By David Niven
PCS, the Public and Commercial Services Union, has announced its national strike ballot is to begin on 26 September and will run for 6 weeks. The ballot, over pay, pensions, jobs and redundancy terms, will finish on 7 November.
In the union’s press statement, PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka, said: “The civil service has rarely faced such a huge number of challenges in such a condensed period of time. That it coincides with the cost-of-living crisis just makes it more devastating for our members, whose pay, pensions and redundancy terms are under attack.
“All the Tory candidates standing to be our next prime minister want to cut taxes for the wealthy at the expense of public services, so we are gearing up for a big fight with whoever wins because we believe the civil service needs more resources, not less.
“We are determined to fight back. Our members provide vital public services, as was laid bare during a pandemic when the government lauded them as heroes. A campaign of industrial action in those public services will remind the government of members’ worth.”
Unprecedented cost of living crisis
Delegates to the union’s annual conference in May backed plans for an industrial action ballot as members faces an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis and government plans to cut 91,000 civil service jobs.
The union is calling for a 10% pay rise, a Living Wage of at least £15 an hour; an immediate 2% cut in contributions that our members have overpaid to their pensions since 2018; no further cuts to redundancy terms; and a job security agreement, coupled with the resources desperately needed to deliver public services.
The union is conducting a ‘disaggregated’ ballot, in that different government departments will be considered as balloting separately. This is because the last two national ballots failed to reach the 50% minimum turn-out required by the Tories anti-strike legislation. Any department that achieves over 50% will be able to conduct industrial action, even if other departments fail to reach the threshold.
Whilst winning a national aggregated ballot – for a national strike – with over a 50% turnout would be the best outcome, this option would be an all-or-nothing situation, and if we didn’t exceed the 50%, then no members in any individual civil service departments could take lawful action. So for that reason and with remote working providing an additional challenge to organising for the ballot, it was felt too risky to go for the all or nothing option of an aggregated ballot this time.
Third planned national ballot did not take place
In the last two national aggregated ballots, we didn’t achieve the required turnout: it was 42% in 2018 and 48% in 2019. We were getting closer to 50% in 2019, but a third planned national ballot on pay didn’t actually take place due to the 2019 general election and then Covid. The prevailing view then, by a narrow majority at conference, was that one more push for a national aggregated ballot could succeed, by using lessons learnt and more refined methods of contacting members to encourage them to vote.
Since then however, new challenges have emerged to organising for a ballot in the workplace. As a result of Covid, most members are now working remotely for at least a proportion of each week, making it more difficult to get face-to-face chats to encourage them to vote. Workplace discussions are recognised as being the most effective form of contact with members.
And most importantly in this current cost of living crisis, with other groups of workers taking action to defend their living standards, it would be tragic if PCS members were left on the side-lines with none of us at all being able to take lawful action.
PCS members in some departments will be able to take action
Although disaggregation of the ballot makes it likely that at least some PCS members will be able to take action, a potential downside is that it could prevent all members taking action, if we achieve an overall turnout above 50% across the union but below 50% in some individual departments.
Currently, each civil service department has its own separate pay bargaining. So having a disaggregated ballot on pay, which would result in legally separate disputes in different civil service departments, when we’re arguing for national pay, could be problematic and encourage the civil service employers to adopt a divide and rule approach.
Our last two national ballots were on the single issue of pay, with one of our key demands being the restoration of national pay bargaining. This upcoming ballot however also covers the pensions, job cuts and cuts to redundancy issues as well as pay. The pensions and redundancy pay issues are central issues with no scope for individual departments to try and play divide and rule.
I see the disaggregated ballot option not as a silver bullet but as a necessary fall-back position when the stakes are too high to take the risk of going for the all-or-nothing approach of an aggregated ballot.
In any case, PCS members, reps and officers will be going all out in the next 3 and a half months to campaign amongst members for a ‘Yes’ vote and a high turnout in the ballot. We cannot sit idly by while our jobs and living standards are trashed. Vote ‘Yes’ to strike action!
