A surprise announcement from the TUC press office on 18 October was the first indication of a deal on public sector pensions.

Alan Johnson, the former general secretary of the Communication Workers Union who is now atop the Department of Trade and Industry, must have called in some favours from his old bureaucratic buddies. A "framework agreement" emerged - apparently safeguarding the position of civil servants, healthworkers and teachers already in the schemes.

The following day most of the press lamented the government's failure to increase the basic retirement age to 65, while Digby Jones, head of the Confederation of British Industry, fumed about the Government's supposed "capitulation".

According Jones, public sector workers enjoy indefensible privileges that make them the envy of private sector colleagues. Strangely, he doesn't think that workers might envy their bosses' pension schemes. The average executive in Britain's 100 biggest companies will retire on £167,000 a year. The average local government worker's pension is below £4,000. Do the maths!

Still, with the Morning Star describing the agreement as some sort of triumph and the "left" leader of the PCS, Mark Serwotka, declaring it a "significant achievement" many public sector workers were understandably convinced that their union leaders had won without a single day of strike action.

The Economist was closer to the mark. It noted that the union leaders have agreed to the Government's agenda for cutting pension costs by £13 billion over the next 50 years. By conceding the principle of a two-tier pension scheme, with a much worse deal for new workers, the general secretaries signed away the pension rights of future generations. They did this without even consulting the existing union membership.

The union bureaucracy's approach is wrong, because it is not only unjust to younger workers, but also threatens the longer term future of the schemes. New recruits may object to the notion of "paying more for less" and choose to opt out altogether.

This not an acceptable compromise and there is an alternative. The threat of industrial action by the RMT in 2003 stopped Network Rail from closing its existing scheme to new members.

Council workers left out

Crucially the government has yet to offer the same framework agreement to those in the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS). And there is no guarantee that the Local Government Association will do so.

Council workers and others covered by the LGPS face a sharper attack than the one the Government revoked in July in return for the suspension of strike action on 23 March. There is a risk that these workers will be isolated in resisting their bosses' demands for an immediate increase in the retirement age and higher employee contributions.

The United Left in Unison has pointed out that the Prentis "breached the spirit and, arguably, the letter of resolutions overwhelmingly adopted earlier this year" at the union's local government conference, which rejected "any suggestion of 'compromise agreements' on this matter" and agreed to oppose "increasing to 65 the age of entitlement to an unreduced pension". This position was "non-negotiable". There was no remit to bargain away the rights of future workers not yet in the scheme.

Unfortunately, the heat is off Prentis not least because the supposedly left-wing national executive of the PCS voted on 21 October to rubber stamp the deal, with only one vote against (see box). The NUT national executive will discuss the deal in early November, with the Socialist Teachers Alliance e-list revealing divisions in the ranks of its executive members.

Ranks and file

There are important lessons to be learned and issues to be debated over coming weeks, not least about the transparency of the negotiations, the exclusion of lay officers, never mind shop stewards, from the whole process, and effective control over our full-time officials.

Clearly the stand-alone strategy of electing left wing general secretaries and leaders has failed. We need for a rank and file movement within and between the unions, capable of transforming them from top to bottom. Such a movement will be crucial in developing the capacity to mount unofficial action in defiance of the anti-union laws and against the will of union leaders who consistently sell us short or sell us out.

Activists must launch a fight for:

* A campaign to inform members in all the unions of the dangers of a two-tier scheme.

* A ballot on the "framework agreement" with equal rights for members to put the case against.

* An immediate ballot for strike action, should the agreement be rejected.

* A clear call from Unison's Local Government Service Group Executive for an immediate ballot for strike action if the employers don't back down in early November.

The "framework agreement" threatens the unprecedented unity among public sector unions that had brought the government to the negotiating table last spring. So it is all the more vital to maintain and build on the links established in some regions and cities between public sector trade unions - including the FBU, whose own scheme is also unprotected by the "framework agreement" - and pensioners' action groups in defence of decent pension at 60 for all.

The SWP and the deal

Socialist Worker appeared after the announcement of the "framework agreement". An article by the paper's editor, Chris Bambery, was unambiguous, calling on public sector workers to "throw out this shabby pensions deal".

The SWP has a leading role in the United Left in Unison, where its comrades have taken a principled line in opposition to the deal and are pushing for strike action in local government if the employers do not back off.

This, however, is in stark contrast to the actions of two SWP members on the national executive of the PCS, Martin John and Sue Bond, who backed the deal last Friday. Other leading SWP trade unionists have branded their vote "wrong" but this begs two questions:

* What are they and their organisation intending to do in response?

* To what extent is the vote on the PCS executive the by-product of the party tailing the left of the union bureaucracy?