for lay reps attending meetings with the employer, it also covers everything from designing, producing and printing leaflets to ensuring the union’s activities get good press coverage to supporting lay reps and members can use their political weight in through lobbying MPs, MSPs etc.

No one disagrees that we want more money to spend on campaigning, more money to put into the union’s strike funds, more money to make us as visible in and out of the workplace as it is possible to be. Getting more money is dependent upon improving our ability to recruit new members and improving our ability to retain old ones. This means we need to understand why we have not been able to do this in sufficient numbers.

None of the questions asked in the NEC’s consultation document are aimed at doing that. All of the questions asked are leading questions. The build assumptions into each question that have no evidence to support them – always the focus is on “structural change”, rather than drilling right down to the basics of trade unionism in the workplace. Are we asking people to join? Why are people not joining? Why do people leave?

The Broad Left Network has a range of political charges to lay at the door of the NEC, that we believe have had an impact on the shrinking size of the union. The NEC’s dogmatic insistence since 2018 on an aggregated single-issue ballot on pay in the Civil Service has all but paralysed the union’s national campaign. This policy was crowbarred through Conference with a tiny majority that depended on areas not covered by the pay dispute.

Since the advent of the Coronavirus pandemic in early 2020, the lacking leadership of the NEC has been very much in evidence. First came the decision that the union was not able to ballot because of the pandemic. Then came the decision to water down the union’s 10% pay claim at a time when the government was totally dependent upon public sector workers. Then came the total lack of a national strategy to protect the health and safety of those workers still in the workplace.

On top of this was the shameful decision of the NEC not to mobilise in support of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the UK, despite tens of thousands of young people – often young workers! – coming out on to the streets, a chance to show them that trade unions do have relevance and are very important. Underneath the immediate criticism that the NEC has lost its way, and is running the union into the sand, are also more far reaching questions which we think need to be asked.

One of the early achievements of a left-led NEC, in the early and mid-2000s, was the ability to put union organising on a systematic footing while ensuring all the work carried out in the name of organising was accountable to the union’s members and elected reps. It is this achievement that has been gradually eroded over time, as PCS Left Unity has degenerated further and further from its one-time ideals of a democratic, fighting union.

Are we doing the basics of organising like mapping workplaces, identifying who the members are, who the non-members are, identifying why the non-members haven’t joined, developing strategies to recruit them – like the classic tactic of identifying who their friends in the workplace are and getting the friends to ask them? Similarly, when reps meet with the employer, are we reporting this back to members? Are we ensuring members get a say?

These points are not being raised as a tick-list which will miraculously restore the union to 300,000 members if we follow them in every workplace – but it would be a start. It would also lead to serious questions about why these things aren’t happening quite so regularly, despite the official figures showing that only 60% of facility time is used in the civil service. What are the barriers to using union time and how do we smash through them?

Working out where the difficulties are and putting in place concrete plans to eliminate those difficulties is what an NEC determined to build a fighting PCS would do – not this rigged consultation chock full of leading questions. The speed of the NEC in carrying out this consultation, allegedly to get input from members and reps, contrasts unfavourably with the years it has taken the NEC to carry out the express will of members and reps when it comes to the election of the union’s senior management posts and making them accountable!

Building a union is a serious task. It requires genuine analysis, which is not what the current NEC majority offer. The starting point must be, why did we not grow, what are the barriers, what can we do better and how can we best support our reps and members in each workplace. The NEC have skipped this step and their biased consultation, which attempts to prefigure the answers through leading questions, is likely to add to the confusion.

It may be that through such detailed analysis, it becomes clear that reps and members in certain areas believe that the union’s structures in their area pose problems – but the solutions will be specific solutions, given how varied the union’s structures are, with DWP at one extreme and groups such as BEIS or Defence Sector at the other. As any serious-minded rep would be, BLN supporters are open to such discussions.

What we oppose fervently is the NEC’s attempt to skip crucial steps in determining how we can correct the course of the union, in favour of their preferred “solutions” which won’t actually address the key issue of recruiting and keeping members.

Further, we oppose the attempt by the NEC majority to suggest that anyone who opposes their view is suggesting we sit on our hands, or that we don’t take the future of the union seriously. Unfortunately, such political sectarianism has become the hallmark of PCS Left Unity and their NEC majority. We encourage all reps to complete the consultation, to reject the leading elements of each question and to give their honest appraisal of what will help to build participation in the union.

After the long 2-year delay and despite the overwhelming support in the majority of the responses in the consultation, begun in 2018, for meaningful reforms and improvements to the process in The Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA), the Government has disgracefully only just published the findings and only put forward a few limited reforms to: –

·       Place the whole procedure online

·       Reduce the fee from £140 to a “nominal amount”.

·       Open at least three new gender clinics this year in order to reduce waiting lists.

The Government is continuing to delay making any further changes and asked for further submissions to a select committee by 27th November https://committees.parliament.uk/call-for-evidence/291/reform-of-the-gender-recognition-act?fbclid=IwAR0debLit1mfJOcenQ9tojzYJYVYLEVzHgVO9tAW6US48VzzNjZQYP_A8Kk

PCS policy is very clear that we need to be pushing for reforms to the GRA to be implemented without delay and campaigning for this. Broad Left Network supporters have been proactive in supporting this campaigning. Our supporters raised this key issue again at the last PCS NEC and asserted that it was vital that the union responds to this further consultation.

We are encouraging branches to help keep the pressure on the Government to get improvements to the Gender Recognition Act and support our trans and non-binary members and the wider community. Please send in responses to the consultation on the link above by Friday 27^th November.

Here is the response that we will be submitting to the questions.

The Government’s response to the GRA consultation:

• Will the Government’s proposed changes meet its aim of making the process “kinder and more straight forward”?

The proposed changes are very limited in comparison to the scope of the consultation in 2018 and there needs to be much more done to improve equality and support for trans people. As well as fully improving the GRA process the context in society also needs to be addressed. Action needs to be taken to stop cuts to services, stop job losses and address low pay in society which combined with continuing discrimination can impact detrimentally even further on trans and non-binary people.

The government has been stating that they are committed to providing an extra 3 clinics for a long time which have not come to fruition. Is this promise of 3 extra clinics a repeat of the same commitment or a further expansion of services?

The process remains extremely medicalised and a major barrier to the acquisition of a GRC is the cost of all the psychological and surgical reports. The proposed changes do nothing to address this.

• Should a fee for obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate be removed or retained? Are there other financial burdens on applicants that could be removed or retained?

The fee should be removed completely.

As well as fully removing the fee for obtaining the GRC the whole process needs to be reformed including removing the medicalised aspects of the process. Individuals incur huge costs to pay for the psychological and medical reports to provide evidence for the process. A straightforward self-identification process would remove these additional costs too.

• Should the requirement for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria be removed?

Yes – gender identity should not be subject to medical diagnosis. It should be done as a result of an individual’s sense of gender identity. Medicalising the whole process violates the individual’s human rights. It delays the process and makes it more difficult, dehumanising, and bureaucratic. Amnesty International has highlighted that the medicalisation of what is gender identity is a violation of human rights and is handled in an intrusive and unhelpful way that is traumatic for many trans people. The medical profession should be there to assist and support people who need them not be put in place as an obstacle to establishing gender identity which puts many people off. This is nothing but gatekeeping.

• Should there be changes to the requirement for individuals to have lived in their acquired gender for at least two years?

Yes – it should be up to the individual rather than a requirement. Some individuals find it useful to get to see what living and facing discrimination is like and that they can withstand the transphobia in society as a first step.

It would be better to have a simple administrative process based on self-determination of gender identity without any medicalisation of the process or having to prove that you are trans enough to deserve the gender recognition. It is important to have the services in place and properly resourced to tackle discrimination and support trans people.

• What is your view of the statutory declaration and should any changes have been made to it?

The statutory declaration can remain as long as there is the ability to detransition if that should become necessary. Other countries which have adopted self-declaration have successfully done so through statutory declarations, that are for life, but can be reversed. A system along these lines should be adopted in the UK

• Does the spousal consent provision in the Act need reforming? If so, how? If it needs reforming or removal, is anything else needed to protect any rights of the spouse or civil partner?

Spousal consent provision should be removed from the GRA. Gender identity is an individual’s decision and they should have the right to make this decision without the need for spousal permission. No-one is the property of their spouse and withholding permission could be a means to continue domestic abuse and control over a partner. There should be provision for whatever partnership has been entered into prior to change of gender identity to continue after the change – so for the marriage or the civil partnership to continue to remain valid.

This is the only instance in English and Welsh law that someone’s legal rights are handed over to someone else.

• Should the age limit at which people can apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) be lowered?

Yes. There should be no lower limit. Once a person under 16 can understand the consequences and are Gillick competent they should be able to apply for a GRC if they know themselves to be trans. This should be coupled with fully resourced support being available for children to explore their gender identity.

• What impact will these proposed changes have on those people applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate, and on trans people more generally?

Very little.

• What else should the Government have included in its proposals, if anything?

Remove the invasive and lengthy process of acquiring medical evidence to support a change in legal identity.

Simplify and streamline the whole process – if this is to be an online process there also needs alternative channels to apply for those for whom online is a barrier.

Change the process so that it is centred around self-identification and stop the medicalisation of the process.

Remove the 2-year living in the acquired gender requirement. This is often accompanied with the pressure to conform to a discriminatory, rigid gender stereotyping of what men or women are supposed to be, rather than the reality of how people are.

Remove spousal consent.

Legal recognition for non-binary and gender fluid people

What is vital to back reforms of the GRA is also fully resourcing public services that are needed in our communities so that trans people can access the services they need as part of a comprehensive funding of public services to meet everyone’s needs including all those fleeing violence and all equality groups. There must be no pitting of different equality groups competing against each other trying to get vital public services delivered in our communities.

• Does the Scottish Government’s proposed Bill offer a more suitable alternative to reforming the Gender Recognition Act 2004? 

The Draft Scottish Bill is an improvement but we would want all the issues outlined above to be addressed in the reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004.

 Wider issues concerning transgender equality and current legislation:

• Why is the number of people applying for GRCs so low compared to the number of people identifying as transgender?

The consultation begun in 2018 was supposed to be about making the gender recognition process more straightforward and less onerous but the proposed changes do extremely little. It is not surprising that so many trans people baulk at the hurdles in the act. It is imperative that the process to obtain gender recognition certificate is vastly improved and simplified so that the numbers reflect the numbers of people who identify as transgender in society.

Additionally, there is no scope for non-binary or gender fluid people to be recognised in the GRA. Such individuals form a large section of the trans community and are individuals who may want to change their birth certificate but the binary gender definition in the GRA does not help them. This means they don’t apply as the whole process is irrelevant to their gender identity.

• Are there challenges in the way the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Equality Act 2010 interact? For example, in terms of the different language and terminology used across both pieces of legislation.

We would not want to see any improvements to trans rights in the GRA being used to undermine the current provision in the Equality Act. A great deal of misinformation has been spread about the GRA proposed improvements introducing a raft of changes when on paper the rights and protections already exist from when the Equality Act was introduced in 2010. It introduced improved transgender rights and made it clear that discrimination applies from the point at which the person proposes to undergo the process to reassign their sexual characteristics. So, for example, women specific services should be offered from the point that the trans woman decides to live as her affirmed gender. Women’s Aid in Scotland and most other organisations already have inclusive services open to all women fleeing violence – this includes trans women who self-identify. Improvements to the GRA will not affect this. There are robust screening processes in place in refuges to ensure that perpetrators of violence are not able to enter refuges or find out information about the women residents, whether they are male or female. The screening process also assesses risk to ensure the safety of all, so women who may be a risk to others or themselves may be referred to separate support services.

• Are the provisions in the Equality Act for the provision of single-sex and separate-sex spaces and facilities in some circumstances clear and useable for service providers and service users? If not, is reform or further guidance needed?

Improvements to the GRA and accessing the gender recognition process should not be used as a way of undermining the trans rights in the Equality Act. The provisions of the Equality Act should remain and there already cannot be a blanket ban on excluding trans women from women only services. It is good practice to make clear that the women specific services are provided on an inclusive basis and open to all women. There should only be very exceptional circumstances where anyone is excluded from services. For example, any woman for whom shared refuge accommodation is not suitable as they could be a danger to themselves or to others should still have access to support and alternative provision to suit their needs. This should be true whether they are a trans or cis woman. Where there are exceptional circumstances this should only be on clear detriment to others and even then, the provider of the services would need to demonstrate that they could not adjust their services to avoid discrimination. Measures could include increasing the level of privacy in changing facilities for example which would be beneficial to all women using these services.

We would not accept that disabled women should be excluded from services and would expect service providers to make adjustments. Similarly, adjustments should be made to avoid any discrimination under the Equality Act for all women which includes trans women.

It is only in very restricted circumstances that the Equality Act allows for treating someone differently due to gender reassignment. Apart from these very exceptional circumstances which are covered in the Equality Act trans women should be able to apply for jobs in women only services. The improvements we want to see to the GRA should not affect this.

• Does the Equality Act adequately protect trans people? If not, what reforms, if any, are needed

We would not want to see changes to the Equality Act that undermine the clear rights for trans people. We are concerned that the consultation about the reform of the GRA and making the process more straightforward and easier for trans people is being distorted into threatening the rights for trans people that already exist.

The Equality Act does need to be improved to include non-binary and gender-fluid as protected characteristics. But this must not be done at the expense of reducing rights for trans people overall.

As well as improving equality rights the real issue is the lack of resources for our services, which increases the tendency for competing priorities rather than addressing all the needs in our communities. Fully funding our services to meet the needs of all in our communities should be prioritised so that equality rights can actually be implemented.

All equality legislation also needs to be backed up with inclusive awareness raising and improving understanding. The toxicity of the debate raised by those opposed to reforms to the GRA has brought this into sharp focus and undermined progress that has been made on trans rights. As well as the points made above this has also included denying the rights of trans men to exist and reducing the debate to one of sexuality rather than reality that these rights are about gender identity.

• What issues do trans people have in accessing support services, including health and social care services, domestic violence and sexual violence services?

See foregoing answers. In addition:

Progressive legal changes are not enough. Sufficient resources are also vital. Huge cuts in public services are impacting on the ability of everyone to access the services that they need – this is especially the case for groups with protected characteristics to access the info and support that they need.

Clearly in a society rife with discrimination against trans people then accessing public services, going to court, applying for jobs and benefits can be full of potential to exacerbate the discrimination. Whilst this discrimination exists then we need to make sure that the protection from discrimination for trans people remains robust and keeps up to date with the changes in services

• Are legal reforms needed to better support the rights of gender-fluid and non-binary people? If so, how?

We should support the right for people to identify as non-binary and gender-fluid. In a society that is so dominated by gender stereotyping then it is understandable that individuals reject this way that people are judged and pigeon-holed according to these simplistic male and female stereotypes. Legal reforms are needed to address the rigid binary categorisation of gender identity. There should be supportive approach for non-binary individuals to access services especially if they have suffered gender-based violence. Specifically the EA2010 needs reforming to explicitly include non-binary identities; passport gender markers need removing altogether or provision needs to be made for a non-binary option; a similar change needs to be made for driving licenses and all other legal documentations which carry a gender marker or title ; and a provision for a non-binary change to a birth certificate needs to be included in reform of the GRA.

HMRC PAY TALKS – NEED TO KEEP MEMBERS INFORMED

The union’s 10% pay claim for 2020 is well deserved and a recognition of how far the value of our pay has fallen.

HMRC management’s business case for pay linked to contract changes has been agreed by the Treasury. This was announced to great fanfare on 27th July. Management said that it would take a few weeks to finalise talks with unions. In fact it appears talks could go on until end of March 2021. It would seem the official side is trying to place responsibility for this with Unions.

HMRC’s plans involve a multi-year above inflation pay rise, but there will be strings attached. HMRC is looking to change (worsen) terms and conditions. The details of these changes still haven’t been made public, but we can be sure that HMRC will want to retain ‘flexibility’ provided to it by 5/7 contracts .In accordance with the Treasury pay remit, no new money will be made available to fund the pay rise, so there may be more drastic changes being considered.

HMRC will be asking members to sell their terms and conditions to fund their own pay increase – this isn’t a pay rise. Over the last decade members have seen real terms pay cuts while paying more for their pension. In order to recover the position in pay, members shouldn’t be expected to accept detrimental changes to terms and conditions.

Contractual changes can’t simply be made by the employer and there are a limited number of ways to achieve them. Apparently HMRC’s preferred approach is to agree the changes with the recognised trade unions – PCS and ARC. If the changes are agreed by the unions then they will apply to all staff.

Talks have now begun on a ‘without prejudice basis’. This is a polite way of saying that the talks take place behind closed doors, with only the negotiators knowing what’s being discussed. It seems that the discussions on pay and on terms and conditions are being conducted separately – in line with PCS Group Conference policy that the two subjects are to be kept separate.

Lessons to be learned

HMRC is just the latest in a number of departments to look at contractual changes to fund additional pay . An early example was the DWP with their ‘Employee Deal’ in 2016. Millions of pounds of new Treasury money were put into a pay rise that saw some staff get a 21.5% rise over 4 years whilst others, opting out, got 0.25% for each year of the 4 year deal. Regardless of whether one believes ED was the right thing to do or not, and there are varying views in the BLN, the prospects for a serious campaign to win further concessions from DWP were damaged by the Group’s pay negotiators conducting the negotiations behind closed doors and then presenting the DWP Group Executive Committee with a take-it-or-leave-it deal. The result was that despite some improvements, a two-tier workforce has persisted in DWP, and some workers are now even further behind those doing the same job when it comes to pay.

Our PCS negotiators must resist the pressure of talks behind closed doors, designed to exclude members from the process, so the pressure of tens of thousands of members can’t be mobilised during negotiations. This makes it difficult to consult with members and to organise a response when the final terms of a deal are on the table; any campaign has to begin from a standing start. What is dangerous for our union is when the employer’s desire to reduce member participation becomes mirrored in the attitudes of the union’s leadership, as with the national union’s supposed pay campaign. This has degenerated to the point that member participation amounts to signing and sharing a petition. This can hardly be described as a national campaign to fight for a decent pay rise.

A pay and contract package was also offered in the MOD. Circumstances there were different in that all five recognised trade unions needed to agree the package for it to be implemented. By the time the PCS Group Executive considered the package it had already been rejected by one union. The PCS Group Executive rejected the offer without going to the members. Although the GEC decision was correct, the way it was done was used by the employer to turn members against the union and a significant number of members left PCS.

There is a clear lesson here that even if the R&C Group Executive think members should reject HMRC’s offer, members must be kept involved at every stage, so they understand why the deal on offer is a bad one and reject it in a ballot.

The importance of involving members is just as clear from the experience of the MOJ group. Again there was a pay and contract offer and it was put to members. Over 74% of members took part in the ballot, with 93% voting against the offer. This approach not only engaged existing PCS members, it also increased membership in the MOJ group by 10%.

Organise now

The MOJ Group experience shows what could be accomplished in the R&C Group. Yet recruitment and engagement with members doesn’t simply materialise because we ask for it – these things must be sought through GEC leadership, supporting work at the branch level across the group. The Broad Left Network demands are:

▪️Fight for the National PCS pay claim – fully funded 10% pay rise with a minimum underpin of £2,400, and no detrimental changes to terms and constitution.
▪️That the full GEC is kept informed by negotiators of the talks with HMRC.
▪️The GEC decides the PCS response at each stage and keep members informed.
▪️The R&C GEC commit now to a ballot of all members on the final offer, making the case for this in the strongest terms with the NEC/NDC.
▪️R&C group negotiate with HMRC to make paid time available to all staff to attend PCS organised meetings on the talks and the final offer.
▪️Support branches to call a series of meetings of members and non-members, whether the meetings are conducted in offices or via Teams or both. The meetings will be to discuss the terms of the offer, seek feedback from members and, when the offer is finalised, to encourage members to vote in the ballot.
▪️Support branches in contacting all members to ensure that PCS holds up to date contact information for all members. This to include discussions with the General Secretary office to ensure that the full time resources of the Group Office and Regional Offices are made available to support branch activities.
▪️Support branches in recruiting new members, using tailored materials around the pay discussions to show how joining PCS gives HMRC staff a voice in the issues that matter to them. Again this needs to include full time resources of the Group Office and Regional Offices being made available to support branch activities.

By taking these steps, PCS R&C Group can finish 2020 in a stronger position: greater density, the ability to communicate with members and ready to deliver again in the National Campaign if another ballot is called. Yet the consequences of not doing this are dire – PCS miss taking advantage of this potentially watershed moment and risk losing members at a time when office closures are already having an impact. Now is the time for the R&C GEC to show bold leadership with a clear purpose.