Between 11 and 17 November, I was in Ukraine as part of a PCS union delegation. During our stay in Kyiv it was quiet with only three air alerts, which everyone ignored (they have a fine sense of what is dangerous). Unfortunately that quiet period has ended with multiple sustained air attacks in the past week. These have been drone attacks but the attacks that people most fear are ballistic missiles, where you get little or no warning (as you can imagine having discussions about ballistic missiles is slightly surreal).
Having killed the national campaign for cost of living pay awards backdated to 2022, the Left Unity (LU) faction leadership in the civil service union PCS is now presiding over below-inflation civil service pay awards for 2023. Yet they are keeping up the pretence that they have merely “paused” the campaign. It is a tactic they hope will help them win the elections for General Secretary (GS) and Assistant General Secretary (AGS) later this year: facing both ways to win the support of members who wanted the campaign to continue and members who did not want to strike.