Civil Service pay danger

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Unless a principled leadership emerges shortly in the two main Civil Service unions, the pay struggle for 1980 will turn into a charade of posturing from the union leaders and a shameful sell-out.

At a badly-publicised and poorly-attended meeting of members of CPSA and SCPS in Leeds in January as part of a national series of meetings, Stalinist Peter Palmer of the SCPS executive spoke uninspiringly of the present and future cuts in public services and in the civil service.

He then proceeded to recite the claims of between 20-25% for which his union is supposed to De taste of one readine enti 1285 one telephone bill!

The CPSA speaker detailed his hopes for the clerical grades in the light of the union's assessment of PRU findings.

Perceptive listeners who pointed out the disparity between the hoped-for rises of £10 per week for the lowest grades and £2,000 per year for the top executives and suggested that flat-rate increases would help to unite both unions in a common struggle were given short shrift as the leaders of both unions refused to be moved from their adherence to the fraudulent Pay Research method of bargaining.

Manipulation

Even when it was pointed out how Pay Research rides on the backs of unions who actually fight for their increases, and is open to manipulation and distortion from the government to prevent civil servants' pay keeping pace with inflation, the leadership proved itself determined not to break from the And this at a time when the cost of housing, fuel and transport alone are outstripping the proposed increases!

, Such was the despondency engengered by this spectacle that the few left at the end of the meeting did not even feel themselves capable of pledging themselves to a fight against the government's proposed cash limits of 14%.

Unless the call is raised immediately for flat-rate increases across the board that are protected from inflation by index linking to a working class cost of living index, civil servants will continue to be led down the blind alley of Pay Research.

Yes. I'd already been unemployed for two years before applying as a 'spark' at Vospers in 1972. Management were opposed, and it took industrial action by the electricians to get me in.

Since then I've been a steward in the EETPU, fighting the employer and their stooges within our union.

Last year, Vospers tried to force through acceptance of a sophisticated Value Added Bonus' scheme, a productivity scheme. The company spent over £100,000 in lost production in hiring a cinema, coaches, eic. so as to nold a meeting of the workforce which was jointly chaired by management and unions.

I'd spent £8 on printing leaflets opposing this deal, instead calling for a 30 hour week, doublé paid overtime, total rejection of closures and demands for workers' control of the company.

My yard, Vospers (Woolston) voted it out, 1002 against 763. Next day 1 was Socialist Press interviews "Ginger' Pearse, a recently victimised shop steward from Vosper S.R. in Southampton.

Did the electricians strike in your support?

No. The electricians' shop stewards decided unanimously on immediate strike action if I was not reinstated and called a mass meeting of 'sparks'.

Area official Scanlon EETPU) started his speech by saying "Brother Pearse has been blatantly victimised".

But he then spoke against any strike action: "It's hopeless. The fight will be long and hard. There will be no official recognition. What about your families." He finished off with now been forced in, and I know that the second payout, for productivity, was sweet FA, nothing, zero!

Added to this the bosses have viciously announced they intend sacking up to 400 workers in the next few months! These are the fruits of Do you view your sacking as having any parallel with Derek Robinson's victimisation at Longbridge?

Yes, of course. The similarities between Robinson's case and mine are obvious. Both British Leyland and British Shipbuilders are 'nationalised' and both are facing some of the most savage attacks by Thatcher and her 'gang of 14' Workers face "speed-up', , and massive redundancies in both. This will lead to total closures of shipyards and BL plants.

We must oppose all redundancies and demand a real cut in the working week, occupations instead of closures, for full workers' control.

This is the political difference between Trotskyists, workers like myself trying to act as Trotskyists and Stalinists like Robinson, who supported witch-hunts of militants at BL and in doing so paved the way