Conference endorses new national organising strategy
New organising strategy key to building power and winning better pay and working conditions, conference heard
The PCS annual delegate conference (ADC) today voted unanimously to agree a new national organising strategy.
Over the past 12 months, the union’s national executive committee (NEC) and the organising and education committee, alongside a national group organisers’ forum in November 2024, has worked to create this new strategy.
After taking input from activists and branches, this process shaped a new approach. The most fundamental change is that, rather than set centrally agreed targets, each group will have scope to set their own priorities for the year ahead.
This will allow every single activist, branch and group to assess how well organised their part of the union is. Once this is done, they can identify the best next steps and, crucially, draw on the support that is available to them to achieve their own targets.
Speaking on behalf of the NEC, Bobby Young gave one example of why centrally agreed targets can be counterproductive: “Having an overall density target of 50% but it's meaningless to groups well below that and insulting to those above it.”
Bobby noted that the strategy “is a big step in the right direction” since the trade union movement will be “on the frontlines of defending working-class interests” against attacks by an ascendant right-wing.
Calling on delegates to support the motion, Colin from DWP Glasgow said that “we need to focus on areas that are underrepresented. We must look outward and engage with our members…Only by standing together can we tackle all the issues we face.”
According to Austin (Ministry of Justice and Associated Offices branch), one way of “breathing life back into moribund branches” is to encourage new delegates to attend ADC. Many in his branch went to ADC last year as first-time delegates and returned as motivated organisers.
Before the debate, Julie Young, head of organising and learning at PCS, presented the strategy report.
She emphasised the importance of branches inputting their membership records on PCS Digital to allow PCS to calculate union density and called on branches and groups to “do a critical review of how organised they are."
Read more news from conference.
You can also follow us for updates on our new WhatsApp channel, Facebook page, Instagram, BlueSky and X.