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discussion bulletin of the pcs independent left - April 07

PCS Elections 2007:

Time for Change!

There is an unprecedented attack on public sector workers, including PCS members, and the services that they provide. New Labour is going further than the Tories in opening up the public sector to big business.

In 2004, Gordon Brown announced 104,000 job cuts. He also announced a crackdown on sickness absence in the civil service. The cuts make people ill through understaffing and increased assaults in public facing offices.

Tens of thousands of jobs have already gone. A Labour government pledged to reduce the number claiming Incapacity

Benefit that is also sacking thousands of civil servants to claim the same benefit.

The next national action has been called for May 1st. It must be a mass demonstration of anger against cuts in public services and poverty pay.

The TUC refuses to get off its knees in homage to Brown and organise a Public Sector Alliance of united action.

For all of its claims, the LU leadership has failed to develop a strategy to win on either national pay or the jobs massacre.

Members know that one-day strikes three months apart will not stop the cuts. But this is all the current leadership of the union offers and it simply will not achieve our aims.

We need a national overtime ban now. We need to hit management hard with selected action in key areas. We must move beyond protest action. We need a change of leadership and direction.

Why PCS Should Support

John McDonnell as Labour Leader

In July 2006, John McDonnell MP announced his intention to stand as leader of the Labour Party once Blair gave notice to step down. Blair's deliberate refusal to go immediately following Labour conference has worked to John's advantage. Over the past nine months, John and his supporters both inside and outside the Labour Party, have been building a grassroots campaign that is uniting many across the Labour movement.

The radical programme John and his supporters are advocating as part of the John4Leader campaign, is igniting a serious fight-back within the party, and if successful could alter the political direction of the country.

John stands for:

• The restoration of TU rights and civil liberties

• The withdrawal of British troops from Iraq and Afghanistan

• An end to privatisation of public services

• A minimum wage of £7 per hour

• A green energy policy based on renewable power sources

• An increase in the Basic State Pension to £119 a week

• Defence of comprehensive education and the abolition of student tuition fees

He is gaining increasing support from many Trade Union leaders and TU Broad Lefts - except for Left Unity in PCS. Unaffiliated unions such as the RMT and FBU are openly backing John's campaign and providing tremendous support. This is in stark

contrast to PCS, even though John is Chair of our Parliamentary Group.

Motions from branches calling on PCS to openly back John’s campaign have been submitted to union conference. We socialists in PCS should ensure that they are heard!

[pic]The key at this stage is to ensure that John receives the support he deserves from Labour Party and TU activists across the country. Unions have a vital role to play by openly supporting and publicising the campaign amongst the membership, urging members to organise and attend support meetings in their areas and encouraging members to lobby Labour MPs to back John's candidature.

For PCS, the campaign is vital. John McDonnell's policies stand in stark contrast to the programme advocated by Gordon Brown. Brown is responsible for 104,000 job cuts across the civil service, 5% staff cuts year on year, public sector pay squeezes and more privatisation.

John McDonnell is standing as a Socialist leader of the Labour Party, and someone who believes in expansion as opposed to cuts in vital services, decent pay, strengthening workers rights and opposition to the privatisation of our services. PCS must therefore openly support his campaign.

SHORTS:

Reasons to be angry: Part One

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Lesley Strathie, Chief Executive Jobcentre Plus, gave evidence to the Parliamentary Work and Pensions Select Committee. Asked why she would not give a guarantee of no compulsory redundancy when DWP had cut 25,000 jobs already by staff movements, wastage and voluntary packages Ms Strathie replied:

“If we give the guarantee, the counter argument to yours, Mr Foster would be the psychology has changed and the people who are working willingly with the grain of the organisation, because they are committed and they want a future in it and are prepared to move to another town, to another job, etc., may choose not to.”

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Ideas and Action: A Dozen Good Things

Frequently the Independent Left (IL), or more accurately one of the component parts of IL, Socialist Caucus, are described as madmen (even though a high proportion of our activists are women) and people who only have one answer to all problems – strike, strike, strike.

It is interesting that those attacks are from the left even though the slurs are standard right wing rhetoric.

In contrast to the hype, the Independent Left has a proud record of developing and promoting good ideas. Below we list 12 of them.

1 Co-ordinated action

When the Democracy Slate was first elected (LU and the Democrats) the first motion passed at the very first NEC was devised and written by Socialist Caucus and moved by a Socialist Caucus/IL NEC member. This called upon the Union to co-ordinate industrial action by Groups where possible. Coordinated action is now standard practice.

2. Aggregated Ballot

Unfortunately there is a big drawback to coordinated action in that it requires groups, branches etc. to voluntarily work together and show solidarity. Now the first real test of coordinated action was when the DWP GEC (controlled by the Socialist Party) pulled out of a joint strike with the Home Office and the DCA at the last moment.

To get around the problem and to join actions literally together the Independent Left has recently advocated that instead of having separate ballots and then coordinating action, what groups and branches in dispute should do is hold a single ballot and have a collective dispute.

3. Recent Claims

Given delegated pay how do you engineer a legal dispute for the whole of the Civil Service over pay? To do this we came up with the idea of a remit dispute. The Treasury holds the purse strings (and we all know that behind the scenes it controls pay). It doles money out to the bargaining units through what it calls pay remits. Our idea was that the union put a demand on the Treasury to fund the bargaining unit remits so that all bargaining units see pay real increases in pay. If the Treasury refused the call, then all bargaining units were in dispute with the Treasury. This idea was captured in motion 155 to the 2004 national conference. It was unanimously carried but not acted on. Instead the Union spent over two years in coherence talks; talks that were always doomed to end in failure – which they did. Our way was and is better.

4. Equality Proofing

The idea that policies, including pay deals, should be checked to see their impact on women, part-time workers, and ethnic minorities was not invented by us. However, we are the only group though to consistently argue that it be applied. We have put motions to national conference to that effect; and have argued for it at National, group and branch level. In contrast, the DWP GEC recommended their multi year deal despite evidence that showed PRP appearing to discriminate against Black and Asian members and members with disabilities.

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3 5. Departmental Pay and Departmental Groups

Within the Civil Service there are well over 100 bargaining units. Independent Left consistently argues that the Union should campaign for departmental only bargaining units. If this was achieved then there would only be about 20 or so pay areas. It is a short step from 20 departmental units to a Civil Service wide one; much shorter than from 100+ unit to one unit. Departmental is a positive step towards national pay. While all members in DWP, HRMC etc. have departmental pay and a departmental group that is not the case in the whole of the Civil Service. We argue that the union should restructure itself to form departmental groups within each department.

We need to organise ourselves this way in order to campaign effectively. Departmental pay campaigning requires departmental groups.

6. Contractual Staff Handbook

Where Independent Left has a strong voice on GECs it has argued that staff handbooks be set out in the form of a contract of employment. In Department for Transport and DCLG this has been done and detrimental attacks on terms and conditions have been beaten off, sometimes using legal action. This stands in marked contrast to the DWP where senior managers have, a number of times, unilaterally changed the staff handbook without union agreement.

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7 7. Selective Action

We do see, unlike the LU Leadership, a role for selective action in the union’s tool kit. We want as much mass action as possible but where the leadership’s plan is to have a day of national action then let several months elapse before the next, we want to infill the gaps with action that hurts the employer. Selective action fits that bill. By this we mean taking out key offices/sections for short periods; long enough to hurt, short enough so as to prevent the employer from setting up a mechanism to work around the action. We do not advocate taking out one office out for months on end. That was tried by the leaders of LU and has consistently failed. Hit and run is the motto.

8 8. Levy

Of course this requires money. Over the past years Socialist Caucus, and now the Independent Left, has argued for an all members levy. Our vision is that members, and members from other unions, would set up standing orders for say £1 a month (more if it could be afforded) and that over time we would build up a war chest. The model is that of the hotel workers union in the USA where in New York the union began a levy in 2003 knowing that their contract came up for renewal in 2006! The LU leadership refuses to organise such a levy. As a consequence, limits are placed on our ability to take on the employers.

9. National Pay

Again we did not invent this slogan; we are the only people who consistently argue for it. Since LU took control of PCS, the union has argued for a national pay framework, coherence and now argues for fair pay (or at times fairer pay systems – this demand implies that delegated pay will still exist). National pay is the key and consistent demand.

11 10. Equal Pay

Again we are the only grouping that has consistently argued that the union lodge mass numbers of equal pay cases. UNISON has won tens of millions in cases against local Council and the NHS. PCS can do the same.

12 11. Race Duty Challenge

The Office of National Statistics faces decimation in London. All their London work will be shipped to effectively white only areas and thus ONS will lose virtually every ethnic minority staff member it has. Yet the union to date, faced with mass relocation of work from London (the city which has the highest concentration of ethnic minority members) to “white” areas has not mounted a challenge using the race duty arising from the Race Relations Amendment Act. Given that the general duty is not helping us in any way now we have nothing to lose by taking a case. We have consistently argued that such cases be taken.

12. Legal representation at ETs

We have, for some years, raised the demand for improved legal advice representation in the union. Our supporters proposed Motion A18 at 2004 conference that called on the union to directly employ in-house lawyers and get them to handle ET cases. Despite improvements in personal case support, reps today still face having to take on the employer and their highly paid legal teams on behalf of members.

Motion A18 has never been properly implemented. The NEC’s proposals to be discussed at this year’s conference still leaves the burden of ET representation with the hard-pressed rep – the same activists relied on to lead the union’s campaigns locally.

If you support these ideas then join us in building the Independent Left.

Targeted Action?

Selective Action?

What strategy for the jobs and pay fight?

Low pay, job cuts, privatisation. Everyone knows what the problems are. The issue that is discussed at the regional forums and that union reps are considering is what kind of action should we deliver and can we deliver?

There is no dispute that the January 31 strike was a success in the sense that it demonstrated member’s continued willingness to make a stand against the cuts. The National Executive is almost certain to now propose a further one-day strike on May 1st – Labour Day. More than likely, this will also be well supported, but it will not mask the problems of strategy that exists in our union.

Members realise that a series of isolated one-day strikes will not lead to a slow down let alone a reversal of the job cuts and other attacks on us. Brown’s 104,000 jobs cut and plans for privatisation are threats that simply will not be countered effectively by the current strategy.

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Leading members of the NEC argue that national action is the key. At the same time, the national action being proposed is only short-term and sporadic. National action is “the key” only if it is being delivered with sufficient force and regularity to hurt management. That is not the case under the leadership’s strategy.

If the consensus is that we can only deliver limited national action at this time, then we have to consider alternative forms of action to defend jobs and services. We need to move from protest action to a strategy that impacts longer term on the functioning of departments.

Independent Left supporters argue that the leadership should identify, with local reps, strategic sites for selected strike action. That could include Contact and Pensions Centre in the DWP. We say that there are key workers in other groups, like HMRC, where the impact of their strike action can be greater and more immediate than other members in their department.

The main opposition to this proposal comes from the Socialist Party (SP), supporters of which politically dominate both the NEC and DWP GEC. The SP argues that as well as national action being the key, that they will support targeted action but oppose selective action.

The SP’s definition of targeted action is essentially support for local disputes where the impact of cuts is being acutely felt and there is a willingness to fight. While it is vital that reps campaign locally for action against the impact of cuts, there is a danger that members can feel isolated.

In any event, only if there are dozens or even hundreds of workplaces moving into action will the pressure mount on civil service bosses. If targeted action remains at the level of only a few groups of members then the best we can hope from their struggles is that they force management to concede their local demands. It may stop the closure of a local office that chooses to fight but will not stop them closing offices and cutting jobs elsewhere. Isolated local strikes – the blueprint of the leadership – will not stop the cuts.

However, it is also a passive strategy. The LU/SP leadership just sits and waits for branches to volunteer for action. It does not go out to branches or networks of members to organise action.

Significantly, the first two submissions for targeted action come from branches that have nominated the Independent Left slates.

The LU leadership, including the SP of course realise the limitations of their strategy. They are waiting for the concessions to be offered to end the dispute.

When they arrive, will they be divisive, splitting existing and new staff? Will they be, like in the DWP settlement, really not worth the paper written on? One thing is for sure, this strategy will not reverse job cuts, will not stem the job losses or attacks on services to the public.

The SP says that selected action is a strategy that was tried and failed in the 1980s. There is a certain history of selected action taking place from the 1970s and 1980s on issues including pay. Selected action took place in the Employment Service screens dispute in 1990/1. In that case, three local offices took strike action for more than 12 months, led by the SP (then Militant). Similarly, the DWP Screens dispute involved Pathfinder offices taking action in relative isolation.

However, departments including DWP have fundamentally changed since the 1980s and particularly through the current “modernisation” programmes. DWP has centralised its services, as an integral part of the cuts programme. Social Fund and Benefit Delivery are increasingly centred in large sites.

Add to this the DWP and HMRC’s reliance on telephony to deal with the public. Contact Centres are few compared with the size of the local office network that relies on them.

Members in these areas have good reason for taking action in these 21st century sweatshops.

IL supporters have argued that it is the role of the leadership to pull together the branches where Contact and Pensions Centres are based. The leadership will support submissions from individual Contact Centres. However, because of “virtuality”, there is little point in single Contact Centres taking action alone as management will just re-route calls.

Independent Left supporters are the only group in the union calling for the development of our industrial action programme to be widened to combine national, selective and targeted action. We are the only group arguing for a civil service wide overtime ban to be in place for the duration of the dispute.

This form of action also raises the serious issue of finance. The union’s 2006 Financial Report shows that PCS paid out the princely sum of £1,031 during the year! The percentage of subs income now spent on full-timers and staff wages has increased to 43% after national insurance and pension contributions.

The leadership warns that there is little money for strike pay yet is has steadfastly refused to organise a levy of members. Even now, leading SP supporters on the NEC argue it is not the right time!

It is apparently not the right time now even when our employer is making progress towards its target of 104,000 job cuts. Where it is planning wholesale privatisation of core departmental jobs. Members would no doubt ask, “if not now then when?”

PCS NATIONAL ELECTIONS 2007

Vote for change – Vote Independent Left!

Our candidates: DWP Group Executive Committee

|DWP President |Sam Hall (LU) |Steve Lloyd |

|Annette Wright |Organiser |Charlie McDonald |

|Vice Presidents |Charlie McDonald |John Mahoney |

|Martin Cavanagh (LU) |Treasurer |Scott Marshall |

|Lynne Hows |Nigel Prendergast |Dave Owens (LU) |

|Christine Hulme |Editor |Theresa Raftery |

|Lee Rock |Nick Diamantis |Lee Rock |

|Gill Whittaker |Group Executive Committee |George Thompson |

|Assistant Secretaries |Andrew Brown |Ann Tuft |

|Rod Bacon |Sue Catten |Rebecca Wager |

|Marjorie Browne |Miranda Harr |Paula Walsh |

|Dave Burke (LU) |Lynne Hows |Tony Wood |

|Steve Lloyd |Martin Jones (LU) |Annette Wright |

|Declan Power |Bev Laidlaw | |

|Tony Reay |Jackie Lederer | |

PCS Independent Left recommends support for the Left Unity (LU) candidates indicated.

OUR NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE CANDIDATES

|National President |Marjorie Browne (DWP) |Liz Kenny |

|Christine Hulme (DWP) |Sue Catten (DWP) |Martin Kenny |

|Vice Presidents |Paul Foster |John Moloney |

|Rod Bacon (DWP) |Liz Hale |Richard Price |

|Marjorie Browne (DWP) |Chris Hickey |Theresa Raftery (DWP) |

|John Moloney |Lynne Hows (DWP) |Lee Rock (DWP) |

|NEC |Christine Hulme (DWP) |Annette Wright (DWP) |

|Rod Bacon (DWP) |Karen Johnson | |

| | | |

CONTACT US BY EMAIL:

C CONTACT US BY EMAIL: Contact

Contact us at:

PCSINDEPENDENTLEFT@HOTMAIL.CO.UK

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