We watched with interest the video by Martin Cavanagh, the Deputy President, on behalf of Fran Heathcote and Paul O’Connor, respectively Left Unity’s candidates for General Secretary and Assistant General Secretary.

Martin claims that Fran and Paul devised the strategy that forced the government to give members more money; he forgets the strategy delivered in fact the lowest pay increases in the entire public sector. So he is boasting about a strategy that achieved a fall in living standards!

In any case, the main plank of that strategy, the use of selective action, is not Fran’s or Paul’s ideas, nor that of Mark Serwotka either. The idea comes from the Independent Left.

Until the latest dispute, the standard tactic pursued by the Left Unity leadership, a term that encompasses the General Secretary, Fran Heathcote and Paul O’Connor, was a one or two day strike, followed by months of inactivity, with maybe a further day of action. This was then followed by either silence and no formal ending of the dispute (it just faded away and in in true 1984 fashion was then forgotten) or a claimed victory (which there never was) that justified the ending of action… does this sound familiar?

Our critique was that such tactics were doomed to failure as they did not bring enough pressure onto the employer and therefore we suggested that in between general ‘all members’ action that there be selective strikes.

It followed, we said, that you therefore needed to greatly increase the size of the strike fund, not during a dispute, but long before. We have been arguing for a levy for 23 years – if we had one, we would have a substantial war chest to support much more considerable selective action.

Our critique and solution was denounced by Left Unity at the time on the basis it showed ‘a lack of faith in the membership’ and ‘you cannot buy your way to victory comrade’. Indeed!

Then of course, without warning, or acknowledging where the idea came from, Left Unity embraced selective action, though they called it targeted action in an attempt to hide the origins of the idea.

Although we should be flattered by this adoption, unfortunately for members, the idea was only taken on board in a one-sided way. We argued that all-members action was also important, and the union should seek to win members over to taking as much such action as could be sustained, with selective strike action being used where and when it is effective.

Anyway, back to Martin. He further claims that the strategy has forced the government to talk about pay cohesion (pay levels in the different departments being brought closer together) for the first time in over a quarter of a century!

We shall come back to that claim in a later posting as it is factually incorrect. No, what we want to discuss here is the claim that the union ‘desperately needs’ and members ‘desperately deserve’ Fran and Paul to win.

It is no slip of the tongue when Martin makes a distinction between the union and the members.

For Left Unity, the union is a source of jobs, prestige, status and is their ‘thing’. Members are therefore separate and distinct from the union. In fact we think LU believe that the members are there to serve the union.

This is not only clear from how the union treats members; they exist to be switched on as in the recent strikes and turned off when not needed – they don’t have any other function. That’s why the union leadership is so affronted when activists question their betters (as many have over the ballot wording) or seek to set up structures outside the official union ones or seek to ensure that existing structures such as town and regional committees actually are lively, democratic and think for themselves.

Marion Llyod and John Moloney, who are standing as candidates for GS and AGS take the opposite view. They want a union of challengers, people who are self activating, who push the union and question received wisdom. If that is a vision you share, then please nominate Marion and John and then vote for them in the election.