THE CIVIL service union PCS national executive committee (NEC)
elections have resulted in a resounding victory for the left in the
union.
Bill Mullins, Socialist Party industrial organiser
This is the third time in succession that the Left has been returned
in a membership-wide ballot. Janice Godrich, the president of the union
and a member of the CWI in Scotland, won more than twice as many votes
as her nearest rival.
Left Unity, which includes seven Socialist Party/CWI members, has a
clear majority on the 35-strong body, including three out of the four
vice-presidents.
The union, under the leadership of the Left, has been one of the
fastest-growing unions in the TUC.
The membership grew by 30,000 in the last two years, a direct
reflection of the leadership’s willingness to defend its member’s jobs
and conditions.
The PCS has put itself at the head of the struggle to unite the
public sector in defence of pension rights. The NEC is calling on the
unions to continue to stay together after the government was forced to
retreat in the face of the planned strike of 1.5 million public sector
workers.
What the victory of the Left in the PCS shows is that workers are
willing to struggle if they are confident that their leadership will not
let them down, as unfortunately is too often the case in many other
unions.
