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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…

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.