‘Who runs our union?’ Call a special delegate conference
We carry here an extract from the ‘Bulletin of the PCS National Executive Left Majority’, which includes Socialist Party members and the Broad Left Network (PCS – Public and Commercial Services union, which organises in the civil service)
We are the elected majority on the PCS National Executive Committee (NEC), that won the union election in May with a 19:16 majority.
However, obstruction from the president Martin Cavanagh, and general secretary Fran Heathcote – who are part of the Democracy Alliance (including ‘Left Unity’) which failed to secure a majority – has prevented us from taking decisions on important issues affecting members.
The NEC majority recognises that the new government will not end cuts to pay, jobs and conditions unless we apply the necessary pressure to do so. This was made clear when the government published the 5% pay remit, which is to be part-funded through a 2% cut in admin costs (job cuts), and departments cutting £3 billion to fund the public sector pay bill!
Starmer has already stated that it will “get worse before it gets better”. PCS needs to be prepared for the battles that will come and yet we are being prevented from having that discussion at the NEC.
5% is not enough
The president and general secretary [emailed members] saying that the NEC majority voted down a paper on pay put forward by the general secretary. That is true.
What that email doesn’t tell you is that we tabled an alternative strategy. The national president vetoed it and ruled that there could be no challenge or alternative to the proposals put by the general secretary. This has been done repeatedly, and makes a mockery of a lay-led union and any form of democracy.
We voted against a strategy which capitulates to our new employer at the first test.
[The NEC majority] strategy would have enabled us to try for more than 5%, consult and begin to prepare the ground for the battles to win on jobs, pay and conditions that we believe will become necessary in the next period.
Who runs our union?
Since May, the general secretary and the national president have repeatedly vetoed discussion and debate, and undermined the democratically elected NEC.
This includes imposing a new staff structure without NEC agreement, which included promoting candidates defeated in elections to newly created senior positions and huge pay rises at members’ expense.
The general secretary, national president, and a small unelected bureaucracy at the top of our union, are preventing us from doing the job you elected us to do.
It is now clear that they accept the 5% remit and through their actions want to ensure there is no campaign.
Call a special delegate conference
We believe we have no choice but to call for a special delegate conference to determine who runs the union.
A special delegate conference can break the impasse created by the constant vetoes of the national president, and can halt the wrecking tactics of the so-called Democracy Alliance, which he represents and which lost the union elections.
It would hear activists from across PCS putting forward clear demands on pay, jobs and services. It can act to defend union democracy and discuss how we win the mass of union members to an active campaign.
- For more information about the motions of the NEC majority and the developments in PCS, go to the website of the Broad Left Network, the campaigning group of reps and members in the PCS in which the Socialist Party participates: bln.org.uk
