Union elections

Grady scrapes back in

Jo Grady, incumbent General Secretary of the University and College Union (UCU), has scraped back into office with a majority of fewer than 200 votes after transfers. Turnout was 15% — 5,000 fewer members voting than in 2019. Heavily criticised after undemocratically pausing last year’s strikes, Jo Grady gained barely a third of first preferences, with 5,990 votes out of 17,131. Ewan McGaughey, an independent candidate who gained a profile thanks to his crowdfunded legal challenge to cuts to USS pensions, came second with 4,724 first preferences. He likely picked up votes from right-wing...

Oust Grady, vote for democracy

Ballots slipped through letterboxes for education workers in the University and College Union (UCU) from 25 January. Incumbent Jo Grady is being challenged for general secretary (GS), and there are elections for the National Executive (NEC) members and for the union vice-president (who becomes president after two years). Voting closes 1 March. In online hustings this week Grady admitted her term had not been easy, blaming the difficulties on having to implement an industrial strategy that was not of her design (despite implementation being her actual job). Given how often she undermined...

Joint slate agreed in PCS

The Independent Left group in the civil service union PCS, which includes supporters of Workers’ Liberty, has reached electoral agreement with Broad Left Network to challenge the ruling Left Unity ( LU ) group in the 2024 PCS National Executive (NEC) elections, for which nominations have already started and voting is in the spring. The agreed NEC slate , which includes independents and members of other groups, is predicated on a development of the principled programme that underpinned the IL/BLN joint ticket in last year’s Assistant General Secretary and General Secretary elections, which...

Unity can break LU control

The results of the General Secretary (GS) and Assistant General Secretary (AGS) elections in the civil service union PCS which closed on 14 December revealed a significant desire amongst members for change in the national leadership. Fran Heathcote, existing national president and member of the dominant Left Unity group, secured GS victory with only 783 votes more than Broad Left Network’s Marion Lloyd, and the Independent Left’s John Moloney secured a decisive AGS win over LU’s Paul O’Connor, obtaining just shy of 59% of the vote. The vote for the IL/BLN joint ticket was 21,262 to LU’s 18,492...

PCS vote closes on 14 December

The elections for General Secretary (GS) and Assistant General Secretary (AGS) of the PCS civil service union end on 14 December During the ballot period it has become increasingly clear that there are two different visions of trade unionism on offer. Left Unity (LU), the dominant grouping in PCS, is offering a top down, TUC-mainstream-style, union with a smattering of left sounding verbiage but now without the presence and political direction, such as it is, of outgoing GS Mark Serwotka. Without Serwotka, around whom a mythologising cult has been built, the only thing that holds LU together...

PCS and the results of the “pause”

It is almost six months since the Left Unity leadership of the civil service union PCS decided to “pause” PCS’s national pay, jobs, and pensions dispute, at the heart of which was a 2022/23 civil service wide pay claim for a consolidated 10% pay increase and a £15 per hour national underpin. They claimed that a “pause” — the cessation of all industrial action and the lapsing of all legal mandates to take strike action — would allow PCS nationally to engage with the government in talks about job security, low pay and pay coherence and allow PCS representatives in the huge number of civil...

PCS: Left Unity gets rattled

In the elections closing 14 December for General Secretary and Assistant General Secretary in PCS, the Independent Left (IL) is standing John Moloney for AGS and supporting Broad Left Network’s Marion Lloyd for GS, on a joint ticket. They run against the candidates of Left Unity (LU), which controls PCS but increasingly as a support mechanism for a narrow cabal of lay officials and senior bureaucrats. For the whole of the week starting 13 November, John Moloney led an official PCS solidarity delegation to Ukraine and represented PCS at the congress of the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of...

Vote Lloyd-Moloney to rebuild union density

The elections for Assistant General Secretary (AGS) and General Secretary (GS) in PCS are underway (ballot opened 9 November, closes 14 December). The ruling Left Unity (LU) group is standing Fran Heathcote for GS and Paul O’Connor for AGS. Both will, if elected, take the enormous salary for these posts (guaranteed pay progression to £103,100 pa) in a union where, under their leadership, tens of thousands of members are on or close to the minimum wage. In contrast John Moloney, current PCS AGS and the candidate of the Independent Left (IL), has returned over £120k to the PCS Fighting Fund...

Back Vicky Blake for UCU GS

On 13 November, Vicky Blake announced her candidacy for General Secretary of the University and College Union. Other candidates so far are Jo Grady (re-standing), Saira Weiner from the UCU Left/SWP, and Euan McGaughey, a law academic who brought a legal case over pension misevaluation. Vicky, a former Vice President and President of the union, is standing as an independent. She has a background in fighting casualisation, has recently championed solidarity with Ukrainian trade unionists, and has been a consistent left critic of the leadership and defender of union democracy. The ballot opens on...

What is "left wing" in PCS?

The elections for Assistant General Secretary and General Secretary of the PCS civil service union commence on 9 November (and close 14 December). The ruling Left Unity (LU) group is standing Paul O’Connor for AGS and Fran Heathcote for GS. The PCS Independent Left (IL), including AWL supporters, is standing John Moloney for AGS and supporting Marion Lloyd, of the Broad Left Network (BLN), for GS. All formally left-wing candidates, but proclamations of “socialism” are never a sufficient guide in trade union elections. PCS’s LU leadership love to make “left wing” speeches. Yet under their...

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