02.06.2004

DWP pay fight needs winning strategy

The week-long Public and Commercial Services Union conference starts on Monday June 7 in Brighton. Lee Rock, PCSU London regional organiser for the department for work and pensions (DWP), writing in a personal capacity, looks at one of the biggest issues facing the union - the DWP pay dispute

The strike action by civil service workers employed in the department for work and pensions has seen unprecedented levels of support. Not only has there been extremely well backed official strike action on two occasions (February and April), but Public and Commercial Services Union members have taken part in large-scale unofficial walkouts in different parts of the DWP. The unofficial strikes in support of suspended colleagues who refuse to write reports under the newly imposed PDS appraisal system have been particularly impressive.

The question for us all now is, how do we take the campaign forward? The employers are clearly prepared to take us on. They got through the two 48-hour strikes and are likely to do the same again. This therefore means that we have to shift the campaign to encompass the type of action that can cause more disruption to the business of the employer.

The kind of campaign that we require is one that recognises we are in for a long haul, as PCSU general secretary Mark Serwotka told branch delegates at the March 6 representatives' conference. However, on the other hand, he has presented no long-haul strategy. If he has one, then he should let members know what it is. Not to have one - or to keep it as a private view, to be discussed only amongst a select few - is an abdication of leadership. When tens of thousands of members are involved in a battle with the employer, they do not need statesmanship: they need fighting leadership.

Since the beginning of the strike the Socialist Caucus group of PCSU militants has argued that the use of selective action is a weapon that should be deployed. We have advocated throughout this dispute pulling out key areas (not necessarily the strongest job centres). Key areas that can both deliver effective action and really hit the business. Once the employer works round the action, then we simply move our action somewhere else. It is to be welcomed that the group executive committee (GEC) is now putting an emergency motion to conference that talks of selective action. Unfortunately the Left Unity-led GEC has failed to move this part of the campaign forward for the last three months.

The emergency motion from Socialist Caucus also sees a role for continuing national strikes, but to be used alongside selective action. The Socialist Caucus motion also calls for a national week of disruption throughout the DWP. This would involve strike action of up to two days during the week. 

We do not though see continuing national action, on its own, of anything between two to five days as being a strategy that will defeat the employer. Such action will eventually see a falling away of support. This would lead to defeat and demoralisation.

Unfortunately, we do not believe that an all-out indefinite strike would be supported by a majority of the membership at this time. We recognise that the starting point for the union in the DWP is with union membership levels that have only now reached 66%, and that members have neither the tradition of all-out strike action and, more importantly, have not been prepared by a leadership campaign for such action. That is not to say that, as a campaign builds momentum and confidence is gained, an all-out strike is not possible. Of course it is. However, it also requires a leadership that is prepared to properly build for it - otherwise it would merely lead to a ballot that is defeated. This would be an exit strategy and the obvious end to the campaign. It would also set us back for our campaigns in 2004 over pay and staffing.

We are in this position both because we have a hostile employer and a GEC that never expected and never wanted this campaign. This is demonstrated not only by the complete lack of a strategy, but also by the fact that it suspended the initial action in January and that branch reps were only called together after the initial two-day strike. 

The GEC expected to win a ballot rejecting management's offer, along with the PDS scheme. It then expected to get an improved offer allowing it to call off the action and recommend acceptance from the membership. Things seemed to start well. Having got the rejection ballot in November 2003, the GEC delayed calling action and waited for the improved offer - an offer that did not come. It was only when strike action was finally called that it came along and the GEC pounced on the chance to call off the action.

The strategy then fell apart. The rank and file soon recognised that the improved offer was extremely poor and GEC members began to feel the pressure, as the membership was not simply going to accept it. Socialist Caucus comrades announced at the Left Unity conference, held in early March in Leeds, that if the revised offer was recommended to members by the Socialist Party, who form the biggest bloc within both Left Unity and the executive, we would regard that as a sell-out and would consider standing - probably alongside other left activists - a separate slate in the group elections. 

This combination of factors - an angry membership alongside a viable left electoral challenge - was enough to persuade the GEC that it could not recommend the revised offer. The campaign was back on and the first strike action took place in February. Since then the GEC has relied on the two 48-hour national strikes over a five-month period, alongside an overtime ban and a withdrawal of good will. This strategy clearly cannot win.

Despite the lack of anything approaching a viable strategy from the leadership, the level of backing for a fight with the employer remains strong. At the moment the campaign is still well supported - especially as PDS appraisal markings have just been distributed and tens of thousands of members having been given lower markings than usual.

Members are indeed fed up with the way they are being treated. But in order to continue to make sacrifices we all need to believe that there is a strategy that can win. Relying on the loyalty of the membership to continue supporting campaigns is not sufficient. Delegates at the union conference are being urged to support the emergency resolution from Socialist Caucus - let's have a strategy to win!