Dear Mark,

Can I call you Mark? Of course I can. In this modern state good manners, things like answering letters or courtesies like the use of Mr and Mrs, have gone.

You are General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, or PCS. I used to be a member of your union, but I don't suppose that you are interested, or even remember my three letters to you which you ignored.

I joined SCPS (one of the Civil Service unions which merged to form PCS) in 1976. I wasn't just someone who sat back and took the (never very good) pay rises; for five years until my maternity career break I was a Branch Secretary and I was active in recruitment and personal cases of my members.

Then nearly 3 years ago my colleagues and I needed help from our Union when management told us that we were superfluous to requirements. Our Union representative was supposed to have been present at that meeting but he did not attend. We (my colleagues were also union members of long standing) asked him to come and see us. We were realistic about the low prospect of our jobs being saved in the prevailing climate but we needed assistance with management over the production of our correct records of service and the stress and pressure management was exerting on us. There was also an equal opportunities issue.

That man, who was paid a full time wage to represent us, ignored us. He refused to take or return my calls and declined to either visit our office or give us opportunity to visit him. By supporting each other and using our own knowledge we managed to secure our redundancies and retirement packages ourselves with no assistance from the organisation we paid to give just such assistance.

The only contact I received from PCS during that period was a recorded telephone message commanding me not to vote for the BNP in some upcoming local elections.

Once I was retired I wrote complaining about the Union's failure to give me advice and assistance when I badly needed it. On the advice of the TUC I wrote to you direct. Three times my letters, polite and reasonable letters, were ignored.

You didn't even have the courtesy to pass my letter to one of your team to give me a standard reply ....."Sorry - cannot help you because you are no longer a Civil Servant or member of this Union... blah blah - Goodbye"

But you found time that year to issue a statement that any Civil Servant found to be a member of the BNP should be sacked. The BNP are obnoxious but they are a legal political party. What kind of Trades Union leader wants his members sacked for belonging to a legal political party?

The kind who has time for this sort of thing. 

Martin Smith of the Unite Against Fascism and Love Music Hate Racism was in court yesterday on trial for assaulting a police officer. You joined a protest outside court and said

 "I've known Martin since 1983. He's always stood against injustice-supporting every strike, standing against the fascists."

After Smith's conviction and sentence for the assault on PC Liung, who was kicked in the genitals by Smith during a demonstration in October, you issued this statement to Socialist Worker.

I am shocked at the verdict delivered in a magistrates court today ... The sentence of 80 hours community service that has been handed to Martin is a travesty of justice. 

At PCS we will re-double our efforts to campaign against the far right including organisations such as the BNP and EDL and we will continue to support Martin and other anti-fascist campaigners when they are treated in such an unjust, outrageous way.

PCS will work with UAF and LMHR to fight the far right wherever we can and also to highlight the unequal way in which anti-fascist campaigners and activists are treated in comparison with racist and fascist thugs. 

In which case as many criminals convicted of assaulting a police officer receive a custodial sentence the travesty is that Smith was treated so leniently.

While your members, whose contributions pay your �90,000 +pa wage and perks (I note that you quickly reneged on your claim that you would only take the amount of an 'average' salary and pay all excess to the strike fund), face unprecedented job cuts you have time and energy to support a convicted criminal who isn't even a member of PSC but is merely a friend whose hobby you share.

I hope to hear that you are next on a criminal charge. For fraud and obtaining money by deception. You are a disgrace to the Trade Union movement.

Yours

EW

A Former Trade Unionist.