The need for a new leadership

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volvement of the DHSS/ reginnal nav. mani For more details, contact: SOCIALIST PRESS, BM Box 5277, nted by East End Offset (T! 'THE national leaders in ur pay campaign have hown a complete mixure of incompetence and aivety" , declared one ank and file union memers on an Oxford tax ffice picket line last reek. "More than that" "addi another, "they have een trying to sell us out id the only reason they ive not succeeded is ¡at Thatcher won't give lem room to do it"' would scarcely be issible to make a clear: assessment of the leadship's role from the day st October when the ›ries broke the civil rvice pay agreement the day last week when ey totally 'mishandled' e consultation with the embership on whether go for an all-out strike. moonies find fra merely as fuel for moral indignation. The whole orientation of the union bureaucracy was to keep the question of pay separate from the other big issues affecting civil serviced workers, issues such as the cuts, new technology. and victimisations.

The effect was to allow a political onslaught by the government to gather momentum while the union leaders were desperately trying to turn the clock back by deploring the 'intrusion' of politics into civil service industrial relations.

They even complained publicly that Thatcher was acting just as the Trotskyists in the unions said she would, and that her tactics were playing into the hands of the 'reds' This failuré to understand the nature of the Tory government was the fundamental failing from which sprang a series of tactical mistakes both before and after the campaign began March 9th.

The decision by the leadership to stick by the PRU and ignore the fact that it was a corpse was one such blunder. They were able to hold onto this position in the CPSA only by the narrowIn addition, the claim of 15% with a £10 underpinning had only just been launched when Kate Losinska, right-wing president of CPSA and chairperson of the COCSU, went on TV to reveal that offer in the region of 9 per cent. wing assumed that a more intensive version of the tactics that had been used against the Labour government in 1979 would be sufficient against Thatcher in 1981.

However, selective action against a Labour government reeling from the wages offensive of the working class in 1979, and with an election imminent, is very different from selective action against the determination and confident class programme of a Tory government not half way through its term of office.

Despite this the union leaders maintain a desperate adherence to the selective action policy, right into the 12th week. The CPSA leadership, for instance, went into the union's Annual Conference without even a recommendation of any kind on the pay campaign. As a result of the mauling they took there, and the continued unwillingness of the Tories to up the 7% offer by even a half per cent, the CPSA lurched to a position of recommending all-out: strike with just one membership circular to argue the position, after weeks of official propaganda had boosted the merits of the selective action.

At the same Ken Thomas calation of the campaign was presented as an option, with acceptance of the 7% as a third possibility. This was done despite the fact that the levy to support the strikers on 85% pay was known to be in dire trouble, and that it would have to be increased eight-fold.

This resulted in the confusion which lead to a strong 'all-out' vote being weakened by a substantial vote for acceptance, and about a third voting for the unrealistic continuation of the selective action policy.

In addition to these points other more sinister manoeuvres have been carried out by the likes of Alistair Graham, would-be heir-apparent to CPSA General Secretary Ken Thomas.

Graham saw the involvement of the DHSS/ DE section in the escalated action as an opportunity to isolate and witchhunt the Broad Left leadership in these sections.

This is why the whole question of the leadership is so central, and why the lessons must be drawn at each stage.

If it were only a question of the 1981 pay award, it would be important enough. But at stake in this campaign is also the future mechanism of pay dealing, the fight against the cuts, the battle over new technology, resisting victimisation arising out of the strike, and a whole list of Tory proposals like Led t regional pay, merit payments, and re-grading.

This is also why the victory won at CPSA conference on the election of senior full-time officials is such a breakthrough in the fight to establish a democratic and accountable leadership. The conditions for overthrowing the present leaders in the main civil service unions are clearly ripening.

The membership is rapidly learning that only a politically, strong and well armed leadership is capable of defeating the Tories, and that only socialist policies can defend our living standards and win improvements.

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the union leaders might be willing to accept an

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