The internal battle within the main civil service union PCS has taken some bizarre turns over the Christmas period following the decision of Janice Godrich to withdraw from the contest for the plum post of Assistant General Secretary. The Socialist Party split badly in the union as a result of Mark Serwotka's desire to rid himself of the admittedly useless Chris Baugh.
The Socialist reports:
Chris Baugh is standing for the PCS Left Unity assistant general secretary nomination in a rerun of this election.
When news broke that ill health had caused previous nominee, Janice Godrich, to stand down, the reaction of many Left Unity members was to call for the only other candidate and current assistant general secretary, Chris Baugh, to be the Left Unity candidate.
These calls were rejected by the Socialist View majority on the Left Unity national committee, despite the fact that Chris had won over 48% of the votes in the ballot held in 2018.
Janice who is too ill to continue won the internal Left Unity election to obtain their backing. The new PCS Left Unity National Committee is now dominated by supporters of Socialist View, the PCS only (for now) political grouping made up of ex-Socialist Party members.
Left Unity of course unites most of the left except for the fragments around the Independent Left who have announced they will run John Mahoney, a member of the AWL (Alliance for Workers Liberty) regardless of whatever Left Unity decide to do.
Confusing matter even further is that Mark Serwotka has chosen another left wing harridan as his personal bag carrier, Lynn Henderson a full time employee to stand for AGS. The Godrich faction around Socialist View initially "noted" her entry into the contest (Lynn is not a Left Unity member apparently):
Supporters of Socialist View will note with interest the announcement today that Lynn Henderson has declared her intention to stand in next year’s PCS AGS election.
In Lynn’s statement, she has confirmed her support for Left Unity’s elected Presidential candidate, Fran Heathcote, as well as for the Democracy Alliance slate which was published earlier today. This is obviously to be welcomed, as is her commitment to implementing the union’s policies, including the policy of ADC and the strategy of the NEC for a national pay campaign based on central pay demands.
While these commitments are to be welcomed, that should not be confused with an endorsement by Socialist View.
Lynn is not the Socialist View AGS candidate, with a decision on the SV candidate to be taken early in the New Year, and Lynn will not be the Left Unity candidate, as she is not a member of Left Unity.
Since then of course Socialist View have dug up one of their other ex-Socialist Party hacks and full time employee of PCS (there were quite a few of them in place at one time) in the form of Stella Dennis. This obviously irked the Socialist Party who stated:
Socialist View have decided a candidate in this rerun. Apparently, this will be Stella Dennis, a PCS senior full-time officer.
Socialist View had previously justified their decision to challenge Chris Baugh by supporting Janice Godrich on the grounds that she was a rank-and-file candidate, 18 times elected as national president, supported by PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka and someone who they claimed was the most high profile woman in the trade union movement.
None of these arguments support or justify their decision to stand Stella Dennis.
The SP is none too happy with PCS supremo Mark Serwotka either and complain:
This turn of events has shocked many Left Unity members who recall Mark Serwotka's promises, repeated as recently as December, that he would support the Left Unity candidate no matter who it was.
Mark Serwotka initiated the campaign to get rid of Chris Baugh and led a campaign of smears against him. His decision to support non-Left Unity member Lynn Henderson shows contempt for Left Unity and is a vote of no confidence in Stella Dennis.
The question all Left Unity members will be asking is this: is Stella Dennis a credible candidate and are Socialist View serious about standing a candidate in the PCS elections against Mark Serwotka's choice - Lynn Henderson?
Whilst the Independent Left haven't commented on the renewed conflict amongst the unions Grandees, the AWL's newspaper comments:
On union policy, the months of faction-fighting have revealed only secondary tactical differences, demagogically exaggerated, between the rival FTO candidates. The average full-time salary of our membership is £22,500. The average full-time salary of Full-Time Officers is £41,500. An 86% premium. FTOs receive over 25% more than lay members in civil service jobs with similar duties and responsibilities. Senior FTOs get the big-bucks — £65k-plus — comparable Senior Civil Service pay bands.
On principle FTOs should be elected and on salaries far closer to those of our membership. More important for the upcoming AGS election is that, not coming from the shop-floor, long-time unelected FTOs don’t carry the same experience and understanding as lay members and reps.
This election has now become a battle between three candidates of the union bureaucracy, and John Moloney, an activist with the left opposition group Independent Left, who is the only rank-and-file union member currently standing in this election. He is standing on a clear left platform...
Members of PCS will probably now face a choice of no less than 4 far-left candidates all pursuing similar agendas all of whom support Corbyn. If this turns out to be the case then whilst most members will not bother to vote those that do should note only one of these candidates takes anti-Semitism seriously, John Maloney. Not an endorsement simply stating a fact.
Here's his video:
Here's his video:
No comments:
Post a Comment