Vote Left Unity in PCS Elections!
PCS Members will be receiving a ballot paper for their union elections around now. Many members organised into groups (departments) will receive two ballot papers, the second for their group executive committee. My group is the DWP so I receive the following two:
I support the Left Unity group. There are, of course, other people standing. There is a group that says that the current Left Unity leadership is not hardline enough. There are others that say that it is too hardline! The “Independent Left” group bases itself on members who are impatient and aren’t prepared for the less militant layers to catch up. I suspect that an IL leadership would be very militant on paper, but in practice, would lead very few struggles because the bulk of members would not follow them. They tend, as a group, to come in third in these elections. In my view they should throw in their lot with Left Unity, both groups want to fight back against what this Government are doing, and the differences are mainly over tactics, something that could be resolved.
The group who have been coming in second are the so-called “4TheMembers” group. In my view they should be called 4TheManagement. One of their leading lights has tried to undermine every action our union has taken over the last few years, circulating stuff criticising the union, with the tacit support of management. Their view is that members don’t really want to fight back, and that the union should do its best to negotiate what little it can. The problem with that is, management won’t give us anything. We have to take action to get any gains or concessions at all!
When 4TM are saying that, as a union, we are too militant, and IL are saying that we are not militant enough, I tend to conclude that Left Unity has got it about right. It’s not about taking action as a knee jerk reaction, nor is it about rolling over and playing dead. It’s about a leadership that picks and chooses our battles wisely, and in a way that takes members as far as they are willing to go, in order to get the best agreements possible.
It’s a hard struggle. Vote for these candidates for a union that continues to fight for your interests!
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