Call for a rank and file public sector alliance
The Department of Work and Pensions London Regional Committee of the PCS union has issued the following statement.
In view of the common attacks upon the public sector, the London DWP Regional Committee is appealing to Labour movement bodies to
- send a representative to planning meeting (details in the statement) for an event that will launch a campaign for rank and file unity across the public sector and/or
- sponsor the launch event
If your own organisation will be attending the planning meeting or you wish to be kept informed of developments please let me know via the contract details below. I must stress that the DWP regional committee does not want to launch a campaign run by itself but rather a genuine cross union campaign of which it is a part.
Contact details: Christine Hulme, PCS, Shepherds Bush Job Centre, 176 Uxbridge Road, London W12 7JP or jodiocletian@aol.com
Yours sincerely,
Christine Hulme
APPEAL STATEMENT
In the London region of the Department Of Works and Pensions (DWP) we face a projected cut in staffing of nearly 2,000 between now and 1st April 2006. The members who remain in employment, are facing increased work pressures and many are coming under pressure to transfer from offices at one end of the greater London region to the other – for the privilege of the low wages handed out by the DWP.
The DWP London region job loss is part of Gordon Brown’s plan to cut one in five civil service jobs over the next few years. Much of the consequential reorganisation of the civil service is clearly a prelude to yet more privatisation under New Labour.
The DWP London Region Committee is aware, of course, that job cuts, low pay and privatisation are not peculiar to PCS members. We are also know that New Labour intends to press on with its attacks upon public sector pensions, at best offering to strengthen the "reserved rights" elements of their public sector pensions to avert a widespread public sector dispute.
Whilst we note the formal unity of public sector General Secretaries in the negotiations over pensions we believe that general secretary unity without a corresponding unity at branch and other levels of the movement is a weakness. Moreover we believe restricting public sector union unity to the issue of pensions alone is to let ourselves down.
Low pay means that thousands of members retire on low pensions. Local Government workers have an average pension of just £3,800 a year (£73pw) and civil servants just £4,800 per year (£92pw). Tens of thousands of members will live their pension years struggling to make ends meet. Continuing job cuts and privatisation will mean that many of our members will not gain much benefit, if any, from the defence of public sector pensions.
We believe there is a much wider industrial and political basis for a public sector alliance when:
- jobs are being slashed across much of the public sector;
- privatisation is continuing;
- wages remain low;
- the two tier workforce is continuing and arguably has been extended into the heart of the public sector with the recent pension deal;
- low occupational pensions will leave members reliant on an increasingly abysmal state pension to get through life;
- the destruction of the better private sector pension schemes, and the poverty of so many pensioners reliant on the state scheme, will leave public sector workers’ permanently vulnerable to a divide and rule policy.
Therefore London Regional DWP is circulating this letter to labour movement bodies requesting that they take part in an initial meeting to plan the launch of a campaign for rank and file unity over jobs, pay and pensions, with the idea of sponsoring that launch event. We see the "public sector" as including unions whose members provide a service to the public – most obviously those in privatised industries.
The first planning meeting will be held on Saturday 28 January 2006, Exmouth Arms, Starcross Street, London NW1, 12 noon.
PCS London Regional DWP do not want this initiative to be ours alone but one we share and build with other labour movement bodies. Please come along and build unity across the public sector.
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Yes but...
is it really realistic to believe that enough of the working class is angry _and_ confident enought to take action? I've heard at least a decade of the idea that we are about to see a breakthrough. However in my own union, even when there is a threat to our wages there is no mass turn out to meetings. Most members are in one of 3 states. One - don't see what the problem is. Two - can't see how the union is relevant. Three - would like to see the union fight but don't believe it will/can happen.
Isn't That the Point
Agreeing with you that much of the working class is in one of the three states you outline, isn't that the whole point of the post above? In other words, we could simply throw up our hands and say "Everything's horrible". Or we can try to do something about it that makes it less horrible.
I do not believe in pointless demands to union leaders, anymore than I believe in pointless demands to the bourgeois state. Its up to workers to organise themselves not to rely on someone else. The job of socialists is to encourgae that organisation, to give it direction and leadership. The first step in that is for socialists themselves to be organised, and to have some agreed programme on which they will try to lead the workers forward.
That is what the above is trying to do. Not to expect workers to become revolutionaries or even militants overnight, but to begin the work of organisation that will give workers a sense that they can achieve something. That of itself would be a step forward. If it also leads to the workers bringing forward their own, more militant leaders, gaining the strength and confidence to take on the bosses and defeat them, even better.
Arthur Bough