01.12.2011

Forging unified class action

Dave Vincent reports on the build-up to the big public sector strike

If any Weekly Worker reader does not understand the pensions issue, it is this simple: public sector workers will pay more per month (in my case £60 extra) towards their pension, work years longer and get less in retirement. This extra money is not going towards our pensions - it is going to pay the deficit caused by the bankers. I have worked in the civil service since I was 16, back in 1974. I am 53 now and have paid for my pension for 37 years. My retirement age was to be 60. It will soon be 65 (MPs get full benefits after just 15 years service!)

It took my union, the PCS, two years of constant appeals to get the unity we saw on November 30. It was Britain’s biggest ever strike, where numbers out are concerned. The 1926 General Strike had about 1.7 million out at any one time. November 30 saw up to two million public sector workers out from 30 unions.

But it was PCS alone that held a one-day strike that then caused 1.3 million other trade union members to threaten a March strike. At that time it was the Labour government that backed off from threats to raise our retirement age from 60 to 65.

It was PCS that invited a leading National Union of Teachers official to address our May 2010 conference. PCS argued for wider unity at the 2010 TUC congress, got the motion carried, but then saw major unions continually fail to name the day. PCS invited Unite general secretary Len McCluskey to address the 2011 PCS conference and signed a joint working agreement to the delight of delegates. Then PCS, NUT, University and College Union and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (their first ever strike) went ahead with joint action on June 30. That set the scene for the 2011 TUC, where once again there was agreement for unified action - but this time it was acted upon.

I was the sole speaker at the 2011 PCS conference who wondered whether the June 30 action would be a success and whether we should wait for Unite and Unison to come on board. But my delegation voted for the NEC’s strategy after hearing the debate, then worked hard to deliver that action. I did not get new members joining in advance of June 30, but did see a few resignations - members who decided to opt out of the fight.

This time, however, in the build-up to November 30 we had new members joining, including a couple of longstanding militant non-members, and even a couple of ex-members coming back in. Very good though the support for June 30 was, it was even better in my branch on November 30. I saw more members volunteer to come on the picket lines this time.

As a rank-and-file PCS rep, when you go around your workplace you can tell the mood of members in the way they react to you when they know you are pushing for a strike! When support is only about 60:40, some members try to avoid eye contact, as they have decided they are not taking action, but do not want to discuss their reasons. Those supporting are mainly reluctant rather than enthusiastic. But this time, going round my workplace handing out my strike bulletins, members wanted me to stop so they could talk about how angry they were and how much they wanted the strike to go ahead. I have no doubt that it was the unity of so many trade unions that really inspired members to come on board. They sensed our collective strength. I condemned those unions who for so long put the electoral concerns of the Labour Party way above those of their members. But I am pleased they came over on November 30 - although a little wary about how long this unity will last.

New ideas

I know the Weekly Worker does not have much regard for one-day strikes and I agree with you that the Socialist Workers Party’s ‘All out, stay out’ call will not be taken up. I agree working class activists need to debate where we go after November 30 and the need to go further than trade unionism and Keynesian, reformist demands. That debate must be had and maybe the wrong conclusions will be drawn this time compared to those the CPGB would prefer. That said, the CPGB and others should not underestimate the ideas workers will start to form as a result of this strike.

For starters, two million workers will have understood, maybe for the first time, the old maxim, ‘Unity is strength’ - something they have rarely seen applied over the last 40 years. What a lesson for newer, younger trade union members and those who had become rather jaded at the constant disunity of the movement.

What about the members of unions who decided not to be part of November 30 (the FBU, RCN - why, I ask?) and the pressure they may now bring to bear on their union tops? Looking wider still, millions of people will now have seen that only the unions can really fight the cuts.

We have to make the demand, ‘Fair pensions for all’ rather than the more selfish-sounding ‘Hands off my pension’. We need to counter the media onslaught, which tries to make private-sector workers resent those in the public sector because we have had some kind of pension - and have dared to fight to retain it. We need to say, ‘Join a union and fight for a fair pension too’.

Thatcher had the tactical astuteness to attack the unions one by one, keeping them divided. Cameron and co must be stupid or totally arrogant to take us all on at once.

When Francis Maude suggested we could all have a 15-minute walkout, paid, to make our protest, clearly he thought this would get the more backward members arguing along the lines of ‘Why should we lose a day’s pay when we can make our point for nothing?’ But not one out of over 1,000 members I represent has made that point. In fact, Maude’s idea created even more anger. Stung by the support for action, he then threatened to further change the anti-union laws to make action even harder to win. But he will face two problems doing that. One, trade union members will soon argue that if the Tory anti-union laws make legal ballots near impossible to win, why not just take illegal action? Two, people (not just trade union members) will contrast the complaints about ‘low’ turnout in union ballots with that in local and general elections. Our unions won their mandates to call action - where is the coalition government’s mandate for these cuts?

Employers prevent union reps having workplace meetings to discuss collective action, and the anti-union laws insist on postal ballots precisely to reduce solidarity and in the knowledge that as a result many members will not even return the form. But members who do not vote know they received a ballot paper and usually overwhelmingly abide by the majority result.

No to Labour

What of the lamentable Labour Party? Miliband and Balls criticised the June 30 action and ended up trying to be ‘balanced’ by urging both sides to have real talks and make genuine compromises. Such as …? But many public sector workers vote Labour. Who thinks those taking action will not remember the total lack of support for their action from leading Labour Party figures?

The Weekly Worker report of the Labour Representation Committee fills me with disgust at the left posturing of the LRC, which wants a Labour government in power - no matter how bad - which will implement ‘fair’ cuts. And what would they be? I doubt it will be cuts in bankers’ bonuses or big business being made to pay more tax.

How come the LRC (and the Labour Party) do not support the PCS Alternative - that instead of the misery caused by making £93 billion of cuts to the public sector over four years we should collect in £120 billion per year in tax currently evaded or avoided? We can also scrap Trident renewal and withdraw troops from Afghanistan. All that would mean not a service needs to be cut nor a job lost. There are other alternatives too and I have not even got to suggestions such as the Robin Hood tax, investing in climate jobs, etc, that are also worth consideration.

The only conclusion to be drawn is that the LRC (and the Labour Party)  is not interested in defending working class people if it means taking on the  super-rich and getting adverse media publicity spoiling their chances of  becoming overpaid MPs implementing 'fairer cuts'. A disgrace.

I also do not know why PCS is being so cautious about standing their own  anti-cuts candidates (or supporting others from other organisations or unions  with similar aims). Twice I have been opposed by the Socialist Party and SWP at  successive PCS conferences when I have argued for opening up our political fund  to support candidates (even Labour MPs such as that good friend of PCS, John  McDonnell) with similar aims to those of PCS and for PCS members in a  constituency (not the NEC) to decide whether to support a candidate.

I also have a problem with the special pleading of groups like Black Activists Rising Against Cuts. If the government promised to exempt black people from the cuts would that be all right? The same applies to women (who happen to be more affected by public sector cuts because they make up a majority of the workforce). All the cuts are unfair, all are unnecessary. So we must fight as a united working class, not as separate oppressed groups looking for special exemptions.

Standing independent candidates on the basis of anti-cuts, and committed to a worker’s wage and recallability, would become popular if we started to do it. I accept candidates for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition and so on are hardly getting anywhere, but that is not to say they never will if the left would just stop splitting. Independent candidates are not a halfway house. There are problems with not being in a party with a cohesive policy and a clear working class identity and support, but better a bunch of independents listening to their constituents than the sorry, corrupt system of patronage and bribery that is supported by all three main parties.

Standing independent candidates would be a welcome change to the slick careerists we see nowadays. It would have to get more people involved, would get more people having to think through how we ensure the working class get power and would open people to revolutionary politics far more than ‘Vote Labour’.

Two million public sector workers understand the need for unity. As the Weekly Worker constantly argues, when is the far left going to show the same awareness and stop trying to set up numerous fronts selfishly aimed at recruitment to their own group rather than forging unified working class action? Rebuild working class confidence and self-activity, educate, agitate, organise and worry about who joins what later after we’ve given Cameron, Clegg, Miliband and co a long-overdue bloody nose!

We have waited a long time, we have often despaired of fellow workmates ever understanding the need to get active and political (but kept trying) and now it is beginning to happen. Let’s not screw this up.