14.05.2008

Amidst attacks business as usual

Dave Vincent looks forward to the PCS conference

Approximately 1,200 delegates will gather in Brighton between Wednesday May 21 and Friday May 23 for the annual conference of the Public and Commercial Services union.

The Socialist Party in England and Wales, which dominates the current executive, has taken advantage of its position to ensure its own motions are prominent. Last year it submitted two ‘emergency’ motions that seemed to me to be a cynical cobbling together of the major competing demands from a variety of motions - a ‘something in here for everyone’ approach designed to manufacture an appearance of unity. This was a way of promoting the strategies preferred by the SP, making full use of the five minutes awarded to movers of motions as well as the final right of reply. Talk about top down!

In 2008 under ‘Protecting public services’ there are four motions ranged against each other in an ‘omnibus debate’ (all moved and seconded first, then debated, then all voted on). Motion A1 - a two-and-a-half-pager from the NEC - calls on the PCS to step up its campaigning in defence of jobs and public services via the TUC, the union’s own Make Your Vote Count campaign, Public Services Not Private Profit (I wonder who runs that?) and our parliamentary group, to continue to build links with other trade unions, provide support to branch and group disputes (although there is no mention of industrial action) and use legal action to challenge unequal pay and compulsory relocations.

A2 (from an Independent Left branch) is much more combative in calling for joint action alongside other unions, national civil service-wide protest action within two months of conference, an indefinite national overtime ban, a PCS levy, and identification of areas for targeted (not paid?) selective action before the end of 2008.

A3 narrows action down to a discontinuous ban on overtime working, and a work to rule - this is based on the contention that members are getting increasingly frustrated with intermittent one-day strikes.

A4 calls on monies spent on the Make Your Vote Count campaign to be diverted to funding paid selective strike action - something the NEC will not allow after (mismanaged?) long-running disputes in the recent past nearly bankrupted the union.

The main battle will be between the NEC’s careful, slow and steady A1 and the Independent Left’s more militant A2. My heart is with A2, but I feel the mood of most of our members and delegates will be for A1 - the age-old difference between knowing what is needed to win and what you can get members to support.

The next battle will be over pay. Once again the NEC will lead off with another two-and-a-half-pager, motion A12, pitched against what I suspect is another Independent Left branch moving A13. The NEC’s A12 is again about working through the TUC, joint campaigning and action with other public sector unions to secure ‘fair pay’, the consideration of national industrial action “during the next year” (the next 12 months or not until 2009?) and support for coordinated action by individual departments who vote for it. It also calls for legal action to combat discriminatory pay awards and - again - for the stepping up of the PCS Make Your Vote Count campaign.

A13 is once again more combative, calling for a one-day public sector-wide strike, a national demonstration and lobby of parliament, with joint action between unions where possible. Not much between the two really, save for the call for a one-day public sector-wide strike - which Militant, the predecessor of the SP, used to call for in the 1980s. Of course, given the strike by teachers and some civil servants on April 24, there will probably be various emergency motions that will replace the above.

Under affiliations, of interest to Weekly Worker readers will be motion A23 - the second in the section, so highly likely to be debated - which calls on the PCS to affiliate to Hands Off the People of Iran, which, if it is carried, will make the PCS the first national union to do so. I think the SP will support this, but the Socialist Workers Party will feel obligated to make its usual attacks on Hopi - that it works against the constructive work of the Stop the War Coalition.

Well, as it was my motion that saw PCS affiliate to STWC and the Hopi motion is also mine, I obviously disagree. It is disappointing that the model motion on the same subject that was circulated amongst branches by Independent Left did not get carried or perhaps even put to branch AGMs in some cases. Not economistic enough?

I must mention also motion A24, which calls on the PCS to affiliate to the Labour Representation Committee. I and many others will oppose this. Given that the recent local election results being the worst for Labour for 40 years, why should we waste money and time on this hopeless body which continues to flog the dead horse of ‘pulling the Labour Party to the left’ - especially as the PCS is not affiliated to the Labour Party. Some people’s support for the Labour Party is just based on blind faith - why did Labour turn right in the first place?

Also worthy of mention is motion C202 (currently marked as being against a 2007 conference decision regarding the use of monies from the PCS political fund and therefore not to be debated), which calls for the PCS to stand its own candidates in local elections. Now I know the CPGB may be against this, but I feel (if conference agrees to let it go forward) it would be a huge improvement on Make Your Vote Count, which simply hopes some MPs fearful of losing their seats will declare support for decent pay in the public sector and no more privatisations. The debate would provide the occasion for a useful debate about ‘doing it for ourselves’ rather than looking to the three main parliamentary parties.

NEC elections

The ballot for the new executive resulted in another victory for the Socialist Party-dominated Left Unity, which once more stood with the PCS Democrats in the electoral pact known as the Democracy Alliance - though I personally recommended no vote for the PCS Democrats, and instead support for the best Left Unity, Independent Left and unaligned socialist candidates. Once again, the Independent Left stood a reduced slate - contesting the posts of president, two out of four vice-president positions and just 12 out of 30 NEC places (down from 15 in 2007) - and once again none came near to getting elected.

I myself stood for the first time in 23 years as an independent socialist. With no factional support I expected to prop up the list of 78 executive candidates - and I was not disappointed!