the whole EU project, as did Community Youth There was apparently no Workers Union, who argued thought that there might be that the EU project would some legitimate lead to a European super involved, even though it was not an action by workers; no the debate matter that there was mass Jackson said "if it had not support for the action in the working punitive level of tax on fuel. Darren Williams Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union class due to the (PCS) face the prospect of general secretary's election later this year in which they will have a 'choice' that is restricted to two right-wing candidates.
The election is to take place a couple of years earlier than for the originally scheduled, because efforts to one of the union's two rightwing factions, 'Membership First', has made a temporary alliance with the left to prevent 'Moderate' incumbent Barry Reamsbottom from running the union alone when the other joint general secretary retires in a few months' time.
Membership First are putting up Assistant General Secretary, Hugh Lanning for the civil service union's top job, and there has been enormous pressure for all antiReamsbottom factions to give him a clear run as the only candidate who can beat the incumbent. off thousands, At its national conference on 9 September, the union's main socialist grouping, Left Unity, narrowly agreed not to put up its own candidate but to back Lanning. Its leadership - dominated by the Socialist Party -me seeks to justify this decision on the basis that Reamsbottom has consistently sold out members' interests during his period in office, refusing to organise a fight against pay cuts, job losses and privatisation, and smashing the union's internal democracy.
But while Lanning seems to be more open to working with the left, and promises to respect union democracy, his politics are no different from Reamsbottom's. If the election result is to make any difference to members' lives, there has to be a real choice, with a socialist candidate offering a real change of political direction, and a determination to challenge New Labour's continuation of the Thatcherite 'efficiency agenda'.
Left Unity's failure to see this reflects the extent to which the Socialist Party has been sucked into machine politics, since the days when, as Militant, it ran PCS's predecessor, CPSA and appointed full-timers who remain in place today.
One of the worst aspects of the situation is that Left Unity has agreed with Membership First that any potential candidate in this election must secure nominations from fifty branches in order to get on the ballot-paper.
This anti-democratic stipulation is clearly to designed to prevent anv left candidate from standing.
Nevertheless, such a candidate has come forward. Mark Serwotka, a well-respected militant activist who is currently secretary of the DSS Sheffield branch, is being supported by the Socialist Caucus, the SWP and left independents. His candidacy is the only hope that members have for there even to he a dier ccion about the kind of leadership that the union needs. It is therefore vital that socialist activists push to get their branches to nominate Mark and take this election out of the hands of the bureaucrats.