You are:

Make Your Vote Count

MYVC London and the South East region

Welcome to Make Your Vote Count 2012 for the London and the South East region. This year’s campaign will be just as vital to PCS members regionally and nationally as it has been in previous years, particularly given the Government’s continued assault on our jobs, our pay, our pensions and our working conditions.

The London Mayoral and Assembly elections will be co-ordinated by a member of staff in the London & South east regional office while Paul Martin will be co-ordinating MYVC activities across the South Eastern part of the region this year. Paul is currently working for PCS on secondment from the Independent Living Fund, a Non-Departmental Public Body of the DWP based in Nottingham. He has been branch secretary there for a number of years and also active on the Nottingham PCS Town Committee and Nottingham Trades Council. He is also a member of the PCS Midlands Regional Committee and the Public Sector Group Executive Committee.

Aims of MYVC 2012

The campaign this year seeks to build on the successes of previous MYVC campaigns. The role of individual branches and individual members will be key to the success of this year’s campaign. We will seek to build on the skills and experience of existing branch MYVC co-ordinators and to recruit new ones where necessary.

PCS will continue to lobby politicians to support our pledges, both in local councils and in Westminster. We will also continue to campaign against the BNP, British Freedom Party and other far right candidates wherever they’re standing.

We will be holding candidates question time events in key local election areas in April, especially where there is an opportunity to influence marginal elections, where there are job losses, office closures or other issues for branches, or where the far right candidates pose a threat.

A list of all elections taking place in London and the South East region this May will be published here shortly.

MYVC pledges

As with previous campaigns, we will be contacting candidates in local elections asking them to sign up to our pledges. The pledges for this year are:

1. I pledge to support PCS campaigns against public service job cuts and to ensure quality public services are delivered to those in need.
2. I pledge to support the PCS campaign for fair pay and a living wage for workers.
3. I pledge to protect quality public services and work alongside PCS, community organisations and other trade unions to ensure that no more public services are privatised, outsourced or mutualised.
4. I pledge to support the PCS campaign for fair pensions for all; including calling on the government to protect public sector pensions, ensure the state pension keeps in line with inflation, that the government addresses pensioner poverty and that companies are prevailed upon to ensure they fulfil their pension obligations to staff.

All candidate responses will be published via the MYVC page of the PCS website.

Register to vote

It is very important that everyone is registered to vote in the forthcoming elections. The deadline for registration is 5.00 pm on Wednesday 18 April 2012. Please contact your local council to ensure that your details are on the electoral register for where you live.

Fighting the far right

We are working with partners Love Music Hate Racism, Unite Against Fascism (UAF), Hope not Hate and Searchlight. There will be days of action taking place across the Region and we will publish details of the events on these pages.

Political representation

In June a membership ballot will be held on our political campaigning. The ballot will seek support for MYVC, for our political lobbying work, and for the proposal that we should stand or support candidates in elections in exceptional circumstances where no other candidate supports PCS's policies and where an intervention in an election would further our campaigns to defend public services and members' jobs, pay and pensions. This proposal was endorsed by members at the ADC last year.

Branch MYVC co-ordinators will play a vital role in delivering a positive vote for PCS members.

Get involved

Branch co-ordinators have a vital role to play in order to make the campaign a success. This campaign is about identifying the issues of concern to members and challenging candidates standing in elections in the locality on these issues, and then relaying the candidates’ responses to members and potential members to ensure quality public services becomes an election issue in your locality.

Working with other branches, with their regional committee and with regional officials, they will

  • work with other branches in the locality to identify what elections are taking place and which ones provide the best opportunities to intervene in
  • work with other branches to identify local issues to raise with candidates
  • work with other branches in the locality to identify what resources branches have to ‘challenge the candidates’ and work together where possible
  • organise lobbying sessions with local politicians – work with your branch organiser to ensure as many members and potential members participate
  • identify candidates and issue the challenge to them through letters, emails and candidates question time events
  • publicise the responses from candidates to members
  • feedback progress on the campaign at regular intervals to the regional/national MYVC campaign co-ordinator, including information on the elected candidates and what support they have agreed to offer our national campaign
  • attend training, plan activities and distribute materials to support the political representation ballot

To register your interest in becoming a branch co-ordinator, volunteering your support in other ways or just to find out more about MYVC 2012, please contact:

myvcgla@pcs.org.uk or phone 0207 801 2764 for London Mayoral and Assembly elections or for the rest of the South East, Paul Martin at myvclse@pcs.org.uk or by phoning 01733 896336 opt 8 or 07955 309735.