Category: Uncategorized

Please consider nominating the candidates in our attached leaflet at your forthcoming branch AGM

The DWP Greater Manchester Branch has organised a national reps and activists meeting to take place at 6:30pm on the 19^th January via Zoom. There is a long tradition in the union of reps and activists coming together to discuss important industrial and political issues and the Broad Left Network supports this initiative.

The meeting has been called in response to the ineffective leadership from the DWP Group Executive Committee majority. The Branch wants to organise reps across the country to work together to develop a national campaign to fight for better health and safety, staffing and improved working conditions. These are the industrial issues that members in the DWP repeatedly raise and they want a union that is willing to fight to secure concessions on such concerns.

The DWP has successfully watered down many of the health and safety COVID-19 measures won at the start of the pandemic, such as refusing to shut offices for deep cleans and increased in-person activity in Jobcentres. Thousands of staff are required to attend the workplace and see claimants on a weekly basis, despite record levels of COVID-19 cases.

There are thousands of members employed on Fixed-Term Appointment contracts and we urgently need to campaign for permanent jobs. It is welcome news that 6,000 AO staff have been offered permanent contracts, but around 150 AOs will not be offered jobs. We need a campaign that fights for every job. We also need to fight for the thousands of EO staff who have yet to receive news on their futures. A national campaign will help exert pressure on the employer to properly staff a Department that is under huge pressure because of the impacts of the pandemic, but also experiencing the long-term effects of far-reaching budget cuts.

Those cuts have resulted in a workload crisis across many areas of the DWP. Despite mounting evidence of high workloads, intolerable stress levels and rock bottom job satisfaction, the GEC leadership has not fought a meaningful campaign to improve conditions. It has repeatedly voted down motions from BLN activists in the last 12 months which called for national campaigns on these very issues.

The Broad Left Network is supporting this meeting and is encouraging all branches in the DWP to formally sponsor the event. The call has been met by some of the union’s full-time officers attempting to discredit the event by labelling it against the PCS constitution. We reject this and condemn their assault on branch democracy in PCS. It is vital every branch has the right to organise and engage in open discussion and debate and has the opportunity to respond to urgent industrial issues.

The meeting will take place via Zoom and the log-in details are:

Join Zoom Meeting
https://pcs.zoom.us/j/94373067843?pwd=bWZzYnBJWmVWNU91TnBoT1BhTCtJUT09

Meeting ID: 943 7306 7843
Passcode: 250328

Please see our attached leaflet regarding the impact of the Omicron Variant for PCS members in the DWP…

At the same time as showing their complete disregard for the safety of staff, a series of recent announcement has caused shock across DWP. First came the announcement by the DWP Permanent Secretary on 24^th November that it would not be possible for DWP to keep on all of the 13,500 temporary work coaches, recruited during the pandemic. Then on 25^th November, DWP senior leadership put out an email to 37 sites reminding them that the plan was to close these sites.

Disgracefully, this email also contained ideas about how staff at these sites should prepare, e.g. by undertaking further qualifications, or apprenticeships, in order to make themselves more employable and therefore more likely to gain redeployment following the closure. Throughout the material put out by DWP there were strong hints that redeployment was not guaranteed; jobs are at stake at offices from Dover to Dundee, from Liverpool to London. Members are angry and want answers.

DWP Group Executive Committee: deafening silence

Four out of the 37 sites mentioned above have already had closure dates announced. Redundancies look likely. A week on from this, nothing has been heard from the GEC. GEC officers have reassured reps that they are giving all possible support to the branches involved, but without a campaign, “support” doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. We need the GEC to lead, to link up branches and to prepare the union in DWP for a major national campaign.

Meanwhile, GEC officers are blabbing about how up to 7,000 temporary work coach jobs are at risk. This is not what management have said. This figure has not been reported by GEC officers to the GEC as a whole. Most importantly of all, reps and members are being kept in the dark. If this is true, it is a massive attack on current staffing levels. Yet the GEC has admitted that they have not even asked for permanency for all temporary staff, they have merely asked for targeted recruitment.

Branches move towards dispute

Broad Left Network supporters have been working in their branches and with sympathetic branches specifically to target the sites where Fixed Term & casual staff are based, in full recognition that only by organising these members and preparing for action can we put maximum pressure on DWP to make them permanent. As a consequence, some contract extensions have been announced. This is not enough and some staff are still scheduled to leave in March. We have time to build the campaign that could defeat such a move – if you are interested, get in touch with us.

Workloads, staffing, office closures – a national campaign is needed

At the same time as DWP have been preparing for office closures and for letting go thousands of temporary staff, not to mention potentially making redundancies, members at work are under more pressure than ever. In front facing jobs, members report a return of the pressure to refer every single fail to attend for a sanction. This is madness, in the era of Covid-19. Twenty appointments a day are not uncommon in Jobcentres, and telephone lines are snowed under. Meanwhile DWP have privatised parts of PIP telephony, causing chaos across that benefit.

• We must fight to retain our FTA & casual staff in DWP, including 13,500 work coaches.
• We must fight to retain our offices – closures are ludicrous when DWP has just opened dozens of “REEP” sites as a result of the pandemic.
• Where offices must close, because the owners are throwing us out, every job must be guaranteed and we must secure the best redeployment terms for members.
• We must fight to reduce workloads on all staff across DWP – further recruitment is needed!

This is a national campaign that takes in vast swathes of the operational areas of DWP. The GEC is currently hiding behind the old “there’s no mood” excuse, instead of pro-actively getting out to build a mood. We are patiently working on this, gradually moving areas towards dispute, and linking them up as each one moves forward. We need all reps who wish to fight on behalf of their members to link up with us – so if you want to fight, contact us.

PCS reps and members in DWP have spent the November fighting against a planned return to offices across the UK. With little leadership provided by the union’s Group Executive Committee, beyond aggressive-sounding emails, reps and members were left to take the steps that ultimately forced DWP to back down, leaving the employer’s plans in even greater disarray than before.

Build the campaign now – do not wait for January!

Broad Left Network supporters in DWP are calling on the union’s leadership to fight for:

• No return to offices for back of house roles, guaranteed until the end of winter.
• For any future return to involve thorough consultation, to take account of further information about the Omicron variant, about the pressure on the NHS and about the booster roll out.
• For Jobcentres to return to emergency face to face appointments only.
• For CO2 monitors to be provided in every workplace.

In a significant number of areas, DWP has back down on the return of back of house staff to their offices, at least temporarily. In Retirement Services Directorate across the UK, and in all parts of DWP in Wales, management have retreated. In areas like Universal Credit, the retreat is uneven and incomplete, with some messages indicating a voluntary approach and others continuing with a mandatory approach. BLN reps in these areas are working to oppose any mandatory return.

Even in those areas where members have successfully prevented DWP from forcing them back into the office, the return is only delayed until January. We need to be ready to further oppose this.

Branches must take the lead

The union’s DWP Group Executive Committee, following the lead of the union’s National Executive, has emailed all members in DWP to “remind them of their rights”. This is not sufficient. Reps have proven at sites across the UK, since the pandemic first landed, that when members stick together, the employer is forced to back down and to take account of what members demand.

We have called on the GEC to organise a national reps meeting, to ensure every site across the UK is prepared and ready to issue “Regulation 8” letters, upon DWP issuing instructions to return, allowing members to use Health and Safety legislation to prevent a return to the office. In the absence of this leadership, however, branches must pro-actively prepare.

Elected GEC reps who support the Broad Left Network have organised a national meeting at 6.30pm on 12^th January, with the option to bring this forward should DWP try to wrong-foot the union by announcing plans when reps and members are on leave, as they did during the summer. Further details will be sent out to all branches. Contact details are overleaf.

Devolved areas

Following the emergence of the Omicron variant, the devolved governments have urged all employers to keep workers at home – but they have not yet changed the regulations that would ensure this. We welcome the victory won by members in Wales, to halt any return to the office – but the goodwill of DWP cannot be relied upon. As the GEC has shown no interest in attempting to exert political pressure to prevent a mandatory return to the offices, here too branches can take the lead.

Broad Left Network: fighting for permanent jobs and reductions to excessive workloads in DWP

Members across DWP have noticed the faltering approach of the union’s leadership in DWP to safety, to pay, to the enormous pressure of work facing staff and even to climate change.

The Group Executive Committee (GEC) – the body supposed to lead the union in the DWP – was elected earlier this year. PCS Broad Left Network candidates – socialist union reps – stood in those elections and some were elected. The job of the GEC is to build serious campaigns on issues that matter to members in DWP. Unfortunately, it is doing no such thing, and Broad Left Network members feel it is important to explain to all reps in the union why this is the case.

Left Unity ducks debate – October GEC

Ahead of the GEC meeting which took place on October 20^th and 21^st, Broad Left Network supporters from across DWP met to discuss what needs to be done. Reps worked together to produce motions which Jill Fearn and Craig Worswick, as GEC members, proposed to the rest of the Group Executive Committee. These motions addressed key questions facing members in the next period: pay, the £20-a-week UC cut, tax hikes and the Autumn Budget due on 27^th October; the COP26 climate conference happening in Glasgow and the significant strike wave that has developed there, which we should give support to; safety in the context of Covid-19 and the fight for permanent jobs for the more than 10,000 temporary staff in DWP.

Instead of debating these motions, chair Martin Cavanagh ruled that they are all covered by policy from Group Conference and refused to accept them for debate. This is a flagrant lie since some of the issues identified, like solidarity with striking transport and council workers in Glasgow were not an issue at the time of the Conference which took place in June. It is also wildly hypocritical, as any old dross from Left Unity Group Officers is routinely accepted on to the agenda, regardless of how late in the day GEC papers are submitted. The Left Unity GEC wanted to duck debate.

Broad Left Network GEC members were not simply going to let it go at that, however. Despite a series of personal attacks on BLN-supporting GEC members whenever they spoke, our comrades continued to put forward our ideas, in the hope of getting some movement from the totally inert Group leadership.

Staffing and Safety: the fight for permanent jobs and safe working conditions

The GEC were presented with just a verbal report on staffing, with little to explain how the GEC or branches can prepare for action to secure the jobs of the thousands of temporary staff currently employed by DWP. BLN reps put forward the need to identify where Fixed Term Appointment staff are based, to target union leaflets and other material to recruit them into the union and to link this battle over permanent jobs to the massive pressure on Jobcentre and other staff. It is in all our interests that these staff be made permanent. Basic work to build his campaign has simply not been done by the Group Executive Committee.

As a direct result of the failures of the Left Unity GEC, union density in DWP has decreased. At angry meetings in different branches, members of the union have indicated they want to fight on the question of their workloads and many temporary staff have enthusiastically joined the union where a lead has been given by active local reps. This failure to recruit the rest of them belongs to pathetically inadequate steps taken by the Left Unity-led GEC. As a result of the GEC’s abdication of leadership, thousands of members in Jobcentres have been forced back into the office, despite many still having concerns about safety.

Let us not forget that it took more than two months for the GEC to publish to branches the information about turnout in the consultative ballot that took place this earlier this year. No campaign meetings took place, to include the branches which crossed or achieved near to the 50% turnout threshold required to be able to take legal strike action. The cynical use, by the Left Unity GEC, of this consultative ballot as an electoral gimmick, on which to show how “militant” they all are, is contemptible, given how meekly they submit to the DWP senior management.

Pay in DWP: DWP staff claiming UC get a kicking from Tories, GEC does nothing

At the previous GEC in July, the current leadership committed themselves to “pressing” our demands. At the most recent GEC, the leadership again kicked the can down the road, promising members’ meetings in November and December of this year. While we wholeheartedly support any attempt to mobilise members on the question of pay, the problem with the GEC approach this year is the same as the problem with the approaches for the last several years. They hold meetings to try and get members angry, they do not put forward a clear plan and when members do not immediately leap to join the barricades, they blame members for the lack of a fight back.

This year could be different, if approached seriously. On top of frozen pay for 2021, a proportion of DWP staff who are very low paid and who claim Universal Credit have had the additional cut of £20 per week from their UC. Added to this are the increases in taxation proposed by the government and the rapidly rising cost of living. Energy costs are likely to increase by hundreds of pounds per year – potentially equivalent to a 1 or 2% wage cut for members. Instead of placidly relying upon members to email in stories of how hard up they are – which was the big idea for October – the GEC could get out to every branch and win the support of reps for a clear strategy to fight back on pay and all the related issues.

Instead, Left Unity members of the GEC chose to blame branches for not “buying in” to their ideas. It would help if the union leadership did not talk like management. This idea, that the lack of movement on pay is the fault of branches, is ridiculous. In other areas, such as health and local government, workers are moving towards consultative and statutory ballots. As mentioned above in the context of Glasgow and COP 26, transport workers are also preparing for serious disputes on pay, staffing and working conditions. There is a mood to fight. Yet the GEC continues to rehash the same empty rhetoric.

The motions proposed by the BLN supporters at the DWP GEC called on the Group Officers to present their plan for how to fight and win on pay “using all means necessary,” which is the wording of the motion passed at Group Conference this year. It was pointed out to the Left Unity members of the GEC that “all means necessary” does not mean boring DWP senior management to death with endless surveys of union members that do not move one single jot in the direction of a real campaign.

We also proposed going well beyond the timid approach of the GEC on Universal Credit. We urged the GEC to organise public meetings and to seek involvement and cooperation from key union branches such as Unite Community (for the unemployed) and Unison Local Government (who represent social workers and housing officers who have first-hand experience of the devastating consequences of Tory austerity). Ultimately, we would want to pull in the rest of the trade union movement, especially the unions representing the lowest paid, like USDAW, which is often slow to support campaigns. The anger in working class communities over this cut is palpable – a visible campaign could energise the members and reps of every union that gets involved.

Thanks to Martin Cavanagh’s ruling, and the refusal of the Left Unity majority to challenge this, the GEC managed to avoid even taking a position on these issues.

COP 26 in Glasgow: full solidarity to the Glasgow strikers

BLN reps also called for full support to be given to the strikes developing in Glasgow, during the period of the international climate change conference, COP26. Low paid janitors, cleaners, rail, and bus workers are planning strike action to fight cuts to pay and cuts to public services. Leading MSPs, members of the Scottish Parliament, have attacked unions for standing up for their members and tried to argue that strike action during COP26 threatens negotiations on climate change.

We believe it is important to give full support to these workers. In many of these sectors, especially transport, strike action is resulting from years of failure by the Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council, under both Labour and SNP/Green administrations. One of the key issues being debated by the bosses at COP26 is how to make workers’ pay for the transition to a zero-carbon economy. Disputes like this allow the trade unions to outline the socialist alternative to capitalist attacks on workers.

This would include renationalising public transport, investing not in private profits but in maximum environmental efficiency, to reduce reliance on cars and carbon emissions. This would be part of a major strategy of industrial investment and repurposing, to produce infrastructure necessary for the green economy, from renewable energy to home insulation. This is the real meaning of a “just” transition. The capitalist class, not workers, must pay. Jobs and wages must be defended.

In respect of the railways, the Scottish Government want Abellio-owned ScotRail to do their dirty work, cutting 1,000 jobs and 100,000 train journeys, before their franchise ends. So, it is vital to explain to all six million trade unionists what is going on, what our proposed solutions are and to mobilise them for the major climate change demonstration in Glasgow on November 6^th, 2021.

It is scandalous that Left Unity would refuse to debate a motion offering solidarity to striking workers. Given the time taken up by the Group President, who instead of chairing the meetings tends to speak at length on every dot and comma of the agenda, it seems ridiculous that such an important issue was kept off the agenda. Also kept off the agenda – in breach of Group Conference policy – is the issue of climate change, which Conference demanded be set as a standing item. Branches need to be aware of how badly the union is being led. We call on all branches in DWP to join us, to build a real socialist leadership.

If we fight, we can win.

If you are interested in discussing any of our ideas, get in touch. Join the Broad Left Network and fight for a democratic, campaigning union with socialist policies that can win for members.

Hi, please click the following link for our latest GEC report from the DWP –

Everyone thinks the music of their generation was best – I’d of course say ours definitely was! 

We had the benefits of the hang over from the big bands and the Sinatra years of Swing of our parents, as well as the Rock ‘n’ Roll era, the Blues, the Jazz, the Beatles, and the Stones (and the rest). And not just the best music – we had the best of post war housing and the birth of the NHS.

 In the Sixties everything seemed to be on the up for ordinary people.

In the following decades we experienced massive strides in technological developments, including IT and medicine. The first heart transplant, the contraceptive pill – better detection, better prevention, eradication of diseases etc. 

Yet, with all these miraculous advancements, for our generation and particularly for the younger generations that follow things are now going from worse to worse. Why?

The answer is the profit based economic system is failing us. Capitalism is not fit for purpose. 

Covid and Climate Change are graphic illustrations of the systems failings. The short-sightedness of Capitalists who put their profits way above everything else, including the future of the planet.

 I just want to focus on the deterioration of our NHS and in particular the medical profession’s attitude to women’s and to men’s health.

It was bonfire night 2008 and I was coming round after a hysterectomy, which I had been resisting for several years hoping nature would ‘run its course’ without intervention. I was 53. In the world of profit my childbearing purpose was spent, and I was expendable. 

I still had the words of my old GP ringing in my ears from when I first raised problems in my mid 30’s – “what do you expect at your age?”! But in terms of life expectancy 53 is barely middle aged, and I was still in need and deserving of a quality of life. 

In 2008 I was still working and was very fortunate in having a very understanding and supportive team and mangers. Although my experience was good, I understood for many other women it wasn’t and still isn’t the case, and I wrote an article at that time for our Branch Magazine. It was prompted by something I’d read by a woman who experienced very poor treatment by a less than understanding boss. 

So why am I focussing on this now and has anything changed?

For far too long the ‘Menopause’ has been little discussed. If it is talked about at all it is usually with a sense of ridicule around hot flushes and ‘ doolally ‘ women who are scatter-brained and forgetful. My own daughters are now approaching ‘that age’ and approaching what is called the perimenopause. This is the very start of hormonal changes, which can be very gradual and very long. I am learning, through their experiences that twenty or so years on from my own nothing much has changed. Too many women and too many medical professionals know and understand too little

Symptoms that are typical for many (peri)menopausal women are misdiagnosed. Too many are sent away with anti-depressants when HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) is a much more appropriate, effective, and safer way to address the issues. So much for the developments and advancement I spoke of earlier!

Puberty alongside sex education has long been part of the school curriculum, but not the menopause. It is therefore not surprising that bosses and mangers (of whatever gender) have little or no understanding. More alarming is the absence of training in the medical profession – Only 42% of medical students study the subject and the menopause is not a compulsory element of a medical degree!

It is important that women and their partners have a clear understanding of this period in our lives and that workplaces have suitable policies in place to support and not vilify women. Government Departments often run courses on health and equality issues and Menopause needs to feature in those programmes.

This link to a Webinar The Menopause Explained is an excellent insight, dispersing the myths about HRT  that sadly some GP’s still cling on to.

And what about Men’s Health? I think it fair to say that men get a bit of a raw deal when it comes to preventative medicine. Women have been encouraged to have regular cervical smear tests and breast screening for many years. These have proved vital in early detections of cancer and opportunities for treatment that has saved countless lives. But Prostate Health and regular screening for men is non-existent. In fact, many men experience difficulties in persuading there GP to send them for a PSA test, even when there are compelling reasons. I recently heard of a GP telling a patient they are “not allowed” to offer a PSA Test and will only give it if requested. Too many still refuse.

A PSA test measures the amount of Prostate Specific Antigens in the blood. While this test alone is not a definitive detector of Prostate Cancer, regular testing will provide information and an opportunity for early detection, – and early detection is key. Prostate cancer is not itself life threatening. It is failed detection that allows the cancer to spread throughout the body and that is the problem. Early detection can save men from the spread of cancer, save them from more serious and unpleasant treatments such as chemotherapy, and ultimately save lives. Men are said to be notoriously bad at seeking medical advice – let’s make that a myth too!

We are currently fighting to retain our National Health Service and to reclaim it from private hands. Many are unaware of how much of the service is now subcontracted and in the hands of the likes of Virgin. As capitalism chips away at all that is good and prevents all those advances from being used for the benefits of all and not the profits of the few, we have a battle on our hands.

Menopause and Prostate Cancer awareness are just two health awareness issues we need to take up in the workplace and actively campaigned on through the unions, not least our own.

Please read our attached leaflet on why members should vote Yes/ Yes in the DVLA Ballot

Dave Bartlett (Group Executive Committee Member-personal capacity)

The membership in MOJ have now voted in favour of the recent offer with 89% in favour, although the numbers voting have not been released. The three year deal which traded conditions for pay was opposed by Broad Left Network supporters in MOJ.

As the only member on the GEC and as a member of the BLN, who came out against the offer, I am still not surprised that this offer was accepted. For many members on the lowest grades ,the attraction of a two year back pay in the next pay packet and a pay increase of 11% over three years became, in the absence of any national campaigning, the only alternative that was on view. As one member put it “this is the best we are going to get in the circumstances”.

However it would be a huge mistake to interpret the result as a massive endorsement for the union and satisfaction with the outcome. This deal is a classic case of concession bargaining where there is a clear line between gainers and losers. What you got in the offer depends on who you are, how long you have been in service and where you work. For some members of many years service  and are at the top of their grade, the offer falls well short of the 11% the deal is said  to be worth. One legal adviser said to me  “if you add in the proposed national insurance increases then the offer amounts to just 0.75%”! And of course this does not take account of inflation which is expected to nullify the value of the deal over it’s three year life time.

The MOJ keep saying this offer will now make the department competitive with other sections in the civil service but that is fantasy. The lowest bands still trail behind while the average salary for legal advisers is £8000 less than an equal comparison in other departments such as the Crown Prosecution Service. If the MOJ was serious about narrowing the gap then why have they insisted that in order to pay for these increases they are taking off Paul to pay Peter?

 As part of the deal overtime payments will go down to 1.25 (on average they are  double in the DWP).  DSOs instead of a 5% top up  will be replaced by a £500 payment which is a cut. Allowances of all types will be cut.Its not surprising therefore that a huge number of legal advisers and admin members will chuck in their voluntary Saturday workings as from October when the new rate comes into force. DSOs are also reviewing their positions and some have already resigned before the ballot result was announced.

The union has declared that 600 new members have joined during the ballot. Its always a positive development when we see new members joining which can only benefit us all in standing up for workers rights  in the workplace especially during this very difficult period.  

The union must now make every effort to keep those members and indeed get some to become involved in union activities. Otherwise there is a danger that many of those could leave the union if it is not seen as relevant to the small everyday matters as well as the crucial matters on health and safety ,pensions and future terms and conditions. If this is not done then many of those who joined in this campaign might just fade away having cast their ballot as was the case in the MEP rejection offer a few years ago.

Some members will gain from this deal in the short term but if we are to avoid deals which sell off conditions and reward some and not others  we need to absorb the lesson – there is no substitute for national collective bargaining for a proper pay campaign around a minimum 10% with no strings. 

Instead the Left Unity national union leadership abandoned conference policy at the outset of the pandemic telling members as well as senior management “now is not the right time” as they parked the 2020 pay claim. The effect of this was to weaken the confidence of members and strengthen the hand of the employer.

Out of this failure we have now seen a shotgun marriage of concession bargaining in the HMRC earlier this year and now in the MOJ. Trading pay for conditions has been embraced by the Democratic Alliance (Left Unity/Democrats) union leadership at national and group level as a way of avoiding a fight against the government attacks on our pay. They have abandoned the national pay campaign and the 2021 10% pay claim for concession bargaining.

BLN members will continue to demand that the union national leadership launch a national campaign for an across the board increase of at least 10% and to link up with other public sector unions making similar demands.

From 31st October to 12th November, the 26th United Nations Climate Change “Conference of the Parties”, known as COP26, will meet in Glasgow. This was scheduled to happen in 2020 but was cancelled due to Covid-19. Pressure is growing on world leaders to take decisive action on climate change. A generation of school students, participating in “climate strike” walkouts from school, have already made their voices heard.

In almost every trade union in the UK, motions have been debated at national Conferences which commit the unions to fighting for a “just transition”. This means a shift away from a carbon-emitting economy in a way that protects working class people from job losses and higher prices and taxes. 

The capitalist class, who see the climate crisis not as a threat to the planet but as a threat to their profits, have also been exerting pressure. In their populist mode, the capitalists hire useful stooges like Alex Jones to pour conspiracy theories and climate change denialism out into the internet and the airwaves. For COP26, however, the capitalists will be rubbing shoulders with world leaders and such tactics will be far from view. Quite a number of large polluters – energy companies, corporations reliant upon global supply chains and banks – have taken to sponsoring COP26, to ensure that they can pose as concerned whilst making sure their profits are protected by governments.

Working class people have no such privileged access to these leaders. Dramatically widening inequality, decades of anti-union laws and the shattering of socialist politics in the mainstream left parties have all ensured that workers have no seat at the table. Only by mobilising workers across the UK – and across the world – will we ensure that our voice is the loudest, so that bosses and politicians are left in no doubt that the burden of de-carbonising the economy should be borne by the wealthiest.

Fight for One Million Climate Jobs and a Green Workers’ Recovery

On 20th July, the union’s Assistant General Secretary, John Moloney, issued a circular (Branch Bulletin 99/21) which lays out the need to build a campaign in anticipation of COP26. This includes giving support to a climate strike on 24th September, by using it as a day of action, and preparation for major demonstrations on 6th November. 

We agree with this bulletin and call on all Broad Left Network supporters to raise its contents at union meetings. However, the danger, given the right-ward trajectory of the current leadership of the union under Fran Heathcote and Mark Serwotka, is that these good intentions are left suspended in mid-air. Outside of ensuring to get their faces on union material, or posing alongside other worthies for a photo opportunity, there is no real sense that the leadership are trying to push this amongst members, to raise its profile and build participation at a crucial moment.

Politically, there has been no attempt to take issues and political demands – such as for a just transition or for the public ownership of utilities – and ground them in real issues faced by members of PCS in the workplace. This was the advantage of the demand for one million green jobs, first articulated by BLN supporter and former PCS Assistant General Secretary Chris Baugh. At the time we first put this forward, it was in answer to the devastating job cuts unleashed by the government after the 2008 crash. It connected directly to a burning issue.

This can be done again, in the context of the Covid-19 crisis and the economic slump that is already hitting jobs up and down the UK. The one million climate jobs we identified included the creation, within the UK Civil Service, of a National Climate Service. This could coordinate the creation of green jobs, with state-led investment to reverse a generation of under-investment. It could transform sectors like manufacturing, energy and transport.

Such an organisation could also have links to every single workplace, especially those run by the government. The current Tory government has published a sustainability strategy – but it amounts to fine words. When it comes to the institutions which the government controls, any reduction in carbon footprint will be by slashing local offices, ditching office car parking spaces and services and by getting rid of the tens of thousands of additional staff taken on during the Covid-19 crisis. In every way this is the opposite of a “just transition”.

A National Climate Service, with sweeping powers to get the UK economy to zero carbon emissions and yet to protect the interests of workers, could link up with Green Reps in every workplace. Green Reps, members of, appointed by and accountable to the trade unions, would speak up for workers’ interests while simultaneously pushing employers to address questions like how to reduce energy consumption like electricity and heating, how to invest in the fabric of buildings, how to rationalise transport usage and so on.

It is these local aspects of fighting climate change – defending jobs, workers’ control in the workplace – that we must use to mobilise in every workplace.

With billions of pounds of debt built up by the crisis, with county court judgments for debt skyrocketing and 650,000 businesses reporting serious financial distress, an economic crisis is happening right in front of us. Swingeing government cuts are an inevitability, once the heroic role of nurses, teachers and others fades a little. If we do not connect the battle against climate change to the fight for jobs, then it will be spun the other way by bosses, their politicians and a compliant media, that climate change necessitates suffering for workers.

If we do not use this opportunity, this huge mobilisation that has the potential to be felt in every corner of the country, to demand economic justice, the result will be much like the aftermath of 2008. The Labour government at that time bailed out the banks, preserved the profits of the capitalists and the obscene bonuses of their financial lackeys and used the resulting debt as an excuse to gut spending on public services, the poor, parents, the sick, the disabled, the young and the old. This mantle was gleefully donned by the Tory and Lib-Dem coalition.

We must mobilise now.

How Could We Build The Mood In Our Workplaces?

There is reason to believe that a mood to fight could quickly build up around the question of jobs and a green recovery. In our own union, workers are already facing job cuts. This is one of the reasons for the current 2-week strike at Just Ask Services, at the Royal Parks. Other private sector contractors will likewise be scaling down staffing, as additional cleaning measures adopted during the pandemic are abandoned by the government.

Staff like this exist in virtually every civil service workplace, and in addition there are the tens of thousands of Fixed Term Appointments taken on to deal with Covid. There are also vast backlogs in certain areas which clearly indicate the need for still more workers to be recruited. Staffing – and related issues such as work related stress, workloads and so on – is an extraordinarily potent issue, if the leadership were to include it in our National Campaign.

This must not just be – as the bulletin referred to above has been – a one-off announcement from the leadership. Nor should it be just Zoom meetings or surveys, designed by the leadership to pointedly avoid any discussion of a strategy to win and to demoralise and demobilise members, as in the recent DWP Safety Campaign. It will have to be a serious effort, involving detailed discussions with reps at every level, painstaking confidence-building amongst branches and then a clear plan to connect all of this back to the major protests planned for COP26 November and to take it out to the entire labour movement.

This mood is strong enough that it is forcing action even in unions traditionally considered to be bastions of the right-win, such as USDAW. Strike action at Weetabix in Kettering, or at BCM Fareva, which supplies Boots and the Body Shop, has resulted from threats to jobs. In Glasgow itself the battle at McVities revolves around the threat to 500 jobs. Any one of these factories could be re-purposed to produce the infrastructure on which a green economy would be based.

BEIS, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which has oversight of COP26, has been hard at work trumpeting the future potential of the “hydrogen” economy. Total government investment is a paltry £105 million and looks a lot like a Tory green-washing exercise. Instead of this, civil servants could get to work mapping out factories and workplaces threatened by closure, identifying available machinery and skill sets and required investment, so as to support workers to take over and run these factories to build green infrastructure.

Inevitably there will be opposition – both from the entrenched bureaucracies within the trade unions and of course from the political class, the capitalists and their minions in the media.  Workers could be mobilised, however, and given the confidence to strike and occupy factories threatened with closure, to demand nationalisation and to demand that the government drastically scales up its investment in the future zero carbon economy, starting with their jobs.

Workers Can Link Up With Students

The twin demands of reducing carbon emissions and a green recovery that protects jobs are universal. The school students who took strike action in 2019 are finishing school and looking around for jobs. Their options are limited. In Glasgow, even in skilled areas such as teaching, councils – faced with economic crisis – are refusing to permanently employ those they take on as trainees. There is scope for a massive campaign that unites workers and students.

Workers – and their organisations, the trade unions – must take the lead, allied to combative campaigns with a proven track record, such as Youth Fight For Jobs. Union branches must pro-actively approach Trades Councils, as is suggested in the PCS branch bulletin referred to above, but we can and should also approach university, college and sixth form students unions, to ask for their support and involvement in making an impact on November 6.

Young workers and students want jobs, they want rights at work and they are absolutely fed up with a capitalist class which has no answer to climate change except an unending series of international junkets in Kyoto, Paris, Copenhagen, now Glasgow. Their lived experience is of their future being endlessly threatened, wages undermined, jobs casualised, pensions evaporated. A socialist approach to these issues unites workers and students.

Every union branch should show a lead in reaching out to the rest of the labour movement, and the union’s National Executive Committee should instruct the network of union offices across the UK, the Full Time Officers and the regional and devolved nation committees to support this work. The union is also affiliated to campaigning organisations that can help, including the National Shop Stewards Network and, as mentioned, Youth Fight for Jobs.

In Glasgow, Youth Fight for Jobs is already organising on campuses for a demonstration outside Skills Development Scotland, in which PCS members work. Firstly, to protest the Scottish Government’s acquiescence in the exploration of a new oil and natural gas field in the North Sea, but also to demand better support for workers and students, in the form of jobs. A lunch time demonstration by workers at Skills Development Scotland, to show support and solidarity, would allow for a broad discussion of the socialist demands needed to win.

Local issues are also worth highlighting. Controversy has raged over the exploration of a new oilfield off the coast of Scotland, with the SNP-led Scottish Parliament in support. It is defended as a necessary evil, and as propping up jobs and investment in the north-east of Scotland. Such a view is only sustained by the under-investment in renewable energy needed to reduce carbon emissions and keep fossil fuels in the ground. In other parts of the UK, fracking or wood pellet burning are well-known issues that can be raised.

Scotland is actually ahead of most of the rest of the UK in terms of its generation of energy by renewable means, but this is not to praise the Scottish Government, it merely reflects the lack of urgency being shown by the Johnson’s Westminster government. A little less mired in corporate corruption though it may be, the Scottish Government has nevertheless passed on massive cuts to local authorities, affecting every area from adult social care to rubbish collection and recycling.

Council leaders frequently blame their inactivity on issues like climate change on these cuts. We don’t accept these excuses but this should underscore how the reversal of austerity is the most obvious and immediate step towards the kind of job creation and investment that would sustain a green recovery and take a giant step towards a zero-carbon economy. 

All of these issues – defending jobs, defending local services, making every workplace as green as possible – are relevant in virtually every community across the country. Achieving them is not just compatible with the demand for a zero-carbon economy – they are dependent upon each other. This is the banner under which the trade unions must prepare for a major battle – beginning with the mobilisation laid out in the PCS branch bulletin, but going beyond that.