24.01.2008

Union policy through the ballot box

How can union members be won to a left political alternative? Dave Vincent, PCS secretary of Greater Manchester ministry of justice branch, writing in a personal capacity, takes issue with the union's general secretary

The January 2008 issue of Socialist Review, the Socialist Workers Party’s monthly, carried an article by Public and Commercial Services Union general secretary Mark Serwotka entitled ‘Building an alternative to New Labour’. The front cover of SR is emblazoned with the slogan, “A new year, a new left”.

The photo used to illustrate the article was the one used in coverage of the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth 2007. It shows delegates walking contemptuously past members of the Communication Workers Union, eyes staring straight ahead and refusing to take leaflets about the CWU strike.

Readers of the Weekly Worker would agree with many points made by Mark. For example, he recalls the hopes people had when electing New Labour in 1997 and contrasts this with the widespread disappointment there is with a Labour government 10 years later. He correctly points out how the gap between the rich and the poor has got wider, how attacks on workers’ jobs and pay across the public sector have continued, and how privatisation, war and sleaze are the order of the day.

Mark states that some government ministers he has met, and some senior figures on the TUC general council, argue that, no matter how bad it is for workers under this Labour government, it would be worse for them under a Tory one. He argues that the contradiction of having to accept pay cuts, privatisation and the running down of the welfare state under Labour - otherwise we’ll get a Tory government that will impose pay cuts, privatisation and the running down of the welfare state - is something more and more workers are rejecting.

He sets out examples of how the job cuts across the public sector are affecting the services provided to ordinary people given no alternative by the major three parties, who all have the same priorities and values. He argues we need industrial unity to fight the attacks. While the TUC has agreed to launch a campaign, involving posters and leaflets, complaining that the public sector pay limits are not fair, we need to do more than that.

Mark states that some unions focus on the barriers to joint action, like a supposed need for agreement within each sector, such as health or education, before coordinated action across the whole public sector can be contemplated. But even were united public sector industrial action to be achieved, he argues, it will not be enough. Industrial victories will not stop employers coming back year after year - to make our advances stick we need political change.

He notes how all three main political parties have taken large sums from wealthy individuals with dubious pasts and all three will hand over more public services to private profiteers. Mark argues against those who say that loyalty to Labour must be our absolute and overriding priority: “Acceptance of the Labour leadership’s arrogant belief that they can tell us that, no matter what, every five years we will have to vote Labour, because otherwise we’ll get the Tories, invites them to become more rightwing, more neoliberal, to make more and more cuts.”

Mark plugs the PCS ‘Make your vote count’ campaign, remarking “how truly radical it is”. It consists of writing to all political parties (except fascist ones) asking various questions aimed at putting candidates on the spot over privatisation, public sector pay, environmental and other issues perceived to be of concern to PCS members. Candidates’ answers are published to members in the hope it will influence how they vote. Mark has contacted other non-Labour-affiliated public sector unions asking them to join PCS in this. PCS has a political fund set up in 2005, but is not affiliated to any political party, whereas most other large unions are.

The problem I have with ‘Make your vote count’ is that the union does not urge PCS members to vote for the candidate giving the best answers according to the interests of our members. There is no evidence that Labour MPs fear being removed from office as a result of the campaign (those who actually vote in local and general elections, that is) - it is not targeted at marginal seats, for example. Some members in my branch decided to give this campaign a go and a couple even visited their MPs. But they came to the conclusion that those in safe seats were arrogant and not interested, for instance, in the injustice of regional pay in the ministry of justice (MOJ) - but, there again, Mark and the NEC refused the call from our MOJ group conference for paid selective action to defeat it.

He also argues for proportional representation, as this will result in the election of more radical candidates. He uses the fact that the Scottish Socialist Party was able to win six MSPs and the Greens five to back this up, but appears oblivious to the fact that outside Scotland it may produce victories for BNP candidates just as easily.

Returning to the theme of unions affiliated to the Labour Party, he states: “We have to confront the ridiculous contradiction of members striking one minute because they are attacked and the next minute funding the party that attacks them.” He cites the FBU and RMT, no longer affiliated to the Labour Party and looking around to see how they can take issues forward politically. Keeping in with everyone, Mark also feels we must work together with the left within the Labour Party who supported John McDonnell.

Mark recalls that he addressed three conferences on November 17 2007 - Respect (SWP wing), Socialist Party (whose comrades dominate the PCS NEC) and the Labour Representation Committee - and uses this to show that current organisations on the left are divided and not strong enough to challenge the prevailing political consensus.

He ends by saying: “We must reject the idea of blind support for New Labour regardless of the consequences for workers and the general public”, concluding that “we must ask how we can seriously address the political question of building an alternative to the false choices offered by the main parties”.

Unfortunately he leaves it at that. Well, given the split in Respect and the SSP, I suppose he cannot advocate either of those halfway houses, offering their own “false choices”. By contrast I did offer a genuinely radical idea to the PCS conference of May 2007.

I had dared suggest we use the PCS political fund to allow members, at regional or area meetings, to discuss who they should give allocated monies to, on the proviso candidates supported PCS policies. If there were more than one candidate/party under consideration, then the members present could decide which was the most appropriate to support, or could share funding between candidates.

My motion was debated and overwhelmingly defeated! It could have been used to fund a candidate from Respect, the SP, the SSP, Greens, FBU candidates, individual anti-cuts campaigners and so on. Not that I am advocating any of them as the answer, but the overall distribution of support would provide a useful indicator of the political consciousness of our members. Racists and fascists could not have benefited (quite rightly, it is against PCS policy and rules to support them in this way). But it would have been permissible to back John McDonnell and other Labour candidates like him.

Why was my motion defeated? Because the NEC argued that we only managed to get our political fund accepted by members by promising that PCS would not affiliate to any party. I replied that when we said we would not affiliate to any political party our activists had had Labour in mind. In any case, the motion did not call for affiliation, but specific financial support agreed by members to a range of parties and individuals. I argued that across the country we would see which way our members were going - ie, to the mainstream or more to the left? If, on the other hand, we sit on the fence until the next general election we may have no public sector left to defend!

All to no avail.

I feel my motion is a missed opportunity. I do not think members are too simple to understand that the three main parties have nothing to offer workers in the public sector except privatisation and cuts to their living standards. I think asking members to write a letter to their local MP asking them to stop the effects of neoliberalism is a dead end. My motion could have had the effect of allowing members locally to engage in the most political discussion they have had in years and would have encouraged them to make choices in favour of left alternatives to New Labour. That is the sort of activity all trade union members should be able to participate in, whether their union is affiliated to Labour or not - make that especially if their union is affiliated.

Mark seems content to have a policy of non-intervention on the question of affiliation to the Labour Party - it seems the NEC will continue denying members their democratic right (via conference manipulation) to debate their union’s relationship to the Labour Party. The millions others have given Labour would have been better spent paying for strike action and would have been a better defence against job losses, privatisation and pay cuts.

To return to that picture on the cover of Socialist Review - too many Labour Party delegates have utter contempt for trade unionists fighting their government’s attacks. So do many of the leaders of unions affiliated to the Labour Party.

As a civil service union member since 1976 (CPSA, then PCS) I do want a left alternative to the Labour Party to vote for, as Mark is arguing. However, a parliamentary workers’ party under capitalism’s rule will still not deliver social justice or socialism. It will not be allowed to.

It is a shame that the Campaign for a Marxist Party has taken so long to get going and is still so small (I wonder if Mark would spare some time to speak to the CMP? That would be interesting!). The blame lies with the usual suspects and a ruling class-controlled media.