A Taxing ‘Poll’

We understand from sources inside the building that MyCSP management’s ‘poll’ on union recognition, is going ahead this week; with staff being told to expect to receive an email from the polling company ‘Civica’, asking them if they’re in favour of union recognition or if they’re opposed.

The message from the Chief Executive says that an “anonymous, one-question poll” will be sent to the work email address of staff this week (w/c 26 August). The Chief Executive goes on to say that management are having discussions with the company managing the ‘poll’ about how they can presume the votes of those people who are currently on strike, and that they will also be ‘contacting staff on long-term absence’.

Leaving aside the idea of a ‘poll’ being so independent that the scrutineer can be asked to ‘presume’ some votes will go a certain way; nobody is being given the option of (for example) meeting with the union and having the opportunity to properly discuss the benefits of recognition and collective bargaining, before they exercise their vote.

Then there is the matter of who actually gets to vote in the management-run ‘poll’. As we’ve said before, for our strike we had to provide precise numbers, grades and locations of any and all staff being balloted. As far as we can tell, all MyCSP are doing is providing the scrutineer with a list of people with Equiniti email addresses, and they’re getting a vote.

Finally, even in the increasingly unlikely event that a management-run, cold-called plebiscite, sent to a list of Equiniti staff provided by an anti-union management, actually produces a vote in favour of recognition; there’s still no guarantee that MyCSP will recognise PCS - given the Chief Executive’s email goes on to say that:

“Regardless of whether you are a member of the union, having a recognised union in MyCSP will impact every Employee Partner. We therefore want to ensure we can take your views into consideration when deciding how to proceed from here.”

So, all things considered, we think we can be forgiven for not taking MyCSP’s ‘poll’ very seriously.

Capita Update

The next meeting between PCS and Capita, to discuss taking forward the in-principle agreement to voluntary union recognition, is taking place on Wednesday 3 September.

We’ve already provided Capita with formal proposals about the wording of an agreement, and we’ve asked for their thoughts on our suggested terms ahead of next week’s meeting.