10.04.2014

Unions merger: Questions for Serwotka

A Unite-PCS merger is on the cards. PCS militant Dave Vincent examines the options

Regular readers of the Weekly Worker may recall that the Public and Commercial Services union conference of May 2013 debated a national executive motion in favour of exploratory merger talks with Unite - curiously worded in that it specified this would only happen if Unite made the approach.

Rumours abounded that PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka was on a promise to succeed Len McCluskey after his current term as Unite general secretary in return for delivering PCS to the larger union. I said at that conference that this pretence of talks ‘if Unite makes the approach’ was really a face-saving formula, as PCS wanted a merger. The key question I put to Mark from the conference floor was: What about Unite being affiliated to the Labour Party whilst PCS is not? He made no mention of that throughout his conference address.

In a subsequent speech concerning industrial action, Mark argued that PCS can win alone (a reversal of a previous conference address, where he had argued that only unified action by most unions could win against the attacks on our pensions). I suppose, after the sell-out by the Labour-affiliated unions within days of the biggest strike since 1926 (November 30 2011), united action is not on the cards, so PCS has to go it alone.

And now, in the latest union monthly paper which goes out to all PCS members, PCS People No1, 2014, I see a near full-page article by Mark Serwotka entitled ‘The case for a powerful new union’. Apparently Mark is being asked questions to which he is replying. He starts off by dealing with how the talks came about, making no mention of the NEC motion before the 2013 conference.

Mark mentions the huge pensions strike of 2011 that involved 29 unions. Then he says: “ultimately that strike wasn’t successful …” - with not a word about the Labour-affiliated unions reaching their own deals with the government just days later.

Mark talks of having an ever closer working relationship with Unite “to try to build joint campaigns”. Well, he cannot say ‘to mount united industrial action’, can he? Mark also claims Unite has a “leadership that sees things similarly to the way we see things here”: ie, “trying to achieve the best you can through negotiation, but if the other side doesn’t listen, you have to stand up to defend yourself”.

Well, PCS hasn’t concluded a three-year no-strike deal without any action as Unite did over Grangemouth, nor does PCS think trade union activists should join the Labour Party to ‘pull it left’, so I’m not sure how Unite “sees things similarly” to PCS.

Next, Mark is asked to explain the benefits of a merger, to which he states that a merged union would have members who are in both the private and public sector, so such a union could “campaign across the board”. Well, PCS already has (privatised) members in the private sector, which is why our name is Public and Commercial Services union.

Mark does not list any “across the board” campaigns Unite has mounted, nor does he suggest any for this powerful new union. Mark adds: “… being in a union that size must mean we are much more effective than if we are on our own”. He does not cite any Unite or Unison successes due to their current size, following the mergers that each has had, so maybe they just need another 260,000 members from PCS to really be effective.

Finally, Mark says: “… the world has changed, so the unions need to change”. Whether this means mounting united industrial action, voting Labour every five years or something else Mark does not say.

Mark is then asked, how will members be involved in the merger process? He promises PCS reps will be briefed constantly and the maximum amount of information will be issued to members. He mentions there will be a special conference of PCS (but does not say when) and a full ballot of our members will be held before any decision is taken. Rumour has it that this special conference will be later this year, followed by a ballot to ratify a Unite-PCS merger in 2015 (perhaps in time for the 2015 general election?).

Mark then says: “We can stay separate, we can be very successful in terms of campaigning and we can still be a very bold voice in the trade union movement. But we want to see if we can be more than that - actually being part of something that can make more of a difference in trying to change things.”

Labour

At last we come to the issue Mark wanted to say nothing on until he was challenged last year - the fact that Unite is affiliated to the Labour Party. Mark is asked how PCS members can continue to be politically independent in a merged union. He generously assures us that no PCS member “would be required to pay any of their money into the Labour Party”, as if this is some special concession he has fought for - Unite members also are not required to pay any money into the Labour Party.

Mark evades the key point that Unite, merged or not, remains affiliated to the Labour Party and to me, that relationship means Unite concentrates more on delivering votes for Labour than united action with other unions against Con-Dem or Labour austerity cuts. Mark has nothing to say about how much Unite has donated to the Labour Party and how little it has got back. Although much is being made of Unite reducing its affiliate’s contribution by half, much less is made of the fact that McCluskey has been given total authority to ‘top up’ Unite donations should the Labour Party request more financial assistance.

Impressively, Mark is asked about the cuts the last Labour government made (and readers need to realise that, for civil servants, the government of the day is our employer). Mark assures PCS members: “The most important thing that members need to know is that the core of any new organisation for me is one that is committed to opposing whoever is unleashing those attacks against you and that is as valid if it’s a Labour government as if it’s a Tory one.”

So, Mark, what united action has Unite argued for against the austerity cuts so far? Where has Unite been?

The last question Mark is asked is: “Would a bigger union raise our profile?” Mark cites the fact that a merged union would have an income of £150 million and 1.7 million members, concluding: “it has the potential to be the most effective organisation for people to be in that we would have seen for many, many years.” Presumably, currently having a £30 million strike fund it is not using and a mere 1.3 million members is nowhere near enough to make it an “effective organisation”? Why not invite Unison to merge as well then?

PCS members have taken more strike action over the last 10 years in defence of their pensions, terms and conditions of service than any other union. PCS made the call for the united action over pensions that took place on November 30 2011, but such action has not been initiated by Unison or Unite and neither have suggested further joint action since.

Mark does not say what deal he is pursuing for himself and our full-time union officials, by the way. But, far from Len McCluskey standing down to hand over to Mark, he called a snap early election so his term of office now extends past 2015. We would not want a union election to distract from delivering the Labour vote now, would we?

For readers wondering why PCS is not also in merger talks with Unison (with whom we had also signed a joint working agreement - before the one signed with Unite), the clue may be in who the Socialist Party in England and Wales backed in the Unite poll that saw McCluskey being re-elected. Despite the candidate address of Jerry Hicks being far closer to the public stance of SPEW, which dominates the PCS NEC and whose members hold a surprising number of full-time officer positions, it backed McCluskey, who just happens to have been a leading member of Militant in the 1980s in Liverpool. The PCS north-west office happens to be based in the Unite building in Liverpool.

Oddly though, McCluskey calls for entering (sorry, joining) the Labour Party to pull it left, whereas SPEW split over that very question and today calls for an alternative workers’ party to be created. Yet still it backed McCluskey.

Concerns

As a long-serving activist in PCS who has not missed a conference in 30 years, I have a number of concerns. PCS has a generous delegate allocation. We send 1,000 delegates to our national conference representing 260,000 members. I need to check the Unite provision, but I bet they have far fewer delegates in relation to their membership. This has implications for activists wanting to have some say and exercise control over their NEC and general secretary.

W h a t is the state of the left in Unite? Do they organise anything like the left in PCS (which is not saying a lot these days)? Is Unite affiliated to Stop the War, Hands Off the People of Iran or Unite Against Fascism? Does it have an anti-Trident renewal policy? Is it anti-fracking?

Life would be easier for me in Unite. Far fewer strikes to organise. The chance to become a trade union Labour candidate for parliament (so long as I follow the Labour line). The opportunity to become a full-time, paid official of Unite. But I am not active in PCS for my personal advancement. I am proud of the PCS tradition of taking a wider societal and world view than just trade union economism. I am especially proud we are not affiliated to the Labour Party and do not have to make excuses as to why ‘our’ government is continuing with Tory policies and Tory attacks.

There is one consideration that may change my opposition to PCS merging with Unite, and that is McCluskey’s latest pitch: if the Labour Party does not pledge to oppose austerity cuts and loses the 2015 general election, Unite will consider funding a party to the left of Labour. Given I have demanded for years that PCS uses its political fund to support candidates to the left of Labour who support PCS polices (not one candidate has been supported by PCS so far), if Unite actually do that then I am in.

Now what does the CPGB have to say about that? Your logic should be that if the link is broken with Labour we should no longer support Labour. But, of course, you will be arguing for Unite to retain the link. Have no fear - McCluskey often fails to deliver what his rhetoric promises.

I have seen a number of mergers of civil service unions. The most contentious was the one that led to the creation of PCS. The right was in control of its forerunner, the Civil and Public Services Association, and imposed an appalling rule book on the merged union that reduced the number of NEC elections and national conferences to once every two years - there was no conference mandate for the rightwing NEC to make those self-serving changes. It was believed CPSA did not really want that merger and expected the left to oppose it on the basis of the less democratic rules decided upon for the new merged union. In fact the left was split over the question, but the argument put on the left was: ‘Vote for this merger - we’ll sort the rules out at successive conferences’.

And that is what happened. PCS was created and we soon changed the rules to restore annual NEC elections and national conferences.

That was a merger between near equal-sized unions in the same sector. But if PCS merges with Unite it will be outnumbered by about five to one. Will Left Unity (not Ken Loach’s new party, but the faction within PCS) be arguing again that the merger is the prize and any reduction in democratic practices in the new rule book can be made good later? That by merging with Unite PCS could pull it left (rather like the fantastic success of those joining Labour to pull it left)?

Will the special PCS conference be able to demand changes to the proposed merged union rules or will it be a case of ‘take it or leave it’? I suspect the latter. I do not think PCS is in the driving seat here and in any position to call the shots.

Democratisation

There are many reading the Weekly Worker who call for both the unions and the Labour Party to be made more democratic. I just do not think either will happen. The major unions will not become more democratic whilst they remain affiliated to Labour. It is the Labour Party and electoralism (and patronage to get a knighthood for services rendered - to the Labour Party and/or union officials who become Labour MPs) that has served to pull the unions to the right, not Labour to the left.

Maybe Mark has realised the unity of Labour-affiliated unions is not going to happen any time soon and that PCS is not winning on its own. Mark cannot be blamed on either count - he certainly tried. I would just rather he said so instead of talking up “the potential”. Unite is not a fighting union and for PCS to merge with it is a recognition of the weakness of today’s trade unions, not their strength.

It is a great shame that the unity shown in the run-up to November 30 2011, with unions getting their biggest surge in membership for at least 10 years, was squandered by the Labour-affiliated unions within days. A great shame that the chance to show unorganised workers that trade unions are relevant and have real power (when united) was also abandoned in favour of ‘Vote Labour in 2015’ (even though Labour says it will have to make austerity cuts when back in government).

I hope the expected Labour knighthoods will be worth all those betrayals of the working class.