PCS MEMBERS have won a historic victory in our recent ballot — one that follows an extremely successful period of targeted action in places like the Border Force, the Rural Payments Agency, the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and some jobcentres facing closure. 

This has resulted in thousands of new joiners and unprecedented press coverage, and we’ve now called all member action today, February 1, alongside a number of other unions, as well as endorsing further plans for lots more targeted action. 

At the moment, the government says that there is no more money, but that could change quickly as they see the sheer strength of feeling from so many workers coming together. 

Our national executive meets quickly after today to consider next steps, but we hope to be able to escalate in March, including nearly 30,000 HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) members coming onboard, if — or rather when — they win their reballot, alongside even more unions joining the struggle, as the government announces its Budget.

PCS members have had enough. They are a far cry from the bowler-hatted bureaucrats they’re portrayed as in the media — 45,000 using foodbanks, 40 per cent in receipt of the low-income benefits they administer, such as universal credit, and in the two largest departments alone, the Department for Work and Pensions and HMRC, the shocking news that 46,000 of them will have an enforced pay increase in April because their rate of pay will have slipped below the National Living Wage, a consequence of over 12 years of pay restraint. 

To be made the lowest offer in the public sector — 2 per cent at a time of inflation running at 11 per cent — is an insult, coming so soon after being thanked and clapped as key workers. 

This is why they cannot wait any longer and why the government must act to resolve their concerns.   

They’ve had enough of cuts and privatisation, of attacks to terms and conditions. They’ve had enough of being exploited, disrespected and condemned as responsible for the failure of services that every government since Thatcher have underfunded, understaffed and systematically devalued and diminished.

As if all of this isn’t bad enough, the government now plans to legislate to further restrict the right to strike, a basic human right, but also class warfare of the worst kind to prevent any sort of fightback.

We have seen leaked documents suggesting that the government was seriously considering banning union membership, let alone the right to strike, in some parts of the Civil Service, and it was only legal advice that they would lose that stopped them pursuing this.

The recent death of 85-year-old Mike Grindley, the public face of the GCHQ trade unionists, who alongside 13 comrades fought for the right to hold trade union membership, should serve to remind us of what’s at stake and the need to fight to protect trade union rights, wherever and whenever they are under threat.

Those workers were sacked, holding out for 13 years (the second-longest continuously fought dispute in trade union history) until Labour came to office and lifted the ban. 

We cannot allow our unions to be dealt with on a piecemeal basis and allowed to be picked off from our campaigns. We need to organise joined-up, co-ordinated action wherever we can, and this latest wave of action, with the firefighters announcing their ballot result win on Monday, is really giving us a glimpse of what is possible and the need to join up our campaigns, and our action, as much as we can. 

So, we must unite as never before, defending public services for workers, for service users and for claimants alike.

Solidarity from PCS to all workers taking action, or balloting for it. Standing together, we are a force to be reckoned with, and one that this government cannot ignore.