Union news

There now follows an essay about the decline in my union, the PCS.  Feel free to fall asleep as you read.

The threat to trade unions by the government’s decision to end the check-off facility for collecting subscriptions is very real and is likely, particularly in the case of PCS, to be extremely damaging, if not fatal.

No one can be in any doubt of the political motivation behind this decision but we need to be very clear that it will have little effect on ordinary PCS members who already find themselves being represented, if that’s the word, by a rag tag and bobtail collection of Toytown revolutionaries who have already taken the union to the brink of destruction.

While it is undoubtedly true that in many, often unseen, areas the union carries out much good work for members but on the national stage it is almost an irrelevance.

Campaign after campaign has faltered and died, only to be resurrected during the annual AGM and election season before being allowed to falter and die, again.

After last year’s hopeless campaign, which appeared to start with pensions and pay but ended with a ‘stop the cuts’ slogan, there was a ‘consultation’ period which passed many of us by but concluded, astonishingly, with the revelation that members still fancy a scrap with the government.

Whilst there is undoubtedly disillusionment and even despair among the ranks, I do not detect the will for a fight, whatever that means.

PCS is inextricably linked with the ultra left in general and the Socialist Party (Militant to us old codgers) in particular and we have, in the view of this tired old hack, reached the end of the road.

The ultra left controls virtually every aspect of the union from full time paid officers, its branches, it’s national committees and it’s annual delegate conference where, despite the fact that hardly any members participate in the ‘democratic’ process (ha ha), the union’s policies are made.

With huge cuts for union time off in the last year, you just know that the only ones who will carry on fighting for the revolution will be the diehards, the Moonies of the ultra left. 

I hear people saying that ordinary punters should stand for election against the Trots but I will argue we’ve tried that already and it didn’t work.  Since 1984, those who reject Trotskyism have tried with decreasing levels of success to turn the union round.  And now it’s all too late.

I hear the voices of those who say that there should be a list of sensible candidates –a slate - to run against the incumbent ultra left but those who say that have no democratic structure behind them and no policies (other than ‘we are not Trots’).

I have agreed with the arguments that there is no point in running a slate to oppose the ultra left.  It’s too big a mountain to climb.  Any fight back would need to start at the bottom up, not the top down, and I see few people who want to enter the fray.  Because if they – whoever they might be – did decide to fight the Trots, they’d need to go in with their eyes wide open.  It would be a long fight, a very ugly and exhausting fight and, without huge resources of people and, dare I say it, money, an ultimately unsuccessful fight.

The current structure of the union sees a huge amount of work carried out by ‘lay’ officials.  With huge cuts to paid union time off, this becomes more difficult by the day.

So what to do?

Like all unions, PCS runs an annual delegate conference where over a thousand representatives get together and support Socialist Party ‘policies’ and turn them into union policies.  Conference costs a fortune, yet only a tiny minority of members participate in the democratic processes, or have the first idea of what goes on.  Nor do they give a toss.

My first decision as the union’s new Tsar would be to abolish conference.  With some of the money saved, I would appoint local organisers to represent existing members and recruit news ones.  They would get a basic (fair) salary but they would get commission if they were successful.

I’d carry out a root and branch survey of the entire union structure and scrap entirely the branch set up. Instead of lots of Bristol branches in different departments, I’d set up one Bristol branch, serviced by a full time paid official.

I would reduce the huge area structures to a bare minimum, as well as the departmental committees, regardless of cries from the far left of impacting on ‘democracy’ as they call their control of the union.

Instead of having ‘editorial boards’ of lay officials for union publications, I would appoint a professional journalist to oversee union publications and literature.

I would cut delegations to affiliates, I would scrap donations to organisations no matter how worthy they appear to be; in short, the union would exist purely to support ordinary members.

I’d abolish all annual elections and make them at least bi-annually, if not every three years.   More frequent elections don’t mean more democracy.

And so it goes.

I’d even seek a meeting with the PM despite everything that has happened, even to the point of offering a ‘no strike’ deal in exchange for better pay and conditions and agreements to avoid compulsory redundancies and transfers.

Surely it would be better than what’s happening now, where PCS heads to oblivion, lions led by donkeys who have far greater ambitions than giving a shit about humble poorly paid civil servants?