Alistair Darling: world beard champion 1978

The other night I was invited to a hustings debate by the PCS, the trade union for civil servants (e.g. passport office workers, jobcentre staff, tax collectors).

It’s a union with a fairly interesting recent history, as it’s gone from being quite conservative – more like a staff association – in the 60s and 70s, to now being one of the most active and militant unions in the UK, with a socialist General Secretary, Mark Serwotka. They were the guys who were on strike on Budget Day, with parliamentary staff forming picket lines outside Westminster and Holyrood.

Their members are really concerned about massive cuts taking place, potentially decimating wages, job security and pension rights, and massively reducing the quality of service for the public.

Chancellor Alistair Darling, who breezed past the budget day pickets – in complete defiance of the labour movement’s principle of never crossing a picket line – has already boasted “we will make cuts deeper than Thatcher’s”. And it’s not so long since Gordon Brown threatened to sack 104,000 of ‘em.

His plans (and the Tories’ AND the LibDems’) are to reduce public sector spending by 10-20% in the next few years. Now, considering that over 90% of public sector costs are human (i.e. on pensions, salaries, redindancy payments etc.), it’s clear that there are big disputes ahead – and we can guarantee that SSY will be with the workers, on the picket lines, against all cuts.

the workers united will never be defeated

So anyways, with all this in the background I was well looking forward to getting stuck into the Labour candidate over his party’s record of undermining redundancy payments and ruining good services. However, he had the cheek not to bother showing up or sending a substitute. For me, the chance to speak to PCS members was a privilege, apparently not so for him. There were many in the audience looking forward to grilling him as well. Perhaps he was running scared.

The debate was useful for getting to know the concerns of people in attendance, but also for showing how in practice the mainstream parties have little to offer the working class. People asking questions raised valid points, including:

• the consensus of Tories, New Labour and Liberals on the ‘need’ for cuts (we say there is no need btw)
• how ridiculous it is that the government sacks 20,000 tax collectors while the rich make tax avoidance of over £120 BILLION per year. Each collector bring in an average of  £650,000+ in extra tax revenue
• the failure of the current electoral system to provide proper representation of people’s views
• how ludicrous it is that the Government spends billions per year on consultants – who then consult that there’s no money for wage rises
• that anti-union legislation was introduced by Thatcher and maintained by Blair and Brown, violating workers’ human rights and limiting our ability to protect wur sels

The candidates’ responses to that last point was interesting. Fair play tae the Greens, they says they would repeal the ban on ’secondary action’ (when workers strike in solidarity with workers somewhere else). But both the SNP and LibDems were absolutely woeful. The two of them came out with some “I will look into it and if an issue arose I would listen to both sides” schtick.

Osama Saeed’s meek response was that he is “not an expert on the laws”, i.e. he didnae huv a scoobie. Funnily enough, he had plenty to say on the issue of consultants cos, as he admitted, he’s got a few mates in that game. Cheers Osama, a couple of folk have asked us why I’m standing ‘against’ the SNP in Glasgow Central. Well, you just gave us an excellent reason. Btw Osama, if you’re reading this, sending texts/checking your emails during a hustings smacks of arrogance and yes, people in the audience did notice.

Lib Dems: talking cack

The LibDem was even worse. He started babbling about how he had never studied trade union legislation when he was doing a law degree *yaaaaawwwwn* then admitted: “I honestly couldn’t give you an educated opinion”. His party are branding themselves as the new alternative to “those two old parties”. Quite clearly they are no alternative, they’re the same auld shite painted a different colour. Disnae matter whit colour ye paint a jobby, it still is wan.

TUSC were invited, despite not standing in the seat. That seemed a bit off, but their candidated Brian Smith (amusingly introduced as Brian Tusk) was gracious enough to encourage folk to vote SSP in Glasgow Central. Shame his party has just made the worst election broadcast in UK political history.

There was a wee Conservative there n all. Fair play to him for turning up, cos it was obvious pretty much from the start that everybody there hates the Tories and would rather use tampons made of nettles than vote Tory. He did cast a bit of light on it, when arguing against Proportional Representation, he admitted “being a Tory in Glasgow, I know what it’s like to be in a minority and for my vote to be wasted”. Lolz. I gave him a tanking for trying to claim the RMT leadership had been ‘railroading’ their members into strike action, which was shamefully banned by a judge recently. At one point I nearly shat when he said “I agree with James, politicians do need to start listening to trade unionists and protecting their rights”, but then he totally contradicted it wi some pish about protecting consumers n managers or something.

On the whole, the SSP message was well-received:  fighting against cuts and supporting wages rises for the workers. There were many nods and a lotta ppl going “uh-huh” when I made the point that in the early 20th century the trade union movement were sick of the Liberal Party taking them for granted and working hand-in-glove with the capitalists. A hundred years on, we have a similar situation with the need to build a new working class alternative, this time because Labour have sold out and conned us for too long.

The SSP is an important part of the process of rebuilding workers’ political representation and fighting to end the capitalist system: for workers rights, environmental protection and democratic socialism.

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PCS in Glasgow [photo: john lanigan

 Thirty thousand civil servants (people who work in places like the Scottish Parliament, job centres, courts and tax offices) are on strike in Scotland today.
The action is being taken by members of the PCS trade union, over changes to redundancy entitlement which mean that if staff lose their job, they could also lose up to a third of what they would’ve previously been paid as compensation. The government is hoping to save £500,000 through this scheme.
What makes this so important at the current time, is that both Labour and the Tories are intent on pushing through massive cuts in the public sector, including job losses  - and now they don’t even want workers taking redundancy to even get decent compensation!

Meanwhile at the Student Loans Company – where workers are also represented by the PCS union – management are looking to lay off around around 150 staff in Glasgow – 20% of the total workforce!
Now, if you’re a student, you’re probably already pretty familiar with the SLC – last year, the issuing of loans was left in chaos, with tens of thousands of students starting the year with no money whatsoever. And these are the loans that have to be paid back, with interest, remember – no student grants for us! Predictably enough, it soon emerged that at the same time as students weren’t receiving their loans, senior executives in the SLC were getting massive bonuses – in some cases, up to five figures. And now, the same management have unveiled their plan to slash nearly 200 jobs across the country, which will presumably make the whole loans thing be even more efficient this year than it was last year, while hundreds of workers are thrown onto the scrapheap at the same time. Logic!

Mairi Cranie, an SSY member who works at the SLC in Glasgow, explained: “The Student Loans Company is cutting almost 200 jobs, the majority of which are in Glasgow. Forty-five of these jobs are moving from Hillington to Darlington at no saving to the tax payer. This will impact families across the west of Scotland and the service for both current students and people in the process of repaying their loans.”

You can sign a petition against the cuts at the SLC here: http://www.gopetition.com/online/34078.html
The PCS strike continues tomorrow, so get down yr local picket line and offer them some support!