PCS Culture Sector
PCS (Public & Commercial Sector) is a trade union that represents around 200,000 civil servants working in many different areas. PCS is also a very active union when it comes to climate change and have build a network of green reps active in their workplaces & local communities. Their green policies include opposing expansion of airports, fracking & extreme energy, nuclear power and supporting local campaigns on divestment or fuel poverty. They are founder members of the “One Million Climate Jobs” campaign.
The PCS Culture Sector is the voice for museum, gallery and heritage workers, and represents over 3,000 workers across arts & culture. This includes fighting for better terms & conditions in world-renowned institutions such as the British Museum, the National Gallery, Tate, the British Library, representing workers in Scotland & Wales, National Museums Liverpool, English Heritage or the Department for Culture, Media & Sport and also in private companies providing security, visitor services or cleaning in museums & galleries.
Recently, PCS Culture Sector fought a high-profile battle against the privatisation of the National Gallery, securing protections for existing and future workers as well as the reinstatement of their sacked union rep. At Tate, it has won the Living Wage for zero-hour contract workers employed by a private contractor and the alignment of their pay with directly employed staff. Other campaigns are fighting against arts cuts and attacks on museum workers in National Museums Scotland and National Museums Wales where managers want to remove premium payments, pushing people into further poverty. PCS Culture Sector also work with other unions, artists, arts students and arts activists to build up a mass campaign to defend arts & culture from austerity. They launched their Show Culture Some Love campaign in March 2015 at a lively event on the future of art & culture, a campaign that will now go national!
WATCH Show Culture Some Love film:
Art Not Oil and PCS Culture Sector have crossed paths in a number of museums where oil sponsorship is a common feature - with BP operating at Tate, National Portrait Gallery and the British Museum, and Shell at the National Gallery and the Science Museum. The two groups have done joint workshops at PCS Green Forum, Reclaim the Power and anti-fracking events. The National Gallery dispute brought them closer, supporting each other's actions, and has reinforced the case that privatisation and oil sponsorship are two sides of the same coin: a capitalist model for arts & culture we reject.
PCS Culture Sector passed a resolution at their 2015 Conference condemning oil and arms trade sponsorship and calling for ethical policies to be developed in cultural institutions. The conference also agreed to become a member of the Art Not Oil coalition and to extend joint work.
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