01.08.2007

Regional pay onslaught

Dave Vincent, secretary of the Greater Manchester DCA branch of the Public and Commercial Services Union (personal capacity), reports on the latest divisive attacks on PCS members and calls for a united fightback

Gordon Brown - before becoming prime minister - is said to be the architect of the introduction of regional pay into the civil service, starting with the department for constitutional affairs (DCA; now renamed the ministry of justice).

He was able to use the DCA pay and grading review for this purpose. The review was necessary because staff of the magistrates courts - formerly local authority employees - became civil servants alongside staff of the crown and county courts upon the creation of Her Majesty's Court Service as an agency within the DCA. There needed to be harmonisation of the different pay and grading systems of staff coming from two different employers.

This was Brown's chance to bring in regional pay - the idea being to link civil service pay to market rates paid by private sector employers on a geographical basis. So the DCA is proposing five regional rates. These are, starting with the highest: (1) inner London; (2) south-east and associated 'hot spots'; (3) hot spots elsewhere; (4) 'national plus'; and (5) national. The so-called national rate, the lowest, is intended for Wales, the north-west and the north-east.

The plan is for data for a range of employers to be gathered to supposedly inform the basis for determining different rates of pay according to geographical area. This data is to be reviewed every three years to keep pace with pay movements.

If an area is attracting investment and is the place to be, then it is possible for pay rates to eventually go up. However, if an area is in decline and employers are relocating elsewhere or just going bankrupt, then pay rates for DCA civil servants in that area will eventually go down - market forces, you see.

Obviously public services are located where they need to be, not where the most profit is to be made, which is the criterion for private sector businesses. The more deprived an area, the more public services will be needed, but now, with regional pay and market forces, the pay of public sector employees in such an area will be driven down.

It is easy to see how much money can be saved by introducing regional pay first across the whole civil service and then throughout the rest of the public sector, thus driving down the rate for the job - or, put another way, having a regional 'rate for the job' instead of a national rate.

The anomalies of this concept soon stack up - the pay rate is based on where you work, not where you live. We will see staff living in the same area with the same living costs and bills to pay, but on different pay rates despite doing identically graded work - depending on which office they travel to work to.

Then there is the notion of 'hot spots' within a given area - offices where it is claimed there are 'recruitment and retention' difficulties, justifying a premium pay rate. Experienced union activists point out these are usually the offices where the most effort is made to buy staff off in order to stop them taking future action over pay. The regional pay map has proposed at least four sets of boundaries since version one - so much for being informed by scientific data of outside employer pay rates then!

Another anomaly concerns staff from the magistrates courts (formerly local authority). They had a shorter working week and more annual leave than former court service staff (civil servants) and were non-mobile, remaining in the same office. Harmonisation should have meant giving civil servants more leave and a shorter working week, and ending 'mobility'. This being a Labour government, however, it opted to enforce the worst terms on everyone, harmonising down, not up. Other jobs were also downgraded.

Many staff (usually with childcare or other caring responsibilities) value the right to more annual leave, to a shorter working week and to non-mobility. But the 'DCA deal' forces staff to choose between retaining such conditions and slightly better pay. Blackmail rather than a free choice.

PCS response

General secretary Mark Serwotka told PCS members in the DCA that their fight against regional pay had to be won, otherwise it would be introduced across the whole civil service and public sector. Indeed, among the reasons listed for the national civil service strikes of January 31 and May 1 was the proposed introduction of regional pay into the DCA.

The PCS managed to secure a 96% vote of DCA members (on a high 40% turnout) to oppose the terms of the DCA deal. The PCS DCA group conference in May carried 11 motions opposing the DCA deal, fully endorsing the ballot and calling for the authorisation of paid selected action in key locations.

However, in the April-May group executive elections for the DCA, the Socialist Party-dominated Left Unity lost overall control to the PCS Democrats (unlike at NEC level there is no electoral pact between Left Unity and the PCS Democrats at group level). Just three weeks later, on June 5, the new group executive (GEC) met to discuss managerial 'concessions' and agreed not to fight the deal at DCA level and to agree a position, said to have been cleared by Serwotka beforehand, to the effect that the PCS is firmly against regional pay 'in principle'.

The GEC agreed to call off the work-to-rule over the 2006-07 pay claim (in force since December 18 2006) and not to call any action against the regional pay deal at DCA level. The 'fight' against regional pay is instead to become part of the PCS national campaign over job losses, the two percent pay cap and compulsory redundancies.

A small detail. Staff are expected to decide whether to sign up for the four-year DCA deal enshrining regional pay by mid-September - before any strike action under the PCS national campaign has taken place.

This means that PCS members across the whole civil service are to be asked to take strike action against the introduction of regional pay when even the PCS Democrats, now in overall control of the DCA GEC, expect 80% of staff to have signed up for it! The PCS is not advising members to refuse to sign - it is abandoning them to making individual decisions.

So the workforce will be divided into two camps - those opting in to the DCA deal and those retaining current terms and conditions of service. This means those who opt out should be entitled to annual pay increases, whilst those who opt in  will be lumbered with a four-year deal based on their regional pay. The employer has been allowed to get away with a classic 'divide and rule' tactic.

The GEC is claiming it has secured "collective bargaining" for both groups of staff and a "comprehensive review of regional pay" after just one year. This is an attempt to foster illusions in the members and cover up the sheer scale of the sell-out. The treasury will simply announce that there is no extra money for annual pay rise staff, with or without "collective bargaining". Any extra money will go to DCA deal staff - which is what the employer has said from day one.

As for a "comprehensive review" of regional pay after one year - does any experienced union activist really think for one minute that the employer is going to abandon the concept, not bring it in across the civil service or extend it to the rest of the public sector, and, despite (an estimated) 80% of staff signing up to it, pay extra to restore the differentials brought in just one year before? Or that the treasury and DCA management will voluntarily reunify two groups of workers despite the PCS agreeing not to take industrial action against the deal at DCA level?

The PCS NEC and general secretary are terrified of using paid selective strike action in key locations, because when previous extended action was concentrated within particular offices - allowing management to move work to non-striking offices - the union was nearly bankrupted. But action could be switched between offices, preventing management from getting round the effects by moving work. In the DCA we are talking of criminal trials - and 'law and order' is high-profile news.

There was no honest debate with activists at either the national or group conference. My suspicion is that permission to take paid selective strike action was never sought by the full-time, unelected, union official for PCS DCA with the general secretary - Mark Serwotka and the national disputes committee cannot authorise what is not formally asked for.

At the national conference I was not allowed to speak to the NEC emergency motion on the national campaign (when Serwotka warned of the danger of regional pay!). They knew I would have reported that the DCA group conference had demanded paid selective strike action just the day before. The president (a member of the Socialist Party) did allow a DCA delegate just behind me (who happened to be a fellow member of the Socialist Party) to speak - he stated that paid selective action would not work, without saying it was our group conference policy!

I moved a point of order, saying that the debate was not balanced (more speakers had been called for the NEC 'all things to all people' emergency motion than those opposing). I was told this was not a point of order. In fact the NEC emergency motion was a last-minute, cobbled-together affair, incorporating all the demands of separate motions to avoid any disagreement or discussion of strategy and preserve a facade of 'unity'.

I guess the Socialist Party, which dominates the NEC, is placing its faith in united public sector action over Gordon Brown's two percent pay cap. Recent conferences of teachers, nurses and Unite-TGWU seem to be showing that workers want their unions to coordinate such action - and it is obvious the CWU should be part of this united fightback too.

But will those unions affiliated to the Labour Party really allow such an open, early challenge to Gordon Brown as prime minister, when they would not even endorse John McDonnell's campaign for leader? Look at the pensions fightback that ended in shabby compromise and backing off, and the introduction of a two-tier agreement - just at a time when the much reported massive pension funds deficit was narrowing.

PCS left

Before the setting up of the Independent Left as a breakaway from Left Unity (the idea of CPGB comrade Lee Rock) my fear had been that the Independent Left slate would split the left vote and allow the right to regain control. It turned out, however, that of the four slates contesting (two right and two left) Lee Rock's IL came an embarrassing fourth.

IL's predecessor, Socialist Caucus, which had been part of Left Unity, therefore lost its two NEC seats (John Maloney and Rod Bacon). However, after circulating a two-page attack on the Independent Left challenge to all its members, Left Unity actually increased its vote.

It could have been very different if Lee had taken up my suggestion of endorsing the 17 or so official Left Unity candidates but opposing the 13 PCS Democrat pact members with IL candidates (there are 30 places on the PCS NEC). Many Left Unity members disagree with the Left Unity/PCS Democrat 'Democracy Alliance' pact and would have voted for Independent Left candidates so long as they were not displacing official Left Unity candidates. IL could not have been accused of splitting the left vote and risking a right victory. What is more, Lee might have gained a few seats and strengthened his negotiating position.

Such suggestions were published in the Weekly Worker as well as being made directly to Lee, but we never got the courtesy of a reply - and I do not think Lee circulated my proposal to his group despite my request that he seek their views. He ploughed on regardless and lost the two Socialist Caucus NEC places he had. Now there will be no dissenting voices within the NEC and no reports of what is going on inside the NEC to aid activists. Even more control by the Socialist Party, in other words.

United fightback

The NEC is to embark on a consultation exercise this autumn, asking members what they think the PCS should be doing. Activists on the ground feel there is less and less enthusiasm for further national days of action that attract little national media coverage. The NEC will not be asking for all-out, indefinite action and it has shown it will not pay for selective, targeted action either.

United action involving a number of unions taking simultaneous action might inspire members to give national action another go. If it is the PCS alone, I think there will be less and less support - Gordon Brown has shown he will not be faced down by single-union disputes.

In the absence of united public sector action the PCS NEC has run out of ideas.