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At lunchtime on the  10th November, members of the union were told that their strike ballot, which had run from 26th September until 7th November, had crossed the 50% turnout threshold. Almost a hundred thousand members in both UK and devolved government areas have achieved a mandate for strike action.

A brilliant victory which makes it ever more galling for members in HMRC where members voted with their feet (84.4%) for strike action but failed to reach the anti union law threshold of 50% (47.37% of HMRC members voted) – even more galling because in the last statutory ballot HMRC members beat the threshold but were unable to act because the current national leadership (dominated by Left Unity) has spent years dogmatically opposing a ballot held employer by employer (disaggregated). It’s a shame to think, that if they had listened then we could have been in a much healthier position now given the magnificent results, won on the back of the hard work of reps and members. So while many parts of PCS are celebrating their ballot successes – and rightly so – the R&C Group face disappointment.

Reps and members have worked tirelessly to achieve that vote and with the huge numbers voting  for strike action, the employer should not feel it is off the hook. This is an excellent basis to build and we welcome the NEC decision to re-ballot in R&C Group – but this must be quick and decisive – we must learn the lessons and win that ballot.

Strong and determined leadership required at National and Group levels

R&C Group must intervene early and support branches and workplaces – too little, too late is not good enough – as must the national leadership. Members details should have been updated years ago and if the national union had done its job properly, this would already be part and parcel of the day to day work undertaken locally. No leaflets created a barrier and wasted time, causing locally planned activities to go awry. If the national union has properly engaged with reps locally and at branch level all this could have been prevented.

But it is clear that the current leaderships at both group and national level are content that the union is being run by a centralised team of bureaucrats who have little or no desire to talk to those of us on the ground about what is required. We must recognise the negative role of the Left Unity majority on the NEC. They pressed Conference to delay holding a ballot until September, halting the momentum being built since the indicative ballot earlier in 2022.

Build a strategy capable of winning

The Left Unity-led NEC must set out their strategy to win the national campaign. Now is not the time to blink and it is crucial that whilst we demand talks, notice is served to the employer to bring out on strike the 126 areas who achieved a mandate for action, linking in the strike action with other unions to take place on the 30th November. This will build the confidence of R&C Group members and help us win a re-ballot. It is astonishing that this approach, put forward by the BLN on the NEC, was voted down including by those on the NEC from R&C Group.

Where was the second question – a vote to take action short of a strike such as a work to rule and overtime ban? Left Unity forgot this and this means an important part of our overall strategy is missing before we’ve even started. This must be rectified in the re-ballot.

But the Left Unity-led R&C GEC must also take responsibility. The GEC has a top down approach to organising, bargaining and campaigning. This was especially apparent when it came to Pay and Contract Reform (PACR). Branches were excluded from having a say in what was being negotiated or the recommendation put to members. A minority of branches that came out against the offer were deliberately side lined so that the case against the offer wasn’t made.

This undemocratic attitude isn’t unique to PACR. Despite Group Conference policy being for a Business Trade Union Side to be set up in each business area, there are GEC members that want to avoid having meetings with branches, let alone having a rep attend their meetings with HMRC. The result is a steady de-skilling of reps. Combine this with the loss of a layer of experienced reps due to Building Our Future office closures, and the result is a reduced number of reps with the experience of organising members.

Reps deserve better support. The GEC failed in its obligations – organising meetings were turned into talking shops, meetings held with Mark Serwotka were no more than a facile call to arms. Reps want practical information, not rhetoric, they want the resources to do their job and support from their ‘leaders’. These issues must be resolved in the re-ballot.

Pay and Contract Reform not a barrier to winning

Some activists in R&C Group are already blaming PACR for the Group’s failure to breach the 50% threshold this time. Members of the Broad Left Network opposed the offer that was put by HMRC to PCS. We campaigned for a ‘no’ vote due to the divisive nature of the offer and that it was concession bargaining. We’ve continued to fight the problems created by PACR for many members, especially those in Customer Services Group. As has been highlighted above, we acknowledge the likelihood that PACR is having a detrimental impact on reps too.

However we don’t accept the argument that the result of this latest ballot was a result of PACR. The turnout for R&C Group in the 2019 aggregate statutory ballot was around 50.1%. The reduction in turnout from 2019 to 2022 was around 2.7%. There’s only anecdotal evidence to attribute this to PACR – especially as the increases under this deal nowhere near compensate members for the current energy costs and crisis in living costs produced by a 12.6% increase in prices.

More importantly, the argument that PACR caused R&C Group to lose the ballot is defeatist and dangerous. It suggests that the members will never again vote in the numbers required and that the Group will be unable to win a re-ballot. We reject any defeatist attitude – the Group and National leadership must unite members and bring them with us to win. If they can’t do that then they must step aside.

Organising to win the re-ballot and win in offices

Branches have already learned many positive lessons from the recent ballot. As a new layer of organisers come forward and feel the disappointing sting of this ballot, they can grow and make PCS stronger. The experience of R&C Cumbernauld shows PCS can engage with vast numbers of members and encourage them to use their vote. A number of larger branches, such as Leeds, Merseyside, Stratford and West Mercia, breached the 50% threshold.

Branches need the resources to do the job to help them get the job done. The branch and the workplace is where the vote will be won – it is branch reps who members know and trust and go to, it is branch reps that have the strongest connection to members and the greatest likelihood of getting members to vote. The Union leadership needs to play its part by supporting and enthusing the local reps to do this in preparation for the re-ballot.  The wider union can play its part as a supplement to branch activity, but it not as a substitute.

Branches should be encouraged to consider their results, to draw up a campaign plan and to ensure regular communicating and reporting back to the branch of progress against the plan. Then reps need to systematically contact every member to encourage them to vote. Extra resources should be identified by the union where required – used to supplement the work of local reps and branches, not parachuted in over their heads. These are ABCs of organising, but it would be reckless to assume they will just happen.

R&C members of BLN believe the GEC must call an urgent meeting of reps across the group. Bring everyone together to go through what support is there and use the reps who put good systems in place that succeeded in getting the vote out to talk about how they did it and encourage others to think about similar methods. There also needs to be a focus on what preparation reps can do right now to make the re-ballot easier, such as members meetings, branch communications, branch mapping, rechecking personal data. If R&C Group waits until January 2023 to start the work then the current momentum will be lost, just at happened over the summer.

A re-ballot also gives the opportunity for correct the NEC’s tactical error of having just one question on the ballot paper. Reps were already asking about action short of a strike before the ballot even opened.

But many of the problems arise at levels above the branch. There are too many people standing for NEC and GEC positions that are complacent. They are happy to let a damaging status quo carry on. This is why the Broad Left Network stands for elected positions. We argue for change at the rank and file level and stand for election to make that change a reality. If you agree with us, if you want to see changes to PCS to make us the combative and leading trade union that brought about the public sector strike on 30th November 2011, join us today and stand with us.

At lunchtime on the  10^th November, members of the union were told that their strike ballot, which had run from 26^th September until 7^th November, had crossed the 50% turnout threshold. Almost a hundred thousand members in both UK and devolved government areas have achieved a mandate for strike action.

A resounding 86.2% of members voted YES for strike action, covering 126 different employers. This is a massive vote against the UK government’s plans to cut pay, to cut jobs, to cut offices and to attack public services and the terms and conditions of staff who deliver these services, as well as against the insufficient approaches of devolved governments.

This is testament to the phenomenal work put in by rank-and-file union reps and members across the UK. Despite many barriers being placed in their way by the National Executive Committee, reps spent hours contacting every single member in their branches, and sometimes in other branches too, to make sure everyone voted in the ballot.

Prepare for major strikes – including national, all-members action

It is within the authority of the NEC to agree to write to the Departments and the Cabinet Office, to announce dates for action. The anti-union laws mean that a union has to give 14 days of notice of strike action. It is crucial that the union leadership moves quickly to capitalise on this magnificent vote and to put the employer(s) under immediate pressure to concede our demands. BLN supporters proposed exactly this at the NEC meeting which took place on the same day as the ballot result was announced. We proposed that the union should write and demand immediate talks and simultaneously serve notice for action to take place across all 126 employers and preferably on 30 November to coincide with the CWU and UCU. Astonishingly, beyond demanding talks, the NEC has decided not to do this, but to reconvene later in November to discuss how and when to call action.

Major coordinated action has already been announced by other unions, including 115,000 in the Communication Workers Union and 70,000 in the University and Colleges Union, for late November. In London, this would allow striking Whitehall-focused Departments to link up with the major demonstration planned by UCU, raising confidence in a key area for us.

For the NEC to agree merely to write to the Cabinet Office, rather than immediately serve notice of action, shows weakness and allows the Government to play for time.

Broad Left Network supporters, including on the NEC continue to argue in favour of an initial two-day strike of all areas with a legal mandate for action, joining up with those unions calling action towards the end of November. If we were to move now, it could convince other unions, such as the Royal College of Nursing, which also voted for action, to join in.

The disruption caused by two days of action taken together by all areas can then be built on, including by taking out different sectors and different areas on a rolling basis, linking up when there is industrial logic to do so, such as geographic proximity or common areas of work. Enough areas have voted for action that we have sufficient muscle to fight hard.

Instead, the NEC are downplaying the potential role of sustained all-members action, in favour of small-scale targeted action, which can be supported with strike pay. We disagree. Members want national action covering all areas with a mandate to strike, in addition to other kinds of action, to exert maximum pressure on the government.

Re-ballots and action short of strike

Even though the civil service areas with a mandate for action number around 100,000, there are big areas which do not currently have a mandate. HM Revenue and Customs, for example, did not break the 50% turnout threshold requirement, although it was only very narrowly missed.

In contrast to the view of the NEC, we must consider all areas which did not break the threshold for a re-ballot, not just HMRC.

We must also consider whether and when to ballot all areas for action short of a strike. Due to the incompetence of the NEC, a question on action short of a strike was not included in the recent ballot, so members are not able to undertake an overtime ban or a work to rule in any area, despite the major leverage this could provide.

The NEC, at their meeting this morning, did not consider this, and as announced in the Facebook Live meeting last Thursday, they are not now intending to meet until 18^th November 

Re-building a Fighting, Democratic PCS

Members have given the NEC an enormous mandate to prepare the union for a massive fight that could improve our pay, secure our pensions, protect our terms and conditions and defend our jobs and offices. If the current NEC is not up to this task, they should step aside for a campaigning, socialist NEC that is more attuned to the needs of members.

Major strike action offers the opportunity for a new leadership to step forward. For years now Broad Left areas have been in the forefront of securing yes votes in ballots, and building high turnout. Broad Left Network reps have been the people proposing the serious strategies to win for members. Now we will be the reps who can mobilise members for the most determined strike action.

We want all reps, who are fighting in the trenches for their members, to step up, ditch this failed leadership – unite with us and finally vote for a leadership with the backbone, grit and determination to win.

“A week is a long time in politics” – a well-trodden phrase – but currently it seems as though an hour is. It speaks volumes about the chaos in the government that this article has been through multiple versions in a matter of days as events have unfolded.. Not small changes, but significant amendments. It began when the Truss government conducted a mini budget on 23rd September 2022, just 17 days after Liz Truss became the Tory Party leader and UK Prime Minister. Except what was announced wasn’t mini and could barely even be described as a budget. Ordinarily a budget would suggest some kind of number crunching. The then Chancellor, Kwarteng didn’t even bother to put his plan to the Office for Budget Responsibility before announcing it.

The last 12 years of Tory rule saw an increasing tax burden. Despite the growing tax revenues, public sector spending as a whole fell. Even ‘protected’ areas like the NHS saw spending fall in real terms as any increases failed to keep pace with inflation. If tax revenues were going up but public spending fell, where did the money go? It went to paying for the national debt created to prop up the banks after their speculation crashed the world economy in 2008.

The mini budget as originally set out would have created a £45 billion a year hole in UK government finances to plug. That’s the equivalent of around half of the NHS budget. The government was going to plug this hole by borrowing, at a time when interest rates are generally going up, to restrict inflation. The borrowing costs would add more pressure to public finances, and that’s just year 1. The plan itself was predicated on growing the economy to the extent that tax revenues would increase to completely replace the missing £45 billion. If that assumption failed to happen then the mini budget will create a permanent hole in public finances to be filled by yet more borrowing and by yet more public sector spending cuts.

The Tory orthodoxy of 12 years was to “balance the books” by slashing public services, with the poorest in society feeling the consequences of those decisions. Unsurprisingly the UK economy stagnated with an ever growing proportion of people struggling to make ends meet. In that backdrop the COVID lockdowns and government financial interventions were a blessing for some. It meant increased benefits, guaranteed income, a reduction in costs like commuting, secured tenancies as landlords couldn’t evict tenants. It gave the public an inkling of what life could be like under Socialism.

Lockdowns may have helped some of the poorest, but it was the rich that really gained from COVID. Contracts were awarded to Tory cronies in yet another transfer of public money to private capital. The bill for COVID soon mounted up and there was no doubt who the Tories would target to pay the bill. Sure enough workers were told to pay more tax to fund adequate medical and social care. Benefit claimants were once again targeted for cuts. As the cost of living rose, workers were told not to ask for too much money in pay rises in case they stoked the already high inflation that they had not caused. But many trade unions are organising and mobilising a worker fightback. We aren’t prepared to pay for another crisis of capitalism.

When austerity was launched in 2008, it was the public sector trade unions that led the fight back. Unions such as the PCS and NUT took strike action in 2010 culminating in a public sector wide strike on 30 November 2011. It was a mobilisation not seen for decades and it should have been the start of something bigger. Instead right wing trade union leaders made back room deals to undermine further coordinated action and the movement was taken apart. A few unions tried to continue the fight but they were isolated and they eventually conceded. This defeat informed the mood of the trade union movement for nearly a decade. Every attack on workers was met with words and no appetite for action. Even left wing trade union leaderships fell into defeatist attitudes. They instead pinned their hopes on a Labour government – which was a doubtful strategy even during the short lived Corbyn leadership.

In 2022 there are different trade unions that lead the fight, in formerly public industries such as post and rail as well as in the private sector. They are unburdened by the defeat in 2011. New trade union leaders are becoming household names. The names of the public sector trade unions are being forgotten as they are shown up for their rightward drift. There is an energy amongst workers. They know they have been taken for a ride. They were promised that fixing the budget would bring rewards worth the initial pain. Those promises ring hollow when many households choose between heating and eating, and for some even that choice is no longer available.

Enter Liz Truss; posing as the next Thatcher. She claimed to be cutting taxes to give workers more in their pocket. This was supposed to boost the UK economy, bringing prosperity to all. Yet you only needed to see who was receiving those tax cuts to see the truth. Bankers were in line for their bonus cap removed, the 1.25% national insurance rise removed, the 45% top rate of tax removed. The richest would have seen £10,0000+ savings each year. By contrast a worker on the average wage will be facing around £350 in tax. To put that in context, average energy bills rose by more £500. Any tax savings for the average worker are dwarfed by the scale of the cost of living crisis.

This was a mini budget for the rich. Such a ploy might have succeeded during times of plenty. But when most people are struggling, such a giveaway was too much even for a lot of Tory MPs. There was open talk on the backbenches of voting for Labour amendments. Even some cabinet ministers broke ranks to discuss their opposition to aspects of the mini budget due to be implemented. It soon became a question of not ‘if’ but ‘when’ a u-turn would happen.

The first u-turn came on Sunday 1 October, when the abolition of the 45% tax rate was withdrawn. This was the easiest decision for Truss’s government, with the subheading being that they are listening to their party and to the country. Yet if they thought this would placate dissent in their ranks or calm international markets, they were clearly unable to read the situation.

On Friday 15 October, 22 days after the mini budget was given, Kwarteng was asked to ‘step down’ as chancellor. Jeremy Hunt was appointed in his place. This was followed over the weekend with a shredding of the mini budget. Measures such as the cutting of income tax, maintaining the corporation tax rate at 19% and VAT free duty for tourists are gone. Around £13 billion of the tax cuts remain. The markets have responded with approval to the reversals. However no reversal for their friends in big businesses and their bonuses.

Many political commentators are saying that Liz Truss’s authority is gone and Jeremy Hunt is the de facto prime minister. That analysis has now been borne out as a new Prime Minister has been crowned – Rishi Sunak, in an astonishing turn of events where we have had three Prime Ministers in a matter of weeks. Yet for the working class there’s no meaningful change. The Health and Social Care Levy is gone, but there’s no plan for the funding or implementation of adequate social care. The Energy Price Guarantee, already inadequate for many families, is now for six months only to April 2023, leaving many with huge uncertainty as to how they’ll continue to afford gas and electricity. The cost of living crisis is still not addressed.

Jeremy Hunt has already said that tax rises and public spending cuts are necessary. We can expect real terms benefit cuts, public sector job losses, pay restraint. The next budget announcement at the end of October is likely to heap further misery on the poorest in society. Yet there are divisions within the Tory Party. They are certain they will lose the next general election but some MPs how to retain their seats. Those MPs know their constituents are struggling and that their party needs to be seen to be doing more or risk public backlash in the form of non-payment campaigns or protests.

This marks the weakness of the Tory Party today. Many in their ranks still want to be seen as fiscally responsible. Others, elected in the so-called red wall, are seeking financial support for ordinary people. Most of the cabinet itself is formed predominantly of free marketeers. Although they are hurting from the market reaction to the mini budget, they are still open to taking a ‘smash and grab’ approach to the UK economy and finances. These contradictions and tensions won’t go away, giving the opportunity for bold action by workers to extract gains. The Ukraine war is being used as an excuse to rip -up environmental protection legislation, to increase the dependency on fusil fuels, including the dangerous move back to allowing fracking, and all this in the face of an ever-increasing climate emergency.

The current disaggregated ballot of PCS members is just such an opportunity for civil servants. After supporting the UK through the crises of 2008, Brexit and COVID, we deserve fair pay, pensions and a fully funded and staffed civil service. BLN members are calling on all PCS members to use their ballot to vote YES for strike action. We need to be part of the growing trade union opposition to current Tory policy. Its clear from the rail dispute that the Tories fear strike action by unionsand the public support that workers in dispute are gaining and aim to introduce even more anti trade union laws,. We must be prepared to be bold: coordinating our strike action with other unions where practical, taking our own strike action as necessary. Unlike the current Left Unity NEC majority, BLN members won’t shy away from the candid conversions with members on what’s needed to win this dispute.

A strong Labour opposition putting forward Socialist policies would reinforce the demands of trade unions and give hope to workers. Instead the current Starmer shadow cabinet refuse to back strikes. No one knows what they stand for. They are gaining traction in the polls simply because they aren’t the Tories. Starmer’s ‘strategy’ comes with risks as it leaves many voters with nothing to vote for and they may stay away. What’s needed is a party that will support the trade unions and challenge red and blue Tories at the ballot box.

The Tory Government is on its knees and fighting for its survival. We await to hear what Sunak has planned for us – but we can be certain that it will means cuts, closures and reductions in the real value of our pay. Now is the time for us to act – vote “yes” in the ballot, post your ballot paper by the end of October. Unions are moving into action, workers are winning, let’s join them and increase our chances of defending our lot.

The death of the Queen has pushed aside many issues in some peoples minds, but for most, including PCS members, the huge problems we face – including how we are to make ends meet against a spiralling cost of living – cannot be ignored.

Half a million civil servants watched apprehensively as Liz Truss assembled her new cabinet. The new PM has already publicly committed herself to the 91,000 job cuts announced by Johnson, endorsing the fantasy that there are “back of house” cuts that can be made without massive impact to the millions of citizens who rely on the UK civil service.

Truss did not wait to even take over the office of PM before launching an attack on the civil service trade unions, promising to rein in the use of facility time. She also pledged to consider regional pay, to realise an £8.8bn pay cut to public sector pay. Truss also performed the fastest u-turn in history when it was explained even by fellow Tories that the measures of control over union reps she had called for were already in place, and that her proposed savings would destroy any idea of “levelling up” for 5.5million public sector workers.

Unthinking Tory arrogance over our pay, jobs and working lives is no laughing matter at a time when inflation has risen to 10% and may see 18% within the next 12 months. PCS’ national ballot – covering pay, pensions, redundancy rights, working conditions and staffing – begins on 26th September. Every effort must be made to smash the turnout across every single group in the union.

The Tories and the employers won’t be declaring a truce and workers will still be facing the biggest cost of living crisis in generations. There must be no delay in the national PCS strike ballot and the union must fight for co-ordinated action

There can be only one answer to the chaos unleashed in Whitehall by the army of privatisers, landlords and robbers at the top of the government; determined, disciplined, mass strike action, linking up with our brothers, sisters and comrades in the railway unions, in the postal service and the rapidly proliferating strikes in the rest of the economy.

Truss was forced into the huge concession on energy prices, which could cost twice what was spent on the Covid furlough scheme. This was because this unstable, weak and divided Tory government fear the boiling anger of workers. It shows what could be won if the unions fight and strike together.

Truss and the Tory agenda must be stopped – livelihoods and lives depend on it. Vote yes in the PCS ballot on 26th September.

The DWP Group Executive Committee (GEC) met over two days (27 & 28 July) to discuss how it intends to respond to the crisis of low pay and increasing job insecurity, with nearly 1,000 members of staff now at real risk of compulsory redundancy due to the employer’s Workplace Transformation/Network Design Programme – or, to call it what it is, its Office Closure Programme. The Department has already confirmed that it intends to commence a review of its entire estate and, in effect, puts at risk every job across the country, especially if the Back of House site has an office workforce of less than 300.

 The GEC was also given a verbal update on the National Campaign Ballot, which runs from 26^th September and will last six weeks. The earliest time we will be able to take strike action if the 50% threshold is met will be late November.

The meeting was bookended by a 24-hour strike by 40,000 railway workers, represented by the RMT union, and the announcement of a massive vote for strike action by Unite, who had balloted 1,900 port workers in Felixstowe following a below-inflation pay rise. The following day, 40,000 Openreach engineers and BT call centre workers – walked out as part of their dispute over pay. All three of these disputes involve strike votes for the first time in at least 30 years.

With inflation now into double digits, and forecast in some quarters to reach 15% by the end of this year, one GEC member showed the committee the front page of the Guardian newspaper, which carried a headline that unions were threatening a general strike to deal with the cost of living crisis and as a rebuke to Liz Truss, who is running to replace Boris Johnson as Tory leader and Prime Minister, and her threats to introduce yet more anti-democratic, anti-trade-union legislation. That is the current period in which workers are operating, and there is a growing willingness to fight back against high inflation, falling living standards, and a range of attacks on other conditions of service. The resistance is no longer confined to the public sector, with dozens of smaller and protracted strikes taking place, including hundreds of bus drivers across the North West, who are out on indefinite strike action.  Bizarrely, the committee was told on several occasions that nothing has changed since Annual Delegate Conference in May of this year, yet the newspaper headlines told a different story!

No Office Closures, No Jobs Cuts

The Broad Left Network supporters on the GEC, now totalling six (up from three) following the Group elections in May, moved a motion calling for the DWP GEC to seek authorisation from the National Disputes Committee to commence a national ballot of the Group as soon as possible, on all issues connected to the National Campaign: Pay job cuts, Civil Service Compensation Scheme, and for it to include office closures, under the campaign heading ‘No Office Closures, No Job Cuts”. We believe that the leverage conditions exist now, workers are organising in their trade unions to resist, and civil servants are demanding we do the same – now! There is a raft of DWP-specific issues that need the firmest possible response.

 A further 10 Jobcentres were announced for closure on 20^th July, which comes on the back of a previous list of Jobcentre closures earlier this year, and it has quickly become clear that the Workplace Transformation/Network Design strategy, which is seeking to close 42 back of house sites and put at risk nearly 1,000 jobs, now involves a review of its whole estate and a fight back, on a national, collective and co-ordinated basis is urgently needed. They have also ruled out providing the option of homeworking as a redundancy avoidance measure.

Left Unity ditching closure campaign

The strategy from the Left Unity GEC majority, which makes up the leadership of the DWP Group, has been to divide members and urge any campaign to be held on a singular and local basis, rather than join up the campaign to resist the closure programme. Their strategy now looks like they are ditching the office closures and staffing campaign in favour of the national ballot. The BLN, on the other hand, has consistently called for a national ballot, not just on office closures, but combining with the other key industrial issues, such as pay, staffing, and workloads, but we are now denounced as anti-democratic for attempting to override agreed union policy.

The effective and democratic running of PCS starts and ends at the Annual Delegate Conference. This is true. However, members elect a National Executive Committee, and a number of Group Executive Committees, to manage union affairs in the intervening period between ADCs and Group Conference. That delegated authority exists so that it can respond to issues as they rise. Sometimes the BLN will agree with a change of policy – such as the decision to include the disgraceful 91,000 job cut threat, when it met in July, despite ADC policy carrying no reference to jobs – and sometimes we will disagree such as when Mark Serwotka unilaterally “parked” the union’s policy to campaign for a 10% pay rise in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. We have clear Group conference policy linking staffing with the pay campaign and argued that we could utilise the tactic where groups are being balloted in a disaggregated way on the national campaign to include specific reference to the need for 30,000 extra staff and against office closures in our ballot material, to ensure all the issues our members are facing are included in a single ballot. It is not anti-democratic to argue for a ballot on all of the key issues at a time when the country is locked in an economic and political crisis. We believe the tide is flowing in our direction, yet the Left Unity leadership is doing all it can to miss riding it and they voted down our motion!

Climate change safeguards needed for members

Elsewhere, a vital debate took place on the Climate Emergency, in particular the slow response from the Department to the historic heatwave in mid-July. In seeking to amend the Health and Safety report, which only referenced the heatwave when criticising over-worked workplace reps for not understanding current Health and Safety employer policies, BLN supporters argued that a standing plan should be negotiated so that future extreme weather events, increasing in their frequency and severity, will be nationally led with clear guidance that presumes all offices would be closed in the worst affected areas as soon as the warning is issued. And no pressure to keep sites open in badly affected areas where our members or the public could be put at risk, to help reps get the right decision in each site based on safety. This amendment was carried.

COVID-19 absences could now lead to formal action

It was also reported that COVID-19 absences will no longer be protected against formal attendance management action, which risks increasing transmission in DWP workplaces as members report to work, despite unwell, out of fear of being issued with warnings. Moreover, recent studies   have shown that in May 2022, 1.2 million people showed signs of Long Covid, which could be avoided by ensuring members have the ability to rest at home for the period of sickness. It is imperative that the responsible officers continue to negotiate with the employer to provide the best possible terms when recovering from COVID-19.

On Thursday 31^st March, union reps from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) met together by Zoom to discuss the announcement of 48 office closures. We have previously reported on the first 43 closures, announced on 17^th March, affecting potentially 8,000 staff. On 30^th March, 5 more were added with less than 24 hours’ notice to the union. More than 400 staff are affected by the new wave, in Brighton, Burton, Liverpool and Hyde.

The response from the current leadership of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, drawn from an organisation calling itself “Left Unity”, left a lot to be desired. Multiple union branches with offices directly hit by the announcements, and potentially with jobs at risk, were not given any support from the union’s Group Executive Committee (GEC). This included sites like Walsall which have since organised their own all-members meeting with a view to preparing to fight back. Response from members has been positive.

On 17^th March itself, the day of the announcements, the union’s leadership issued a belated briefing, well after management-led announcements had taken place. This failed to give a clear steer to union reps and members across the affected areas; it did not announce any serious strategy to oppose the closures or to save jobs. It did not link the question of closures and jobs to other major issues in DWP: pay, temporary staff, Covid-safety or workloads.

Since then, despite this lacklustre response from DWP Group leadership in PCS, Broad Left Network supporters in the union have been working hard to build a grassroots’ response to the announcements.

A meeting on official time to discuss office closures

Thursday’s meeting involved 6 hours of paid official time for reps to be “consulted” on the closures by the PCS leadership. Every thinking rep in DWP immediately wondered, “What does DWP have to gain by giving reps time to meet?” The contents of the meeting were sadly far from surprising, and they give away exactly what DWP had to gain.

After opening remarks by the Group President, who sternly told reps not to offer ideas on what they thought the union should do, negotiators gave several presentations on the state of discussions with DWP. Chat functions on Zoom were disabled and after a controlled Q&A, reps were divided up into regions to give members’ views on the announcements.

Feedback from these sessions was tightly controlled, with only GEC members speaking for the remainder of the meeting. The result was exactly what the GEC and DWP each hoped to produce; reports which overwhelmingly commented upon secondary issues such as travel, excess fares, exit packages etc., but which downplayed any chance of fighting back.

This is what DWP had to gain – and in this the union’s leadership under PCS “Left Unity” has been the pawn of the employer. Better preparation by the GEC, who were told of the announcements on 15^th March, could have avoided this by providing the leadership that is so desperately lacking from our union, by immediately outlining the need for action and by connecting this to many broader issued affecting the vast majority of DWP’s 90,000+ staff.

“Left Unity” negotiators making mistake after mistake

New depths are still being plumbed, however, by the union’s current leadership. Negotiators revealed that, contrary to what thousands of members were told during the office closure announcements, when staff were told that DWP would do everything possible to avoid redundancies, DWP has admitted they have money set aside for potential redundancies.

Members and reps raised concerns on the day of the announcements that the offices designated to receive any transferred staff from closing sites did not have enough space. Increasingly, this fear seems justified – especially since DWP has not given a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies.

Negotiators also revealed that they have been involved in discussions with DWP about “workforce management” processes. This admission only came about because Broad Left Network reps highlighted intranet changes that DWP had not consulted about or announced publicly, removing DWP’s commitment to statutory redundancy protections for DWP staff.

One of the questions union negotiators were asked by reps was about the planned staffing and workload figures, which are usually provided by DWP as part of the ordinary run of industrial relations. This would reveal where the cuts are intended, and the likely impact on all other staff. Negotiators were unable to state clearly if they have this information.

Getting this information and getting it out to branches is crucial to building a union response. The first duty of the union’s leadership is to win support amongst the activist base for a fighting strategy up to and including industrial action, and working with reps to map a route to get to that outcome – because this kind of action is what we know will be needed to win.

By allowing the format of the recent reps’ meeting to be dictated by DWP, by incompetence in not realising the significance of information provided by DWP, by their inadequacy in expecting DWP to act in good faith, the current leadership of PCS is repeatedly showing that it is not up to the task of fighting office closures. It must step aside for those who can launch this fight.

An alternative is available

On the day of the announcements on 17^th March, Broad Left Network supporters attended as many of the affected sites as we could. The message we put forward was clear. We clearly stated our opposition to the closures and believed the primary role of the union is to fight to retain jobs and offices.

Inevitably a lot of the questions we fielded on the day were about practicalities for those offices where the work was being relocated and where members were promised a “lift and drop” of their jobs. However, where we made it clear that the first order of business was keeping existing buildings and securing all jobs, members agreed enthusiastically.

We have evidence that in these sites, new members have joined the union as a result.

We also face the threat to 3,000 fixed term staff, that their jobs will end at the end of June. The impact to both Jobcentre and Service Centre staff by the loss of these jobs will be calamitous for caseload levels and stress. We have been working hard, where we have a base, to enlist support from staff for a campaign to defend these jobs.

Critical for an integrated campaign

How we link these issues has now become critical. The GEC need to stop separating out these attacks as single issues, they need to be integrated into one campaign to bring the workforce together in defence of the major attack being made by the employer.

With the right approach, this could be expanded to all branches in DWP very quickly, even in the limited amount of time available. It can be linked to the office closures, the inevitable disruption to DWP work and the redundancies DWP is clearly planning. It can also be linked to safety – while Covid-19 guidelines are increasingly being discarded, the risks have not gone away. Offices which had hitherto maintained spacing between occupied desks are already planning to get rid of this, in order to facilitate transfers of staff into fewer sites.

It can also be linked to the attack on our pay launched by HM Treasury this week, with the 2-3% pay remit in an era of 8% inflation – a 5% pay cut, minimum. There are union reps who would not wait to react to DWP’s next betrayal of the pay, jobs and working conditions of their staff, but who would mobilise the full power of the union to resist.

You will find them on your ballot paper – these are the Broad Left Networks supporters.

The Broad Left Network support an integrated campaign on all these demands:

• No to the 48 DWP office closures, no redundancies, protect jobs, keep services local.
• Defend every job – the loss of 3,000 FTAs and who knows how many staff as a result of office closures will be calamitous for claimants and staff in DWP.
• Permanent jobs now – the recent redundancy exercise for our temporary staff is a mess. The scoring system is a mess. These staff are capable and should be given jobs.
• For an extra 30,000 staff in DWP to reduce caseloads in Service Centres and Jobcentres and to support under pressure areas such as State Pension.
• End micromanagement, end compulsory late working, end compulsory Saturday working: spreading few staff over more working hours and days is ludicrous.
• Safety first: for an agreement between DWP and PCS on home/hybrid working, that secures the benefits of home/hybrid working for all and keeps people safe.
• No discrimination – equality proof all HR policies and pay systems
• A 10% pay rise, minimum, to reverse the fall in wages due to rising prices since 2010.

DWP Group Executive Committee met over two days in January (26^th and 27^th) to discuss the key  industrial issues facing members. Despite doing their best to avoid confronting the mounting crises across most areas of the Department, from staffing to working conditions to COVID-19 safety measures, it was clear that the pressure being applied by dissatisfied branches and activists forced the GEC Left Unity (LU) majority into producing a self-congratulatory motion that offered a meek and mild commitment of “campaigning” on such issues.

Three motions were debated on the Thursday afternoon, one submitted by each of the three groups represented on the GEC, and the difference in the motions was stark. The motion put forward by the Left Unity majority failed to outline even a shred of detail about how they would campaign, whereas the Broad Left Network motion sought to commit the GEC to industrial action, building a campaign in an effort to win concessions on staffing, working conditions and health and safety. The IL motion called on the GEC to call an immediate statutory ballot, but that is a risky move considering the current leadership have not yet even placed formal demands on the employer and the necessary building work – mass meetings and leafleting – has yet to be done. The BLN approach was to place four demands on the employer:

1. That the employer engaged in a full re-negotiation of all COVID-19 safety measures
2. That the employer offers permanent jobs to the thousands of EO staff and remaining 183 AO staff on Fixed-Term contracts
3. That the employer commits to a root-and-branch assessment of working conditions in all areas of the Department
4. That the employer opens up negotiations to offer hybrid working arrangements to all staff, including those in front-facing areas, such as Jobcentres

The motion further called for immediate preparations for a statutory ballot across the whole of the DWP but on a disaggregated basis. This means that individual workplaces would be balloted and those workplaces that beat the anti-trade union legislation and achieve over a 50% ballot turnout would have a legal mandate for strike action, allowing for the union to commence a fightback in those areas where we are strongest but also ensuring resources can be targeted to specific branches and workplaces in any subsequent re-ballot. Any campaign has to include mass meetings, intense leafleting and other forms of high-tempo communication, such as social media campaigning led by the GEC leadership. During the debate, the BLN referenced an ongoing dispute in higher education between the University and College Union (UCU) and universities. The UCU’s Four Fights campaign tied together casualisation and excessive workloads and similar tactics have been used. A significant number of universities achieved a legal mandate for strike action when the union balloted all members across all universities on a disaggregated basis and then re-balloted others who initially did not achieve the minimum turnout. That approach allowed for a further 12 universities to beat the anti-union laws. Strangely, the national president, who sits on the GEC and moved the Left Unity motion, raised a point about the UCU campaign and declared there are significant differences but did not elaborate. Of course all disputes, especially in different sectors, have their differences, but the central points are almost identical and similar strategies pursued.

The motion was proposed by Broad Left Network activist, Craig Worswick, whose Greater Manchester Branch had convened a national reps and activist meeting to raise the urgent need for a national campaign that connects three important issues. The meeting was formally sponsored by a dozen branches (and attended by representatives of others) and two regions. This is indicative of considerable dissatisfaction amongst the activist layer working in the DWP and a statement calling for action was unanimously supported.

Unsurprisingly, given that Left Unity have the majority on the GEC, their motion was voted through and so it is clear there will be no central leadership, that co-ordinates branches and regions, and no meaningful attempt to mobilise our membership at a time when the government is showing immense signs of weakness. The leverage conditions are there for a victorious campaign, that wins permanent jobs for thousands of members, improves working conditions, and protects the health and safety of staff.  

Inevitably, the GEC majority have been quick to claim credit for the Department acting of its own volition when they announced that 6,000 AO staff would be offered a permanent job and that there will be a mass EO selection exercise and offers of permanency to lots of staff. However, there are still a 183 AO staff who face losing their job and, at this stage, the Department has committed to a “majority” of permanent offers to EO grades.

True to form, the GEC LU majority did not pre-warn branches of the nature of the announcement and their only comment has been to “cautiously welcome” the employer’s decision and to “continue to argue for all FTA EOs to be made permanent”. This, again, fails to recognise the balance of forces argument and that our collective power and willingness to act as one is what will knock the Department off balance and not the self-perceived brilliance of individual negotiators. It is plain to see that the negotiators have failed to mobilise members in a campaign backed up with the threat of industrial action. Shockingly,, no evidence has been produced from the LU negotiators to the GEC about when meetings have taken place or what precisely has been raised and discussed during employee relations meetings with GEC Officers and what, if anything, has been agreed. This, unfortunately, highlights a contemptuous attitude reflecting their continued ignoring of representations from branches and regions.

The DWP staffing announcement has predictably riled many of our members, with reports already of staff in tears, in an anxious state or lambasting the employer for their walking-us-up-the-garden-path approach. Moreover, the announcement does not deal with the response from permanent members of staff, who will quite understandably be worried about what their daily working conditions will be like if thousands of staff are removed either from employment or redeployed to other areas of the organisation. The GEC needs to respond urgently and build the campaign to bring together all staff and build for action involving all staff and wage the fight on permanent jobs for all and improved working conditions for all. Only a highly charged and energetic campaign, which brings together all members, will help reverse the years of rotten decline that has hampered the union’s ability to extract significant, well-meaning and lasting concessions from the employer. A victory would galvanise the membership, recruit hundreds, if not thousands of members, and help re-build branches by the identification of new activists.

In the absence of  leadership it is now necessary to reconvene the meeting of reps to discuss next steps given the pitiful response from the GEC. This meeting needs to focus on how branches can meaningfully work together to develop the campaign and co-ordinate their activity, such as identifying areas of strength, calling mass meetings and working together to ensure the necessary correspondence is completed to enter into a formal trade dispute.

In developing the campaign we need to follow the lead of  strike waves that has developed outside of the civil service during the last few months of 2021 that is growing in 2022. It has claimed significant victories for workers. The stored-up anger that has developed through the Covid pandemic has started to burst open. Yet, at the beginning of Covid nearly two years ago, the unions in an official sense seemingly collapsed. Many union leaderships capitulated to the idea of ‘national unity’, the false claim by the Tories that there is a joint interest between workers and their unions on one side, and the employers and their Tory government on the other.

Virtually all official industrial action between March and July 2020 was suspended or cancelled, although many union reps and members heroically took, or threatened, unofficial action to ensure workplace safety. Even unions which in the past period have been seen as more militant succumbed to national unity. Notably, the Left Unity leadership of our own PCS civil service union ‘parked’ the union’s full national pay claim, even before the national executive had met. Only now, two years later, is the union even consulting members nationally on pay but still not linking it to safety and staffing key issues in DWP.

But we are serious about longer term change for the unions. Given the cost of living crisis and the continual attacks from a government who wants to make us pay for austerity and covid it is crucial that we elect a leadership at all levels of the union prepared to take them on. The Broad Left Network is asking you to nominate the following candidates and issue Branch recommendations for a new fighting leadership.  For a leadership what will work, coordinate and support Branches such as yours.

THE BROAD LEFT NETWORK IS ASKING YOU TO NOMINATE THE FOLLOWING CANDIDATES FOR THE DWP GEC

PRESIDENT	Semple Dave
VICE PRESIDENTS	Heemskerk Rachel, Suter Paul, Williams Katrine
ASST SECRETARIES	Brown Ian, Burke Dave, Fearn Jill, Rees Dave, Tweedale Saorsa-Amatheia, Worswick Craig
EDITOR	Johnson Sam
TREASURER	Scott Emma
GEC MEMBERS	Brown Ian
Campbell William	Evison Chris
Fearn Jill	Hamer Peter
Heemskerk Rachel	Ilesanmi Yemisi
Johnston Sam	McGuckian Stephen
Semple Dave	Rees Dave
Scott Emma	Suter Paul
Toomer Catherine	Tweedale Saorsa-Amatheia
Williams Katrine	Worswick Craig

FOR THE NATIONAL ELECTIONS PLEASE NOMINATE THE FOLLOWING CANDIDATES

PRESIDENT	Lloyd Marion: (BEIS)
VICE PRESIDENTS	Brittle Fiona: (Scot Gov), Brown Sarah: (Met Police), Semple Dave: (DWP); Rosser Jon-Paul
Bartlett Dave – MOJ	Brittle Fiona – SG	Brown Alex – NHS Digital
Bridges Andi – HMRC	Brown Sarah – Met Police	Davies Jaime – HMRC
Denman Kevin – Met Police	Dennis Alan – DSG	Doyle Nick – HMRC
Exley Matt – Culture Sector	Foxton Gill – DfE	Francis Sue – UKSBS
Heemskerk Rachel – DWP	Lloyd Marion – BEIS	McDougall Rachelle – Crown Office
Parker Nick – ACAS	Rees Dave – DWP	Ritchie Rob – Met Police
Rosser Jon-Paul – HMRC	Semple Dave – DWP	Tweedale Saorsa-Amatheia – DWP
Suter Paul – DWP	Williams Katrine – DWP	Worswick Craig – DWP
Young Colin DfE	Young Bobby – HMRC

Hi, please see the attached leaflet outline the Broad Left Network’s programme for PCS in 2022.

It’s been over a year since the R&C GEC voted to recommend HMRC’s offer of ‘Pay and Contract Reform’ (PACR). It was a split vote in the GEC, with concerns raised around a number of points especially the imposition of evening and weekend working across Customer Services Group (CSG) and that the detail on a number of issues yet to be agreed. To address these concerns, commitments were given by the negotiators that things would be resolved quickly and in a way that would be fair to members. The negotiators were also at pains to say this was the best members would get, and that rejecting the PACR offer would mean members getting a 1% or even 0% pay rise. Ultimately there was a slender majority in favour of supporting the PACR offer.

Members of the Broad Left Network were universal in opposing the PACR offer. While we recognised that some individuals would gain, we opposed gains being made to the detriment of other members. We knew that the PACR offer would have far reaching implications that would become clear over time. Sadly time has proven us correct.

The ballot

What happened after the GEC vote was inevitable: HMRC and PCS both pushed for a ‘yes’ vote. Criticism of PACR was marginalised and silenced as far as possible. Branches critical of PACR weren’t able to put out their views through any official HMRC or PCS channels, ensuring their reach was constrained.

Notably, HMRC encouraged staff to join a union to have a vote on the offer. PCS were overjoyed and made a big deal of the number of people joining PCS in early 2021. The exact figures are difficult to know, but it’s estimated that 4,000 people joined PCS to vote. But that’s the problem – many joined only to vote, not because they perceived PCS as representing them. In the three months after the PACR ballot HMRC lost in the region of 3,000 member, equivalent to 75% of the joiners. Most of those people never paid any subs to PCS.

Some of those 3,000 people will have been long standing members, maybe even activists, that resigned in disgust with the GEC recommending the PACR offer. We understand that strength of feeling, but resigning doesn’t change things. We would rather than disgruntled members stay in PCS and use their vote for Broad Left Network candidates in elections, or even stand on the Broad Left Network to provide an alternative on the GEC.

The consequences

A criticism of PACR was the lack of detail in some areas. There were various agreements in principle. Other parts weren’t even going to be negotiated until after the offer was accepted. This came with significant risks for PCS members. If HMRC decided the principles were incompatible with its vision, what was PCS to do about it? The GEC had already asked members to vote for the offer and it had been accepted. PCS had effectively tied its hands behind its back.

We don’t get to hear about the negotiations taking place. But we do get to see the consequences. There’s now a list of issues with the implementation of PACR.

It makes sense to start the list with one of the most contentious , Special Working Arrangements. These were supposed to provide members that can’t work to the pattern expected by CSG. Yet these have been rejected for part time staff, staff with disabilities, staff with caring responsibilities. A review agreed between PCS and HMRC hasn’t changed the process.

This flows into the operating hours for CSG. It’s nonsensical that CSG has mandated that no staff, not even the staff that aren’t customer facing, are allowed to officially start their working day earlier than 07:45 There’s no sign of CSG changing its stance and it’s unlikely to, as the CSG working pattern is used as an excuse for refusing Special Working Arrangements.

One of the celebrated aspects of PACR is the ability for everyone to work from home for at least two days a week if they are in a role that allows that. Reality is now setting in. Part time workers are being told that the two days is pro rata. The two days minimum is being treated as a maximum in a lot of areas.

The future of the AA grade is still unclear. PCS say that there’s still AA work to be done. But it’s difficult to see why HMRC would be happy for two staff sat next to each other earning the same pay but have one with lesser responsibilities.

Other issues include:

• The replacement for the MIS agreement;
• Trainee pay;
• Allowances;
• Which aspects of PACR apply to staff in Surge.

Looking ahead

This is the final year of the pay rises. Members will receive an average of 5% this year. Inflation in 2021 already matched that and this year inflation is expected to be even higher, driven by energy and fuel costs. The recent activist email for the national campaign got one point exactly right: “Irrespective of the pay deal, because of the cost-of-living crisis, your costs are rising far faster than your pay.”

Soon there will be an indicative ballot on pay and pensions. Broad Left Network members are encouraging everyone to use their vote and to vote for action. However we’re skeptical that the current Left Unity led NEC are serious about wanting to win the ballot. During their tenure PCS has lost 100s of reps. Branches aren’t given the tools to contact their members directly. Branches weren’t consulted on the timing of the ballot. No realistic plans are in place to be able to campaign amongst members that are still working from home due to COVID measures.

What we call for

Activists in R&C group have the urgent task to address the many issues resulting from PACR and fight for a pay rise. There’s no doubt that PACR will be a key point at Group Delegate Conference 2022. But it’s difficult to see how there can be robust debate until branches and activists are properly appraised of the current position and able to share experiences. Conference isn’t the place for that to take place. We also face the risk that dividing PACR into piecemeal matters in a variety of motions will fail to address matters properly.

To this end Broad Left Network members are calling on branches to write to the GEC to organise an activist meeting. We need an honest and thorough stocktake by the GEC of where we are with PACR. This needs to be provided to all branches in advance of the activist meeting so that we can have an informed discussion and debate amongst branches of what’s needed, including the potential for legal challenges and industrial action.

The Broad Left Network will be holding an open meeting – PACR one year on – via Zoom. Please note, we’re rearranging the date of this meeting at present and will confirm details shortly.

Please nominate the candidates listed in the attached leaflet at your forthcoming DWP branch AGM…