25.04.2007

PCSU - fight to win

On May Day the Public and Commercial Services Union is calling out its 280,000 civil service members on a 24-hour strike. Lee Rock, national secretary of the PCSU Socialist Caucus, explains the issues

The action brings together a wide-ranging set of demands - against job cuts, privatisation and attacks on pay and compensation arrangements. It was correct to include all this on the strike ballot, because, for example, some departments are not facing job cuts at this stage, but all of them are subject to one attack or another.

The attack on our jobs is, though, for many members the biggest issue - 55,000 have gone over the last couple of years. While pay is obviously important - Gordon Brown has, of course, imposed a two percent limit on the public services wage bill - the extra burden that job losses bring to those who remain is phenomenal. Many now have to travel long distances to get to work following the closure of local offices and the overall result has been to force out people with childcare and other difficulties.

Militants, including communists, can only welcome this union-wide national action, which is sure to be well supported. That applies also to the choice of May 1, giving those in other industries the opportunity to show their solidarity on international workers' day.

However, Socialist Caucus questions the overall strategy. It is now over three months since the last one-day strike on January 31. There was a two-to-one majority in favour of action, but the downside is that over 200,000 members did not vote at all. Nevertheless the union claims that, out of the 280,000 members, around 200,000 came out on January 31.

After that there was the TUC-organised 'work your hours' day on Friday February 23 - most people only 'work their hours' on a Friday anyway, so that was pretty much a non-event in most places. Then there was a day of action over pay in March affecting some departments. However, if, for instance, you take the department for work and pensions (DWP), May 1 will be the first real action since January 31. Nobody seriously believes that this level of mobilisation will actually bring victory.

True, there was an overtime ban from February 1-14 and the May 1 strike will be followed by a further two-week ban, which is due to end on May 15. But, of course, for the two and a half months in between a substantial amount of overtime has been worked - it is the only way the workload can be dealt with and many workers are tempted by the extra money. After all, by working extra hours for a couple of weekends, you can earn the equivalent of an additional week's pay. However, except for the HMRC (revenue and customs) there has been no ongoing ban.

Most workers do not see the point of refusing overtime for just two weeks. There is no logic in it - at most it causes minor inconvenience to the employer and the lost time is simply made up when the ban ends. Clearly such action must be indefinite if it is to hit home. And a two-week ban also serves to acknowledge that any one-day strikes called are mere protest actions. What is needed is a much more imaginative strategy - the problem is, many workers do not really believe the union is engaged in a serious campaign.

The line of the Socialist Party - the dominant political force on the executive - is that an indefinite overtime ban would be "divisive". To a certain extent, when tough decisions have to be made, any action taken will be divisive - and half-baked token measures the more so! At present some militants are refusing overtime despite the current absence of a union ban, but many rank and file members will take it while it is going. So the present situation is already divisive. If, however, you can persuade the members that you have a winning strategy, you are much more likely to maintain unity.

After May 1 and the two-week ban, what happens next? The union leadership is not saying. Recently the DWP announced its plans to close the big pensions centre in Bath and other pension centres are facing the same fate. So there could be targeted action in the run-up to conference in mid-May and this too would be welcome. But what is needed is a strategy that involves action for the whole union that really bites.

National EC elections

In this situation the executive elections that are now taking place assume extra importance. There are four rival slates contesting:

l Left Unity is dominated politically, if not numerically, by the Socialist Party and its ideas, although the Socialist Workers Party, the Scottish Socialist Party and Solidarity are part of it too.

l For the Members ( or '4theMembers', as they like to be known) is a rightwing grouping that actually opposed the current programme of strike action and indeed any industrial action short of a strike. Most of them could best be described as Blairites, although some are Liberal Democrats.

l The Moderates are the rump of the old right wing that used to run the union under Barry Reamsbottom. They are more rightwing than For the Members, but they now have very little influence.

l The most militant and principled bloc is the Independent Left, with Socialist Caucus at its core (it is possible that Socialist Caucus will eventually decide to wind up in favour of the broader IL).

Janice Godrich of Solidarity has the nominations of 151 branches as sitting president, but most Left Unity members standing for the executive have 120-130, as against 20 for Independent Left. For the Members have received nominations from a dozen or so branches, while the Moderates have just one.

However, when it comes to the actual ballot, as opposed to the nominations of branch activists, the two rightwing groupings, particularly For the Members, will do far better than that. I have no doubt Left Unity will win. We in Independent Left will almost certainly get the lowest number of votes out of the four slates, not least because this is our first national contest.

Virtually every candidate states their affiliation and most list the rest of the candidates on the same slate, but the vote is for individuals and a large number of members vote across slates. It is possible that IL will have an individual candidate elected, but the most likely scenario is that no-one will succeed.

While IL does not expect to have any of its members elected onto the national EC, when it comes to the DWP group executive, it is another matter. Here there are only three slates contesting - the Moderates are nowhere to be seen. We expect Left Unity to have around 50 or so branch nominations, as against 15 or so for Independent Left and half a dozen or so for For the Members. In addition a number of branches that have not nominated candidates will be recommending support for IL. Here we have a chance not only of seeing some of our members elected, but of coming second in the elections.

Why the split?

In previous years Socialist Caucus was part of Left Unity and had one or two comrades elected onto the EC as part of the LU slate. But, even though we will now almost certainly lose our executive seats, in my view the standing of separate candidates was necessary.

Firstly on their own a couple of Socialist Caucus comrades were unable to make any real difference. Secondly, whereas in previous years we were partly tied to the LU slate, this time we can put forward our own distinctive policy.

Right now, for example, we are able to call attention to the absence of any leadership strategy in the current dispute. We know there are no magic solutions, but we ought to be between drawing up a winning strategy in response to the attacks. We think it is necessary to respond in a way that does not kid the members - if anything, pointless, token actions only serve to demoralise them.

It could be said that these are just tactical differences over the handling of a dispute, but it goes much deeper than that. Take pensions. We opposed last year's disgraceful sell-out, where the union agreed a two-tier scheme condemning future members to a grossly inferior deal.

The SP, in contrast, still claims the deal as a 'victory', while at the same time implicitly admitting its inadequacy by stating that it was impossible to win current members to fight for the rights of new recruits. But, as socialists, we do fight for people not yet employed. Similarly we fight against job cuts, not just against compulsory redundancies for current members - the position of LU.

Another key issue that needs to be taken up is the development of a correct political strategy in relation to the Labour Party. The PCS is, of course, not affiliated and the SP leadership is not interested in debating affiliation at conference. There is a PCS Labour Group, whose key players are part of the Independent Left and Socialist Caucus. However, while we are not campaigning on affiliation, we have a number of motions calling on the PCSU to support the John McDonnell campaign. I understand that they have caused the SP and Solidarity real problems. Although comrade McDonnell is chair of the PCS parliamentary group of MPs, it seems the SP may not back these motions.

Over the last year or so the need to form a grouping separate from Left Unity became more and more clear. Far from acting as revolutionary socialists, the SP is fearful of adopting radical policies. These comrades have no confidence in their own ability to persuade and lead the membership - they do not even try. As a result they end up behaving like any other set of union bureaucrats - the pensions debacle being a striking example.