ballot Darren Williams, Branch Secretary, PCS ONS Newport (personal capacity) THE NATIONAL Executive Committee of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), which represents 250,000 mainly civil service workers, has recently announced the outcome of a crucial ballot of the union's membership.
The ballot-paper asked five questions: three on the union's constitution, and two on PCS campaigns against privatisation and the anti-union laws. On all five, those members who voted (less than a third of those eligible) overwhelmingly supported the recommendations of the NEC, rejecting proposed changes to the running and policy of the union: So - is this an inspiring demonstration of democracy in action, and an convincing endorsement of the NEC's leadership? Far from it. Not for the first time, PCS' national leadership have secured members' support by presenting their case in a deliberately misleading manner. In so doing, they have beaten off the latest attempts by activists to turn PCS into a democratic, fighting union.
Lunatics in charge of the asylum The latest developments are in keeping with the recent history of civil service trade unionism. The record, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, has not been an impressive one. Key to this has been the bizarre approach of the political factions which have 'led' the major unions over this period (called the "Moderates" in CPSA and "Membership First" in NUCPS/PTC, in defiance of the Trades Descriptions Act). Faced with the most anti-union, anti-public sector government in living memory, they quickly - decided that they wouldn't get anywhere by actually fighting the government's attacks on their members' interests and rights. While they deplore those attacks in public, they also engage in a "constructive dialogue' with the very people looking to slash their members' jobs, pay and conditions.
They therefore concentrated their flak on those who argued for a different approach - particularly if this involved industrial action -characterising them as a sinister lunatic fringe, probably in the pay of the Kremlin. While the Thatcher and Major Governments cut tens of thousands of civil service jobs, sold off whole departments, introduced performance-related pay and ended national collective bargaining on pay and conditions, they met no more than a show of resistance. Successive conferences condemned this and passed resolutions insisting that the unions take a real stand - so the leaderships simply ignored the resolutions. Then the merger of CPSA and PTC gave the bureaucracy a chance to ensure, once and for all, that they could go on running things their way. They drew up the constitution of the new union in a way which gave them greater powers than ever before, at the expense of democracy for the members.
Conferences and NEC elections were to be held every two years instead of annually. Sovereignty was effectively transferred from conference to the NEC, which was given the power to make policy, provided that it then held a ballot of the membership to confirm its decisions.
The merger process itself gave a foretaste of the way this would work in practice. Having drawn up demise. After the meeting concluded, food was served, drinks were taken, and entertainment includeu standup comic Rob Newman and singer-songwriter Leon Rosselson. a rulebook which ignored conference decisions, the NEC then presented it to members in a completely misleading way; unsurprisingly they voted to accept it.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss The first conference of the new union, in Brighton in November 1998, gave grounds for greater optimism than might have been expected.
The President, Peter Donellan -a member of the ex-PTC Membership First group - chaired in a refreshingly even-handed way, ironically causing pleasant surprise among his 'enemies' on the left but annoyance among many of his supposed allies. Partly for this reason, conference managed to get a reasonable amount of business done, passing many worthwhile motions. Some aimed to restore the compara"tively democratic practices of: CPSA and PTC; others committed the union to serious campaigns on pay, jobs, privatisation, and a range of other issues. Early post-conference circulars suggested that the NEC might even be serious about carrying out the resolutions. Reports from NEC meetings also gave a certain amount of cause for optimism: although the new committee was packed with the same people who had run CPSA and PTC, differences between the Moderate and Membership First groups started to emerge, with the latter sometimes taking a slightly more honest and principled approach, successfully opposing some of the Moderates' more cynical manoeuvres.
The first real test of the new NEC has, however, been this ballot: a test which it has spectacularly failed, as the dominant factions have reverted to type. Nell Murray THE CONFERENCE of Reclaim Our Rights/United Campaign for the Repeal of the Anti-union Laws met in London on June 12, attended by about 60 delegates. New affiliations from unions at national and local level are welcome (the latest national union to affiliate being MSA. So is winning the argument against the arti-union laws (even GMB conference is reported ta have called for their repeal, But the campaign Itself has been lacking in life. Many regional committees of the campaign barely function, and the attempt to make May Day this year into a national demonstration in favour of trade union rights faltered. Party this was due to competition with local May Day events and difficulties with the routinIst London May Day committee: but the campaign has been unable to mobilise people as well as getting resolutions passed, Yet the meeting was taluctant to acknowledge this latter problem. White this is partly attributable to the extremely dow level of trade union strug gle, with the result that few workera come up arainst the laws in practice, It is also down to the way many of those involved soe the campaign. Winnine affillation Is sean as sufficient to automatically of simply opposing initiatives which had been democratically agreed at Thus, instead of asking "Do you agree with conference resolution A560, that PCS should campaign for the repeal of laws which curtail the rights of union members?", the ballot-paper asked the bizarre question, "Do you support your NEC's recommendation to keep members' rights under existing trade-union laws, and therefore to reject conference resolution A560?"
By asking leading questions like this - and by abusing the union's resources to bombard members with propaganda, in the form of letters "reminding" members to vote, etc.- the NEC has achieved its objective of ensuring that it continue to do the bare minimum to defend members' interests, without worrying about any comebacks.
The link between constitutional issues and day-to-day concerns mobilise the member hip rather than as a step along the way, This confusion was shown by the rejection of an amendment to the constitution which would have allowed left formations within unions to affiliate, on the grounds that the campaign did not want to support factions' within the unions.
While this is not the biggest issue facing the campaign it does show a reluctance to recognise the slath of union leaderships even when they support something on paper.
An additional problem is that much of the left will not get involved in Reclaim Our Rights because they see it as an SLP campaign. While many (by no means all) of the leading figures are SLP members, this becomes self-fulfiling if others stay out.
The conference heard several good speeches, including from John Foster, General Secretary of the NUJ about the difficulties of organising in the medie and Shirley Winter of the Mac. net Wives Support Graup, reflecting both the problems facing the movement and ways of fighting back.
On the basis of a statement from the committee and a resolution from Watertoo RMT the conference also attempted to address tha future of the campaign. The test will be If they can be put Into practice. about jobs, pay and conditions need to be made clear by the left. Without a democratic structure to ensure that they act in members' interests, the NEC cannot be relied upon to fight for anything other than its own power and privilege.
Activists have a responsibility to rebuild a culture of participatory democracy in the union, with members making informed decisions after collective discussion, instead of voting in isolation on the basis of the NEC's mendacious circulars.
The current right-wing leadership have demonstrated that they can't be trusted to defend members' interests - or even to carry out conference decisions.
PCS members who recognise the need for a change in direction will have to mobilise to secure the election of an alternative leadership - in the form of the Left Unity slate - in the national elections, next year.