Branch Secretary CPSA ONS Newport (personal capacity) THE ISSUE of inter-union merger dominated the recent annual conferences of CPSA and PTC who between them represent the majority of civil servants.
A merger would create a 275,000 strong super-union, bringing together everyone from low-paid clerical and support grades to middle management. If carried out democratically, with an accountable leadership and a strong role for branches this could create a force capable of challenging management and the new Labour government.
A stronger union presence in the civil service has never been more sorely needed: civil servants like all public sector workers have been hard hit by the break up of national bargaining on pay and conditions and by the continuing freeze on the pay bill.
A single union for most staff might at least make industrial action easier to organise and more effective.
The right wing bureaucrats who tum both unions are attempting to hijack the merger process for their own ends, however. Disregarding detailed resolutions passed at the 1996 conferences, they have drawn up a draft rule book which is calculated to strengthen their own position and minimise internal democracy.
Among the most blatant of the proposals are to hold conferences and National Executive Elections only biennially, and to use more frequent referenda on policy issues rather than making decisions at conference.
This latter tactic has already served the bureaucrats well. An all-members postal ballot on the key proposals in this draft rule book was carried out immediately after Christmas with no warning - denying branches the chance to discuss the issues involved beforehand.
In a typically low turn out, the members voted 5-1 in favour -but with many clearly believing this was a vote on the principle on merger rather than on its terms.
Ballot to come
With the final merger ballot due to be held later this year, there is still everything to play for. At this year's annual conferences the left in both unions tried to force the leadership to redraft the rule book while keeping merger on track for the scheduled deadline of January 1 1998.
Censure motions, rejecting the proposed merger terms and Insisting that the NECs return to the principles agreed last year were passed overwhelmingly but it remains to be seen whether the leaderships will be any more accountable in the year ahead than in the last one.
In CPSA, the more politically the "Left Unity" grouping suffered a considerable wipe out in the annual NEC elections, losing the three seats it previously held.
This emphasises the point that the left can pass all the conference motions it likes -but as long as the right enjoys unchallenged control of the union apparatus, it will still be able to treat the membership with the same arrogant contempt it has shown up to noW.
To turn this situation around, Left Unity must organise more consistently instead of just once a year at election times. The right wing won the elections by a relatively narrow margin on a turn out of only 25 per cent.
Left Unity needs to become a democratic, campaigning organisation built from the bottom up. In this way it could win over a larger section of the currently passive membership by consistently demonstrating the link between union politics and the real, bread and butter issues that concern members.
If Left Unity - and the PTC left -do not begin to do this as a matter of urgency, civil service workers could soon find themselves lumbered with a merged union which is a byword for bureaucratic privilege and political sellout.