This week sees the annual national conference of the PCS union, whose members have been hard hit by the Coalition’s programme of austerity. PCS members will this year be debating where the union should go from here. Julian Sharpe, PCS member and Socialist Appeal supporter, points the way forward for the union.
This week sees the annual national conference of the PCS union, whose members have been hard hit by the Coalition’s programme of austerity. PCS members will this year be debating where the union should go from here. Julian Sharpe, PCS member and Socialist Appeal supporter, points the way forward for the union.
Socialist Appeal supporters in PCS will be present at the conference, hosting a meeting on Tuesday 20th May at the close of conference on the Great Miners’ Strike of 1984-85. Details below.
At the close of conference on Tuesday come to this special meeting hosted by supporters of Socialist Appeal, where Chris Herriot, an ex-miner and participant in the Great Miners’ Strike of 1984-5, will recount the key events and draw out the lessons for the battles of our class today. All welcome!
Speaker: Chris Herriot, participant in 1984-5 miners’ strike
The Victory Inn, 6 Duke Street
(Turn left out of the Brighton Centre front entrance, left up West Street, take 2nd right along Boyce’s street and then left along middle street)
Contact: Julian Sharpe: 07714 125 419 / news@juliansharpe.org.uk
At this year’s PCS Conference, we will be debating where our union goes from here. Members have shown tremendous resilience and willingness to fight cuts in jobs, cuts in services, cuts to our pensions, to our redundancy terms and to other terms and conditions. Members have had a hard time over the past few years and it will not get any better in the near future.
Merger with Unite
It now seems that a potential merger between PCS and Unite is on the cards. Supporters of Socialist Appeal and the International Marxist Tendency believe that the case for merger has not been made. The merger does not have any industrial logic. Unite has very few members in the civil service which is where PCS has most of its members, whereas most of Unite’s members are in private industry and distribution. Taking the fundamental motto of union organisation: “one industry – one union”, it would make more sense for PCS to pursue mergers with the FDA and Prospect.
If the issue is one of union finances, then the solution is not to have trade unions collapse into one another. This is no way to run a railroad. Expensive union offices, and expensive union officers, are not only a financial, but a political, question. Our elected representatives will only truly represent the members if they live like the members they represent. All workers’ representatives must be on the average workers’ wage. Dwindling membership, and therefore dwindling finance, must be combatted by proving the union is something worth joining. It is an iron law the trade unions that build their membership are those that fight. The example of the RMT in this recent period demonstrates this.
Upon a merger, PCS’s democratic structure risks being curtailed. Delegates to the national conference of the merged union could well end up being subject to the same practices as Unite, which holds conferences on a biennial not annual basis, and elects delegates by regional committees and not by branches at AGMs.
The campaign against cuts
Our members have shown their willingness to fight. Almost every single ballot in the recent period has resulted in a vote in support of action. The PCS leadership needs to draw up a bold plan of industrial action to win, that hits the government hard and from day one. Time needed to prepare for such a campaign cannot be used as an excuse for inaction.
Our campaign should not fritter away support in one-day or one-hour strikes, which only serve as mere demonstrations against the cuts. Members already know how they feel and are prepared for a sustained campaign.
As Marxists, Socialist Appeal believes that the cuts are not caused by nasty Tory (or Labour, for that matter) politicians. The cuts are not at root ideological. They are an inevitable consequence of the current crisis of capitalism. If you accept the capitalist system, you will end up accepting the logic of capitalism. In order to maintain their system, the rich and privileged must attack the wages and living standards of workers time and time again. PCS must mobilise its members to re-transform the Labour party along socialist lines.
We can and will win our campaign through sustained industrial action, and give a lead to other unions whose memberships are also ready and prepared to fight. However, a victory for our members will not be the end. The capitalists will come back for more until and unless they are overthrown.
We need to fight, not just for the immediate victory, but to fight to end capitalism once and for all. That means a fight for socialism, where production is based on the public ownership of the commanding heights of the economy under democratic workers’ control; a society based on need and not profit; a voluntary socialist federation of Britain and Ireland, as part of a Socialist United States of Europe and the world.
