It’s over 30 years since I stood on a picket line. It was in my guise as an active trade union members the civil service union CPSA, now PCS, and for many years an official. Oh what fun we had, gathering at 7.00am outside the local DHSS (now DWP) office, ready to try to persuade non members and managers not to go in to break the strike. Three hours later, we’d wander into town to meet up with union members from other government departments for breakfast, a march and rally and – obviously – an afternoon in the pub. Obviously, the day’s strike cost us a great deal more than a day’s wages, but what the hell? We had a good cause to strike for. Our wages were terrible with pay rises always below inflation. All that was left for us was to go on strike. Eventually, when you’re up against a dictatorial and uncaring employer, what else can you do? It’s that or nothing and today my old friends and colleagues in parts of the civil service are doing something.
Before escaping the DWP, I had served nearly 40 years and during that time I never earned anywhere near the national average wage. That is explained in part by my failure to progress through the ranks but also because civil servants on the front line are poorly paid. Ah, say the cynics. You don’t earn huge wages but you do have security and a decent pension. And that’s partly true, although job security has been eroded over the years and the civil service pension has been under attack by the 2010 Conservative government in which some Lib Dems took jobs. It’s less of an argument for low pay than it was 20 years ago, especially since the modest, always always below inflation pay rises in recent decades have been swallowed up by increases in pension contributions. The front line, certainly in DWP, has never had it so bad. So, what will today achieve? In itself, probably nothing. It’s what happens next that people should think about.
Today represents the first day of a long campaign in the civil service where staff are taking unpaid strike action. The first few months saw PCS call out members in different departments, paying their full salary to maximise support. So today represents a turning point in its campaign. Railway workers have so far taken 17 days of unpaid action and one might expect PCS to go along that road, perhaps eventually building to all out indefinite unpaid strike action. I suspect the next co-ordinated action will be on Wednesday 15th March, the date of the Budget. Workers will need to do more than that to make this government back down.
PCS, like CPSA before, does not have the greatest record of successful national strike action. I remember particularly the endless 1981 pay campaign which dragged on for much of the year and ended in abject failure, as Margaret Thatcher took on and defeated working people by castrating their trade unions. The tactic of selective action plus national days of action failed then as I suspect it will fail today. But, as we said before, what else can people do?
There are a number of ways in which the civil service strikes will end. These include:
- Total victory for PCS with the government conceding an inflation-busting pay rise, as well as giving staff 35 days annual leave a year, reduced pension contributions and a shorter working week (these are part of the PCS demands)
- Total defeat for PCS as the strikes eventually fizzle out and collapse
- Both sides cobble together a small rise for the current year, perhaps by way of a one-off payment, and a slightly bigger rise, with strings attached, for next year
I do not expect an unequivocal victory for PCS but nor do I anticipate total failure. My feeling is the government will make modest improvements for next year and that members will accept them. I see no prospect of members taking lengthy unpaid strike action but if the union’s compulsory levy of a fiver a month on all members continues it will be possible to continue with minor selective action.
In any event, I feel this is shit or bust for PCS. It’s hard left leadership has steered the union to the fringes of extreme politics and anything other than total victory – which isn’t going to happen – will surely bring about civil war among the comrades.
The sad thing is that civil servants have a good case for a decent pay rise. Like other workers, they have been shafted by 13 years of Tory austerity, and there is nowhere else to go for them. I so hope this ends well because the workers are in the right and this vicious, corrupt, tax-dodging, lying government deserves a good kicking.
Up the workers.
