After much speculation it is now clear that there will be two challengers to incumbent head honcho of the PCS union Mark Serwotka in the forthcoming General Secretary election. The Independent Left candidate Bev Laidlaw was known to have obtained at least the minimum 15 Branch nominations required to stand. The question mark hung over Marion Lloyd of the Socialist Party.
Marion has now announced that she has obtained 39 nominations far in excess of what some wags on the fringes of the union were predicting. However the kind of meetings where nominations are discussed are notoriously small and easily swayed or dominated by organised supporters of candidates where they exist. This process would have been similar in all the other nominating branches.
It shows there is still a base for the Socialist Party in PCS despite the departure of the bulk of it's well known and highly experienced members for the Socialist View camp in their recent series of splits. Marion may also pick up a good personal vote as despite her politics is a quite amiable individual.
One of her supporters claimed that she "offered something different" but this is where propaganda and reality part company. The major rupture between the Serwotka camp and the Socialist Party occurred over the formers desire to rid himself of his deputy Chris Baugh. Whilst Serwotka didn't get the replacement he backed (the Independent Left candidate John Moloney got elected) Baugh did lose his position.
Political differences had developed over the desire of Serwotka to orientate, even affiliate PCS to the Labour Party to support Corbyn whilst the Socialist Party opposed such a move due to their sectarian party building nature. Serwotka had previously backed the SP's Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition (TUSC) which has disappeared even further into irrelevance.
For most of the last two decades Serwotka and the Socialist Party had worked hand in hand on the direction of the union, the SP becoming ensconced in the overpaid PCS bureaucracy. Of course that twenty years has seen the decline of the union in both numbers and influence as it's activists substituted themselves for the members dumping that old fashioned democratic idea of PCS being a representative union.
One of the big promises the left candidates make is that they will only take "the average wage" rather than the huge salary PCS pays. Serowtka made a few donations a couple of decades ago but hasn't paid back a penny since then (check the accounts), Baugh never did. Putting these loud mouthed lefties to shame is John Moloney who not only is "only taking the average wage (of an EO) for his troubles but is publishing the evidence to prove it.
Good for him. Money where his mouth is, more than can be said for Sir Mark Vodka and Chris Baugh who have never kept their word.
The members now face a three way battle for the leadership of their union. More of the same from Serwotka. More of the same but not really from Marion Lloyd and something actually different albeit still left-wing from Bev Laidlaw.
If members want to shake up their union then Bev would be their best choice. Neither Serwotka not Marion have anything to offer members except more of the last twenty years.
Go to: Bev4gs.com
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