Just over 10 years ago, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude wrote to departments asking them to end check-off – the method through which payment of trade union subs were made via the civil service payroll system. In doing so, he encouraged departments to breach our members' contractual rights and left the government liable for millions of pounds in compensation.
Last week, after a long legal fight, the Supreme Court justices ruled unanimously that this breach broke the law – and that PCS was owed compensation. Ending this longstanding agreement disrupted the collection of membership dues, forcing our union to individually re-recruit nearly every member of the union.
PCS has been represented throughout by Thompsons Solicitors in our long legal fight. In 2018, we won a landmark case in the High Court against the Department of Work and Pensions for ending check-off, resulting in a £3m out-of-court settlement to PCS.
When we won similar cases in the High Court against other departments, the government took us to the Court of Appeal, but last week the Supreme Court ruled in our favour ending a long legal wrangle over a an unnecessary decision made by ministers a decade ago.
Ending check-off felt particularly cruel at a time when the government and unions were in dispute over job cuts, pay freezes and caps, attacks on pensions and redundancy payments.
There can be no doubt that the ending of check-off was an attempt by the then Conservative-Lib Dem coalition to break civil service trade unionism and hobble us as an effective force in defending workers’ rights. At the time, PCS collected 90% of membership income through check-off.
It is a tribute to PCS members, reps and officials, including my predecessor as general secretary Mark Serwotka, that this did not bankrupt the union. We had to individually re-sign members to the union in a matter of months or face oblivion. As much as any strike, it demonstrated the collective strength we have as a union.
Under the subsequent Conservative governments, punitive legislation was brought in to further restrict trade unions’ ability to defend their members – the 2016 Trade Union Act, which introduced ballot thresholds, and the Minimum Service Levels Act – both of which are now being repealed as part of the new Labour’s government’s Employment Rights Bill, the latter following a further legal challenge by PCS to regulations restricting our members’ right to strike in the Home Office.
We have emerged from these tough years as a stronger, more independent union – with our members paying their subs directly to the union through direct debit, so that never again can an employer seek to bankrupt us for standing up for our members.
It is no small matter that this shameful episode has resulted in huge legal costs and compensatory payments for the government. In the 1980s, councillors would have been surcharged for such wanton disregard for public money, and so it’s unfortunate that the costs will be paid now by a government that did not instigate this attacks on unions, and which, to its credit, has sought to build more positive industrial relations.
This hopefully closes the door on a period of poor industrial relations in the civil service, and the election of a new government that has come into office with new Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden pledging to “make being in the civil service a richer, more rewarding experience, rather than being blamed for the failures of ministers”.
But our endurance and victory in the Supreme Court also serves as a warning to this and future governments: PCS will campaign relentlessly in defence of our members – to defend their jobs, pay and their right to be part of an independent and effective trade union.
Fran Heathcote is the general secretary at civil service union PCS