The Civil Service union PCS was in intensive care before today.
It’s nearly dead now following the re-election, unopposed, of Mark Serwotka.
To those outside the murky world of trade union politics, it might appear that Serwotka is so popular that every PCS member wanted him returned to office. Nothing could be further from the truth.
As we have said before, the union is totally in the hands of the far left. The Socialist Party (AKA Militant tendency) and its Trotskyist allies controls the headquarters in London (more about that later) with party Apparatchiks holding most of the major paid jobs. It controls most of the branches in the Civil Service and it has an iron grip of the annual delegate conference which, laughably, is the policy-making forum of the union despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of members are not involved in the democratic process at all. Why bother? Even the order of business at Conference is stitched up by Trotskyists who control the standing orders committee that decides what is discussed. They control all the union publications via Trotskysist run ‘editorial boards’, they control the union website. All the delegates at the TUC Conference come from the ruling ultra left. Do you get the idea, now?
In short, the union is now organised so that even if there were sufficient people who wanted change, it is unlikely that they could even get it debated never mind turned into policy. There was an informal independent group of union activists who tried for many years to compete for votes in national elections but they could not compete with the behemoth Trotskyist sects. There is literally no opposition now because people know the union is in the hands of those who cannot be defeated. Even if 200 activists came through tomorrow and tried to change the union, they would not have a prayer. Those activists have given up now but a lot of members gave up a long time ago.
PCS President Janice Godrich (Socialist Party) said, without any apparent irony, that she was “delighted” and it was “a clear endorsement from members that he has the confidence and full support from our union”.
Her statement is not only inaccurate; it is deluded.
And Serwotka, no stranger to verbal incontinence and empty rhetoric, added “PCS remains as vibrant and strong as ever.” Unless that is another way of saying ‘totally fucked’, then the poor lad hasn’t been paying attention.
The people who will be happiest at the result of this ‘election’ will be the government who will find it easier than ever to impose their agenda on lowly paid Civil Servants thanks to a union that behaves like, and actually is, a far left political party. Francis Maude will be pouring out the bubbly tonight. He won’t have to talk to a strong, independent, campaigning union, he will instead be on the end of vacuous ranting from a bankrupt union, in more ways than one, and it will be easier for him to carry out his hatchet job than ever before. ‘Vibrant and strong’ my arse.
It is not just soft left folk like myself who have seen the damage the ultra left have done to PCS. They’ve been found out, whatever Serwotka says, and soon as ordinary members who just want decent representation by a proper trade union find an alternative they will be off. There are a good few members in HMRC who feel that way and I’ll wager a good number in other government departments.
Just when we thought things were getting hopeless at PCS, the satirical website PFLCPSA runs a story that suggests that despite the union leadership telling us the finances were all well and good, plans are afoot to flog off the union HQ in Clapham Junction for unaffordable housing. Read it for yourself. http://www.pflcpsa.com/Oct_14.htm
At a time when Civil Servants are under great pressure than ever before, the worst and most inept General Secretary gets re-elected unopposed.
I certainly hope that Serwotka recovers from his current serious illness but I am afraid that PCS will never recover from the mess he has made of the union he has turned into the laughing stock of the trade union movement. Sadly, it is no laughing matter to the poor bloody members who are essentially being left to fend for themselves.
