PCS

Public & Commercial Services Union - trade union for civil servants

British unions out of step on Histradrut

As PCS convenes this week (23-24 May) in Brighton for their annual conference, delegates will be be expected to vote on a wide range of issues, including some international ones. Buried deep in the more than 200 pages of conference documents is this sentence: “Conference … instructs the NEC to … [c]all on trade unions around the world to review and sever all ties with the Histadrut.” This the only reference to the Histadrut in the entire document - and there is no explanation to PCS delegates what the Histadrut actually is. Delegates presumably know that the Histadrut is something evil, and...

PCS needs more than one-day strikes

A famous politician once said: “You must be able at each particular moment to find the particular link in the chain which you must grasp with all your might in order to hold the whole chain and to prepare firmly for the transition to the next link”. The task of activists at the annual conference of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS, 20-22 May) is to determine the next link in the chain of the dispute and to pull as hard as we can to move onto the next link. That means abandoning the present approach of the union leadership; the tactic of the isolated one day strike. This method of...

NUT Exec votes down June strike date

On Thursday 10 May the executive of the National Union of Teachers voted for a recommendation from general secretary Christine Blower and deputy general secretary Kevin Courtney: "That in the light of the responses to the survey of divisional secretaries and in the light of the positive work with the NASUWT the union should not proceed with a one day strike in June". An amendment declaring that "the Executive resolves to comply with policy determined by [NUT] Conference 2012... the union will take strike action in June" fell, with 16 votes for, 24 against, 2 abstentions. Nominally the left has...

Relaunch the pensions fight!

On 10 May the PCS civil service union is striking against the government’s “work longer, pay more, get less” changes to public sector pensions. The lecturers’ union UCU is also striking, in further education colleges and post-1992 universities. Members of the Unite union in the health service will be staging protests and industrial action. There is talk of a further strike, maybe involving the teachers’ union NUT, in late June. To make 10 May a relaunch, and not just a swansong, PCS needs to genuinely place itself on a “war footing”: * vigorous recruiting of new members; * a levy to help fund...

Make 10 May strike real. Make it big!

The precise extent of the public sector pensions strike on 10 May remains unclear, as some unions are pushing the day as a mere “day of action”, while others emphasise walkouts and pickets. Unite promises “rallies and demos” as well as “pickets” by its members in NHS, while the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) promises a strike. According to a report to the Unison Executive by Unison general secretary Dave Prentis, at the TUC Public Services Liaison Group National Union of Teachers officials said NUT members would not be taking action on 10 May, and Unite officials were unclear on...

Strike on 10 May!

The National Executive of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) has voted to strike on 10 May in the battle against government pensions reform. Its decision follows the announcement of the health section of the Unite union to “aim for” a strike on that date. Unite now says its 100,000 NHS members will be “staging protests and industrial action” on that date. The Executive of the University and College Union (UCU) meets next week to decide on its participation. The National Union of Teachers (NUT) Executive also meets next week, and will discuss further action. Although this strike...

Civil service union members protest against EDL

The far right, racist English Defence League demonstrated outside the Home Office in central London on 17 April. The protest was formally against the government's failure to deport Islamist ideologue Abu Qatada (though the Guardian reported on the same day that the government has in fact arrested Qatada and is making fresh attempts to deport him). In reality the EDL action was, predictably, a bile-filled demonstration of anti-Muslim hatred, with sieg heils and death threats against counter-protesters. The Unite Against Fascism campaign, with the support of the PCS union, which organises...

Unite “aims for” strike on 10 May

A recent decision by the leadership of the Unite union’s health section to “aim for” another strike over pensions on 10 May offers a glimmer of hope in the battle to revive a national industrial campaign on the issue. NHS workers in Unite voted by 94% to reject the government’s pensions deal, but Unite officials mobilised against left-wingers on its National Industrial Sector Committees (NISCs) to prevent the union giving a lead on, or participating in, strike action since 30 November. According to Gill George, a Socialist Workers’ Party member on the health NISC, there has been a “change of...

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