One year on
Fran reflects on her first year as general secretary.
One year ago today, I was proud to take office as the first woman general secretary of our union. I promised to build on the strong foundations laid by Mark Serwotka – and while we never achieve everything we want, we have made some notable gains in the last year.
I was proud to be president of PCS during our successful campaign in 2023 which beat the government's pay policy; and we have delivered an above inflation pay rise for members in 2024.
I know that after a decade and more of pay freezes and real term cuts to incomes, we have to go further. That’s why in September our union convinced TUC Congress to back our motion calling for a unified campaign of pay restoration across the public sector.
Before the last government was turfed out in July, we defeated its Rwanda scheme in the courts. The home secretary has recently announced that Labour will repeal the Safety of Rwanda Act to prevent that offensive scheme from ever being resurrected.
Another stunning court victory came when we won our long-running claim against multiple government departments over the removal of check-off. After ten years of litigation, we have defeated the government.
Our collective organising effort – members, reps, and staff – saw off an attempt to break our union. Our pursuit of justice will now see the government forced to order its departments to line up to pay out damages to us.
Throughout the year, I have continued to speak up on the wider issues that matter to our members, from Palestine to defending the Winter Fuel Payment, on which I was proud to stand with our ARMS members. Defending pensioners’ benefits today means they will still be there for the pensioners of tomorrow.
The election of a Labour government has opened up far better engagement between the union and the employer. Members welcomed the new government junking the outgoing administration’s commitment to cut 72,000 civil service jobs. It was a reckless proposal that would have left vital services in a terrible state and remaining workers with unsustainable workloads.
We will continue to engage with the government to enhance and deliver the strongest possible enhancement of workers’ rights through the Employment Rights Bill.
But while dialogue is welcome, overall progress to date on delivering real improvements for members has not been sufficient.
The absence of tangible progress in national talks, the intimations from the chancellor that departments would be expected to deliver spending cuts, and the expectation of a 2.8% pay remit for 2025/26, means we have begun to put in place measures to prepare the ground for a renewed industrial campaign during 2025, in order to secure progress for members.
We also continue to push the government to honour its commitment to “carry out the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation” – and support our facilities management members on strike for better pay, and terms and conditions.
Together we have achieved a lot in 2024. Let’s work together to achieve even more in 2025.