The Public and Commercial Service Union (PCS) Group Executive in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is recommending that members accept a new three-year pay offer.
If members accept the offer in a ballot, this will end a pay dispute that has seen PCS members in Jobcentres and Social Security offices take six days' strike action in the last year.
The Socialist Party Group Executive wants to end this dispute in order, they say, to focus the union's efforts on struggles over jobs and pensions. However the Executive has no plans to call further action in the DWP over jobs, despite Management pressing ahead with the closure of hundreds of offices and 40,000 redundancies. Also it is unclear whether the national Union will call strike action over pensions without the support of other public sector Unions. (See accompanying article.)
The Executive has shown little imagination in the pay dispute. They called off a twoday strike with union members in other Civil Service Departments because management put a miserly new offer on the table. Then they rejected this offer, realising they could not sell it to the membership.
PCS members in the other Departments who took strike action felt let down. It sent a message to DWP Management that the Group Executive was not up for a fight.
In the first year of the dispute, management had the confidence to impose their offer. Then they sought to introduce a new pertormance related pay system for 2003/2004 called a "performance development scheme" (PDS), which was opposed by 97 per cent of members in a ballot.
The Executive reluctantly called three periods of two-day national strikes but with huge gaps between each period of action. It rejected calls for short-term selective action that could have caused severe disruption.
It was lacklustre in publicising an overtime ban and failed to establish a national levy of PCS members to fund industrial action. It called for a campaign of non-cooperation with PDS, but only up to the point where members were threatened with disciplinary action.
When members were disciplined for non-cooperation, a series of walkouts took place, but these received no backing from the Executive.
Although the union took Management to the High Court over PDS, the Executive has failed to give guidance to thousands of individuals who could legally challenge PDS at Employment Tribunals for its discriminatory aspects.
The Executive may have grown tired of this dispute, but one doesn't accept anything on the table.
Union members should reject management's new pay offer. It has not been equality proofed. Management figures show PDS discriminates against ethnic minority staff, part timers and staff with disabilities who all receive worse performance pay awards than other groups.
The revised PDS system still means thousands of union members will receive the lowest award. The awards under PDS are one off payments and are not taken into account for pensions purposes.
DWP workers would continue to be the poor relations in the Civil Service, earning much less than those in many other Departments. A three-year deal will undermine the union's campaign for national pay in the Civil Service, which seeks to address such inequalities.
The current union Executive in the DWP is unlikely to call strike action for national pay in the next three years after agreeing such a deal. Although the percentage increases for each year in the offer are slightly above the current inflation level, inflation is rising. There is no progression' element in the offer allowing staff to reach the maximum pay for their grade.
Activists around the Socialist Caucus (SC) group are building opposition to any deal under Management's proposals. The offer does not reward members' sacrifice in this pay struggle. More can be won from management through combining effective selective and national action over pay. The campaign against PDS should be stepped up by helping thousands of members who can put in ET applications against their PDS awards.
Socialist Caucus has been winning increasing support amongst members and is considering standing its own candidates in elections to a new Executive.
Previously SC candidates have stood under the Left Unity banner, but due to ballot rigging in internal DWP Left Unity elections to the detriment of SC and to the benefit of the current Executive members, SC may break from LU. In such circumstances, Socialist Resistance would support SC candidates. DWP workers need a Union leadership that leads the class struggle rather than runs away from it.