Author: pcsbln

Despite Left Unity’s victory in the recent DWP elections, which closed on the 13th May, the Left Opposition won the floor at the PCS DWP Group Conference that took place 19th and 20th May 2025.

LU DWP group leadership gave up building any campaign on pay after the national campaign was abandoned in May 2023, whilst LU senior officers on the National Executive Committee (NEC) blocked any campaign on pay, pensions or conditions over the last 12 months through the use of Chair’s rulings, as this website has reported on.

BLN member Reece Lawton moved the only pay motion on the agenda – Motion A1, produced below. Despite opposition from the LU leadership, who asked for it to be remitted or opposed due to its criticism of the GEC for not building on anger around last year’s 5% pay remit, the motion passed through a hand vote. Motion A1 instructed the Group Executive Committee (GEC) to recognise the necessity of moving towards a strike ballot; to build the mood for a serious campaign for a 10% pay rise, for a £15-an-hour starting wage, and for a sliding scale of wages. A fighting strategy on the national campaign was also carried at ADC which further updates the PCS demands to £18ph.

Delegates have made it clear that low pay- which has left AA/AO grades on minimum wage for the third year in a row, with other grades sliding increasingly closer – must be seriously combatted.

Delegates also voted for to support Emergency Motion 3 on hybrid working, which laid out a timeline for moving towards industrial action over the recent announcement that DWP members who currently work hybrid will be required to attend the office at least 60% of the time from September, and criticised the GEC for engaging in embargoed talks which achieved little for members but allowed management to suggest PCS accepted the change. The instructions of the motion are below.

Conference instructs the GEC:

● To write to the Secretary of State and Permanent Secretary demanding the rescinding of the 60% office attendance mandate. 

● Encourage all staff to raise a concern about the current office attendance mandate, providing a template concern that members can submit to their work line manager and providing guidance for manager members on how they should handle concerns in a way that supports the campaign.

● To provide a brief to branches to assist with members’ meetings by no later than 2nd June, in order for branches to hold members’ meetings throughout June, prior to peak school vacation and annual leave periods and provide feedback to the GEC.

● To assess the feedback from members’ meetings at a GEC meeting no later than July and set out a clear plan for building a campaign to reverse these attacks, including action short of strike and up to and including an all-out strike action, to a meeting of DWP Branch Secretaries, Chairs and Organisers by no later than 10 August 2025.

● Prepare to ballot members on strike action and action short of a strike – an example of which may be to instruct members to go into an office on the same day to delicately exceed the office capacity. The timeline for a ballot will need to take account of any national ballot (eg the National Campaign on pay, pensions and jobs) to ensure we deliver the turnout in this ballot.

The GEC is instructed to produce a Members Briefing by no later than 31 August 2025 to set out the campaign strategy and to provide a report on the campaign to branches by 31 December 2025.

Motion A4, which attempted to “relaunch” ED was opposed by conference. The passing of this motion would have watered down existing DWP Group policy from 2022, with still no serious attempt to negotiate improvements to the Collective Agreement. This means PCS in DWP is still committed to the ending of compulsory Saturday working, the reduction of operating hours to 5pm, the reduction of the working week to 35 hours and to secure funding to end the two-tier ED/non-ED pay system.

PCS Broad Left Network members will keep fighting for our DWP Group to adopt a fighting programme which is essential to stand up to the key attacks facing our membership.

Motion A1:

This conference notes nothing was done to build on the anger over pay shown in the members meetings organised on the pay offer at the end of 2024.

This conference recognises: −

• The key role our group should be playing in the PCS national campaign on pay given our size and low pay rates even further behind other groups and a significant proportion of DWP staff in the lower grades with huge numbers facing going back onto the minimum wage in April 25 or sliding closer to the minimum wage.
• The vast bulk of DWP staff are in the grades AA−EO with latest published figures showing

– AAs & AOs FTE 21457.34

            EOs FTE 43928.47 

   Total DWP FTE 83,002

• Scandalously three quarters of DWP staff, all those in AA−EO grades would directly benefit from the PCS demand for starting pay of £15ph with additional money to sustain London weighting above this.
• A serious campaign on pay would help build the strength of the union and rebuild confidence in the Group that we can win on pay and all the other issues our members are facing and give a lead to branches which have been demoralised with the lack of support.
• The government floating pitiful 2.8% pay rises in 2025 for public sector workers.

This conference instructs the GEC to: −

• Recognise the necessity of building towards a successful strike ballot as an integral part of the pay campaign as it is clear the new Government will not deliver the pay rise that is needed without being forced.
• Work closely with branches and regions/nations to coordinate campaigning to meaningful national pay bargaining and sliding scale wage structure that would stop our wages falling below cost of living rises and keep our members’ pay above the minimum wage. As well as pay restoration to address the years our members’ pay has been driven down.
• Mobilise pressure on DWP senior management that we are not prepared to accept pathetic attempts to dress up the mandatory minimum wage rises and voucher schemes as something they are doing to address low pay and that they must act decisively to get the full funding to address the huge pay issues in the DWP.
• Recognise we need to unify all our membership to fight together for all members to have a pay rise, pay restoration and genuine pay progression to get the rate for job and involve our PMA members in drafting specific campaign material for our higher-grade members.
• Oppose any attempts by management to sacrifice jobs for pay
• Work with the national union and coordinate support to ensure that DWP members are fully involved in the national campaign but in the absence of a national strike ballot that our group popularise PCS demands amongst DWP members about the need to stand up and fight for 10% pay rise, £15ph starting pay, mobilises to ballot our members on pay.

PCS Conference took place last week and despite the usual chicanery, delegates across PCS declared their determination to fight against cuts to pay, cuts to jobs, closures of offices and restrictions to flexible and hybrid working.

However, there was a stormy start to ADC on the first afternoon. 25 emergency motions on trans rights were removed from the agenda following spurious legal advice on the back of the Supreme Court ruling. This was on top of General Secretary Fran Heathcote and President Martin Cavanagh taking it upon themselves to issue an offensive and inflammatory “statement” to delegates about the use of toilet facilities and a premature, biased interpretation of what the law requires.

These motions if carried, would have reaffirmed PCS continued support for trans rights, supported members, and given a clear response of opposition to the Supreme Court ruling unifying our members against the attacks. And a further decision was made very late before the ADC opened to also exclude motion A57 which had already been published in the conference agenda. 

Again and again, conference refused to adopt standing orders attempting to get the motions back on the agenda. President Martin Cavanagh continued to use “legal advice” to block the repeated majority votes by conference to disregard this spurious advice and put the motion back onto the agenda. After over two hours of votes, a majority eventually agreed to adopt standing orders via a card vote.

Delegates later voted against one of the few emergency motions on trans rights that had survived the censorship, A385. If carried, it would have given licence to the new NEC to make decisions on what it would issue based on “legal advice”. Fiona Brittle, Broad Left Network NEC member gave a powerful speech on behalf of the NEC on why the Left Unity leadership of our union could not be trusted to implement the motion to support members given their deliberate exclusion of the better worded motions on trans and non-binary rights at ADC. Even the mover in her right of reply acknowledged there was no trust in the leadership and understood why delegates were going to oppose.

The cynical nature of the exclusion of motions, justified by President Martin Cavanagh as “protecting the union”, has since been exposed by other unions, including the National Education Union and University and College Union, adopting policy that does not shy away from criticising and demanding the overturn of the EHRC interim guidance that promotes policing toilet use by employers.

License to fight Labour cuts: A383 passed

Despite efforts by the general secretary, Fran Heathcote, to talk down a “shopping basket of demands”, referencing motion A315 that passed the previous year, Conference doggedly passed motion A383. This laid out most clearly the attacks on civil servants, and the consequences for devolved government workers and our privatised members working on facilities management contracts.

Of central importance, the motion set a deadline of mid-September to start a ballot for strike action if the lack of progress in talks continues. Westminster departments face 15% cuts, and these have already begun to land. In the Cabinet Office, 1,200 job cuts have been announced. The government has announced renewal of efforts to cut London jobs by 12,000. A “review” of arm’s length bodies means cuts are also likely there.

A campaign on these issues is vital. Broad Left Network members on the union’s National Executive Committee (NEC), together with left allies, have been making this point for a year. Flattered by personal discussions with ministers, the general secretary has done nothing to prepare the union for a fight, despite motions calling for this being carried at the NEC in July 2024 and January 2025.

We do not believe the attitude of Heathcote or Cavanagh will change now that they once again have won a majority on the union’s NEC, in this year’s elections in May. Their inability to lead a fight with the government was proven in the 2022/23 strike wave; they waited for five weeks before calling any action, they called only three days of national action and, at the first offer, in June 2023, pulled the plug on the campaign.

Collusion with Labour?

Barely an hour after PCS Conference closed on Thursday 22 May, the government announced the civil service pay remit. This is guidance which sets out the pay parameters and covers all UK government departments and agencies. It provides a percentage figure by which each area can increase their total pay bill – meaning that, as a rule of thumb, pay rises mirror this figure. The figure set for 2025/26 is 3.25%, with leeway up to 3.75% for the low paid.

The timing of the announcement is suspect – and of course Cavanagh and Heathcote, on behalf of the ruling Left Unity faction, claimed 3.25% as a success, even though it falls short of the 4.1% 12-month rolling average for inflation, and does not represent additional funds for government departments that are already facing punitive cuts of 15%. Pay rises must be found within existing budgets.

All that can be said for certain is this. This announcement was not made without discussion with representatives from the trade unions. Yet the union’s NEC was not informed of any such discussions, and nor was PCS Conference. Conference instead heard re-heated Labour propaganda, that “headcount reduction targets have been abandoned”, from the general secretary. This is a concerning pattern.

Decisive left victory in Conference block vote

Elections to the union’s NEC are by individual ballot and were held before Conference convened. Radically reduced turnout saw all vote counts fall, but the opposite happened at the block vote elections. Not only did the left vote increase, this election returned all left candidate and of particular significance is winning two seats on the union’s National Standing Orders Committee (NSOC). This Committee is responsible for the unions’ conference agenda i.e. which motions will be discussed. Winning two seats is a vital step in re-opening PCS to democratic debate.

For years, a majority of NSOC have been supporters of the president and general secretary meaning that motions setting out an alternative are either not placed on the agenda or buried at the end of sections.

Against years of practice, motions submitted to conference by the NEC were not reached because of this bias. The difference this year is the president, and general secretary did not have a majority on the NEC and therefore motions were agreed that they did not support. To have discussed these, would have given an opportunity to set out an alternative by the left majority on the NEC, to the disadvantage of the president and general secretary.

More centrally to the democracy of Conference, NSOC rushed through the abolition of the guillotine section this year on the Wednesday morning. Attempts to “reference back”, i.e. to discuss a disagreement with this move, by DfE Y&H branch, were brushed off by Cavanagh, sitting as chair of conference.

The guillotine section allows motions missed due to time, to be put back on the agenda and discussed – this limits the scope for the president to play games by calling dozens of delegates in on uncontentious motions, to talk out anything they do not want heard.

It also limits the power of NSOC to put low down the agenda anything their pals the president and general secretary do not like, as it can still get into the guillotine section. This has happened a few times in the last few years, resulting in defeats of and embarrassment for the ruling Left Unity faction.

Tactics to bury motions were in full evidence this year, particularly motion A226, on giving branches means to contact their own members directly. First it was D-marked (can be cleared by correspondence), then X-marked (out of order) and finally A-marked (for debate) but buried below a dozen other motions in the hope it would not be reached. Thankfully, Conference delegates overturned this on Tuesday afternoon.

For more than a decade, (up to 2019 and the split in the left engineered by Mark Serwotka, Fran Heathcote and Martin Cavanagh), bureaucratic, obfuscatory techniques like this were not employed, and Conference developed a confidence in the National Standing Orders Committee to make sure key issues were debated at the top of every section, regardless of who they embarrassed.

Conference is gradually waking up to the fact that they can take nothing on trust and that, if delegates are not to lose control of the direction of the union, they will have to keep watchful control of Conference agenda papers and over everything else besides.

Build a fighting, democratic PCS to defeat austerity

The last year has been disorientating for activists across PCS. A left NEC was elected in May 2024 – and quickly found that, without the post of president or two-thirds of the seats (we won 19 out of 35), their majority could be and was ignored by the president and general secretary. Indeed, the institutions of the union – including branch briefings – were put to factional use by the president and general secretary to try and discredit the NEC.

Expecting a serious campaign, PCS activists were left holding on for another year while the union’s leadership argued amongst themselves. Anger from members over the levy was another complicating factor, as demonstrated by the censure of the NEC through motion A85. In absence of a campaign that justified collecting the levy, low paid members understandably wondered why they were bothering to pay it.

None of this changes the struggles that we will face over the next year. Cuts are coming. We must build a campaign across the whole union defeat these – if we don’t, cuts will continue. Inextricably linked to this is the battle to ensure PCS is accountable to its members and to their elected representatives at all levels – the battle for a fighting, democratic PCS. To all PCS reps and members fighting the cuts and fighting for equality at work and in the community, we urge you to join the PCS Broad Left Network and join with us to help rebuild the fighting strength of our union to stop the attacks.

A two-day PCS National Executive Committee has just concluded in London. Two key matters demonstrate why change is imperative in the national Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union elections that began on 16 April and why it is extremely important that members vote for Marion Lloyd and the coalition for change in PCS. NEC Elections 2025

Six hours of the meeting time were wasted on one paper – far from the most important paper at the April NEC – thanks to the continuing poor judgment of the General Secretary, Fran Heathcote, and President, Martin Cavanagh.

Following this, on the union’s national campaign for jobs, pay and against the austerity agenda which Labour now seems to be rolling out, the General Secretary moved a wildly complacent paper which proposed no meaningful actions and indeed noted that the attack on Arm’s Length Bodies (ALBs) across government was an “opportunity” but did not outline a national strategy to resist, deferring this until late May.

When Marion Lloyd proposed recommendations to add actions to the paper, to pro-actively build the confidence of members and reps to fight back, these proposals were once again vetoed by Cavanagh. Actions agreed in January – which Cavanagh has trumpeted as being “unanimous” – have still not been carried out.

“Democracy Alliance” try to bribe PCS members

All of this must be read in the context of the bribe promised to members who vote for them, of repaying to them the strike levy collected between late 2024 and early 2025. This strike fund is the money that would be used to fund any serious action to defeat the government’s cuts and to win us a pay rise.

The amount – £35 per member – is about 0.1% of an EO wage in DWP. The several million amassed could be used to win much more than an additional 0.1% pay raise for members.

Cavanagh and his “Democracy Alliance” do not have a plan to defeat the cuts or to win a pay rise. Having collapsed the union’s national campaign in 2023 and vetoed every attempt to build one in 2024, they can’t win any argument about stopping the cuts or fighting on pay, so this attempted bribe seeks to distract members from their lack of response to potentially 80,000 job cuts and a below-inflation 2025 pay rise.

Hours wasted on “Attitudes and Speakers at Conference” paper

Every year, the union’s NEC receives a copy of Standing Orders Committee Paper 1 (SOC1). This outlines all motions sent to Annual Delegate Conference from branches, and from the NEC itself. Every year, the NEC agrees a position and an NEC speaker on each motion. This year, that took a 6-hour debate thanks to Cavanagh and co.

Heathcote and Cavanagh put a paper to the NEC which outlined a whole range of positions which they knew beyond doubt would not be agreed by the NEC. They then forced the NEC to go through all 114 A-marked motions (i.e. those that will be debate at Conference) and forced a vote on every proposed change to the NEC paper.

When challenged, Cavanagh pushed back that it was open to the NEC majority to have submitted a paper in advance with their own views. The last time this happened, which was in relation to the allocation of Conference motions to NEC subcommittees to carry out, he vetoed the proposal, arguing that it contradicted the recommendation of the General Secretary.

There is no member or rep in PCS who would not agree that the way NEC business is conducted is ridiculous. This is entirely down to the inconsistent, partisan, undemocratic behaviour of Cavanagh as national president. Elections have begun. There is nothing else to be done beyond voting for Marion Lloyd and voting out of office Martin Cavanagh, who has been an absolute barrier to re-building PCS.

Defeat complacency and inertia at the top of PCS: vote Lloyd for President

A key discussion at the April NEC was the so-called “national campaign” on pay, pensions, jobs and workloads, office closures and many other issues including hybrid working, all of which dramatically impact our members. The NEC last discussed the national campaign on 14 February; in terms of actual campaigning, very little has happened, while the government have been busy laying plans.

For this reason, the NEC majority were surprised to have simple proposals – the only proposals on the table – vetoed by the President. Cavanagh spuriously argued that they contravened the Standing Orders because they proposed extending the length of the May NEC meeting. Agree or disagree, this only impacted one proposal – the Cavanagh did not mention the other clauses in ruling the motion out. It was left to Heathcote to argue that “we’re too close to conference”.

Too close to Conference to prepare to defend jobs! That’s a new low even for them.

The paper put forward by Heathcote referred to the situation with Arms’ Length Bodies as an “opportunity”, starting from the position that she does not necessarily support the existence of certain ALBs (sometimes called Quangos – quasi non-governmental organisations). This is the wrong position to start from: we must oppose cuts. Full stop.

Heathcote also seemed to draw a distinction between cuts and “arbitrary cuts”, which retreats from the general principle of opposition to cuts. “Arbitrary cuts” is the government’s language – they say they’re not undertaking “arbitrary cuts”, the opposite being “justified cuts”. All cuts result in impact to our members. They impact jobs and, even if exits are voluntary, they impact workloads and working practices.

We oppose all cuts. Increasingly, an NEC meeting with the General Secretary feels like listening to the voice of the Cabinet Office speaking through her to the NEC.

Government cuts incoming

Between 14 Feb and 16/17 April, national announcements have signalled a full-frontal attack on civil service staffing, with expectation of 15% cuts to “administrative” (i.e. staffing) budgets by 2030. This follows on from announcements in July 2024 about 2% cuts and announcements in October about 5% cuts.

What this will mean in practice is not known – but the Cabinet Office have already seen an announcement that 1,200 jobs are to go via exit. A further 900 jobs are due to be moved out of the Cabinet Office, and what that means is also unknown – none of this was discussed with the National Trade Union Committee before launch.

Other areas have already seen cuts to jobs via attrition (e.g. 5% job cuts in the Department for Education) and via hundreds of voluntary exits (e.g. at the Department for Transport). NHS England central staff have been told half of their jobs will go. Thousands of more job cuts already seem to be planned at the Ministry of Defence…and all of this is before HM Treasury responds to Departmental and agency submissions to the Spending Review that is currently under way.

Officials at the Cabinet Office leaked to the press that the Cabinet Office is “leading by example” in cutting a third of jobs in the department. Ellie Clarke, NEC member and union rep at the Cabinet Office characterised the mood as one of fear, especially for those with disabilities, or home working. The General Secretary’s response was dismissive, saying 700 staff had agreed to a voluntary exit, and she offered no other support or reassurance to Cabinet Office members whose jobs are under threat.

Another key part of the announcements has been a review of “Places for Growth”, which promises to move civil service jobs outside of London. There is major potential for this to hit jobs in London – both through actual job losses and through the constraining of opportunity for promotion or recruitment, while workloads rocket.

Also announced are a new idea, “mutually agreed exits”. What this actually means is also unclear, but in the private sector this means exits without paying people the redundancy pay which, in the civil service, they would be entitled to. All union members should be alarmed by the news coming out from the top of government.

Get the campaign started now!

The NEC majority proposed some simple steps to get things going now – and some of these proposals had been agreed in January but still had not been implemented:

• That in addition to the actions taken by FTOs as per MAB 06-25, that a branch briefing be issued to all groups and branches giving a full report of the discussions with the Cabinet Office and urging all branches to call members’ meetings in the period before Conference to explain the need for a campaign across PCS, to win our demands. Conference is the next step, to debate and agree a strategy. The bulletin should outline the key issues facing members that are under discussion with the Cabinet Office, including but not limited to:
  • The attack on jobs, especially announcements on NHS England, Cabinet Office etc) and the attack on ALBs etc.
  • Pay
  • Pensions
  • Office closures, job relocation and compulsory moves (incl. PfG).
  • Hybrid and flexible working
  • Privatisation
  • National bargaining
• To support the members’ meetings, that leaflets now be produced, as per the decision by the NEC in January 2025, updated to reflect the key attacks from the Labour government, our key demands, and the text of which should be agreed by the Senior Officers’ Committee. Alternative language to cover privatised and devolved areas should be circulated for input from relevant bodies: SEC, WEC, Comm Sector etc. Printing to be ready by end of April to support May members’ meetings.
• That the bargaining team with the Cabinet Office now be extended to add three lay reps, as per the NEC decision in January, with nominations to be accepted from the floor of this NEC.
• That the duration of the NEC in May be extended to allow for a full discussion of the Labour government-proposed cuts and how we build a campaign to defeat these attacks. A draft motion to ADC should be presented by the General Secretary for discussion at that meeting, and if not dealt with by the Senior Officers beforehand, a draft national pay claim should be tabled for the May NEC also. This should be able to take account of the revised Places for Growth (PfG) strategy, which is likely to be published in late April and which may have a serious impact on London-based PCS members.

In the background to all of this, the Labour government is steadily retreating from many commitments as part of the original draft of the Employment Rights Bill, most recently their pledge to repeal the 50% strike ballot threshold requirement imposed by the Anti-Trade Union Act 2016.

We need to keep reps and members fully informed. This NEC must continue to provide leadership right up until the day it leaves office, when it comes to fighting for the basic interests of members – for a proper pay rise, against job cuts and compulsory relocation of work and so on. The attack on ALBs will certainly involve centralisation of function and job cuts; concrete steps to oppose should be prepared now.

This NEC was an NEC like many others this year, thanks to how they have been run by the chair, Martin Cavanagh. The General Secretary wastes time by literally reading out her papers. Then straightforward, obvious things – even previously agreed matters – are either vetoed or not carried out. Cavanagh and Heathcote are an absolute catastrophe in progress, for our members. There is no room for their complacency.

They must go.

We urge all reps to get involved with the Broad Left Network. We urge all activists and members in all parts of the union to vote for Marion Lloyd and the coalition for change, of PCS Broad Left Network, of PCS Independent Left and independent socialists in HMRC. It is absolutely time for a change.

Within hours of the conclusion of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of 14 February, memes, a video from the General Secretary and an all-members email had gone out proclaiming the ‘Good News’, that the union’s strike levy had been scrapped.  

All Broad Left Network supporters present at the NEC voted against the termination of the levy, as did two independent socialists, believing that the levy continued to be necessary if we were serious about winning a good deal for members on pay and conditions like hybrid working, and on reversing job cuts, in 2025. 

The levy was originally introduced by the previous NEC, which was dominated by the mis-named ‘Left Unity’ grouping. General Secretary Fran Heathcote and national president Martin Cavanagh are members of LU. They have blocked the decision of the incoming NEC, where the left coalition has a majority, at its meeting last July to review the levy with an immediate reduction for the lowest paid members.  

In reality, this is not good news at all. January and February’s NEC meetings demonstrate with stark clarity that Heathcote, Cavanagh and their rump of supporters have no plan to fight in 2025. Worse, they have now telegraphed this message to a hostile set of employers – be it the New Labour government of Starmer and Reeves, Westminster departments, agencies or devolved areas. 

Inaction by Cavanagh and Heathcote after January NEC 

At the preceding NEC meeting, on 15 January, the General Secretary, Fran Heathcote, put forward a paper with zero recommendations. It merely reported on discussions with the Cabinet Office. Nothing in that report of discussions represents a significant step forward and so Broad Left Network supporters put forward the need to prepare for and build the necessary campaign to win on pay, jobs and our working environment. 

That such a campaign is needed should be beyond doubt. Job cuts are proceeding in Westminster departments, a major dispute of outsourced staff against their behemoth employers continues to rage despite Angela Rayner’s promise of the most insourcing government for a generation. There is little movement on pay anywhere. 

Since the GS’s January paper did not recommend anything, there was no excuse to rule the motion out. The BLN-proposed, Majority Left-backed motion, passed. President Martin Cavanagh and his supporters praised themselves for being willing to support the motion and promptly began acting like they had proposed it themselves. 

From there, everything went immediately off the rails. 

Only one instruction in the motion – for NEC Liaison Officers (NECLOs) go out and consult every area – was actioned. The others, of production of materials etc, of the very basic steps to put the union on a war footing, have been ignored. 

Despite the NEC agreeing basic steps in January, nothing has been done to start the process of readying PCS for a pivotal next few months, in which, amongst other things, the Cabinet Office will publish the Civil Service Pay Remit for 2025/26. Reeves is already on record indicating that pay rises will be 2.8%, about half of last year’s inadequate offer. Inflation stands at 3%. Inaction is not accidental: it is obstruction by President Cavanagh and General Secretary Heathcote. 

Majority left coalition meets in February to discuss NECLO feedback 

There are 8 Broad Left Network supporters, 4 independent socialists and 7 Independent Left supporters on the union’s NEC this year. Many are NECLOs for different parts of the union. These NEC members, collectively called the Left Majority, met together to discuss the feedback from these areas. 

We concluded that much more work had to be done by the union’s elected leadership to give our reps and members confidence that a struggle could win. Steps must be taken to win support across the union’s membership for our key demands. But the basic elements of the kind of campaign including the necessary strike action that could win must also be outlined. 

These basic elements include national all-members strike action, supplemented by paid targeted strikes aimed at specific areas. This would put enormous pressure on the ordinary functioning of the government. Such an approach is not new, but it is expensive, requiring millions of pounds to ensure that members asked to go on strike are not failing to cover bills, rent, food etc. 

Campaign-building motion written and proposed to February NEC 

On this basis a motion – which is reprinted here – was proposed to the NEC. This set out what steps needed to be taken to build a campaign now, rather than simply wait and hope, as Cavanagh and Heathcote seem to be doing, based on their zero substantive proposals on a campaign to either January or February NECs. 

The motion also included two vital elements.  

Firstly, as we have been proposing since the July NEC, that the levy should immediately be reduced for the lowest paid PCS members and reviewed with a view to putting in place something more permanent and across the whole union. Part of this would include an analysis to identify how much we need to collect to make any paid action effective and sustainable.  

Two: that steps be taken urgently to ensure every branch can contact its own members. This reflects a pressing demand from branches that have been trying like hell to recruit, retain and organise members across PCS. 

When the NEC convened on 14 Feb, Cavanagh, as President, vetoed the motion. 

Wrecking tactics like this have been continuous from the President and General Secretary since the first NEC meeting of the electoral year in June 2024. Having wrecked the national campaign in 2023 by settling for the £1500 one-time payment, when they should have pressed for more, their constant tactics are delay and derailing left proposals. 

Independent Left act to end the levy 

Immediately following the decision to veto the motion, and a challenge to that decision – which was passed by the NEC but did not achieve the required 2/3rds majority – Independent Left members demanded that a vote be taken to revisit the question of suspending the union’s strike levy. 

IL are an integral part of the majority left coalition which defeated Cavanagh and Heathcote’s Left Unity in the May 2024 union elections, and which is standing again in the forthcoming elections. On the question of the levy, we do not agree with their decision to seek the end of the levy and believe it to be shortsighted. 

A mistake has been made by IL in our view. But that aside, the key question that needs to be addressed is what does the union need to win a decisive victory for members in the battle on pay, pensions, jobs, and working conditions like hybrid? And if paid action is to form part of that campaign, the thorny issue of how will this be funded? It is in recognition of this that the BLN proposed a reduce and review in the July meeting. We do still need a levy. 

This can be demonstrated concretely in figures, based on the amount spent in the targeted strike wave of 2022-2023, and comparing that to the amounts available to the union now. We choose not to reproduce exact figures as this is a public forum, but we do not have the same resources as we had at the end of 2022, ready for the strike wave ahead. A levy makes up the difference and more. 

There is also significant paid action taking place by our outsourced members as well as other disputes across the union. The union’s fighting fund is in overdraft, yet the General Secretary and National President dishonestly argue that this is somehow separate.  

Unfortunately, IL’s mistake gave Cavanagh, Heathcote and their Left Unity coterie sufficient votes to terminate the levy – without having to answer the question, what way forward to a serious campaign on the issues that matter to members in 2025? And how will we fund it? This is a question that Heathcote and Cavanagh cannot answer, given the confusion their disinformation and poor leadership have wrought in PCS. 

Basic unity of the real PCS left remains intact 

BLN will continue to make the case for a coherent strategy that can win the support of thousands of PCS reps across all bargaining units, and behind which can be mobilised hundreds of thousands of civil servants, outsourced workers and workers in arm’s length bodies.  

While we may differ with IL on some of the tactics and how they might be funded, we remain absolutely united in our belief that we must build the necessary campaign to win and to do that requires the removal of Cavanagh and Heathcote, their Left Unity nodding donkeys and their blocking tactics. 

It is for this reason that the Majority Left Coalition is putting forward Marion Lloyd for President and a united slate of left candidates to lead the union and build this campaign. It is for this reason that we urge all comrades to get involved in building the broadest challenge and the broadest base for re-establishing a fighting, democratic PCS.