By a PCS activist
Workers at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) voted 80%, on a 52% turnout, in favour of industrial action over the government’s pay offer.
Each civil service department has been allowed to increase staff pay by 3.5% of the department’s total pay bill, which leaves departmental managers free to decide how to divide up the available money.
With inflation at 3.8%, this pay award represents an overall pay cut for civil servants.
The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) has been arguing that departments should target the available funds at the lowest paid. They have been successful in some departments, but DWP bosses instead decided to target the funds at higher paid, specialist grades.
The ballot of PCS members in DWP, which concluded in October, was consultative. The department’s union leadership is now considering whether to move to a strike ballot.
A key consideration for union members and reps in DWP will be the disappointing news that the union’s National Executive Committee has decided against balloting all members for action over pay. While DWP is the largest department and one of the best placed to take impactful industrial action, striking alone is always harder.
DWP staff should nonetheless press ahead and militants try to link up with other civil servants on strike.
The lowest paid staff in the department have repeatedly had to be awarded emergency pay increases over the years to keep up with the minimum wage; the pay differential between the lowest paid grades has significantly eroded over time.
For management to prioritise higher paid grades over those on or near the minimum wage is a kick in the teeth that cannot go unchallenged.
For other civil servants, even where the lowest paid have received pay rises above inflation. The NEC’s decision not to ballot means that all that departmental union leaderships can do is either ballot to strike alone or demand their bosses ‘rob Peter to pay Paul’ and prioritise the lowest paid.
The NEC’s decision not to ballot all members over the 3.5% pay award is in defiance of an instruction from the union’s Annual Delegate Conference in May. A minority of NEC members made the case for strike action and pointed out that the lack of momentum behind a national pay campaign was not the result of members’ apathy but of the leadership’s inaction.
Indeed, a YouGov survey released in late October showed that the cost of living crisis was the nation’s biggest worry.
The NEC’s ability to ignore conference decisions shows that union members need to do more than pass conference motions to hold their leaders to account. A rank and file movement in the union that organised among branches, across departments, and not just in conference season and focused on elections, could mobilise union activists against sell-outs, for effective strike action and to democratically transform the union.
Other disputes
PCS members’ action in other departments shows the rank and file’s willingness to fight. In the British Library 300 members are entering their second week of strike action as we go to press. They are seeking an ‘inflation-proof’ pay rise after two years of consecutive real-terms cuts.
The Library’s CEO Rebecca Lawrence resigned after the first week of action having been forced to cancel several events, including the 50 Years of Punk celebration—because the punks refused to cross picket lines!
Meanwhile MyCPS pensions administrators are entering their 17th week of continuous strike action. CEO Duncan Watson has refused to meet PCS representatives and has unilaterally banned the union from representing members in forthcoming TUPE transfer negotiations, which is a breach of its union recognition agreement.
This should be used as a trigger to ballot other PCS departments in retaliation. Finally the number of civil servants who have signed a petition stating their unwillingness to perform work that might implicate them in the Israeli genocide now stands at over 500. The PCS has failed to endorse this unofficial action, which is shameful given their official support for Palestine and the BDS movement. All PCS members should demand the union makes this action official policy.
