SOLIDARITY greetings to Andrea Bradley, chair of the Scottish TUC women’s committee, and all my trade union sisters attending this year’s STUC women’s conference.

You meet at a time when building collective power and support has never been more important for women.  

PCS is a majority-female union and as our long-standing general secretary Mark Serwotka prepares for retirement at the end of the year, our members are about to elect his replacement.

With candidates declared, it is certain that our new general secretary will be a woman. Serwotka will be missed by many in PCS and throughout the movement.

He has always been a good ally to trade union women and personally gave me much encouragement during the almost two decades I have worked with him.  

I will be presenting him with an honorary “Step Aside Brother” badge when he retires.

But the trade union movement is not just about positions at the top, it is about building workers’ power and challenging inequality.  

The STUC has correctly made the link during this cost-of-living crisis between rising poverty and an increase in domestic abuse. And it is the task of all of us to fight for the redistribution of wealth and challenge abuse of power — in the workplace and in the home.

Scottish women workers are not immune to low pay, destitution and domestic abuse: class and gender inequality do not stop at the border.  

That is why the STUC will always demand that the Scottish government improve the lot of women in the workplace and in wider society.

PCS has an ongoing national dispute with both the UK and devolved governments over pay, jobs and pensions of civil and public servants in every part of the country.

During 2023, we saw an inspirational growth in union participation as more women and younger members led the strikes and organised the picket lines.

Our industrial action is currently “paused” in most areas, while we enter talks with the employer nationally, and we can see that the pay offers in Scottish government areas are better than their UK counterparts.

Even then, the UK government’s concession of 4.5 per cent and a one-off cost-of-living payment for 2023 was not evenly applied since Civil Service pay was “delegated” to individual employers under Margaret Thatcher.  

PCS national president Fran Heathcote, herself a low-paid DWP worker, in an interview with Left Food Forward earlier in the year said: “That the £1,500 was made pro-rata by some employers, meant an extra burden on mostly women part-time workers, as the cost-of-living crisis is not prorated, in terms of rising fuel bills and food costs.”

Among outsourced workers at government buildings, the impact of the cost of living is made even more difficult by the lack of secure employment.

Many of these security, facilities management and catering workers have seen a growing crisis.

At the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in East Kilbride, PCS members fought off a redundancy threat for outsourced workers, but many facing a Tupe transfer to a new contract are now facing seven weeks without pay during the transfer, in the run-up to Christmas.

Mitie/OCS workers at Abercrombie House will either need to wait for seven weeks before receiving their next monthly pay or take a “bridging loan” of up to four weeks, and face deductions of £100 or so a month.

PCS members don’t want to go into debt with their employer, and they don’t want to ask for charity either. They want dignity at work. Outsourced employers on government contracts are forcing workers into debt by their intransigence.  

They could ensure a smooth transition by either not making the change or providing proper compensation. Instead, they are putting the lowest-paid into financial crisis.

PCS is seeking to negotiate with the employers and with the parent government departments where our outsourced members are treated differently from civil and public servants working in the same building.

One PCS member, a single mother of three with no savings, finds it unacceptable to wait seven weeks for four weeks’ pay. She worries: “I couldn't pay bills, buy food, pay for gas or electric and during a cost-of-living crisis and before Christmas, I am already losing sleep and not able to eat with the worry.”

Another member added: “To go almost seven weeks in between pay dates right before Christmas would create a horrible, stressful environment for my family. Trying to pay the bills, fuel to get back and forth to work, Christmas presents for my three-year-old son, not to mention everyone else in my family.”

On another front, PCS work on safe passage, led by senior national officer Paul O’Connor, has been gaining support across the trade union movement and those campaigning for refugee rights.

We are leading this campaign and a massive legal challenge to Home Office policy on the treatment of refugees. The campaign grew out of PCS members in the Border Force in the south-east of England who were appalled at the government’s position on small boat crossings. It subsequently expanded to oppose the Rwanda scheme.  

Across Scotland, local trade councils have been instrumental in welcoming refugees into communities against the deliberate misinformation spread by far-right groups. I salute all of those who work tirelessly in these campaigns.

Our refugee work is only the latest in PCS members in front-line services working to present an alternative to reactive government policy.

Our DWP members previously developed a welfare alternative and HM Revenue and Customs members engaged deeply on the question of tax justice.

A woman’s work is never done: sisters, we cannot rest while there is so much injustice and inequality to fight.

Lynn Henderson is a senior national officer for PCS.