My old trade union, the PCS, is doing its level best to divide its own members in the DWP group by recommending its members support a woeful pay agreement that sets member against member. For as long as I can remember, members have been prevented pay progression and many have been unable to reach the pay maximum for the grade which is, of course, the rate for the job. Whilst putting forward a package that means most people will be able to reach the pay maximum by 2020, the government is shafting those at the top of the pay scale. It is a terrible deal.
The settlement for staff who are not currently at the top of the scale is substantial, often double figure increases. There is light at the end of the tunnel for hardworking staff who have been paid less than colleagues for doing the same job. But for those at the top of the pay scale, they will received a 1.6% rise for each of the next four years, regardless of inflation, the government target for which is 2%. If inflation reaches 1.7%, PCS members on the max will get yet another pay cut.
These are not well paid civil servants. The maximum pay for an Executive Officer in the DWP is barely £25k, way below the national average wage. For this pittance of a pay rise, the union has agreed to make its members work evenings and some weekends.
I know that many people work evenings and weekends already, including a good few in the DWP. I do not accept that because some people have to work evenings and weekends that it’s fair enough to make everyone else do the same. It’s a race to the bottom, nothing more, nothing less. Why not encourage the government to look at other areas of bad practice in parts of the DWP and impose those on everyone too? PCS itself uses the excuse that already 20% of civil servants work weekends and evenings. By recommending this deeply flawed offer, they do nothing to stop that race to the bottom.
A centre left or even centrist union executive committee would have been slaughtered for recommending such a dismal deal, but this is a committee controlled by the Trotskyite Socialist Party AKA Militant. From what I can tell, the hard left which controls the entire union, but has numerous hard left factions within it, is divided but the Socialist Party has the numbers. This is the Socialist Party’s agreement, make no mistake.
I recognise that as unions go, PCS is not exactly the most powerful, influential or credible, led as it is by a cabal of the hard left, so there is an argument that goes that the government had simply turned up with a set of proposals and there was nothing PCS could do about it. To quote an old friend of mine, a fait accompli. I don’t buy that.
On 3 December 2015, the union wrote to members and said: “I am writing to thank all PCS members for the crucial work you have done to help us achieve what looks like a real breakthrough on DWP pay.” It continued: “It is good news that the DWP have now announced that they have been given permission by HM Treasury to have some limited flexibility on pay, which we hope will address a number of the key issues that we have been raising for years. We recognise the efforts that the department have made in making this possible. PCS believes that this could enable us to begin to solve the pay issues of greatest concern to you; low pay, the length of the pay scales and the large variations in pay between DWP and other departments.”
All well and good. Then, on 18 March 2016, the again union wrote to its members: “PCS is still in talks with DWP to get you a decent pay rise and it is good news that more money has been made available for grades AA to HEO.” The circular continued: “It is true however that DWP also wants to discuss increased flexibility, and changes to members’ contracts, in exchange for improved pay. PCS would obviously prefer a pay rise without any changes to terms and conditions. But DWP have, from the start, made it clear that that is not an option. The flexibility on pay that has been agreed with Treasury is for members in the grades AA to HEO and is dependent on changes to members’ terms and conditions. PCS is therefore using these ongoing negotiations to do all it can to defend and protect your terms and conditions, maximising safeguards for members, while also ensuring that you get the best possible pay rise.”
What was announced late last week plainly was not a fait accompli. On 3 December 2015, the union told members there had been “a real breakthrough on DWP pay” and then on 18 March 2016 added that the union was “still in talks with DWP to get you a decent pay rise and it is good news that more money has been made available for grades AA to HEO.”
The executive knew, too, that the Department wished to change staff contracts and introduce “increased flexibility” and they would not discuss any pay increases without these changes. So, they must have had some inkling that the elements of flexibility would include evening and weekend working. Ordinary members certainly knew months in advance what was coming down the line, some of which was deliberately leaked by managers. And people are not stupid. With this government’s terrible record with the public sector, what was finally announced came as absolutely no surprise to civil servants. What did come as a surprise was to see the union recommending it.
Members can remain on their old contracts if they want to, but they would only get a pay rise of 0.25% every year for the next four years. The government’s generosity knows no bounds.
Because PCS is such a weak union, financially almost bankrupt following years of Trotskyist domination and intellectually bankrupt for exactly the same reason and because it has such a pitiful record in winning industrial action campaigns, we all know that this deal, which sets member against member, and does next to nothing to address the low pay of frontline civil servants, will be implemented by the summer. The December 2015 promise of a “real breakthrough on DWP pay” was only partly true after all.
“There is no question that this is an offer in which there will be winners and losers among the membership”, says the union. Again, I see that as only partly true. I regard DWP pay, on the frontline, as pitiful given the responsibilities many of these staff have. Helping a large number of staff to the rate for the job is obviously a good thing, but the actual rate for the job is still not good enough.
What should members do? Soon they will be asked to vote on the offer. The union, led, let us remember, by the Socialist Party (Militant) says this: “The only way that further improvements could be gained would be for the GEC to launch a massive campaign of industrial action, at a time when many of those members who are set to gain from the offer will have signed up for the offer and will be starting to receive the additional pay. The GEC does not believe that there is the necessary level of membership support for the kind of sustained industrial action required to actually achieve real improvements.”
I’ll tell you what: the old ‘Moderate’ group, now deceased, that once controlled the union executive would have been slaughtered for making this statement, with the Trotskists shouting “sell out” and “class traitors” at the hated right wing. Now, this sober, honest and realistic assessment of PCS members comes from them. They know, at last, that industrial action in this instance would fail, despite having spent decades engaged in other hopeless strikes pretending the opposite. The poacher turned gamekeeper, eh?
DWP workers have been failed by their union, in my view sold down the river. For all the hot air and empty rhetoric from general secretary Mark Serwotka who has presided over the collapse of a once strong union, they could not organise the proverbial piss up in a brewery and if I was still a civil servant, which thank god I’m not, I’d be knocking on the door of another union, Prospect, to represent my interests. PCS is no longer up to the job.
