The PCS has probably accounted for more strike days than any other union in the last couple of years. This guest post from comrade “G”, recuperating from the union’s conference, explains why the Independent Left has split from Left Unity. This is one of the multitude of subjects on which I am not able to offered too well informed opinions but I thought it might be of some interest. It throws up all sorts of tactical questions. I’ll be putting up a guest post on another union tomorrow. It could be yours.
There were Union elections before the Conference. The Independent Left (IL) votes were below what we could achieve. There was recognition by comrades at the Conference that it was our first outing for eight years and there were real grounds for us splitting from Left Unity (the Socialist Party dominated bloc that leads PCS) – no one in IL is suggesting we go back into Left Unity after these results.
The main reasons why we split from LU are over
1) the failure of its leadership to make progress over national pay for civil servants (fewer bargaining units, the development of a national pay claim etc)
2) the acceptance by the leadership of a two tier pension scheme (that is now leading to different terms and conditions for new staff in other areas)
3) the leadership’s lack of strategy to fight job cuts. They have not supported targeted selective action alongside national action. They have not established a national levy. They rely on one day strikes every three or four months. Also their propaganda focuses on achieving a no compulsory redundancy guarantee. We believe PCS should be focusing on stopping job cuts per se (ie the Department for Work and Pensions has already cut 22,000 jobs without any compulsory redundancies) .
IL had a very good profile at both the DWP and National Conferences. Despite our election results, it appeared more activists are interested in what we are saying. This was reflected in a vote at DWP conference on a motion critical of the LU run DWP staffing campaign. The leadership narrowly won the vote on a card vote of 44,000 to 31,000. The motion stated the leadership had allowed the campaign ‘to die on its feet’. Unfortunately the national staffing campaign appears to be a rerun of the DWP campaign. Due to the Standing Orders Committee shaping the agenda in the interests of the LU leadership, there was no real debate over staffing at the National Conference. However the leadership lost a few votes on Civil Service sickness issues.
Mark Serwotka is obviously hoping other Unions will agree to joint action with PCS over the Government’s pay policies for public sector workers. The UNISON leadership wants to meet PCS to discuss future initiatives and also postal workers and teachers are in dispute.
I attended a SSP meeting with Colin Fox as the main speaker – the major Scottish figures in PCS went with Solidarity so it was rather downbeat. John McDonnell addressed the national Conference as Chair of the PCS Parliamentary group after he had failed to get enough nominations and received a good welcome. However he was very bitter with Labour MPs and cryptically talked of a Trojan horse in the leadership election. Also he was more apocalyptic about Brown’s future policies for the civil service than the PCS leadership. He wasn’t saying we all need to join the LP and the Labour left will win in the future.
The sensible elements of the PCS leadership tried to be friendly to IL during the week. Some of the LU hierarchy realise IL is gaining an audience with our ideas and it is foolish for the LU leadership to ignore us. It is important for PCS that we gain allies in our struggles, but if we are let down by other Unions, then the PCS leadership must change its industrial action strategy quickly or suffer future defeats externally and internally.
Liam redux 
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