Big victory for the Unison 4, for member lead democratic fighting unions

! Glenn Kelly, Unison (personal capacity) On Friday 9 August, the employment tribunal dealing with the Unison leadership's illegal banning of the 'Socialist Party Four' from office issued its judgement as to what compensation Unison would have to pay. The compensation follows the 2011 ruling that found the Union leadership guilty of "unjustifiable" disciplinary action against the four activists for producing a leaflet complained about resolutions being excluded from the 2007 Unison Conference. Given that the average pay out for a worker from a tribunal is about £4,000, the tribunal's decision to award £49,000 in total to the four shows how the union's actions were viewed. The court also award aggravated damages against Unison for their treatment of me, saying: "that we are satisfied that the conduct of the respondent (Unison) amounted to high-handed malicious and oppressive conduct and we decided in the case of Mr Kelly to award an additional award for aggravated damages". 'Dedicated trade unionists' Agreeing the damage done to the four of us by the union, the court found all four of us as "committed and dedicated trade unionists, elected by the members and had devoted either the whole or a large part of their working life to advising representing the member and their interests at regional and national level". Despite this, in an attempt to diminish their actions, the union had tried to argue in the court case that the damage done to us was minimal 'as we were Marxists and Socialist Party members and were used to political rough and tumble of political life'. The court responded by saying that: "we do not accept that the claimants' political beliefs and or activities made them in some way impervious or immune to hurt caused by the action of the respondents". Alongside the ban, we also had to face our branches being taken into regional administration. All along the union tried to say the two events weren't related. However, on 9 August the court rejected the unions claim saying: "it is inconceivable that there was no link between the claimants being banned and the branches being taken into regional administration." In reference to the raids on the branches it said: "it was done in a way to cause the maximum humiliation to the claimants". Given the findings of the court cases, the question still remains: who will be held to account inside Unison for spending six years attacking union activists and wasting literally hundreds of thousands of pounds of our members' money? For more about the Defend the Four campaign see stopthewitchhunt.org.uk

Should PCS merge with Unite?

It has become clear that these two unions are looking t merge or as I put it for unite to take over PCS. Personally in my own opinion I cannot see the sense in this politically. Clearly PCS has been under huge attacks from the gov and not only this one but the previous Labour government too which has meant they have take n a huge financial hit as a result. The Public and Commercial Services Union are in big trouble. Many of the early austerity measures forced through by the Con-Dem government have been aimed at public sector workers. The aim was to reduce the number of civil servants by 20% - and they are not far off achieving it. Fourteen percent of civil service jobs - 72,400 posts - have been cut since the coalition was elected, pay has been frozen, pension contributions increased, the retirement age raised and terms and conditions attacked. Accordingly, PCS membership has shrunk by almost 12,000 in the 12 months to September 2012 and now stands at just below 263,000. In addition, the government has been attacking the facility time for trade union representatives. More people are being sacked on more spurious grounds - and union reps have less time to fight back. This also affected this year’s conference with less being able to attend. This is set to get worse in the next few years too. The union’s fight back against these attacks has been hampered by the hesitancy of other unions. Last year’s conference committed the PCS to fight - but only if, for example, Unite and the National Union of Teachers were willing to participate in joint action. However, those soon proved resistant to pressure and so the PCS decided to go it alone after all: there has been short-term “rolling strike action” by various departments, which is aimed at “disrupting the employer’s activities”. In some workplaces, PCS members walked out for an hour or two. This tactic will continue in the foreseeable future, “Because it doesn’t look as if the TUC will call a general strike any time soon”, as PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka put it. There will be localised action throughout the year. Plus, starting on Monday June 3, the DWP and HM Revenue and Customs will call out members in two regions (about half the union’s membership) for a day each. At the end of June, it looks like there will be localised, joint action with the NUT which must be made as big as possible to show there are unions still willing to fight even if other seemingly have waved the white flag to fighting the cuts unfortunately. But a long-term all-out strike by PCS that could actually put pressure on the government seems pretty unrealistic for a number of reasons, mainly financial. For example, the union does not have a strike fund, so members are not compensated for loss of wages. Last year, conference overwhelmingly rejected a motion to set up even a voluntary strike levy. However, this year Mark Serwotka simply announced that the national executive committee would look into setting up a strike fund. “Not everybody in the union likes it, but I have come to the conclusion that it is necessary in order to organise effectively.” Clearly, some very painful lessons have been learnt in the last 12 months. The PCS is in dire financial trouble - chiefly because of the fall in membership the union incurred “net liabilities of £3.2 million” in the 12 months to December 2012, compared to “net assets at December 2011 of £687,000” It does not help that a whopping 57% of the union’s total outgoings of £29.9 million was spent on employment - that means £17 million paid to the 271 PCS employees, or just over £70,500 per staff member (which includes pensions, national insurance contributions, etc). By comparison, the even smaller Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers Union RMT spend ‘just’ 40% of its income on its employees. A couple of PCS employees are on pay band 7, the maximum of which is £89,847. Still, a rather tame motion that sought to make sure that “full-time officer pay rates in PCS are much closer to the pay received by the majority of PCS members” was heavily defeated sadly at last weeks conference. The socialist party’s policy is for all elected officials to only take the average wage of a skilled worker. Given we have 15 paid officials by the PCS I do hope we would be upholding that principal of only taking the average wage of a skilled worker of the members. As PCS is struggling financially it would be sad if any member of our party or not would be taking a huge pay packet and pension home when your average PCS member is facing huge attacks. The union leadership has taken some measures to counter the effect of the loss of membership, but things could easily get worse. No wonder then that rumours of a merger with the mighty Unite union have been doing the rounds for a few years. Opposition to a merger is huge, despite the obvious advantages of building a bigger union. “With almost two million members in Unite, this would in reality be a takeover, not a merger,” said one delegate. The PCS is, on the whole, more democratic and membership-driven. Unite has, for example, just closed dozens of area branches without consulting the members, as a furious conference delegate pointed out. And there is, of course, the elephant in the room: the Labour Party. Unite is affiliated to it; PCS is not What would happen if PCS and unite came together and a labour government was elected and started an attacking civil servants? I do also wonder if the socialist party’s support for Len Mckluskey was partly linked to making the merger between unite and PCs a bit easier for all concerned. I am sure that’ll PCS officials some being SP members of course will hope to maintain their positions if a merger goes through but what are thegaruntees ? We all know how bureaucratic unite is and the right in unite has been pushed back a little but this merger wont go down well with the right in unite I think. I have already hear of opposition from the right of unite saying we don’t want a union to merge with us who are lead by a load of old trots. Whether that is true or not it shows this could be a bumpy merger with hostility and tension coming about from both sides. For a union that is so proud of its fighting and political edge, it is curious that, when it comes to UK politics, it has been somewhat lost in the wilderness (though it has to be said that Labour MP John McDonnell has done sterling work in the PCS parliamentary group). In 2005, PCS voted to establish a “political fund” that would allow it to intervene in “and between” elections. In 2007 it first established a ‘check list’ of “our key industrial issues” and put them to parliamentary candidates, publishing their answers online. In a ballot in June 2012, members endorsed the proposal that the union “has the authority to stand or support candidates in elections, in exceptional circumstances, where it would help our campaigns. To save jobs, stop office closures and defend public services.” With this I would hope there is a move towards the PCS backing anti cuts candidates such as TUSC very soon I have heard no progress on this though and seems an open ended question of what the political fund will be for. More links and initiatives between the PCS and TUSC needs to start happening in my view as the political attacks are huge a political alternative for PCS is necessary too.

How Lenin looked to deal with bureaucracy

"In the last period of his life Lenin was desperately concerned about the growth of bureaucracy in the Soviet state and in the Party." Lenin feared for the party and the Russian state and could sense Stalin’s rise and him concentrating more and more power in his hands. Many people understand wrong the definition of bureaucracy today many believe bureaucracy" as if it were simply a matter of "bureaucratic behavior", excessive red-tape, officialdom, etc. Such an approach has nothing in common with the Marxist method, which explains bureaucracy as a social phenomenon, which arises for definite reasons. Lenin, approaching the question as a Marxist, explained the rise of bureaucracy as a parasitic, capitalist growth on the organism of the workers' state, which arose out of the isolation of the revolution in a backward, illiterate peasant country. Lenin’s ideas did not grow into Stalinism as many opponents of socialism tell us. Stalinism was a rise of the bureaucracy which h fed off of the degeneration of the Russian workers state. In one of his last articles, Better Fewer but Better, Lenin wrote: "Our state apparatus is so deplorable, not to say wretched, that we must first think very carefully how to combat its defects, bearing in mind that these defects are rooted in the past, which, although it has been overthrown, has not yet been overcome, not yet reached the stage of a culture that has receded into the past." (Works, vol. 33, page 487) The October revolution had overthrown the old order, ruthlessly suppressed and purged the Tsarist state; but in conditions of chronic economic and cultural backwardness, the elements of the old order were everywhere creeping back into positions of privilege and power in the measure that the revolutionary wave ebbed back with the defeats of the international revolution. Engels explained that in every society where art, science and government are the exclusive of a privileged minority, then that minority will always use and abuse its positions in its own interests. And this state of affairs is inevitable, so long as the vast majority of the people are forced to toil for long hours in industry and agriculture for the bare necessities of life. After the revolution, with the ruined condition of industry, the working day was not reduced, but lengthened. Workers toiled ten, twelve hours and more a day on subsistence rations; many worked weekends without pay voluntarily. But, as Trotsky explained, the masses can only sacrifice their "today" for their "tomorrow" up to a very definite limit. Inevitably, the strain of war, of revolution, of four years of bloody Civil War, of a famine in which five million perished, all served to undermine the working class in terms of both numbers and morale. The NEP stabilized the economy, but created new dangers by encouraging the growth of small capitalism, especially in the countryside where the rich "kulaks" gained ground at the expense of the poor peasants. Industry revived, but, being tied to the demand of the peasantry, especially the rich peasants, the revival was confined almost entirely to light industry (consumer goods). Heavy industry, the key to socialist construction, stagnated. By 1922 there were two million unemployed m the towns. Immediately after the seizure of power, the only political party which was suppressed by the Bolsheviks was the fascist Black Hundreds. Even the bourgeois Cadet Party was not immediately illegalized. The government itself was a coalition of Bolsheviks and Left Social-Revolutionaries. But, under the pressure of the Civil War, a sharp polarization of class forces took place in which the Mensheviks, SRs and "Left SRs" came out on the side of the counter-revolution. Contrary to their own intention, the Bolsheviks were forced to introduce a monopoly of political power. This monopoly, which was regarded as an extraordinary and temporary state of affairs, created enormous dangers in the situation where the proletarian vanguard was coming under increasing pressure from alien classes. In relation to Stalin, Lenin writes that "Comrade Stalin having become General Secretary has concentrated enormous power in his hands, and I am not sure that he always knows how to use that power with sufficient caution." Repeatedly, Lenin characterized the bureaucracy as a parasitic, bourgeois growth on the workers' state, and an expression of the petty-bourgeois outlook - which penetrated the State and even the Party. The petty-bourgeois reaction against October was all the more difficult to combat because of the exhausted state of the proletariat, sections of which were also becoming demoralized. Nonetheless, Lenin and Trotsky saw the working class as the only basis for a struggle against bureaucracy, and the maintenance of a healthy workers' democracy as the only check on it. Thus, in one article Purging the Party Lenin wrote: "Naturally, we shall not submit to everything the masses say because the masses, too, sometimes - particularly in time of exceptional weariness and exhaustion resulting from excessive hardship and suffering - yield to sentiments that are in no way advanced. But in appraising persons, in the negative attitude to those who have "attached" themselves to us for selfish motives, to those who have become "puffed-up commissars" and "bureaucrats", the suggestions of the non-Party proletarian masses and, in many cases, of the non-Party peasant masses, are extremely valuable." (Works, vol. 33, page 39) As the bureaucracy became more remote from the working class within Russia, so it increasingly gave up confidence in the proletariat abroad. The Communist International was transformed into an agency of the bureaucracy's foreign policy. Searching for national security, the bureaucracy began to play a counter-revolutionary role on the world arena. The perspective for an independent struggle for socialism was abandoned. In an effort to provide theoretical, 'Leninist' justification, Stalin exhumed Lenin's old formula of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. In other words, they returned to the policy they had supported at the beginning of 1917 - before they had been defeated by Lenin in the struggle within the party. The revival of this discredited policy was applied with disastrous results to the Chinese revolution of 1925-26. Against the wished of the leadership of the Chinese Communists, the Stalinist bureaucracy imposed a policy of subordination to the Chinese bourgeoisie led by Chiang Kai-cheek and the Kuomintang. This led to the defeat of China's dynamic working class, with the massacre of thousands of Communists and militants. Since then, the same policy has been applied with the same disastrous results. In the post-Second World War period the ex-colonial lands have experienced a series of revolutionary upheavals. The communist party leaders, still dominated by Stalinist ideology, have invariably subordinated the workers' organizations to the interests of national-capitalist leaders. In many cases this has meant support for Bonapartist, including military bonapartist leaders. Sukharno in Indonesia, Kassim in Iraq, Gonclaves in Portugal - the list could be extended around the world many times. Lenin stood for all workers officials to only receive the wage of a skilled worker, an immediate right to recall, a rotation of tasks to not get too bogged down in one position for too long and for all officials to be accountable to their members. These policies we still stand by today in the socialist party and look to popularise them in our fight against bureaucracy and for the most open democracy at all times with thin the labour movement. With extracts taken from Lynn walsh’s introduction to Lenin’s April thesis and Ted Grant and Alan woods lenin’s fight against bureaucracy

Pensions battle, fight must go on

This week is turning out as expected in many ways. As i blogged earlier in the week how big this week could be it looks like going to form at this moment in time. The unison exec seem to be recommending their members accept the governments rotten deal and will eitehr ballot for this or simply accept i ti imagine. Its not all lost on the unison front but it doesnt look promising either.

But what i wanted to stress is that this is not the end and we must remain as united as we possibly can. The government has tried to split us and split us in part it has but there is still a great determination from a lot of trade unionistrs and workers to continue the fight. Especially from more left leaning unions like the PCS etc.

No doubt the governments plans to try and isolate the PCS have backfired with other unions including Unite, NIPSA, POA, UCU and the possibility of the NUT joining the growing group of rejectionist unions. I quite like that term. These are the unions which i do hope who will branch out to unions fighting pension battles in the private sector with news of Unilever set to strike too to link the battles and carry on the fight.

Of course as i have previously stated the tactics will be important to get right and judging the mood properly is key too.

I wouldnt suggest anything at this time of tactics that will be for each union to decide what they do of course but there does need to be some sort of co-ordination and unity built again with the remaining unions willing to fight.

As was said at the PCS left unity conference last weekend if there are further strikes with the remaining unions not to accept this shoddy rotten deal from the government and further industrial action is called this could make things very difficult for Unison as if there are pickets it will put a lot of pressure on unison and their members not to cross those picket lines by other unions. This will be another key to racking up the pressure on the union high bureaucracy to rejoin the battle. Just like with the strikes on June the 30th last year many unison members will be asking themselves why are we not out on strike causing a knock on affect inside the union movement.

What also could be interesting is if Unison do go all the way and sell out their members what affect that has on the contiousness of the members of that union. Will they loose lots of members to say unite ? it is entirely possible that that could happen if Unison is not careful.

Please lets not un do all that great work for N30. It was right to strike then and it is still right to reject this deal on pensions and keep on fighting. Lets unite with public and private sector workers and fight for fair pensions or all and not back down untill we do!