Public and Commercial Services Union

News from the January 2012 National Executive Committee (NEC)

By Emily Kelly NEC, North West Regional Liaison Officer and Commercial Sector Liaison Officer.

National Dispute

The NEC agreed without dissent that PCS was right to reject the “heads of agreement” given the previous NEC decision that the government’s revised offer was unacceptable.  The National Campaign Liaison Group (involving senior lay reps from Groups and National Branches) held on 14th December also supported this view.

The NEC reaffirmed its position that unless the government agrees to negotiate on the three outstanding areas of dispute:
• Pension age
• Higher contributions
• and inflation up-rating from RPI to CPI

then further co-ordinated national strike action should be called as early as possible in 2012.

It was agreed that this would be conveyed to the other unions at a meeting of the TUC Public Services Liaison Group (PSLG) scheduled for 12th January. This meeting would provide clarity as to which unions were willing to undertake further industrial action.

Recommendations:-

• That we reiterate our willingness to reach agreement based on genuine substantive negotiations on the core proposals.
• That the PCS position remains that further co-ordinated strike action should be called unless the government agrees to negotiate on the 3 areas of our dispute.
• That if the government attempts to exclude PCS from any talks on members’ pension entitlements we take legal action if possible, carry out political lobbying, and call on the TUC to take all possible action to challenge the government.  There has been a positive move to involve PCS in the talks since the NEC.
• That a branch briefing and a four page members’ bulletin containing a full account of the governments offer and the decisions of the NEC are issued.
• A Special NEC meeting will be held on 19th January to consider the outcome of the PSLG meeting.

Pay

The NEC agreed that pay will be a key campaigning priority for 2012.  In particular the union will vigorously oppose the plan for a 1% pay cap for 2 years following the 2 year pay freeze.
Pay Forums will be arranged to engage activists across the union in the campaign.
PCS will work in conjunction with others unions against the pay freeze/cap and regional/local pay.
Research will be undertaken to establish the impact of the government’s plans on the living standards of members.

Privatisation/Mutualisation

A revised Privatisation Toolkit will be launched at the end of January, branches will receive a branch briefing promoting the toolkit and the PCS website will updated with the information.  The toolkit will give guidance to local reps in dealing with any privatisation threats which may arise in their area of work.  The revisions to the toolkit will take account of the proposals contained in the ‘Open public services white paper’.

A booklet on mutualisation entitled “By Mutual Consent” will also be launched by the end of January.  It will explain the government’s agenda and compare it to genuine mutualism as promoted by the Co-operative Movement.

Two forums will be held on this subject: one for PCS members and representatives to be held in February and the other for an external audience to be held in March.

The NEC recognised the link between this issue and the current national dispute on pensions given that the undermining of public sector pensions will make it easier to privatise and outsource.  It is noted that the government was reviewing Fair Deal for Pensions which did give some protection of pension provision to workers who were transferred into the private sector.

Bargaining and Campaigning reports
 

The NEC was presented with reports from the English regions, all the bargaining areas and a report on Group actions plans.  There was a discussion on linking the group action plans to the national campaign.

Organising

During 2011 PCS membership fell by 3.95%, this decrease is entirely due to job losses within the Civil Service.  At the end of September 2011 PCS membership density was 64%, an increase of 3% since March 2011.  Again up to and during the November 30th strike day we saw a remarkable increase in membership.
It was noted that there were over 100,000 civil servants who could be members of PCS but aren’t.  It is therefore vital that groups and branches continue to prioritise organising and recruitment.

TUC Executive Committee Anti-Austerity Campaign
 

Unions have agreed to pay a supplement to their affiliation fee to enable the TUC to undertake some specific campaigning work in opposition to the government’s Austerity plans.  In spring 2012 the TUC will hold a major economics conference.  Local community campaigns will also be established in 4 areas: North East Lancashire, West Midlands, Norwich and North West London (Hendon, Harrow East and Brent Central).
The NEC agreed to suggest initiatives which the TUC could incorporate in their campaigning work.

Make Your Vote Count (MYVC)

It was agreed, following an evaluation of previous MYVC campaigns, that MYVC should move to constituency based organising on an annual basis, with a focus on national elections.  However it was also agreed that PCS will organise a MYVC campaign this year for the elections for the London Assembly and Mayor of London.
The NEC agreed that the membership ballot on Political representation should take place from 7th June to 29th June 2012 after a round of membership meetings and briefings.

Launch Universal Credit

The NEC agreed arrangements for a national trade union side covering Universal Credit involving reps from the DWP and HMRC Groups.

Commercial Sector, report of current campaigns in our commercial sector
 

There were two papers on the commercial sector.  The first paper discussed Balfour Beatty, Capgemini , IBM, Xafinity Paymaster and the DWP commercial sector liaison group.  The second paper discussed the issue of off-shoring and in particular the recent threats to members in DWP/Hewlett Packard.  After a successful PCS Campaign focussing on data security concerns, the government’s plan to off-shore this area were overturned.

Devolved areas reports

The NEC discussed the delegations to and draft motions for the Scottish TUC, the Women’s TUC and the ICTU Northern Ireland committee.

Credit union
 

The credit union will be launched on 2nd April 2012.  The original chair of the board of directors resigned from the committee due to ill health prior to Christmas.  The remaining committee members were then required to seek a replacement in line with the rules which has substantially delayed the launch of the credit union.

Stephen Lawrence Campaign

The NEC agreed a statement welcoming the murder convictions of Gary Dobson and David Norris and pledging the union’s continued support to the Lawrence family.
The NEC also agreed to make a donation to the Stephen Lawrence Trust and to liaise with the trust to see how PCS and other unions can assist them with their work.

Green issues

The report contained updates on the Renewable Energy Campaign and the subsequent ‘feed in tariffs’ debate, the ongoing Aviation Review (in line with conference policy), the ‘Just pay living wage’ campaign and the green delegates for the Europe 2020 objectives project.
It was also noted that the PCS Green Forum will be on 26th January 2012 in Manchester at the Mechanics institute.

Report from the Special NEC on January 19th 2012

The NEC met again on 19th January to discuss the progress of the national campaign.  Two recommendations were put to the meeting:-
• That PCS attends the planned meeting of unions that have not accepted the government’s ‘heads of agreement’ seeking to achieve agreement on an ongoing campaigning over pensions, including an industrial action strategy that will exert enough pressure on the government to bring about further concessions.
• That, following the meeting with other unions, a special NEC meeting is held to take decisions on the way forward, including decisions on industrial action, reps’ briefings, an NCLG meeting, consultation with members including the relevance and timing of any ballot, and the role of ADC.

PCS’s position is that there continue to be further co-ordinated national strike action by public sector unions and that this should be called before 31st March unless the government moves on the three areas of dispute.

That position was taken at the meeting of the TUC’s Public Sector Liaison Group (PSLG) on the 12th January and was supported by the National teachers union (NUT).  Some other unions expressed support for the proposition that further action may be required at a later date.  PCS proposed a meeting of all the unions who had not accepted the government’s proposals to consider the way forward for the campaign.

The unions in local government, except Unite, have signed up to the government’s ‘heads of agreement’, thereby conceding on the issues of pension age and the change to CPI.  Increased contributions have been deferred.
Unison’s local government service group executive voted for the ‘heads of agreement’ offer by 24 to 10.  The local government unions will now enter an extended period of negotiation on the details of the new scheme and will therefore not be in a position to consider strike action on pensions for the foreseeable future.

In the health sector 15 of the 16 unions had signed up to the offer to take back to their executives.  Those meetings have now taken place and all will now ballot members on the offer as the best that can be achieved by negotiation.  There is the possibility some of those unions will return to consideration of strike action if there is a rejection of the offer by their members.

The British Medical Association (BMA) have now held a survey of members who have rejected the offer and indicated a willingness to take industrial action.
In education, the Association of Teachers and lecturers (ATL) are balloting their members on the offer, as is the head teachers’ union (NAHT).  The largest teaching unions have either reserved their position or rejected the offer.  The University and College Union (UCU) national executive are expected to reject the offer and agree to meet other unions.

In the civil service, the Unite and Nipsa executives have rejected the offer and will meet with other unions.  The Prison Officers Association (POA) have not signed up and are attempting to pursue a dialogue with the government over prison officers’ pension age.
The GMB, FDA and Prospect have signed up to the ‘heads of agreement’ and they are in further talks and will need to ballot their members, again their members may reject the offer.

At the PSLG, PCS also raised the question of the government’s threat to exclude PCS from talks on the new pension schemes.  Other unions that would not accept the ultimatum to sign up to the offer before Christmas were also excluded.
PCS raised this as matter of principle and requested that the TUC make it clear to the government that it was unacceptable to exclude recognised trade unions from discussions on their members’ pension entitlements.  PCS wrote to Francis Maude pointing out that we would take legal action over this exclusion, if possible.  After the intervention of several unions on this point of principle it was agreed that a letter from the TUC would be sent.
PCS received a reply from Francis Maude and a letter from the Cabinet Office which made it clear the government would retreat from its earlier position.  However, the letter from Francis Maude also makes it clear that the scheme talks would still not address our core issues of dispute.

The first meeting involving the National TUC and Cabinet Office officials took place on 17th January and the Deputy General Secretary who attended this meeting reported there is no change on the core areas of dispute.
Following the PSLG meeting PCS discussed with the NUT the means of calling a meeting of unions and agreed that, given the number of education unions, the NUT was best placed to coordinate this.  Christine Blower (general secretary of the NUT) has now asked PCS and the other unions that have not accepted the government’s ‘heads of agreement’ to a meeting to achieve agreement on an ongoing campaigning over pensions.  This will include an industrial action strategy that will exert enough pressure on the government to bring about further concessions.

The NEC will meet again on 9th February to take decisions on the way forward including decisions on industrial action, reps’ briefings, a ‘National campaign liaison group’ meeting, consultation with members and the relevance and timing of any ballot, and the role of the PCS Annual delegate conference.
A further report will follow from the February 9th meeting.

Emily’s email address is emilyk@pcs.org.uk.