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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Thousands of civil servants went on strike on Friday afternoon, you may have noticed. There’ll be another strike tomorrow but aside from relatively small scale strikes, union bosses are talking increasingly about something on a much grander scale, large scale co-ordinated industrial action. So could Britain soon see its first general strike for more than 80 years? I am joined now by the Secretary General of the Public and Commercial Services Union, the PCS, Mark Serwotka. A very good morning to you, Mr Serwotka, so the piecemeal strike action, that goes on and we’ll talk about that in a moment or two, but are you co-ordinating with other union leaders and the TUC talking about a general strike?

MARK SERWOTKA: We are definitely having a discussion about generalised strike action and more imminently than that, we are having the beginnings of a much more detailed discussion between unions who have real industrial issues in front of them now about co-ordinating their efforts to ensure that our attempts to fight back and defend our members is more effective.

DM: But the big divide you’ve got to cross I suppose is between the public sector and the private sector, if you want to get a real general strike off the ground. Is there a real meeting of minds now between the leaders and between the workforces?

MS: Well there is no doubt that many people across the trade union movement of public and private sector unions believe that we have got to stop the rot, that we have got members whose living standards have gone down by 20% in five years, 300,000 jobs have gone in the public sector and have not been replaced in the private sector, pensions is a worry both public and private and the argument that we make is that if you are all facing the same thing right across the economy, it must make sense that when you try to defend yourselves you do it together because of course it will be much more effective.

DM: But of course for it to be effective, for it to be a proper general strike, it can’t just be one day can it? No one would really notice, it would be like North Korea threatening the Americans at the moment, you can just brush it off, okay there’s a general strike, the next day we’ll go back to work.

MS: My own opinion is that what the government is doing is getting so increasingly unpopular that even a 24 hour strike involving millions of people across the economy will be an incredibly important moment, it will show that people can fight back and say we don’t just have to accept our lot, it would give inspiration to other people campaigning to defend the NHS, education, welfare and I think what it would do is galvanise millions of people to say we know that we’re not all in it together, we are suffering, they are still doing very, very well and us all coming together with a focal point of 24 hour general strike will …

DM: But we already know you are highly critical of the government but general strikes bring with it the threat to try and topple a government.

MS: The purpose of this would be to get the government to stop doing what it’s doing and what it’s doing is attacking the people with the least, who did not cause any of the problems and it’s making the situation worse. If increasingly people think that the government’s policies are worsening the situation but they won’t listen to reason, then the idea of taking direct action is essentially that they are forced to consider what they’re doing and change direction. So it’s political in the sense that we want the chancellor to change his policies, to stop making cuts, to stop shrinking the economy but to have policies to grow the economy and the idea that a general strike of unions would act as a focal point I think for millions, in and out of unions, I think is something that really has merit.

DM: But beyond that you’d rather have a Labour government?

MS: Well I’d rather have any government other than this one I have to say and obviously in the next election Labour are the only people who can topple the Conservatives but I have to say that my aspiration is not a Labour government that will come in and actually do things a little less fast and will tinker, what I would like to see is a radical government that will actually embrace the type of policies that Labour embraced in 1945, which transformed this country and followed 30 years of relative economic stability rather than a Labour government that tinkers with what the Tories are doing and actually does not make a difference to millions.

DM: You’ve got to be careful that you take your membership with you, haven’t you, with that kind of aspiration, back to 1945 and the massive changes that took place in society there. Is there really an appetite amongst your membership who are still, when they take industrial action, are talking about the bread and butter issues aren’t they? They’re talking about their own livelihood, their own pensions, their own working conditions, they’re not talking about that big picture that you’re discussing.

MS: Well two things are going on. In the here and now our industrial action at the moment in the civil service that will see tens of thousands out in tax offices tomorrow, in the Home Office, followed by further action the following week, it will go on for two months, is industrial. It is about saying the government is cutting our pay, our jobs, our pensions and incredibly is refusing to negotiate. So our strike is an industrial dispute to try and make progress on behalf of PCS members against their employer. People live in this country and are affected by the wider politics and there is no doubt that in order for us to be successful in getting the government to take a different view, they have to take a different economic view and therefore the industrial and the political do often become intertwined. What I know is that the PCS action is not designed to topple a government, it’s designed to get them into talks but wider generalised strike action is intended to be a direct challenge to the policies that are wrecking this country and making so many people’s lives miserable.

DM: Mr Serwotka, thank you very much indeed. Mark Serwotka, thank you very much indeed.