The union was founded in 1998 by the merger of the Public Services, Tax and Commerce Union and the Civil and Public Services Association. The General Secretaries of the two unions, John Sheldon and Barry Reamsbottom respectively, became Joint General Secretaries of the new union. In 2000, Mark Serwotka was elected General Secretary and has held the position since: he was elected unopposed in 2005 ; he was re-elected in 2009 for a five-year term, and in 2014 was re-elected for a further five years. In 2018, the union won £3 million in damages from the Department for Work and Pensions, after a legal challenge against the withdrawal of the "check off" system of paying union subscriptions.
Membership and organisation
The union had 195,901 members at the end of 2015 and is the largest trade union representing civil servants in the UK. PCS is organised into groups that deal with different bargaining units such as Revenue and Customs, Work and Pensions and Law and Justice. Two factions compete in elections to the National Executive Committee of the PCS, its governing body: the ruling Left Unity faction, which stands candidates as part of the Democracy Alliance, and an opposing Independent Left faction.
In November 2004, PCS workers across government departments undertook a one-day strike in protest against government plans to cut the Civil Service by 20%. This action was followed by further one-day strikes on 31 January and 1 May 2007.
On 8 March 2010, 270,000 civil servants began a 48-hour strike over government changes to redundancy payments.
2011
The union voted for a one-day strike on 30 June 2011. . There were stints of hour strikes during the summer months of 2011 but these were not full walk outs. A further strike was voted for by members for 30 November 2011, over pensions negotiations with the government. There was a three-hour strike on 12 December 2011 over privatisation of call centres, with further action planned for 16 and 31 January 2012.
2012
Action was planned for 16 and 31 January 2012. Although original hopes of a national strike on 28 March, only a London strike materialised, due to lack of support from other unions rejecting national strikes. The PCS later joined a national strike on 10 May alongside UCU, NIPSA and Unite
2013
Strike action was organised for New Year's Eve 2013 for all Metropolitan Police Service Civil Staff due to a pay dispute. Taking strike action on this day was deemed to be most effective because of the busy nature of the day for police. The MPS offered a below inflation wage increase of 1%. Another strike ballot was announced on 6 February 2014 for strike action on 12 and 13 February 2014. As part of the union's budget day strikes, a series of protests took place across branches in the Culture Group, including Tate and National Museums Liverpool to highlight the effect of government cuts to arts funding.
2014
PCS announced a strike on 10 July over pay.
2015
From 11 August 2015, PCS members at the National Gallery took indefinite strike action against a proposed privatisation of the security staff at the gallery. The strike lasted for over 100 days. At the National Museum Wales branch, members voted for strike action after proposals to end their weekend pay premiums. Members of the Royal Household branch, including staff at Windsor Castle, voted for action short of a strike in an effort to achieve the Living Wage. Another of the union's Culture Group branches went on strike in December 2015 against the removal of weekend allowances. The dispute at the National Museum of Scotland branch was eventually ended when funding from the Scottish Government enabled a buy out of the allowances.
2016
Cleaners in HMRC went on strike as their outsourced employer, ISS, claimed it couldn't afford the Government's new National Living Wage.
2017
Strike action of Driving examiners was organised for 4 and 5 December to coincide with the introduction of new driving tests in order to protest against the introduction of Satellite Navigation to the test on 4 December. Examiners also voted started work to rule on 23 November.
