Scottish Government pay rejected: PCS members prepare to fight
Fiona Brittle, PCS NEC member and Scottish Government GEC, personal capacity
Workers in Scottish Government (SG) and Scottish Devolved Sector groups have been offered a 9% pay ‘rise’ over three years.
Despite months of negotiations, this is identical to the Scottish public sector pay policy published in December 2024. It is below RPI inflation and is therefore a pay cut. All public sector unions, including PCS, rejected the policy immediately.
Disgracefully, the offer removes the long-standing ‘no compulsory redundancy’ guarantee, and heavily implies job cuts. PCS in SG does not accept that pay should be funded from restructures or a drop in service delivery.
The SG Group Executive Committee (GEC) met on 16 July and unanimously voted to reject, and formally ballot members on pay and conditions. Less than an hour later, the GEC was told that the National Disputes Committee (NDC) secretary insisted we deliver a consultative ballot first.
The NDC is dominated by the ‘Left Unity’ (LU) grouping, which currently has a majority on the PCS National Executive Committee, as well as the general secretary and national president, and has a record of holding back struggle. In contrast, Broad Left Network (BLN) members across the union have full confidence that our members will vote ‘yes’ in pay ballots, when engaged in a proper campaign to build support for a fighting strategy.
The SG GEC clearly agrees, but rather than waste time arguing with the LU bureaucracy we launched a consultative ballot on pay from 4-25 August. Member turnout at SG branch pay meetings has been high, with large majorities voting at the meeting to support rejection and industrial action.
Members tell us that pay is a huge issue, and is consistently linked with hybrid working – increased cost is a key reason why members oppose forced office attendance.
SG bosses have announced, without union consultation, a mandatory office attendance of 40% for staff in ‘Core SG’ from October, with the intent to increase this further. Social Security Scotland workers are already under a compulsory 40%, with other areas indicating they’ll do the same.
BLN members on the SG GEC have argued repeatedly to combine the fight on pay and conditions with hybrid, based on member feedback. Both issues are intrinsically linked, and a single campaign would unite members for whom pay or hybrid is the greater priority into a single point of leverage. Unfortunately, this position has not been supported by the wider GEC, which opted to consult members on the issues separately, arguing that this was so as not to risk the issue of hybrid impacting negatively on any pay campaign.
However, SG GEC have now reported that the group-wide petition to gauge members’ appetite for strike action over hybrid (an indicative ballot in all but name) which ran throughout July has achieved a huge 62% turnout, with 88% supporting our hybrid demands and 70% supporting industrial action. This is a clear demonstration of members’ anger and desire to fight on hybrid, and crucially their ability to beat the anti-trade union 50% threshold.
BLN members will continue to argue for one campaign that unites the issues. We are sure the consultative ballot on pay will be similarly successful – it will then be clear that our members are keen and ready for strike action on both fronts. It makes no sense to attempt to wage two separate wars against the same opponent simultaneously. SG members have handed the GEC the power and leverage to fight off government attacks on an incredibly wide basis, and we must seize this opportunity to unite members to win across the board.
If you want to help build fighting campaigns across the union, join the Broad Left Network at bln.org.uk
