Vote Marion Lloyd for general secretary and John Moloney for AGS
PCS member
As reported in last week’s Socialist, Socialist Party member and PCS Broad Left Network (BLN) chair Marion Lloyd has secured a phenomenal 80 nominations to stand in the elections for PCS general secretary. Marion’s running mate, John Moloney, who is standing to be re-elected as Assistant General Secretary, won 87 nominations.
This is not a flash in the pan. As workers have come under pressure from high inflation, from threats to jobs and offices, and from Tory rhetoric about lazy civil servants working from home, they have turned to their union to fight back. But PCS members have found that the union’s leaders have let them down.
The BLN, which is supported by Socialist Party members in PCS, has been at the forefront of attempts to rebuild a member-oriented union, that can exert control in workplaces, that puts resources under the control of members’ elected representatives, and which bargains effectively with employers.
Basics like this have all but collapsed in areas of the union where activists from Left Unity (LU), the grouping which most of the current leadership are members of, are dominant – not least of which is the union’s largest employer group, the Department for Work and Pensions, where branch officers hardly ever get a response when they raise concerns with the LU-dominated union executive.
The recent events in the pay battle have tipped the balance for many members. The leadership decided to cancel the union’s planned strike action, reballots and the strike levy following an inadequate government pay offer, and dressed this up in a dishonest membership consultation as ‘continuing the campaign’. This happened under Fran Heathcote’s presidency. She is now standing for general secretary.
Marion is standing on a platform of rebuilding the union’s national campaign, including a serious plan of national strike action, supported by targeted, selective action. She is also standing on a platform of re-democratising PCS, returning the union to the control of members and reps.
- Voting begins on 9 November and runs through to 14 December
