Saturday 20 December 2014

PCS: Is this how a union ends?

On Thursday rumours began circulating of some drastic decisions being taken by the PCS National Executive Committee including the cancellation of all internal elections. This has now been confirmed on the website, though the title of the article posted may not have attracted the due attention from members that it should. The report states:

....the NEC has agreed to suspend NEC and group elections in 2015 for a maximum of 12 months. It was also agreed that this decision, and the NEC’s other decisions on measures taken to stabilise the union’s finances, would be put to ADC for endorsement.

No elections indeed. And taken at a time of the year most members will be heading off for their Christmas holidays and too distracted by festivities to bother with reading the PCS website. By the time everyone returns it will be too late to begin the normal processes and given that 90% of ballot papers are consigned to the bin will allow the leadership a breathing space to re-assert their control over the union.

The reaction to this news has been mixed. NEC members and their supporters are doing their best to justify this decision but considerable disquiet and outright disgust has been expressed on the PCS's Face Book page. Matters are not helped by idiotic suggestions by the likes of Clara Paillard who claimed "We're not skint" in one of her contributions.

Yeah right.

Some activists have finally joined the dots and realised that the attempt to merge PCS with Unite at the beginning of the year was down to financial difficulties.

The union has had a major deficit in it's Pension Fund dating back god knows how long.

During the summer the leadership quietly applied for planning permission so that HQ could be sold off.

Chris Baugh the Assistant General Secretary has in the past claimed there was no "crisis" and despite the proclaimed emergency has not commented himself leaving it to his "beau" Clara.

The end of "check off" was bound to cause problems but what the leadership obviously didn't realise was how unwilling so many members would be in re-signing up for membership. The Home Office Group managed barely half before their department removed the facility. In the HMRC where the union will shortly face a challenge from a new union only 20% have signed up. This despite the "leaked document" from Management about dealing with PCS.

It is the political stance of the far-left run PCS that has led to it's downfall.

Serwotka, the Socialist Party and the rest of the Trots have no idea about negotiation or compromise. They are as a friend of mine Rick Johansen wrote on Face Book "absolutists".

That is ideological motivation comes before all else.

This is how a union ends.

No elections, no headquarters, few staff and a political programme based on the ideology of long dead Russians.

In the New Year members will need to look for new solutions, probably elsewhere.

PCS really has had it.

The only people to blame are the far-left leadership.

The members deserve better and can't even vote them out.

This is how a union ends.

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