03.05.2006

Members need political strategy

Lee Rock, national secretary of PCSU Socialist Caucus, reports on the May 2-3 strike of tens of thousands of civil servants

Tens of thousands of civil servants took strike action on Tuesday May 2 and Wednesday May 3. Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCSU) employed in the department for work and pensions (DWP) came out in defence of their jobs.

It was the second two-day strike this year over the issue and the support from members has held up. This is encouraging when one considers that the gap between the actions has been over three months. But members are aware that the government has already succeeded in cutting over 17,000 DWP posts in the last 12 months and it plans to slash a further 30,000 by 2008, representing a cut in the workforce of over 20%. There is every likelihood that it will continue wielding the axe after 2008.

Whilst members have loyally stood by the union on this occasion, all indications are that if the leadership (led by the Socialist Party) does not have an alternative campaign strategy, then such action will become increasingly more difficult to deliver. All members know that a series of occasional two-day strikes cannot win, even alongside an overtime ban.

The question at all-members meetings is always the same: how are we going to win? No-one from the union leadership has presented any kind of strategy to the membership. One executive member, speaking at a strike rally in Sheffield, called the campaign a success purely on the basis that tens of thousands of members had taken action once again. He was rounded on by those at the rally, who pointed out that the aim of the campaign was to save jobs, not simply prove we can strike, and that, with more than 17,000 jobs already gone, industrial action in itself was hardly an adequate measure of success.

SP comrades stayed quiet throughout the rally, stating afterwards that they could not comment on the campaign strategy, as even they did not know what their own leadership was doing.

The Socialist Party has completely failed to take this campaign seriously. With the job cuts being announced well in advance, the leadership refused to prepare for action. After three years it has still not established a levy across the entire union - an organisation of 300,000 could raise sufficient funds for a serious campaign in support of hardship cases and for sustained action. The DWP membership alone stands at nearly 90,000 (though it has lost nearly 10,000 due to the cuts) and could itself have raised a fair amount of money over three years.

Members also rightly raise the question of where the £2 million raised every month in union subs goes. Whilst we have seen an increase in the numbers of Socialist Party supporters who since the election of general secretary Mark Serwotka have got well paid jobs in the union, we have not seen much of that money (£75 million over three years) put into this campaign. It is not as if the cash was needed for a fight over pensions - the union leadership meekly accepted a deal with the government that sold out the rights of future workers and introduced a two-tier workforce.

More importantly, the Socialist Party leadership has also refused to organise coordinated, selective/targeted action as part of any campaign. Originally it opposed such proposals from Socialist Caucus (the rank and file PCSU grouping), but has now come round to agreeing it in principle.

However, it has merely asked branches to put in their own submissions for strike action. This approach is sure to fail, as branches are unable to properly coordinate across the department and do not wish to take action in isolation. The leadership also refuses to let members and activists know what is happening in any negotiations. The Socialist Party has been elected (admittedly by only 10% of the members) to lead and should take its responsibilities seriously and stop treating members as a stage army every two to three months.

We also desperately need regular meetings of branch representatives at a national level to thrash out a strategy to take the campaign forward before it is too late. Such meetings should be able to discuss proposals from branches and have them voted upon.

The one meeting organised so far by the leadership merely asked branch reps to vote on a single item proposed by the executive: could they deliver a two-day strike? No other additional or alternative proposals were allowed. Branches were also given very short notice beforehand and many were unable to convene branch membership meetings in advance. All of this is a deliberate tactic on the part of the Socialist Party to keep the mass of members from being involved and thus questioning what the leadership is doing.

Unlike the SP, the Socialist Caucus does believe that the government can be defeated. But for that to happen the union must have a coherent strategy that is understood and supported by the members. A strategy that involves the rank and file in developing it on an ongoing basis, where the membership is kept informed of the negotiations and able to express its views on where the campaign needs to go.