For members in PCS at least, the strike ballot was for jobs and pay as well as pensions. The Independent Left cannot understand why the union deliberately fails to mention these other dimensions to the dispute. Job insecurity and job loss has not lessened since the ballot result; indeed in many areas they have increased. We face a two year pay squeeze; this follows on from a two year pay freeze. The objective conditions for a pay campaign exist but that requires the union to launch one. We will keep reminding members that this is a pay, jobs and pensions dispute; the PCS leadership should be telling the entire membership the same thing.

Tesco was more than happy to back the government’s flagship policy – and of course get free labour. Things have changed, however. According to a report in the Guardian “Supermarket group Tesco said it has asked DWP officials to make the work experience scheme voluntary after thousands of angry customers wrote in and posted messages on Twitter and the company’s Facebook site accusing the multinational of profiting from hundreds of thousands of hours of forced unpaid work”.

In other words faced with growing public protest Tesco has changed its mind; of course if there had been no such protest then Tesco would have continued with the work programme. This shows yet again the importance of campaigning.

To read the Guardian article please go here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/feb/18/tesco-jobless-scheme-work-experience?newsfeed=true

The Mail on Sunday’s article can be read here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103252/Back-work-tsar-centre-fraud-probe-claims-funding-went-jobs-lasting-just-day.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Also check out a good blog concerning A4e called “Watching A4e”. Lots of useful information here, not only for activists in the DWP but for the wider movement. The blog is at: http://watchinga4e.blogspot.com/

The union argues that the government should have embarked on a valuation of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme to establish whether there was a problem with its viability and sustainability, before making changes.

The union has served a pre-action letter on the government Actuary’s Department, the Secretary of State for Education and HM Treasury, setting in train a claim for a judicial review. The basis of the legal action is that the NASUWT contends the Government had a statutory responsibility to conduct a valuation of the scheme.

The last valuation was conducted in 2006 and the union said regulations required a further valuation in a period not exceeding five years. Obviously the union must believe that a valuation would show that the teacher pension schemes were affordable etc .

If the union takes action it will be on top of the current legal case where a number of unions argue that change from RPI to CPI is unlawful.

http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/touchstone-incomes-tracker/

We welcome this news as it looked possible that the 30 November would be “the” pension dispute; one day and that would be it.

In PCS at least we must widen the dispute to include the three aims that members were balloted on. Beside pensions members were asked to support action around pay (or the lack of it) and jobs.

The union will be balloting members as to whether they will support further action and reject the pension deal (which should be out this week). Our main task is to get members to vote against this “deal” and for action.

Of course the question we have repeatedly posed, one that members will ask, is what next after the 28 March. As yet we have not seen any convincing answer to that question.

Having to wait some 4 months for the possibility of another one-day strike is bad enough. The first pension contributions rises are due to kick in this April, which will create a psychological barrier making the dispute more difficult. That is, if the leadership are not serious about the possibility of the type of action needed to win the dispute on pensions, with others if possible and on our own if need be.

The February 2^nd piece addressed the attitude thus far of our leadership towards selective action. Whatever has been said by NEC members or even Serwotka himself during this and other recent national disputes there is nothing to suggest that this has been given serious consideration, let alone been prepared.

By selective action we mean taking out key sections for short periods; long enough to hurt, short enough to prevent the employer setting up a mechanism to work around the action.  This tactic has worked. It was used several years ago in DEFRA. Using intelligent selective action plus all-out action they won three pay increases in one year!! If instead they had taken one day’s action, waited two or three months, and then took another day or even two days they would have lost.

Who could argue that a coordinated campaign targeting the passport offices, ports and airports would not have focused government attention on our demands and sent out a clear message to other unions that a real fight back- and a victory- could be had?

So why is the Union leadership reluctant to use a useful tactic?  A number of straw men have been erected in these debates over the years. Firstly that it is selective action vs. national action. We are arguing for national action plus selective action. It is not a case of one versus the other. Selective action helps the effectiveness of the national action and national action bolsters the impact of selective action. They are complimentary tactics.

Straw man 2. It will cost too much money. The leaders of the NEC have the memory of the screens dispute that they lead in the DWP firmly imprinted on their mind. By taking out individual DWP offices for months at a time, and without a proper judgement of their strategic position in the work process (the wrong form of selective action), they spent over £7 million.  However the error was not the decision to have selective action but the selective action that was called – in DEFRA selective action was crucial in driving up DEFRA pay rates, with three pay awards being won in a single year.

Instead of learning lessons from the DEFRA campaign, the NEC leadership will tend to counterpose its negative experience of calling selective action in the DWP to our proposal to call out strategically placed members in a “hit and run” campaign linked to national action and co-ordinated action where members have local disputes to prevent a sense of isolation.

We are not denying that selective action will cost money.  That is why we have argued for an all members’ levy.  If this suggestion had been taken up years back then we would be sitting on a war chest now. Even at this late stage PCS could generate vital funds by starting a levy.

Straw man 3 – who are these “magic” workers that we can take out  (and that they would be fighting everyone’s else battle for them)? In many Departments, such as the DfT, DWP, and HRMC, there are clearly areas that impact on the employer’s operations, finances, and political standing more than others. In many places there are already backlogs. A push there could knock the whole thing over.

That’s where politics comes in. The Independent Left is standing in the NEC and DWP elections. We believe that a real strategy is needed to win on pensions. This means evaluating tactics for their effectiveness, given the concrete circumstances. PCS also have some broad demands on pay and jobs which have not been addressed by the union in any meaningful way. By preparing a serious fight back on pensions, we can prepare the way for the battle that is needed  on pay and jobs and widen the struggle against the ConDems austerity programme. If you want a leadership that thinks as we do then please vote for us.

The 3rd – 5th February marked the seventh annual PCS Young Members Forum, a delegated event that although constitutionally an AGM for the Young Members Network, is effectively a training and networking event for young activists. I’ve been to the last four Forums now, and in and of itself it is positive, however, it is not a policy-making conference, and therefore despite it being considered in line with PCS’ Equality Strands, it has no way of defining its own policy, which is key to liberation campaigns.

As usual, the speakers were mostly either Socialist Party members or people from affiliated SP front groups like Youth Fight for Jobs. Refreshingly, one panel discussion on Youth Cuts did feature a school student from UK Uncut, and an NCAFC speaker was invited but unable to attend.

Much of the discussion focused on the pensions dispute, though no reference was made (except by myself) to the fact that all young staff are on the much worse ‘NUVOS’ pension scheme due to the settlement made by the SP and Left Unity led leadership in 2007, which sold out all new starters.

Interestingly, Chris Baugh (Assistant General Secretary and SP member) demonstrated what seems to be a change in direction for the SP with regards to further action. Their previous line was ‘maximum unity with other unions’, but he now says they are seriously considering rolling, selective and other types of action alongside joint strike days. There was mention of this being a change of tack, but it will be a welcome development if it is actually carried out.

There was considerable interest in turning this into a voting conference and it is important to discuss this idea further over the year in the Young Members Network. Liberation campaigns have to be autonomous in order to be fully democratic and representative.

Unfortunately Chris Keates, the NASUWT’s general secretary just says that the ballot mandate is still valid, and a further strike is not absolutely excluded. You can hear an interview
here: http://union-news.co.uk/2012/01/nasuwt-refuses-to-sign-scandalous-pensions-deal/

PCS’s spin on it was that the NASUWT would consider joining future walkouts. This is not being said.

More to the point the NASUWT didn’t attend the second meeting of the rejectionist’s union. They have made it clear, at least to the NUT, that they will not take part in a meeting outside the auspices of the TUC.

Whilst trying to build what alliances we can, in the end we have to plan for a situation where we are all alone and that we have to fight on alone or tell members that the current PCS leadership doesn’t believe we can or should fight on as a single union.