08.03.2012

Striking on March 28 is not enough

Dave Vincent applauds the leadership style of Mark Serwotka and calls for electoral opposition to the cuts

Regular readers may recall my observations at the time of the May 2011 Public and Commercial Services union conference debate over the strike planned for June 30 last year. I argued at conference for the action to be delayed until more unions were on board (Weekly Worker May 12 2011).

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka, replying to my concerns, admitted the strategy was a gamble, but worth taking. Shortly after, the massive media coverage given in the main to the National Union of Teachers, but also the fact that four unions would be out, gave me confidence that PCS members would now support the action. They did, and it was the best supported strike in our history. Until November 30. Twenty-nine unions would be out then and I had no worries about membership support on that date - it was even better.

And for the second time in recent history initial PCS action had succeeded in bringing other unions on board. Workers on picket lines visited those of other unions wanting to revel in this rare unity. The public were overwhelmingly supporting us (in complete contrast to the lies of the media). It seemed everyone was smiling and thrilled to be fighting back at last.

After being on the picket lines at 7am, our new PCS branch samba band went down a storm on the Manchester city centre march and rally that followed at lunchtime. I have never seen so many people in Manchester stopping to watch marching strikers and shouting their support and applauding us and the band. More than once I heard someone shouting, “Glad someone’s fighting back!”

Workers on strike who just took the day off missed all this, but those who were on the picket lines or marched to their local rally will never forget what they saw. Trade unions were still relevant after all. Unity is strength! And all the unions taking part saw thousands of non-members joining up to be part of this strike. Two years of arguing for a united fightback against the cuts at two successive TUCs, and finally it happened.

Even the civil service mandarins’ union, the FDA, were out, as were headteachers and others who had never before struck in their history. The disunity and defeats of the 80s and 90s now seemed a bad memory rather than just the way it will always be. A new generation of young union members took their first ever strike action, stood on their first ever picket line. What lessons to learn, what experience to gain.

Not even the pathetic bleating of Ed Miliband for ‘both sides to sit down and talk’ (What did he think we had done? Go on strike before any negotiations?) could dampen the euphoria. Who needs the joke Labour Party when there is this much unity and public support?

The government offered more minor concessions. We knew they were rattled. N30 was the biggest strike in a generation - even since 1926. Come on! Let’s call an even bigger strike with still more unions. Let’s give this cruel coalition government a good smacking. Then Unison, the GMB and others stated they were prepared to stop action and recommend acceptance of minor concessions. Eh? What the …

Betrayal

I was stunned. I didn’t get it. Why would they do that? Then it dawned on me: Unison managed to get a two-year delay in increased pension contributions for their members. So, just as their members begin to pay more and blame the coalition government, their union will be there to say, ‘Vote Labour’ in the forthcoming general election. But Labour is not even promising to reverse the pension increases. It agrees with privatisation, is against strikes, supports making savage cuts - it even supports the public-sector pay freeze.

So Unison is betraying the best, most united trade union fightback in decades - a fightback that has massive public support we could only dream about in the 80s and 90s. Do Unison leaders think the thousands of people who joined the union were doing so only for one day? This was a fantastic opportunity wasted. An opportunity to make unions relevant to young people. For unions to help other groups and communities organise and join together against the cuts - to give so many people the confidence to decide they will stand up and fight.

The TUC saw over 500,000 people turn out in March 2011 as proof of what can and should be done. Unison even encouraged their activists to get involved in local trades councils and have joint meetings with the activists of other unions in the run-up to N30. On the N30 marches and rallies you could not get near the front for all the purple Unison flags and banners - as if Unison, not PCS, had led the way from the start. But it is white flags Unison have issued now.

So where do we go from here? PCS is currently holding an indicative ballot (we could still call action under the statutory ballot we held last year) for a further one-day strike on March 28 and comrade Serwotka was guest speaker at our branch AGM in Manchester on February 29. He moved on to another branch AGM after ours, and was then a top-table speaker at the Greater Manchester Unite the Resistance launch rally later that day.

This is how Mark explained the PCS strategy. The Unison/GMB decision is a blow. He knows that members will ask how less than one million out on M28 can hope to win now when two million on N30 came away empty-handed. But do we just give up? Nineteen unions remain in the fight. It is possible Unison members will reject a settlement if they see others still fighting. Militant activists are certainly horrified at their union’s stance and are demanding a special conference.

PCS was originally for total opposition to the coalition insistence that we must pay more, work longer and get less for our pensions. But the ballot paper now asks members to endorse fighting for concessions. I agree it is right, given the changed circumstances, to put the situation honestly to our members and seek a fresh mandate, but I am uneasy at the idea we should accept worse conditions in advance.

PCS can ask members to vote by text or telephone right up to the last day in order to get voting figures up. Mark highlighted the hypocrisy of the government - condemning low postal ballot turnouts, whilst banning activists from having workplace meetings of members at which they could vote.

The current public-sector pay freeze is also costing members money - as is inflation, as will increased pension contributions from April 1. This dispute is making the link between the pay freeze, job losses and pensions. Mark argued that M28 is only the start of the latest phase of a campaign and we should think of ways members can cause maximum disruption (two-hour strikes, targeted and joined-up action) for the least financial cost to members. He stated that all the cuts we are facing now only amount to 10% of the government’s austerity measures. What will the other 90% affect? Massive privatisation of our public services is also the aim.

My AGM had 85 members present (the highest for a decade), while 100 were at the department for work and pensions PCS AGM and 200 showed up at the UTR event, where Mark was very well received. Unison NEC and Socialist Workers Party member Karen Reissman was as good as ever - and she definitely wanted Unison to be with PCS.

Nearly everyone who wanted to got the chance to raise points from the floor and I stated we should not forget the two million who were against the war in Iraq. They saw through the lies of the media and will be against an invasion of Iran - as well as being cynical about the media support for austerity measures. I also suggested that, as all three main parties are anti-strike, anti-union, pro-privatisation, pro-public-sector pay freeze, pro-market, we should stand working class anti-cuts candidates (this is PCS policy and members will vote on putting this into practice this later this year). That got applause, but no-one else took up this theme. There was also applause when some argued that one-day strikes will not win this fight. There is no getting away from the fact that Unison’s collapse has undermined what was looking possible. Maybe we can only expect concessions at best, but better to fight on than just throw in the towel and encourage deeper and faster attacks and cuts.

Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat politicians alike hate leaders like Mark - as do the more backward union leaders hoping for a knighthood to reward them for their class betrayals. However, not only PCS members, but many activists in other unions really rate him. I hear their admiration time and time again, with many stating they wished their leaders were like Mark. My members thought Mark’s address to our AGM was more thoughtful, less rah-rah, but still brilliant. Two younger members were inspired to get more active in PCS. He arrived at these meetings by himself - no entourage, no superior attitude, no patronising dismissal of the calls to fight back.

Pull Labour left?

In a debate that runs and runs in the Weekly Worker how can anyone still suggest we fight within the Labour Party to pull it left? How ridiculous are the earlier assertions of some CPGB leading lights that this climate and the struggles will force Labour to talk and move left! The GMB, Britain’s third largest union, will debate its relationship to the Labour Party following a large number of branches submitting motions on this subject. I would like all Labour-affiliated unions to do so. Just what are the unions getting from a cash-strapped but ungrateful Labour Party, compared to their business donors? Once again Unison is misleading workers by mounting protests to ‘Save the NHS’ based on the unspoken ‘… by voting Labour at the next general election.’ Pathetic.

Until we all agree on the need for a united Marxist revolutionary party to provide a lead, I will settle for working class anti-cuts independent candidates. Let working class people therefore discuss and decide to take politics and elections back into their hands. Getting any elected would worry the established parties. Admittedly our showing has been abysmal in the past, but I think this time an election challenge will take off.

The government and media condemn riots and violence on demonstrations, yet ignore peaceful protests. If there are to be no further massive strikes (unless Unison/GMB, etc can be forced back into the fightback), we need to pose an independent electoral threat to the three main parties, and call demonstrations uniting all those affected by the ever widening and deepening cuts.

As the Weekly Worker constantly says, we need parties like the SWP, Socialist Party and so on to put their own interests aside so as to foster the greater unity and confidence of trade union activists and all those wanting to join together and fight back. Meetings like the packed UTR event in Manchester are a good start.

Fighting the cuts and the destruction of public services means, as a woman Unison delegate said at a recent TUC Congress, “We have to be in the fight of our lives”. Can the TUC and Unison honestly say they are organising this?