Workplace organising is key to strategy

Members of the PCS civil service union have agreed to put workplace organising at the very top of their agenda to safeguard the union’s future.

Delegates at the union’s May annual conference backed the union’s 10th National Organising Strategy which aims to combat membership decline stemming from mass workforce reductions in the civil service.

The strategy was presented by Nick McCarthy, the union’s director of campaigns, communications and organising, who said that, since 2010, “the size of the civil service has been reduced by 14%, or 70,000 workers”. But, he added, “at the same time our membership density (the proportion of paid workers in a workplace who are union members) has increased”.

Key to this has been the union’s forthright national campaign on pensions, pay and job cuts. A union review of its organising strategy found that, in 2011, membership was boosted by surges in new joiners around the pension strikes of 30 June and 30 November of that year.

While there was no comparable surge in 2012, two-thirds of new members joining in that year said the national campaign had positively influenced their decision to sign up.

Among the main aims of the strategy are to increase membership density by 2% and ensure there is on average one rep for every 25 members.

www.pcs.org.uk/en/news_and_events/conference/conference-2013/index.cfm