I was surprised to receive an e-mail from Mark Serwotka that didn't whinge about something I'd written or published yesterday. In fact he was offering me and thousands of other PCS members the opportunity to enter a draw to win £1,200.
The catch?
Entrants to this draw would have to fill in a direct debit form to pay subscriptions to the union by December 31st 2014.
It's a real sign of the desperation that the PCS leadership are facing in trying to persuade members to sign up to the union when "check off" ends in most departments, which now seems more than inevitable.
There was even a circular recently claiming that some reps were reporting the new direct debit scheme was a problem for BME members.
How exactly?
I asked a few BME members in my own PCS Branch they were baffled or just laughed saying that was simply ridiculous.
Methinks they, like many others are just prevaricating.
A union collapsing on itself.
At the same time PCS is trying to use the recent leaked management document on reducing the influence of PCS in the HMRC to try and rally its declining membership.
They haven't got long. The new Revenue & Customs Union (RCTU) launches soon. With just over 1 in 10 PCS members signing up for DD, they have some competition.
And clearly they are worried about the RCTU no matter how the comrades of the activist caste dismiss it.
The latest issue of the bring newspaper of the Socialist Party rants about "scab unions", a reference to the RCTU.
Just because this is being founded by ex-PCS members who have had enough of the antics of the far left doesn't make them scabs.
Such formulations are typical far-left fare when they don't get their way.
Members in the HMRC (and elsewhere) should make their own minds up.
There are plenty of us who have had enough of PCS and rather than offer prizes or slag off political opponents Serwotka and his far-left cronies should look at themselves. It is their own actions that have driven members away, first in SOCA, now in the HMRC. Who will be next?
Meanwhile the Socialist Workers Party who form a small part of the ruling "Left Unity" group in PCS are themselves struggling.
The SWP PCS "fraction" as they call themseves have written a rather boring, deluded "perspectives" report in the third and final edition of the pre-conference SWP Bulletin.
They have recruited one new member "through patient work" and muse that getting new SWP in other areas would increase the party's influence.
No kidding sherlock.
Oh and they also tell us they cooked pakora on the picket line in Birmingham.
The revolution is obviously here......
Or not.
For those of you interested in sectariana here is the link to the third SWP Pre conference Bulletin:
SWP Bulletin 3
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