No one yet knows the collective noun for trade union general secretaries, but we're surely getting to the point where someone should invent one.
Unions are starting to return to their roots by amassing their collective might, first over pensions, now over the fate of the welfare state. Somewhere on the first floor of the vast House of Commons, a total of 14 union leaders took turns earlier this week to roll call the devastation being wrought on public services at private hands.
The occasion was the official launch of the "public services not private profit" campaign, inspired by Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union.
Serwotka is determined to flex collective union muscle against the escalation of privatisation within public services.
A packed audience heard how teachers, civil servants, firefighters, teachers, prison staff and others are forced to watch as services face competition from the private sector for reasons that no one is quite clear about.
With little evidence that farming out staff or services to the private sector has achieved anything for anyone other than shareholders, unions have had their fill and are ready to make a bigger noise than ever before.
Serwotka didn't pull his punches at the launch, criticising both the TUC for not having the wherewithal to coordinate the campaign itself, and Unison, the largest public sector union, for not turning up.
It's not as if there are any improvements to public services, it's not as if money is saved, and it's not as if it's doing any favours to the pay, pensions and conditions of public sector staff, leader after leader pointed out.
Chaired by backbench rebel John McDonnell, chair of the Labour representation committee, the evening was a wholesale condemnation of the cringeworthy private-public love affair that has become so passionate under the Labour government.
A Labour government! As Serwotka pointed out: "We have to recognise that since 1997, the Labour government has privatised more civil service work than the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major combined."
Trade union leaders are now determined to remove the rose-tinted spectacles from the general public over the decimation of a cohesive public sector. A national campaign day of demonstration against creeping privatisation has been set for June 27 to mobilise public support.
Buoyed by the success of the national strike against changes to the local government pension scheme, spearheaded by 11 unions, Serwotka is feeling pretty confident that the mood for collective action is back in the ascendancy. More strike days are on the way next month, making it even more unlikely that Tony Blair will be rushing to endorse a trades union freedom bill, which unions would like to see on the statute book. Unions hope such a bill would give them a bit more clout by restoring some of the powers they lost in the 80s.
But anyone listening to union leaders earlier this week, will know that, bill or no bill, we can expect a more Parisian feel to union activities over the forthcoming months.
