Mark Serwotka after over 23 years as trade union general secretary, looks at the past and future of the movement

With 23 years as general secretary of the UK’s biggest civil service trade union coming to an end, Mark Serwotka spoke frankly with LFF about his proudest achievements, challenges the trade union movement must overcome, and finding hope in cross border union collaboration.  

Serwotka is stepping down from the helm of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) at the end of this month, with his most recent achievement seeing a national civil servants strike push the government to put more money on the table for the first time. 

133,000 civil servants were involved in a wave of strikes which eventually resulted in a 4.5% pay offer being accepted. However this came under the initial 10% demand, as Serwotka looks ahead to the “inevitable” possibility of future strikes.  

With a Labour government predicted at the polls, the implications for the trade union movement would be “immensely better” Serwokta said, however he warned that further industrial action will not stop unless the party can address the cost of living crisis. 

“Labour obviously doesn’t have an ideological hatred of unions. It’s an integral part of the party,” said the PCS leader. “Therefore, what we need to do differently is demand very early on that we’re at the table, that there is engagement in a way you don’t get off the Tories.”

But he added: “Labour is going out of their way to say there will not be much money around, that the situation is dreadful. This doesn’t lead me to believe that they will be able to deal with the cost of living crisis that people still face.”

He said some industrial unrest was therefore “inevitable”, unless the party “can find a way of dealing with the crisis that exists, whether that’s pay or whether it’s resource.”

Serwotka presented a glimmer of hope amid an increasingly turbulent global backdrop, which drummed home the importance of trade unions in tackling the “incredibly big” issues workers face today.  

“I think there’s big challenges and some of them are frightening, but within them you can see international cooperation, people looking out for each other and helping is the key to the challenges that our planet faces,” said Serwotka.  

“Our union has been one of the most vociferous unions in support of Ukraine and one of the things that’s come out of the terrible adversity is we’ve developed incredibly close links with Ukrainian trade unions. 

“We’ve been out there, we’ve been sending them not just money, but practical medical aid and supplies, which we’re now seeing in Gaza. 

“I think the trade union movement needed to mobilise to argue that we are nothing if we’re not international in our outlook. So even though these things are terrible and they’re big threats, you can still see a common thread about unity amongst people crossborders, delivering important practical support.”

When he was 16, Sertwoka started working in a Social Security office (now DWP) in South Wales and spent 21 years working in the DHSS, delivering social security. Nearly all of that time he was a trade union rep. 

Commenting on what guided him through his career, he said: “What motivated me then, as it does now, is the fact that people generally have a rough time at work. 

“The pay was never great, the conditions weren’t fantastic, and there was always a need for a union. It was very soon after I joined that the Tories banned union membership at GCHQ, for example, and very quickly we were involved in industrial action over that.

“I always felt when I was an activist that the leadership of the union should do more collectively to try to be more effective, to try and win us better pay and conditions. And in fact, it was this belief that probably resulted in my 2000 election when I was a lay rep.”

Serwotka made up one of the so-called ‘awkward squad’ that emerged at this time, a group of radical leaders elected in the trade union movement. 

He compared the initial years of his working life, when the Tories were launching an ideological attack on trade unions against the miners and the printers, to the present, as the government brings in anti-union legislation and minimum service levels. 

However, what differs is the steep decline in union membership. Then, there were 13 million trade union members in Britain, compared to 6 million today. For Serwotka, building workplace participation and engagement is key to tackling the crisis in trade union membership. 

“Unless unions build in workplaces and have members on the ground and reps on the ground, who can be the union’s voice?” said Serwotka. 

“Digitalization is important. New technology gives us new ways of campaigning, but nothing replaces the voice in the workplace. And what our recent success told us, particularly now that legally you have to have more than 50% voting, is that participation is the key.

“Going forward, given the level of challenges on the horizon, whether it’s artificial intelligence, economic difficulties, what we know is having members in the union is one thing, but you need them engaged and participating to really maximise what you can.”

On the topic of engaging young people in trade unions, a demographic sorely underrepresented, Serwotka stressed the important role unions can and should have in connecting on wider social problems. 

“Working in the civil service, I think we’ve always understood the need to campaign on wider issues. If you don’t link up to wider societal issues, you’ll never get the support that you need and you won’t always attract everyone to join you.” 

He referred to the PCS campaign for better social security and against benefit sanctions, with focus now turned to other causes like climate change. He also used the example of the role PCS played in stopping the government deporting people to Rwanda, cited as his proudest career moment.

“I think that’s one of our best examples of linking broader concerns, humanitarian concerns, with the conditions of the workforce. 

“In this case, border force workers who were told you have to turn back dinghies in mid-channel, even though they knew people would die, who came to the union and said, we do not want to do that, and we believe it’s illegal. 

“And from a basis of representing those workers, many of whom are not popular, particularly on the left – people don’t particularly like the border force and the home office – we were able to connect their issues as workers, with supporting refugee organisations and campaigning for a just and proper immigration policy.

“I think that is really key to unions moving forward, getting involved in those wider societal concerns while also representing people in the workplace.”

Serwotka also argued that the issues workers face now, although greater in scale, take a familiar form. Technology replacing jobs, communities being devastated as jobs disappear, issues regarding the welfare state and public services are common ground for trade unions.

However one current challenge in the movement Serwotka identified is unions competing over members. He said people must “stop fighting over a limited pool of workers about which union they’re in”, and start working collectively to get more people unionised.

Serwotka will be succeeded as general secretary by Fran Heathcote, who is current president of PCS. For his retirement he will be, “chilling out and putting my feet up for a bit”.

Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward, focusing on trade unions and environmental issues

Comments are closed.