Unbelievably, it looks as if the pay strikes by civil servants (PCS) and teachers (NUT) in November could be on different days.

The NUT's ballot begins on 6 October, and the PCS's on 24 September. Under the current laws, a ballot mandate for industrial action has to be activated within 28 days, or it lapses; at the same time, however, there's a minimum time (notice to the employer, and so on) between a union getting a ballot mandate and organising a strike.

The current word is that the NUT's strike will be between 19 and 27 November (and legally cannot be earlier than the 19th); the PCS's strike will be in the middle of November (and legally cannot be as late as the 19th).

AWL activists in the two unions are pressing the leaderships to seek modifications and workarounds to get the action synchronised (almost certainly, there are some possibilities).

How the foul-up happened is a mystery. Both unions now have "left" Executive majorities and top full-time officials. Both union leaderships make a big deal of wanting united action by public sector workers against the Government's wage-cut plans.

To organise the two ballots to allow joint action, in any case, the union leaderships did not have to be specially left-wing - just minimally competent. But that's "left-wing union leaderships" for you, these days.