Back Chris Baugh for PCS Assistant General Secretary

Dave Semple, PCS Scotland Chair and NEC member (personal capacity) 

Chris Baugh, three-time elected Assistant General Secretary (AGS) of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, is a principled socialist whose track record of fighting for our members is clear.

Chris joined the civil service in the 1970s at a time when the main union, CPSA, was run by the so-called “Moderates”. The Moderates were excellent when it came to collaborating with the government to victimise union reps who wanted to resist cuts. Cabinet papers released from the Thatcher years show just how far these collaborators were prepared to go. From the 1970s onwards, Chris Baugh was one of those leading the battle against them, for a fighting, democratic union.

The legacy of this successful battle is the PCS we know today, where the successor to CPSA Broad Left, now known as PCS Left Unity, has won the union’s annual elections for more than 15 years on a platform of fighting for pensions, pay, jobs and services, and opposing all cuts – whether Tory, Lib-Dem or Labour.

Famously, Chris was publicly vilified by Murdoch’s Sun newspaper as one of the “dirty half-dozen” in the 1980s because he was part of an elected National Executive Committee that attempted to stop the union’s General Secretary from spending huge amounts of money on himself, rather than on campaigns to defend reps and members under attack by the Thatcher government. Chris was the elected group president of the Land Registry in PCS up until his election as AGS in 2004.

Chris’ key role

As the incumbent AGS, Chris has been a key part of the union’s National Executive Committee at a time when the union achieved a magnificent 86% Yes vote in this year’s strike ballot against the pay cap – with action only being prevented by the Tory government’s anti-union laws. He has been in charge of bargaining that won a collective agreement to ensure Apprentices cannot be used to undermine civil service terms and conditions. He has been deeply involved with the fight to protect our redundancy rights through the Civil Service Compensation Scheme.

Ordinarily, Chris’ re-election would be a matter of course. He has been a stalwart of Left Unity, which unites socialists in the civil service under one anti-austerity banner, since its foundation. However, since late 2017, Mark Serwotka, the current General Secretary of the PCS, has embarked on a whispering campaign against Chris. On the basis of his personal inability to get along with Chris, Mark presented an ultimatum to the Socialist Party, of which Chris is a member. Either we cease supporting Chris or Mark would back a rival candidate.

The tradition of LU is that any political and industrial differences be debated – but Mark has not raised any political or industrial differences with the Socialist Party or with Chris. Ultimatums and whispering campaigns are not a form of democratic debate however.

Since January, Mark Serwotka has systematically invited senior reps across the union to meetings to hear allegations against Chris, without Chris having a right of reply.

To date, Mark and his chosen candidate to replace Chris as AGS, Janice Godrich, have not published their allegations – which would never stand up to scrutiny – and to date they have refused to engage in a public debate about their criticisms. These are not the methods of democratic socialists.

Political differences

In the absence of any serious allegations of wrongdoing on the part of Chris, the Socialist Party has been forced to assume that Mark’s reasons for proceeding in this manner stem from his political and industrial differences with us, and with many in PCS Left Unity.

A useful example of differences over what the union is fighting for and how we fight for it is the question of Labour in Scotland. Particularly during the Blair and Brown governments, civil servants faced ferocious attack by Labour. Ed Miliband signed up to the pay cuts that have seen lower paid civil servants forced to rely on foodbanks.

The victory of Jeremy Corbyn in 2015, and his manifesto at the 2017 general election, were broadly welcomed by millions of workers, and by the Socialist Party. However, we have not become cheerleaders for Corbyn, who has been reluctant to take on the Blairite wing of his own party, who has left Labour councils to continue implementing austerity and who is not clear on the idea of a second referendum on independence in Scotland.

Mark Serwotka’s approach has been to argue for affiliation to Momentum, a faction within the Labour Party, to support PCS giving backing to pro-austerity Labour MPs – including those who participated in the coup against Corbyn – and to simply ignore Labour’s indifference to a second referendum on Scottish independence, which hundreds of thousands of workers seized on as a way to escape the attacks emanating from Westminster.

Telling PCS members in Scotland to vote for Labour MPs, including those who are part of the organised opposition to Corbyn, or else bear the blame for a further Tory government is likely to alienate thousands of PCS members from their union.

Our view is that Chris Baugh’s only crime has been to highlight these differences and to dispute them with Mark. It is inevitable and healthy that debate takes place. Unfortunately, the fact that Mark Serwotka appears to find raising such issues unacceptable is a retreat from the best traditions of Left Unity, which has always encouraged open, democratic discussion.

We do not accept that the ‘personal’ behaviour of Chris Baugh is responsible for the current situation. Not one concrete allegation about his behaviour has been made within LU or on the PCS NEC. In reality, this conflict is a reflection of a certain tiredness after a difficult period, and the beginning of a worrying trend towards the undermining of lay democracy within the union.

Why has that manifested itself in opposition to one individual, Chris Baugh? Firstly, as the only other elected full-time official, it has naturally occurred that those who have come into conflict with unelected full-time officials acting in Mark Serwotka’s name look to Chris for assistance. Secondly, because of his membership of the Socialist Party.

Of course, there are numerous good left activists in PCS who are not members or supporters of the Socialist Party, many of whom support Chris for AGS. And, unfortunately, Janice Godrich agreed to be Mark Serwotka’s preferred candidate to replace Chris despite being a member of the Socialist Party. Nonetheless, being part of a Marxist party – with a programme for the transformation of the union movement, and of society – has aided Chris and others in standing firm under considerable pressure.

Clear ideas

Not for nothing did MI5’s Subversion in Public Life organisation – for monitoring ‘extremists’ in the 1980s – consider us the “most threatening Trotskyist group in Britain” in the civil service. It said our “greatest strengths” were our clarity of ideas and “the dedication of its members” to fighting for the interests of the working class.

We call upon all rank-and-file PCS members to support Chris Baugh and the Socialist Party’s well-tested methods of building open, democratic, fighting broad lefts as a lever to transform the trade union movement. This discussion has relevance not just for PCS members but for every trade unionist and worker.