05.06.2002

On Wednesday June 5 - what would have been his first official working day as union general secretary - Mark Serwotka addressed a lobby of the PCSU HQ. This is an extract

For the right wing, this battle is becoming not about an obscure point of law. When you look at the latest PCSU magazine - CPS view - you will see the real agenda. After the issue had gone to the printers, complete with my article, it was removed and the general secretary's column is now in the name of Barry Reamsbottom. He doesn't just use the space to try to justify his actions, he unleashes a vicious attack. He claims communists have run the union for the last four years - which will come as a surprise to many here. He claims to be saving this union from the forces of darkness. We all know the truth. But what this means is that it is no longer a simple technical argument about who won the election, who has overturned what, according to this or that rule. Barry is now opening up the fight on a political front - anyone who doesn't agree with him is an ultra-left, a communist saboteur. He openly says that he is staying to conduct a political life against what he calls that "low life". That sort of talk should make us more determined than ever to fight this fight and win. We have to fight to defend the democracy of the union and to make it clear that what we have seen from the right wing is completely unacceptable in any union, not just ours. Let's be under no illusions. What we saw on May 23 was a flagrant attempt to ignore the members' wishes and pull off an unlawful coup that is against the union rules and against the law of the land. We cannot allow that to happen. I am confident that we can win our case in court. Our barrister tells us that on paper it is the strongest case he has ever see. But the caveat is that when you actually get to court, you can never actually tell what a judge may say or what obscure point of law may be dragged out to make an undemocratic ruling. Therefore, I am clear that while the legal action is vital to pursue, we have to pull out all the stops to build a campaign the like of which this union has never seen. We need to unite union members from one end of the country to another. Not just people who may have voted for myself, but also all those concerned about the democracy in our union. There is a groundswell of outrage in our ranks - we have had over 400 emails, letters and faxes protesting against this anti-democratic nonsense. This is not a matter of left against right. It's a matter of right against wrong - those who stand for democracy against those who are quite prepared to overturn it at a drop of a hat when they don't like the decisions of the majority. * Reclaim the PCSU * Mark Serwotka spoke to Mark Fischer about the coup