The Popular Front for the Liberation of the C.P.S.A

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…

And the last few weeks certainly have been. Christmas started early in the dug-outs buoyed up by the big pensions push that sent the Cameron government reeling and the expectation of greater things to come. PCS was now no longer in the cold. The leadership was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the biggies in the TUC in defence of pension rights and a protracted campaign to force the Coalition to change course. Or so it seemed…

On 30th November over two million public sector workers from over 20 unions came out making it the biggest strike in British labour history. Though Let's Work Together failed to get into the charts the TUC 's national pensions strike rocked the Government. Though the predicted chaos at airports didn't happen the teachers' action shut down most schools throughout the UK while there was clearly a higher than average turn-out amongst PCS members and other public and local government workers involved in the pensions campaign.

At the beginning of December PCS began pushing the TUC to fix another day of action to keep up momentum. But optimism faded within days following reports that Prospect, FDA, Unison and the TUC were now prepared to consider a revised Government “offer” which puts no new money on the table but merely juggles the figures to provide some sweeteners for those with plenty of seniority.

This was confirmed by a grandee statement issued just before Christmas which said:

“At the TUC 's Public Sector Liaison Group Mark Serwotka on behalf of PCS argued the TUC should set the date for a further day of nationally coordinated strike action to bring the government into serious negotiations. Although there was some support for this position the TUC general secretary Brendan Barber argued that all the unions should sign up to a so-called “Heads of Agreement”, this means the core issues, on which we took action, working longer, paying more and getting less, are surrendered, just as the government have wanted. Dave Prentis, the general secretary of Unison, argued for acceptance of this “deal”.

The grandee response has been to call a rank-and-file one-day conference on 7 th January in London to maintain a united front amongst public sector unions and put pressure on the white-flag merchants to back down. But it's predominantly a PCS affair with a top table of MARK SERWOTKA, JOHN MCDONNELL MP; KEVIN COURTNEY NUT DGS (personal capacity); ROGER BANNISTER Unison NEC (personal capacity); MARK CAMPBELL UCU NEC (personal capacity); our own ZITA HOLBOURNE (this time representing Black Activists Rising Against Cuts) and KEVIN DONNELLY Unite United Left – all predictably chaired by JANICE GODRICH.

4TM's response has been muted – consisting largely of random musings of HOWARD FULLER (usually about Israel) and wild rumours of PCS isolation and divisions within the Big Tent. Well there's nothing new in that. But the differences between LUNITY and the PCS Democrats on the pensions campaign largely revolve around tactics.

The COMMISSARS who were once a major factional force in CPSA and the high-caste “Society” still retain some authority within the Democrats. “Unity must be maintained if we're to win” says CPB national chair BILL GREENSHIELDS in a keynote article in the BORING STAR this week. GREENSHIELDS, himself a retired teacher, doesn't knock the November push but adds: “But to win on pensions we need a clear strategy that goes well beyond one-day strikes and demonstrations, important as these are. No union leadership could possibly have believed at the beginning of the dispute that one or two-day strikes would defeat the government attacks”.

If anything GREENSHIELDS goes further than our grandees in stating that:

“The public-sector unions need now to build on the great success of the action so far and agree a united strategy for winning, including co-ordinated rolling strikes across sectors and regions, targeted indefinite action by key workers whose work is directly essential to the state machine and the development of co-ordinated action with workers in the private sector on their own issues of dispute with their employers of which there are many”.

However he doesn't explain how this “united strategy” is going to come about given the reticence, even amongst the so-called “awkward squad”, on the General Council of the TUC . Not only that, he assumes that everyone in the campaign is still on board. It's difficult to imagine the prospect of PCS and a small handful of lesser unions pulling this off. The one day strike on June 30 th produced no response from the government, but it kick started the mass revolt which did produce crumbs which many of the unions will (eventually) accept. Although individual MPs supported the action on N30, not a single Westminster political party did.

Pensions, pension, pensions…that's all they talk about at Chateau Falconcrest these days but it's “their” pensions and “their” career trajectory that pre-occupies the old regime. Full-timers are bleating about it as they contemplate a future of dead-end jobs, and strikes that most of them are so ill-equipped to organise.

Look at 30 th November. Did the Falconcrest GMB full-time officers branch organise a whipround of PCS staff to help pay for a hardship fund on the day of action? No. Did they open up the local offices for tea, coffee, toilet access and use of the photocopiers? No. No. No and No. Was Falconcrest open for access to ALL members as a support base? You know the answer.

They did supply banners. They did supply placards...and where were these on TV? Drowned out by sodding UNISON's balloons, by idiots not on message as to why they were losing a days pay and pension...because useless officials couldn't get a ‘when talking to the press, here are the main points to put across' crib sheet put together in time.

Nobody had the wit, the nous to do that, maybe that's because we are a ‘member led union' and the fat cats in the ‘crest wanted US to do that...

Now all are praying for another merger that would free them from grandee domination and secure their careers and immense salaries for the foreseeable future and that merger is with UNITE.

The COMMISSARS are in favour and MAREK himself is said to be looking to slip the grandee leash in exchange for the bigger arena. Unite certainly is big. It is the giant that provides the Labour Party with a quarter of its funds from affiliates from its 1.25 million members, 250,000 of them working in the public sector. This year it signed an agreement with PCS to work together in defending jobs and developing a common alternative programme. Unite General Secretary LEN MCCLUSKEY retires in four years time and the union's ruling broad left faction would be happy to endorse our great and glorious leader as part of a merger deal.

Whether the grandees would is another matter altogether. The grandees' Socialist Party is a major player in the United Left faction that dominates Unite. But being just another cog in the Unite machine is not on the agenda at the moment – a least of all with SERWOTKA at the helm. When LEON BOFF's got the job maybe…

Meanwhile the titanic struggle to boot out JANE AITCHISON continues as the grandees step up the denigration of their former comrade and her hapless partner ROB WILLIAMS. Most of it is up on the INDIE and none of it's worth repeating except to note that if true it's remarkable that they put up with her for so long.

There's no doubt about the outcome. Mme AITCHISON will get the votes of her friends and those SOCIALIST WANKERS who think they've got nothing to lose. FRAN HEATHCOTE will win. WILLIAMS, being utterly useless, has no friends now he has been cast adrift from the SP raft and will sink without trace as others before him.

And perhaps in the wake of the bitter vitriol accompanying the fallout in the DWP between the SP and the WILLIAMS', DAVE BEAN has been trying to exact his own version of Stalinism on the dissenting voices in his own ranks. Bit of back story first.

MARGI RATHBONE, leading light of the surprisingly large COMMISSAR run Unity group in HMRC has decided that enough is enough and has upped and left LUNITY, with the intention of standing for the to-be-vacant Deputy Group Secretary post next year. This is like a super- AGS , the lead negotiating role in the R&C group and has been the prized possession of LU for a few years now, though its incumbents haven't really delivered anything to show for it.

The LUNITY candidate who was expecting a clear run, as the non-LU people in HMRC haven't bothered to even try in the past, is our old friend HECTOR WESLEY. HECTOR has been sitting in Falconcrest five days a week all year, admirably not letting a minor detail like not being on the GEC stop him. And without any actual duties he's been able to spend his time using members subs to ring branches up and down the country securing nominations.

HECTOR'S last spell on the GEC was as lead negotiator for Debt Management in HMRC. Despite this being one of the smallest areas of responsibility, during his time the Department introduced wholesale privatisation by allowing private Debt Collection Agencies to take over £3bn of work and used sickness absence measures so draconian that they had to draw back when HMRC introduced the new measures that HMRC members are currently striking about.

The punishment that MR BEAN is trying to exact upon Ms RATHBONE? Making her move from her normal seat at the GEC because she is now "on the right"! DAVE even had it as an agenda item for the last of LU's caucus meetings. No gulags for MR BEAN, just different furniture.

It was a sombre Christmas at FALCONCREST, Gone are the grandees of yesteryear who loved our gay colleagues for the colour that they brought to the festivities...gone are they that imbibed their GMB union dues in weight for payback at the free bar that we PCS members bought.

There was no mention of the names that have slipped quietly into the night in 2011, no mention of those whose silence was bought by Voluntary Severance and Early Retirement (VSER). OK, the clown prince JIM HANSON still gets the gentle sniggers that the free G'n'T brings. JIM bleated about being ousted because of his politics, and he was. But there are plenty of drunken idiotic Socialist Party members who owe their continuance to the ‘slate' that HANSON was not on. Instead he was kept around long enough until the ‘slate' could give him the bums rush he richly deserved. JIM still got plenty of cash to keep Paddy Power and the breweries solvent through the recession.

But what of the others that brought Tribunals against our great union? What of them? There is no mention of the cost to you and me in early pension payments (at terms you and I will never see) or of compensation payments. Just how many Compromise Agreements has NIGEL PIERCE signed off on? How much cash has the PIEMAN frittered away to ensure that these full-timers go quietly? I hear that six went at a cost of over half a million pounds this year alone.

Meanwhile back at the party the musical chairs continues. We were once a Learning Union, then, we weren't. Then we were an Organising Union, then VENUS went and then there was silence for a long while…

Now we are a “campaigning union”. Oh yes we are, we are a campaigning union with might on our side. As in LABOUR might weigh in on our side or even the Lib-Dems. But now the LIBERALS have a taste of power they are too scared to argue against the TORIES…and the TORIES see us as the Dark Side: a vast organised power base that needs taking down.

Anybody who is anybody in organising has slipped anchor and found a new berth between the safer warmer rocks that is Campaigning. Those learning folks are changing too, there are fewer people in Learning now that that those people who actually wrote course courses, taught courses and maybe even believed that training union reps was the right thing to do have gone missing...where did they go?

Those rats left are running hither and thither. The learning ship is sunk but that doesn't stop them trying to escape their inevitable drowning. Witness the shifting of staff into safer jobs, sorry, ‘temporary development opportunities'.

This is ignored by PCS 's GMB branch because generally these rats are GMB members. They see “Learning and Organising” as yesterday's union. Now the revolution is in “Campaigning”.

So, GMB@ PCS routinely ignore staff moving from temporary jobs to permanent staff as “temporary development opportunities” because these are GMB@ PCS branch officers....because they have the right politics, because they are in they can do what they want. There are no interviews, no selection panels, just a nod, a wink and they get the permanent job.

How many GMB@ PCS branch officers are in ‘temporary' posts and how long have they been in them? I hear one has been a temp now for two years, another for three and there are more in post six months plus – the supposed trigger point for PIEMAN to open up the job to ALL applicants...it does not happen.

Just look around the ‘newer appointments' made in 2011. Look for the empty chairs filled by temp staff that are then quickly vacated when they realise ‘work is involved' and look for the shifting of PCS values — we no longer support this, we want YOU (members) to do the work, we want YOU to strike, work to rule, do walk outs and PCS ? PCS will be supporting you all the way. Naturally...

The Senior Management Team will make sure that happens. Of course they will. But what does the SMT do? The only female SMT member has sat quietly through her organising and learning role being diminished, her staff team departing her management. Does she care? Nope, she's got her 400-plus Facebook friends to keep her day busy.

Another SMT likes to think of himself as the PCS enforcer. He is, of course, a diminutive figure who outside the workplace once, late one night, immediately gave a ‘mugger' his watch, cash and phone when asked for a fag outside of the poorly lit Birmingham office. The ‘mugger' did not argue the free gifts, but told and spent all later in the local ‘spoons aka the BRIAR ROSE, while all round pissed themselves laughing…needless to say the Falconcrest staff Christmas party was quieter this year.

In politics stupidity is not a handicap
Napoleon Bonaparte
1769 - 1821

On other pages
By Barrabas

Kim Jong-un denies "improper relationship" with Adam Werritty

As preparations continue for his succession to power, Kim Jong-un has had to move to deny any wrong doing following revelations his good friend Adam Werritty has been passing himself off as his close aid. Adam Werritty's misdemeanour has been 'outed' after he handed a business card to a reporter stating his role as 'Advisor to the Great Successor'.

Mr Werritty had been in the limelight in the UK recently after his relationship with Dr Liam Fox, the then defence secretary, was brought into question. However this latest development shows he may have been moonlighting with more than one person in power. ‘The similarities of Mr Werritty's relationship with Kim Jong-un are striking' a reporter in nearby Seoul told us. ‘And even though there is a lack of foreign trips with the Korean, they still book a hotel room in Pyongyang to share.'

Dr Fox is said to ‘distraught' by the news. ‘He told me he was mine. He said I was the only politician for him. He said he loved me' Dr Fox told Police negotiators from the top of a multi-storey car park in North Somerset. A friend of Dr Fox told us that his main concern was for Kim Jong-un. ‘Mr Werritty has a proven track record of ruining a man's Korea'

It is rumoured that following the end of his ‘relationship' with Dr Fox, Mr Werritty briefly moved to Italy to take up the made up job of ‘Advisor to Silvio Berlusconi' but found the former Italian leader to ‘masculine'. He told those close to him at the time that he was ‘not looking for a ladies' man, more a lady-boy'. This was when he moved to North Korea.

We tried to contact Kim Jong-un for comment but were told by his Head of Public Relations that he was too busy to answer our questions. In an itinerary that sounded unbelievable we were told ‘The Great Successor is currently lifting elephants above his head, followed by a session of shooting each star of the U.S flag left on the moon, then he would complete his day by eating a salad'. When we queried the truthfulness of these ridiculous claims with his Head of PR, the response ‘would I lie to you?' was all that came from Mr Coulson.
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New Year fireworks coverage to feature subtitles for hard of hearing

The BBC have confirmed today that any televised coverage of fireworks displays during New Year celebrations will include subtitles for the hearing-impaired. The move comes after the broadcaster received a raft of complaints from deaf viewers, claiming that they couldn't fully enjoy the November 5th displays while unaware of the sounds the rockets were making.

Coverage of New Year displays will now include text along the bottom of the screen, with commentary such as 'Whoosh! Bang! Bangbangbangbangbangbang!' so that deaf viewers can enjoy the spectacular events every bit as much as their fully hearing-able counterparts. Plans along the same lines from the company arranging the New Year's eve show in Hyde Park, to implement live sign language translations, hit a snag when there were arguments over the correct sign for 'Fsssssssst!'.

Malcolm Shore performed the sign language for a trial firework display. 'We didn't want the public to notice the trial so we performed it in Kensington, where everyone is too cynical to look up. Malcolm was a whirling mass of visual information, he was doing really well until two Catherine wheels were lit simultaneously. Such frantic attempts to repeatedly sign 'eeeeeee', combined with an acrylic Christmas jumper, inevitably led to a fire.'

Malcolm apologized later for using quite so many expletives as he tried to sign for help. But deaf viewers agreed he'd put on a smashing display. 'I spent more time watching Malcolm than the actual fireworks. I didn't think it possible to extinguish fire with the sign for water, but Malcolm went out of his way to keep us informed. He really put himself out.'

The organisers are refusing to let the setback get them down, and still believe that the main event will go with a bang. 'We've had some problems in the trials admittedly, but we're confident we can get them ironed out in time for the big one. And our audio descriptions for blind customers has been going very well in warm up shows.'

Not everybody has been convinced by the audio descriptions however, with one customer particularly unimpressed by the commentary of, 'Ok the rocket's gone up, really high. It's exploded, red sparks everywhere, now green, now blue, purple, now back to red again. One has fallen over and is pointing into the crowd. People are starting to panic. And your dog has just shit itself.'
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Unseasonably warm weather blamed for man’s outbreak of face-apples

A man with a full crop of face apples has blamed ‘an unseasonably warm December’. 35 year-old Derek Grantham has never fruited before, and biologists believe it is yet more evidence that changes to our climate can confuse Mother Nature.

“I thought it odd that my lawn still needed mowing in November”, confirmed Grantham. “Normally I can safely put the lawnmower away in October, just after we’ve pruned back the cat. But we've been collecting berries from our rabbits as late as last week, and I’m already digging up tortoises that are sprouting.”

Grantham is ashamed to go out in public with his face covered in pomaceous fruit, particularly as a lot of the apples have bad skin. “Some of the smaller apples are especially embarrassing”, admitted the moderately wealthy source of Vitamin C. “From below, they look a bit like dogs’ bottoms. The man at the garden centre said the stress of fruiting too early can cause health problems, he's painted grease round my knees, to reduce the risk of canker."

Grantham’s wife is trying to be supportive of her husband, but admitted she prefers a banana. “I enjoyed it when he was in blossom, the scent more or less made up for the bees and it’s nice having a husband who counts as one of my five a day. But I’m not completely sure he’s innocent in all this. My mum swears she caught him self-pollinating in the greenhouse, the dirty little sod.”

Fortunately, help is available for sufferers of male pippin boldness. “I’ve joined a support group where we can discuss our fears, work through our self-esteem issues and exchange recipes”, said Grantham. “Last week we went on a field trip together, it was liberating to stand in neat rows, sunning our coxes. The organiser didn’t even charge us, although he did let some Romanians give us a bit of a shake and pick up the fallers. He’s always wanted an orchard.”

Grantham hopes that he will eventually learn to adapt to warmer winters, and is receiving expert help. “There’s a range of treatments available. Some people have been wrapped in newspaper and stored in sheds until the Spring, or treated with a range of creams, poultices and custard", explained the heavy cropper, but Grantham is trying something more radical. "Doctors are planning to repot me, so I only produce chest fruit in future. It's too early to say if it'll be successful, but I look forward to the day when I can hide these beauties away from prying scrumpers. The surgeon hopes he can bud this in the nips."
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Finally...

The Alliteration Association of Aldershot have today announced they are to disband following a poor uptake in membership. The announcement shows the dwindling support for language based groups, as it comes just weeks after the closure of 'Fan's of: Poor Punctuation,'.

Founder of the group, Mr Malcolm McMillan, told us 'people ponder the pointlessness of a person's passion for pinpointing particular patterns and peculiarities in speech. For friends of finding funny functions for phonics, this is the thing that they thought therapeutic. Unfortunately, since someone suggested we started sharing silly stories on Saturdays, our membership, made up mainly of middle-aged men fell flat on it's face with figures falling from forty to fuck all.'

When asked what he now planned to do with his spare time, he told us that he would not give up on his passion for language and would start a group dedicated to limericks. 'I think it's OK, to spend your day, trying to talk in limerick. I've accepted in life, I won't get a wife, 'cos women think I'm a ........ OK, may have to rethink that one'