The elections for the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union have just started. It is vital that we campaign actively to retain the left wing Democracy Alliance leadership of our union who fight hard for our members and defend our interests in the face of the government onslaught on the public sector.
Katrine Williams, PCS Wales chair, personal capacity
The record of PCS as a union is second to none, showing what a militant leadership which actively involves the membership can achieve. We won the national ballot last year and as a result had two well-supported days of national strike action.
When this did not achieve national talks we held a consultative ballot to show the government that members continued to back the leadership and were prepared to take further action if necessary. This resulted in national talks, for the first time in 15 years (since the Tory government), over key issues such as national pay, privatisation, avoiding compulsory redundancies and the civil service compensation scheme. We have now achieved agreements on avoiding compulsory redundancies and on privatisation and continue to have talks on the others.
This is something we would never have achieved with a right-wing leadership who consistently work hand in glove with management and New Labour. We cannot afford to be complacent and not campaign to get the vote out. The consequences of this could be to no longer have an active, campaigning union which leads the way not only with our members but across the whole trade union movement.
The breakaway so-called “Independent Left” grouping within the union is standing against the left slate. They have been quick to criticise everything the NEC has achieved but fail completely to put forward any alternative strategy to stand up to government attacks. Their only strategy seems to be to attempt to take votes away from the Democracy Alliance to allow the right wing back into power in this union.
Now is the time to work hard to keep the strong leadership we have in PCS leading the way in working to build unity and campaigning across the whole of the public sector to combat this government’s agenda of attacks on public-sector workers and the services we provide.
The candidates from the Socialist Party and our sister party International Socialists in Scotland are:
Janice Godrich for President
John McInally for Vice President
And the following as NEC members: Mark Baker, Marion Lloyd, Chris Morrison, Rob Williams and Danny Williamson. Kevin Greenway is already on from the Association of Magisterial Officers constituency.
You can get information on the whole slate and download leaflets at www. leftunity.org.uk
