Cpsa - Swinging Back to Right Wing?

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many accounts the CPSA itional Executive Committee ictions currently being held oughout the 1,000-plus nches will give victory to the it wing.

Careful campaigning, with the stance of CPSA full-time cers, has increased the number votes cast in the Ministry of rence and Metropolitan Police inches, with the vast majority ing to the right.

And some branches that delivd strong left wing votes in 12 are swinging back in dramfashion to the right - partic ry branches vulnerable to icient targeting by the right ng machine.

However, if the left is defeatthen the major part of the me lies with the Broad Left C members themselves. At the de time as the elections, the lot on the NEC's call for allstrike from June 1 is being Ill returns show that the call reading for a massive defeat •i even traditionally militant left wing branches not voting action.

Central is the Broad Left's :re to develop real awareness ng the members on the issues ng the union, or to take up issues that members are conred about and develop cam"s around them. was! year, spontaneous strike on in Oxford and Birmingham me a serious struggle against cuts, with every chance of ng on the Tory government. the Broad Left NEC worked have the whole action downed and finished off, on the rective that the strike fund to be hoarded for the big Juny militants warned agains.

view at the time. Only by ing ahead on the DHSS i could members' morale and ridence be raised for action. over pay in 1983.

On other issues the Broad Left NEC has succumbed to the full time officers, with their powerful grip on the mechanics of the union and the lines of communication with the membership -through the union paper Red Tape, through membership circulars, and through the power of individual full-time officers to present the NEC view to branch activists.

In parallel, the NEC members have failed to use the Broad Left. or to build it to organise debate and campaigns on the issues that face the union. One exception is Nottingham Broad Left. where Socialist Caucus supporters have played the leading role!

In many cases local Broad Lefts have stagnated, if not declined.

IN A recent issue of Red Tape, the fortnightly journal of the Civil and Public Services Association, general secretary Alistair Graham made the comment: 'If you are a Jew, who votes Conservative, Liberal or SDP, hoping to marry a Catholic girlfriend, and you work in the Ministry of Defence, give our conference a miss, it will not be to your taste."

This was a reference to the fact that there are motions on the agenda for CPSA's 1983 Conference (commencing Monday May 9) which call for the union to affiliate to the Trade Union Friends of Palestine, the National Abortion Campaign, the Labour Party and CND.

Graham attempts to present the annual conference as having been 'hi-jacked' by left wing extremists.

He ignores the great number of motions on the agenda which deal with "bread and butter" issues and neglects to remind members that affiliation to CND elearly well-financed from outside the CPSA. in the same way that the legal action over the 1982 elections was financed, the Broad Left could only have fought back through a serious orientation to the rank and file. And that it lacked.

Now, as the pay vote goes against all-out strike and the election threatens the Broad Left majority. over 500 CPSA members in Liverpool DHSS have come out on spontaneous strike against the cuts. It shows that what is lacking is not membership militancy in general, but the ability of the Broad Left to organise and develop it.

The future must lie with the Broad Left orientating to the rank and file of CPSA and holding office on the basis of winning leadership of the union through struggle, not passive propaganda.

is already union policy. the right wing threatened to drag the union to court if the NEC tried to carry out last year's decision to affiliate!

Thus, conference this year must vote on a rule change that will allow us to affiliate 'legally' Also, the question of Labour Party affiliation is a reaffirmation of a decision taken at the 1982 conference for a campaign in favour of such an affiliation.

Ironically, on one big issue Graham will stand shoulder to shoulder with the Militant tendency and the Communist Party: this is on the subject of a merger with the management union SCPS.

Although it is no wonder that the mouths of the union bureaucrats should water at the idea of such a merger, it is disappointing to sce that many on the left are enamoured with the concept.

They believe - erroneously -that a bigger union would automatically be a stronger force in opposing cuts, fighting for pay increases, etc.

In fact. SCPS has always been 2083grp These pren W50 group HAPPY and John Harris waitions

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