At this year’s Annual General Meeting branch members voted, without opposition, to nominate the PCS Left Unity (LU) slates for the R&C Group Executive Committee (GEC) and the PCS National Executive Committee (NEC).
I hope that branch members will also vote the same way as individuals.
That’s not a view I always held.
When I first starting getting engaged enough in PCS to vote in the GEC and NEC elections I was put off by slates. I thought the factionalism was counter-productive. I actively avoided voting for people on slates, choosing instead to vote for people who were, or appeared to be, independent.
To be honest I still find factionalism a bit of a pain but I’ve come to realise that it is both inevitable and, to an extent, essential.
Inevitable
In any democratic organisation people of a similar ideology will gravitate towards each other. They might do this unofficially or they might do this overtly by forming a faction. The chances are that there will be different factions, and the chances are that those factions will agree on the majority of issues, disagree on a few and have serious differences over tactics.
I think it’s safe to say that all the factions within PCS agree on the main issues of pay, jobs, pensions, terms and conditions, privatisation, equality, career development, health and safety etc. Where we disagree tends to be on the wider political issues, international solidarity and supporting campaigns which aren’t ostensibly directly related to PCS members.
There are also differences of opinion about tactics. Some would negotiate without the threat of industrial action to back them up, some think that negotiations are unlikely to get anywhere without that threat.
People with such different approaches will group together and support people of a like mind.
Thus are factions inevitably born.
Essential
It might seem a bit of an odd statement to say that factions are essential but I think they are. In PCS at the moment we have a few, including Independent Left, 4TheMembers and Left Unity. We all probably have more in common ideologically than not: I personally have read much from Independent Left that I agree with. I’ve read things from other factions that I agree with, much that I disagree with and plenty which has made me think. If it weren’t for the factions I doubt I’d have read any of it.
Factions allow people to come together with a united approach. If you vote for somebody from a faction you can generally know what they stand for. Admittedly, this does drown out the truly independent candidates, and that’s one of the reasons I was initially put off voting for people on slates, but I think the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.
Left Unity
PCS Left Unity is an openly socialist faction. That doesn’t mean we’re all members of socialist parties (I’m not a member of any, despite the best efforts of the Socialist Party and Socialist Workers Party, bless ‘em) but it does mean that we campaign within PCS from a socialist perspective. We put people before profit, public services before shareholder gain and equality before everything else.
I know that the word ‘socialist’ scares many people off. I used to be among their number. The fact is that we are in a world where deficit reduction is king and any alternative is given short shrift in the mainstream media. We have a choice: we can accept the deficit reduction mantra and its attendant job losses, privatisation, pay freezes and pension attacks or we can stand up and put the alternative arguments.
Under a Left Unity leadership we have done well.
- We have led the pensions fight and been inspirational to many other unions,
- We have taken action over privatisation,
- We have taken action over attendance management in HMRC and won many concessions,
- We have supported UK Uncut, who have done more to bring tax justice to the public’s attention than any trade union campaign could have,
- We have supported organisations fighting against benefit cuts, against privatisation of schools, against racism and fascism.
Obviously we haven’t won every battle, and we clearly haven’t won the fight, but things would be substantially worse if we hadn’t tried. I doubt we’d have achieved what we’ve achieved over attendance management if we hadn’t taken action over it. I doubt the few concessions that were granted over pensions would have been granted if we hadn’t been at the vanguard of the fight and I doubt we’ll gain any more if we don’t continue to fight.
The Bigger Picture
There are very few, if any, PCS members who don’t have somebody in their lives who is affected by deficit deification.
Whether you have a disabled relative or are yourself disabled, whether you have progeny trying to enter employment and finding themselves thrown in to workfare because there are no jobs, whether they have got the grades to go to university but can’t afford the debt, whether you need medical treatment but your local A&E’s closed or your hospital’s laid off too many nurses, whether your council house is suddenly beyond your budget or your private landlord’s putting up your rent or whether you’d rather £8.6 million of your tax went on public services rather than to Emma Harrison’s personal bank account you are not unaffected by the campaigns and activism PCS supports and participates in.
Left Unity supports you in the workplace but we also campaign to support you at home.
Politics
Some members say that Left Unity, and PCS, are too political, too left wing, and the union should concentrate on workplace issues. To those members I say this: we’re public sector workers. The fight for our jobs, pay, pensions etc. is inevitably political. Our employer is the government, their policies dictate our battles, not vice verca. Our workplace issues are political issues. By fighting for members in the face of right wing ideology our defence is by definition left wing.
Also political campaigning doesn’t preclude being active on workplace issues. As a branch we’ve won many workplace battles with local management and helped a substantial number of members in personal cases, from bullying to disability to reasonable daily travel to attendance management. This is partly because of, not despite, our Left Unity group and national leadership.
OK, we’re not perfect. Things don’t always work out but one thing that I can say is that from my short time as a member of the PCS R&C Group Left Unity Steering Committee I know we will do what we can to support you. I’ve spent far too much time in union committees which are little more than box ticking exercises. That is not the case with Left Unity.
There is passion, there is imagination, there is a desire to make things better. The LU R&C Group Steering Committee meetings are among the most productive meetings I attend.
Member Engagement
Recent comments have suggested that PCS R&C group members are disenfranchised. I don’t believe that to be the case. Any member is allowed to submit a motion to their AGM. In our branch we actively encourage it and offer support to those who may not have written a motion before. Any member is allowed, and encouraged, to stand for any position. We encourage debate and welcome members’ opinions. Anybody watching the video of our branch AGM will see that there was well-argued opposition to motions and well-argued support.
In my experience it’s branches with (relatively) right-wing leadership who disenfranchise their members by rarely arranging members’ meetings, rarely doing desk-drops and rarely encouraging debate.
However, if debate is sought and a decision made democratically that is the decision of the members. If the democratic vote is a vote for action rather than capitulation that should be respected, not denigrated.
Why Left Unity?
So, given my initial opposition to factions why did I join Left Unity? Why do I give up Saturdays to travel to Birmingham and back for LU meetings? Why have I spent the night writing this?
It’s because I recognise that LU are fighting to make things better, in the workplace, in the group and beyond.
Please vote Left Unity in the forthcoming elections. I honestly think it’s the best vote you can make to defend yourself and your family.
Please also consider joining Left Unity. You can find details on the Left Unity website here.
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Brave post Dave. Timely post. But I do find it amusing that our union (we’ll come back to that word) is so divided at the top. Can’t be good really, can it? And it is not something that grassroots members know much about, or really care about. In fact it’s probably the one thing that turns them off, when they hear about it, more than anything else. In-fighting.
The worry for me is the slate is used as a self fulfilling prophecy, with each LU member asking us to vote for every other LU member. Regardless of individual merit. Just because they are member of this particular club. It all just seems to be about how many branches you can get to nominate you in the hustings booklet. The words “nominated by 137 branches” means more members will vote for you as they will use the statement as a shortcut to make their decisions. We all know how disinterested most members are with that booklet, and how much of a chore it is to complete. Hence the poor turnouts.
I thought I joined a union. I didn’t realise that it wasn’t a “union” in that sense. I didn’t realise that it was fractured at the top end, with different ideologies and hobby horses battling against each other. The thing I think these groups forget, is the statement on the top of our union’s list of pledges: we are a member led union.
It shouldn’t matter what differences, political or otherwise, our GEC and NEC officers have. If they are all member led, the members make the decisions and those officers have to do the member’s bidding. Or is that not how it works?
Personally, I find the GEC and NEC elections booklet a massive chore, and I’m a branch organiser! It can take two weeks to whittle the names down. But do you know what makes it easier? When I read a template hustings with a standard “vote for all my mates” request at the end. I can simply cross them off my list of possibilities and move on to the next one. So this slate thing can work against nominees.
I want my union to have diversity of thoughts and opinions. That’s the only way a measured decision can be reached. Surround yourself with Yes Men and you know what answer you’ll get if you ask if it’s a good idea to jump off a cliff.
Brave? Ooh ‘eck, I wasn’t really angling for brave!
I agree with with most of what you say Steve. I’d sooner everybody was independent but, in reality, that’s never going to happen, Alliances will always form, be they public or covert. At least with the slates you know what you’re voting for.
Yes, the GECs and NEC are there to do members’ bidding but the implementation still needs to be decided. I can only speak as a member of LU but can say without doubt that LU, certainly in the R&C group, do our best to implement members’ bidding. I fear some other factions would do their best to wriggle out of it.
I’m not going to say that LU dominated committees never do that but I do know that the R&C group steering committee certainly don’t. However, no matter what the faction’s position it is inevitably, and quite rightly, subject to change and scrutiny by the executive committees themselves.