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2004 Congress verbatim report Monday

Issue date

REPORT OF THE 136TH ANNUAL

TRADES UNION CONGRESS

held in

The Brighton Centre,

Brighton, East Sussex

from

September 13th to 16th 2004

President: Roger Lyons

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS

Reported by Marten Walsh Cherer Ltd.,

Midway House, 27-29 Cursitor Street, London EC4A 1LT.

Telephone No: 0207 405 5010. Fax No: 0207 405 5026.

FIRST DAY: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13

MORNING SESSION

(Congress assembled at 10.00 a.m.)

The President (Roger Lyons) : Delegates, I call Congress to order. The progress of

music this week has been put together by the Music For Youth Ensemble. Many thanks to those who have been playing for us this morning. (Applause)

Congress, I have great pleasure opening this, the TUC’s 136th Congress. I warmly welcome all delegates and visitors here to Brighton.

Appointment of Scrutineers and Tellers

The President: The first formal item of business is to ask Congress to approve the

Tellers and Scrutineers as set out on page 8 of the General Purposes Committee Report booklet. Is that agreed? (Agreed)

May I, as ever, advise and instruct all delegates to turn off mobile phones. You should also find on your seats details of the emergency procedures. Please familiarise yourselves with these. If there is an emergency I will give further instructions. If any delegates require first aid, the first aid station is situated behind the food servery in the East Bar, the doors of which are to my left, to your right.

Welcome to Sororal and Fraternal Delegates

The President: Delegates, I now come to the introduction of sororal and fraternal delegates and visitors who have so far arrived at Congress who are seated behind me. As you would expect, for the British section of a global internationalist trade union Movement, we have a number of trade unionists from outside the country here this week, some of whom will be addressing Congress, others taking part in fringe events and some here to network, to visit old friends in the British trade union Movement and to make new ones. Our international speakers this year come from Latin America and the Middle East as well as our traditional guests from the United States’ trade union centre, the AFL-CIO, Harold Schaitberger of the International Association of Firefighters, who is with us today. We also have the General Secretary of the Cuban Federation of Workers, Pedro Ross. The President of the Oil Workers of Colombia, Hernando Hernandez, is on his way. I will introduce those who are not yet here when they arrive. We also have coming from the Middle East, Amir Peretz from the Histadrut, Israel, and Shaher Sae’d from the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions. I will say more about them later. I will also be introducing comrade Vavi Zwelinzima, the leader of COSATO in South Africa, when he arrives tomorrow. Other international guests on the platform are Annie Watson, Director of the Commonwealth Trade Union Council. Unfortunately, Annie is here for the last time as Director of the CTUC because the organisation is being incorporated into within the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the work performed by the CTUC will be carried forward within the ICTFU.

We will also be receiving Wolfgang Lutterbach from the DGB Germany and my old AMICUS colleague, Brendan Mackin, who is now President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions who will be joining us together with David Begg, the General Secretary and Peter Bunting.

From the American Trade Union Centre, the AFL-CIO’s Europe office, we have Penny Shanks and Jerry Zellhoeffer.

We will be having some of our familiar friends here. Bill Brett is direct of the ILO office in London. He will be here shortly. John Monks, the General Secretary of the European TUC, a well-known fixture in this Congress, he has been here, he was seen by many delegates last night has now had to return to Brussels on urgent business and we will report further as necessary.

Roy Jones is here to represent the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD.

There will be a number of other representatives of global union federations, individual union representatives and other foreign visitors here today. You are all most welcome, and I hope that delegates will take the opportunity to meet with the foreign visitors and discuss the issues which bring us altogether as a global union family.

This year’s sororal delegate from the Trade Union Council’s Conference is Dorothy Heath. Welcome Dorothy. I am very pleased to welcome someone very familiar to this Congress, the sororal delegate from the Labour Party, Mary Turner, who will address us on Wednesday morning. We are expecting other guests during the week and I will introduce them when they arrive.

Obituary

The President: In leading in on Chapter 13 of the General Council’s Report, he said: Congress, it is traditional for us at the beginning of our Annual Congress to remember all those colleagues who have died since we last met. In our Report, we, unfortunately, have to list Jack Boddy MBE, former General Secretary of the National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers; Dan Duffy, former lay chair of the T&G Executive; Bryn Griffiths, former President of the GPMU; Lord Greene of Harrow Weald, former General Secretary of the NUR and former President of Congress; Lord Murray of Epping Forest, a former General Secretary of the TUC; Eamonn O’Kane, General Secretary of the NASUWT; Albert Powell, former President of the Society of Graphical & Allied Trades; Lord Scanlon, former Presidenr of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers and, since the General Council Report was printed, the death has also occurred of Max Pinto, a member of the TUC staff at Congress House.

In remembering those who I have named, I ask you also to remember all of those other trade union colleagues who died during the past year who served the trade union Movement in their own workplaces and in their own ways. In addition, I ask you, colleagues, to remember the tragic deaths of so many people in the very recent terrible events in Beslan, Russia. I also ask you to remember all of those who died in conflicts in different parts of the world over the past year. Colleagues, let us recommit ourselves to the cause of world peace and join me in standing for a minute’s silence to remember them. (Congress stood in silent tribute)

The Vice-President (Tony Dubbins): Congress, I now call upon the President to address Congress.

President’s Address

The President: Sisters and brothers, I have great pleasure in welcoming you to the 136th annual Trades Union Congress, representing, as it does, six-and-a-half million working people and their families. In particular, a warm welcome to our new affiliates, Skipton Building Society Staff Association and Derbyshire Group Staff Union, who are with us today, and a welcome back to the United Road Transport Union, who are also with us today.

This, our Congress, spans the public and private sectors, almost all industries and services, and is proof that trade unionism can flourish across the board, both in relatively well organised areas, as well as those with major potential and those in the greatest need of union strength and support.

Trade unionism is al about improving the lives of working people and their families - that means campaigning for better rights and higher standards - my theme for this Congress, as TUC President. Our mission is to campaign for our aims and values, assist affiliates to achieve their goals and maximise their effectiveness, and promote trade union solidarity - at home and abroad. Our members and their families deserve nothing less from us. This Congress enables us to raise the profile of the Movement’s campaigning on rights and standards. It enables us to reflect on how we have tackled the problems and secured advances over the past year, and to prepare for the year ahead. 2005 will indeed be a crucial year for us all, with an election likely within 12 months, and a crucial year for unions to organise and to recruit, to maximise our influence in the world of work and across society as a realistic and credible agency for change.

After the last Congress we drew up a TUC submission to the Labour Party as part of the ‘Big Conversation’. It was entitled 'The Place of Work in a Fairer Society’. We recognise the big advances achieved since 1997. A stable economy, low inflation, high levels of employment. Indeed, only last week the claimant count was down for the 14th month in succession, to 835,000, the lowest since 1975, a jobless rate of 2.7%, something we could only dream of during those 18 Thatcher years. We recognise the improved minimum wage, the union recognition rights, improved individual rights at work, the huge investment in public services, especially the NHS and education, commitments to science and innovation, and much, much more.

But, colleagues, there is unfinished business, for serious problems remain. In our meetings with the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and other Ministers, we have urged a progressive blueprint for the third term, one that takes more account of and addresses the outstanding needs of working people and their families. Discussions took place leading up to the Labour’s National Policy Forum in July, and we welcome the pledges made at the Forum as part of the manifesto process. On public services, with progress on the two-tier workforce problem, on fairness at work, on pensions, on manufacturing and associated procurement, and many other key issues. On 28 July the General council recognised the progress that had been made, and also the absolute need for full delivery of the Warwick pledges.

To use a footballing analogy - it’s a line up that promises much, but it’s the results in the coming season that really count.

On rights and standards, working people deserve the best, and certainly need to match the best in Europe. When it comes to workplace rights, the UK must be in the Champions League.

Congress, in essence, we need to develop a new agenda for the workplace, one that develops from high employment to high quality employment with more rights and higher standards. With those rights and standards come realistic responsibilities - to help achieve high levels of quality service delivery, high levels of productivity and continuing advances in skills and innovation.

But for this to be achieved requires the fullest involvement of the workforce, and the first stage of implementation of the Information and Consultation Directive in March next provides a golden opportunity for advance through dialogue and partnership. We can certainly do without lectures from Digby Jones on the relevance of trade unions. Digby, you’re completely out of touch if you believe workers are so well off they don’t need unions. Try telling that to the millions working over 60 hours a week, the longest hours in Europe; try telling that to the working families unable to afford decent childcare; try telling that too agency and contract workers denied the most basic employment rights; try telling that to the workers suffering from bullying, from stress, from gender discrimination and unequal pay and from racial discrimination. Digby, try telling that to the workers whose jobs are threatened with ill-thought out and needless outsourcing.

Try telling that to the families of those who died at the hands of the gangmasters, and those who face health and safety risks to their life and limb every day of their working lives. Digby, it’s not us, in the unions, who are out of touch with the aspirations of the British people, or stuck in a time-warp. The reality is that too many employers are behind the times, out of touch and putting exploitation of the flexible under-regulated labour market before investment in skills and capital projects. We want to complete internationally on quality, innovation and high standards - not low pay, job insecurity, pitiful re-investment in training and equipment, and non-union exploitation.

Digby Jones and the CBI know full well that the unions have campaigned constructively on the skills strategy to combat skills shortages, on measure to aid our manufacturing sectors, which are still haemorrhaging jobs, on public services, to ensure quality, to ensure quality service delivery, re-stating the public services ethos, and on inequalities, which lead in so many parts of the economy to discrimination, appalling mistreatment and economic inactivity.

Further, Digby, if life is so good for Britain’s workers, whatever is happening to their pensions? Unions are playing a crucial role in defending pensions, which are under attack almost everywhere except, of course, the boardroom where promoting inequality is a major pastime.

The TUC held a major rally on 19 June to raise awareness of all the pensions issues, and we are campaigning to convince Government and employers that the decent employers who make adequate pensions provision for all employees should not be undercut by those who do not. Once again, it’s an issue of rights and standards. On the 19th June at the rally, the TUC featured a 14 foot inflatable pig, which stars on the cover of the General Council Report. Unfortunately this massive 14 foot pig had a tendency to take off, and with great difficulty had to be firmly tethered - certainly proof that pigs will fly before employers get to grips with the pensions crisis.

We certainly need more partnership on pensions, and a good model is the union learning rep scheme involving thousands and thousands of new workplace reps.

We certainly need more partnership on pensions, and a good model is the union learning rep scheme involving thousand and thousands of new workplace reps. A majority of new learning reps are female and many are from ethnic minorities. This scheme certainly shows what can be done when working people are given statutory rights to prioritise learning. In the same way as we have done for years on health and safety issues, another vital union task in Britain’s workplaces. We have also seen progress achieved through the Union Learning Fund and the Partnership Fund, with discussions currently underway for the implementation of a Union Modernisation Fund and a new Union Learning Academy.

Thus we develop a positive agenda with Government, and whilst there are frustrations and some occasional fall-outs, I urge Congress never to take the Labour Government for granted.

I am just back from a visit to the United States, where I met our trade union colleagues who are in the fight of their lives to try and elect John Kerry. Since Bush replaced Clinton the US trade union leadership representing 13 million members has been denied even a meeting with the President. And labour protections are being progressively destroyed, along with over one million jobs since Bush took office. It’s make or break for them and the working people they represent. The unions are desperate for a Democratic victory, even if Kerry’s policies are not considered perfect on all fronts.

American colleagues asked me what the British Labour Government had done for British workers. I was able to produce copies of the brochure issued by AMICUS and other affiliated unions entitled ‘300 gains from our Labour Government’. And colleagues the list is growing. It is certainly worth defending. I urge Congress and especially the activists across the movement never to take the Labour Government for granted. There will need to be a united drive for a third Labour term if we are to prevent the return of the only realistic alternative, another Thatcherite regime. The kind that applied a scorched earth policy to our industries and slashed public services, destroying workplace rights and standards, creating fear, insecurity and mass unemployment for millions.

However, to strengthen our resources and assert our representativity, we need to build on the employment rights already won, to organise and recruit. Decent rights and standards can only be achieve with a strong membership base. Never has there been more need for strong unions, and we need to build on our 6.5 million affiliated membership which, although the largest voluntary organisation in the country, must be enlarged further through our efforts. This is our task. No one will do it for us.

We must get better at trumpeting our many successes, individual and collective, alleviating unfairness, winning compensation for injury, fighting discrimination and insecurity, every day of the week, up and down the land. The media doesn’t always help, exaggerating negative issues and always the breakdowns in negotiations, whilst rarely covering, and certainly not in the same headlines, the agreements, such as recently at British Airways, or in the firefighters dispute, where the TUC gave considerable assistance.

Earlier this year the General Council undertook a Strategic Review aimed at renewals of the movement, and in particular priority for organising and campaigning. Our work must be based on collaboration rather than competition, and apart from organising the new public sector jobs being created, we must develop and implement a real strategy for the private sector, a task currently being undertaken as a major priority initiative by the General Council’s Organisation and Representation Task Force.

For now we have so much more labour mobility. We have to replace the public and private sector jobs that go, through recruitment amongst the millions currently unorganised. We must reach out to all those millions who claim they would join a union if there were one for them. Well, yes, there is. There is a union for everyone in the world of work. Don’t believe Digby Jones. We are your potential colleagues and we want to secure that potential. Together we can shape the future.

This emphasis on recruitment is not limited to our shores - it is top of the agenda of unions throughout the world. In Europe we are taking the initiative, and in cooperation with the European TUC we have called a major Europe-wide union organisation conference for next year. In this era of globalisation, we need to give even greater commitment to international solidarity.

At home we have been campaigning to prevent the BNP from spreading its poison, and I applaud the work of all groups who fight the bigotry and hatred of the BNP, including Regional TUCs, trade councils, local unions and Unite Against Fascism. We salute your campaigning work.

Further, Congress, congratulations to the police for deciding to ban BNP members from police forces throughout the country. The far right did not make the breakthrough they wanted on 10th June, as many had feared, but they did pick up some Council seats and in aggregate won nearly one millions votes. So we must remain alert and continue the campaigning.

Around the world, the TUC continues its constructive work with those whose rights and standards are denied or are under attack. I have been privileged to visit South Africa during my year in office - to share the joy of ten years of freedom whilst also sharing pain at the gigantic problems being faced, such as the HIV-Aids epidemic. We continue to work with the South African unions with assistance wherever we can, and the General Secretary of COSATU will be addressing Congress later in the week.

I also led a peace mission to meet the trade union centres of Israel and Palestine, conveying a TUC offer to provide training and assistance to both movements in that troubled region. A full report of our visit is in the General Council Report on pages 95 and 96. I am very pleased to be able to announce that the leaders of both trade union centres are on their way to Congress and will be addressing us tomorrow.

On Iraq, Congress will know that we have argued that armed conflict should only take place with the full backing of the UN. But once soldiers were committed we were constrained in our comments, anxious not to expose our troops, men and women, to greater dangers than they already faced. At the same time, the TUC has worked with the International Confederation of Free trade Unions and the Confederation of Arab Trade Unions to cooperate with and assist the democratic, representative trade unions of Iraq, including the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions. We are also encouraging Global Union federations to provide support at sector level, and this is now underway to the benefit of Iraqi working people. A special fund 'TUC for Iraq' is to be launched at this congress, to increase the resources we can make available for the rebuilding of democratic trade unions in Iraq.

I also led a human rights delegation to Colombia, the most dangerous place on earth to be a trade unionist, with killings, disappearances, torture and dismissals out of control. Whilst there, we lobbied for the release of trade unionists imprisoned by the regime, and subsequently to our visit at least 12 were freed, including the leader of the oil workers union Hernando Hernandez. I am very proud and privileged to say that Hernando will be coming to our Congress. Unfortunately, after our visit, the leader of the Agricultural Workers Union, Lux Perly, whom we met, has since been imprisoned, and recently several other union leaders were brutally murdered by the Army. The TUC has asked the Foreign Office to intervene, and I can report we are securing cooperation from the Ministers on our concerns.

In addition a joint TUC/Foreign Office Liaison Committee meets regularly, enabling us to review rights and standards for fellow trade unionists in many lands. At the same time we have warmly welcomed the Department for International Development (DfiD) initiative in publishing ‘Labour Standards and Poverty Reduction linking core labour standards with trade and aid, as well as providing much-needed support for bilateral union contacts and exchanges and projects, including Colombia.

I have a special message from trade unionists who I met inside the main gaol in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. They are especially grateful for the solidarity, political and material, that they receive from then members of British trade unions. Thousands of miles away they might be, but, colleagues, your aid and support is sustaining them whilst they are in indefinite detention. Never underestimate the power of union solidarity, even in the face of the most severe repression. I promised to relay this message to Congress, and I ask affiliates to use it in building support for international solidarity, especially at a time when union resources are stretched. If the Colombian union activists are daily risking life and limb to maintain trade unionism, continued solidarity is the very least they deserve from us.

Congress, all my life as a trade unionist I have done my best to build up trade unionism at home and abroad. I have represented workers in the public and private sectors. In England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic. Its been my privilege to work with a wonderful set of members over the years, in ASSET, when it had just 36,000 members, on into ASTMS, and then MSF, which put me onto the General Council in 1989. During my 15 years on the General Council I’ve had excellent support from the officers and staff at the TUC, at national and regional levels. In this year as President, I want particularly to thank Brendan, Frances, Kay and the team for all their work and wise counsel. They serve the Movement well.

After 38 years as an official, I am standing down, and I want to thank AMICUS for their generous support during my Presidential year. I wish my union, plus new colleagues from UNIFI and GPMU, and all the members, well for the future.

However, as many of you know all too well, this job just cannot be done without family support and encouragement. I wish to place on record my immense thanks and appreciation to my wife, Kitty, and our four children, for their understanding and love, and for being supportive at all times. Thank you. (Applause)

Congress, a day of perfection, with all troubles for working people and wider society resolved is highly unlikely even if we pass a composite motion saying so! So our responsibilities and tasks will continue - to help Britain to achieve its full potential - to secure decent rights and standards for working people at home and abroad. We need to continue building the Movement, its membership and strength. So many of the rights already won, such as the minimum wage, stem from nions campaigning. Strong representative unions mean a real, effective voice for working people and their families in the world of work and their communities. That, Congress, is why we are here. That, Congress, is why we will always be here, and that is why we work to make this world a much better place. Colleagues, thank you and have a good Congress. (Applause)

Vote of Thanks

The Vice-President: Thank you, Roger, for that thought-provoking and far-sighted address. I now call on Ed Sweeney, the General Secretary of Unifi, to move the vote of thanks to the President.

Ed Sweeney (Unifi) : Congress, it is my duty to move a vote of thanks to our President, Roger Lyons. As many of you will know, Roger has had a long and distinguished career in the trade union and labour Movement. Throughout that time many have got to know him well and to many he is a clear and trusted ally. But Roger tells me his many talents and qualities constantly. His treatment and sensitivity of others, he tells me, is legendary. This was summed-up perfectly in his approach to myself to give this vote of thanks. It was late was Friday afternoon. Roger called myself and, after the usual pleasantries were exchanged - you know what I mean, Roger telling me that he had just got back from the United States, Roger telling me how much he had enjoyed it, Roger telling me how much he had been out organising for the democratic campaign to get John Kerry elected but left before it got any worse - asked if I would do the vote of thanks. I, naturally, said yes, I would be delighted and privileged to do it, but before I could develop an overly important sense of my own self-importance, Roger, in his own sensitive way, said, 'Oh, by the way, I thought I would let you know, you weren’t my first choice'. Sensitive to the last.

Roger also told me that he would send me a few biographical notes about himself and his career in an abridged form, you understand, so when the first crate arrived from DHL, I spent the day reading it. It became clear to me, if not to all of you, that Roger is, of course, a mixture of the traits and characteristics of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Ghandi, all dressed up in an Arsenal shirt.

Roger has been a stalwart and defender of the trade union and labour Movement all his life. He carries this with pride, and so he should. Roger started his trade union activity at the tender age of 24 in 1966. He joined ASSET which later became ASTMS. He was based in Liverpool with responsibilities for the north-west of England and north Wales. He had an excellent reputation for labour politics from his university days, so a move into trade unionism seemed a natural stepping-stone. ASTMS and TASS merged in the late 1980s to form MSF and Roger was elected General Secretary for the first time of MSF in 1992. He was re-elected in 1997 and helped steer MSF through some difficult times. In the dark days of the Conservative Government, Roger Lyons could always be relied upon to defend the interests of trade unions, trade unionists, the Labour Party, working people and their families.

As General Secretary of MSF, he was part of the team which steered through the eventual merger of MSF and the AEEU to form AMICUS. He is rightly proud of his achievements, whether that was as a full-time officer or as an elected General Secretary. His record in trade unionism and Labour Party activity is as long as it is impressive, but Roger is Roger. No one that I have ever met is neutral about him. He always elicits a response. Everyone has an opinion about him. As someone said to me quite recently, Roger Lyons has been attacked by all shades of opinion, both the left and the right and I suppose they cannot all be wrong. But Roger stands his ground. He has suffered some vitriolic attacks over time. Lesser men and women would have folded, but he did not. He stuck with it, with a stoicism which I found, personally, remarkable. I believe that has been one of his greatest strengths. I know that Kitty, his wife, and the family have stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the face of these attacks.

When it comes to supporting this Labour Government, Roger has always been one of the first in line. Whether you disagreed or agreed with his view, you could never doubt his sincerity or support of this Labour Government and, more recently, for the return of an historic third term Labour Government, something I know we all want to see. Roger is a Labour stalwart, a Labour loyalist. Be in no doubt, comrades, Roger Lyons is proud to carry the description of a Labour loyalist.

I know that Roger has enjoyed and cherished his year as TUC President. He has chaired meetings in his own incomparable fashion with good grace and good humour. Whenever he has been faced with difficult procedural questions asked by some awkward sod on the General Council, he has used all of his skill, training, vast experience and just ignored the point and dealt with the person. Roger, on a personal note, thank you for all the work and support you have given to all of us during your year as President. I know I speak for us all when I wish you well for the future. I know you will have a great Congress week, Roger.

Finally, let me thank you personally for making me your first choice to make this vote of thanks.

The Vice-President: Congress, I now invite Lucy Kelly to second the vote of thanks to our President. PRIVATE

Lucy Kelly (Amicus) : I do not know what remains to be said. I think we should have exchanged speeches very early on. However, it is a great honour for me to second the vote of thanks to Roger, my erstwhile general secretary, and, more importantly, someone who I am proud to call my friend.

What is there left to say about Roger? For me and many others, Roger has a split personality. No, I do not mean he is a schizophrenic, although you could check that out with the Amicus psychology members, but his life and priorities are evenly shared between his wonderful family, who I am privileged to know, the Labour Movement and, of course, his beloved Arsenal.

Let me begin by painting a picture for you. The year was 1974, the place was Jamestown Road, Camden, and the venue was the ASTMS head office. The significance? It was the first time I met Roger. I was at the beginning of my working life and the man sitting before you was the then national officer, a father of one, with, what might be hard to believe, a full head of hair. By 1992 he had become my follically‑challenged general secretary and a father of four, so at least we know he had gone home between electioneering for high office at least three times in two decades!

(Laughter) God willing, by the end of the year, he will be a grandfather for the first time.

As we all know, Roger has never been camera‑shy. In fact, one wag once said that Roger was the only man he knew who sped around the M25 with his head out of the window in the hope he would be caught on the speeding camera, which is obviously better than no camera at all!

However, there is more to the Roger that I know than the smell of the grease paint and the roar of the press corps. Roger comes from a proud socialist heritage. His father was one of the leaders of the campaign which delivered the first ever Labour council in Hove, West Sussex. That was an incredible feat in its day, believe me!

Roger decided very early on that socialist politics and trade unionism were going to be the mainstay of his adult life. After completing his education at University College, London, Roger went on to become President of the Students' Union in 1965; something he remains proud of today.

He had a trial for Arsenal. We all know the result of that. However, as a second and very important career, he then became a trainee officer at ASSET nearly 40 years ago. His first general secretary was Clive Jenkins, who influenced so many of us here today. Roger learned from the best and has also tried to emulate the core ASTMS values.

Since ASSET, Roger has taken our union through three highly significant mergers, from ASSET to ASTMS, then to MSF and last year to AMICUS, but his core beliefs in gender equality and anti‑racism have stayed with him throughout.

There are, of course, hundreds of stories I could tell about this man, many of which cannot be repeated in front of such an innocent audience; so I will tell one of my favourite clean ones. I have worked with Roger on a raft of campaigns from anti‑bullying in the early 1990s to fairness at work in the 'noughties'. But, by far, my fondest memory of Roger relates to the campaign we ran on parental leave.

As we all know, this was a big issue for the Movement and one that MSF ended up taking as far as Downing Street. But, when we did, Roger and I were not alone. We decided to borrow the children of many of our MSF colleagues and take them with us. I have never seen Roger so in his element as he led a group of under‑5s along Downing Street with him asking the question of them: 'What do we want?' and they lisping in response at the top of their voices: 'Parental leave' as if they knew what we were talking about, and him again: 'And when do we want it?' 'Now' they cried with one voice.

For Roger, as for all of us, trade unionism cannot be separated from politics. There is not an election that Roger has not campaigned for the Labour Party and not a door, particularly in Finchley, that he has not leafleted, particularly where his wife, Kitty, has been a councillor for these past 16 years.

I have had the pleasure of working for a tremendous ambassador for our Movement, one who continued Jenkins' original mantra to unionise those groups of skilled and professional workers who never thought that collectivism was for them and has helped create Britain's largest private sector union.

I will finish in the vein that I started. I have known Roger all my working life and I was proud to call him my general secretary, but I am more honoured to call him, Kitty and the family, my friends. I hope you join me in wishing them all well for their retirement.

The Vice-President: Thank you for that, Lucy, and I am sure, Roger, I am speaking on behalf of the whole of Congress in wishing you a very successful week in the Chair.

Report of the General Purposes Committee

The President: I call Gerry Veart, the Chair of the General Purposes Committee.

Gerry Veart (General Purposes Committee): I would like to report progress on the final agenda. Composite Motions 1 to 19, as agreed by the General Purposes Committee, are set out in the GPC report and composite booklet that you have all received. Composite Motion No. 20, which has been placed on your seats, was only agreed after the booklet had gone to the printers.

In turning to the printed GPC report, you will see that where the movers on motions have agreed to accept amendments to their motions, on behalf of the GPC, I would like to thank all those unions who have co‑operated in reaching agreements on composite motions and amendments.

I can also report that the GPC has approved an emergency motion in the name of AMICUS, seconded by the T&G and supported by the GMB on Federal Mogol/Turner and Newall pension scheme. Copies of the motion will be distributed on delegates' seats at the appropriate time and we hope that the motion will be taken in the pensions debate tomorrow morning.

In order to ensure that we complete our business expeditiously, please would you come to the rostrum quickly if you are scheduled to speak. Would delegates who know they will be called to speak please move to the front and be ready to come to the rostrum? Please also respect the time limits on speaking time. Unless reduced, these are five minutes for moving a motion and three minutes for seconding and supporting a motion.

Finally, whilst we are aiming to encourage maximum participation this week, I would urge that you do not impede the progress of Congress and draw unwelcome attention to yourself by failing to switch off your mobile phone. That completes my report.

The President: Congress, I now call on you to formally receive the GPC report. Can we agree? (Agreed) Thank you.

Organising and Rights at Work

Fairness at Work

Tony Woodley (Transport and General Workers’ Union) moved the following composite motion:

(Insert Composite Motion 1 - Fairness at Work)

He said: It is incredible that after seven years of a Labour Government we are still demanding basic rights for workers which are enjoyed by everyone elsewhere right across Europe. It is also incredible that a Labour Foreign Secretary should rush home to a CBI conference to reassure the bosses that Thatcher's laws are not for changing. It is incredible.

Our demands are basic demands for decency and dignity for British working men and women, demands which are not taking us back to the 1970s, as some would have us believe. However, it cannot be right that the law allows employers to fly in scabs to undermine legitimate disputes that we, as trade unions, cannot even offer solidarity support to our own members. It cannot be right. That is why we are concerned with the failure of the Government to repeal all of the anti‑trade union laws and the failure to bring Labour law into line with ILO conventions.

I do not have selective amnesia. We have made good progress on many employment issues. Let us not forget that it is 20 years to the year since the Tories victimised for political reasons that great trade union, the NUM. The Tories victimised and decimated the mining communities and told us that the trade unions were the enemies within. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to those men and women who fought to save their pits and their communities. I pay tribute.

The half justice today is not enough. You cannot be satisfied where we have seen workers sacked by text messages, where our pensions are being robbed from us, making employees work long hours for low pay and unequal pay for millions of women still in our country today. I am proud that many of our members are fighting back; at British Airways, as the President has said, at First Bus in Sheffield, in public services with the unions fighting back there and, indeed, in many other places. But whenever you do fight back on the basic issues, we still find the law is against us.

The manifesto commitments agreed at the policy forum are really important steps forward and they have to be honoured; holidays for millions who would not have otherwise had the opportunity; the end to two‑tier work forces; and better deals on pensions. All are important. We will stick to our agreements that were made and we expect ministers also to do exactly the same. We are not really bothered who writes the manifesto as long as it does not rewrite the promises that are so crucially important to our Movement.

Be clear everyone. Irrespective of Warwick, we need the right to take solidarity action. We do need the right to support each other in struggle and we do need employment rights for everybody in our country from day one, and I do mean from day one.

We need the right to union recognition for those millions of people, many of whom are low, unequally and unfairly paid, being predominantly women in those smaller workplaces. We need the right to take lawful strike action without the fear of getting the sack. We need to ensure that our members' pensions are not at the back of the queue for cash when those companies go bankrupt. These are basic human rights that everyone else in Europe has. We have to continue to campaign until British workers have those same entitlements and protections.

I have heard people say that unions are accountable for what they do, and they are, but what about the reckless bosses who are not accountable at the moment when they murder, because that is what it is, our members? We have seen corporate killing legislation promised now in two manifestos. I see our comrade, the Employment Minister, Gerry Sutcliffe, sitting in the gallery, and I say to him: Gerry, we need those commitments honoured. We need laws that ensure that directors are responsible for their actions, or indeed lack of them, and which lead to them being, if necessary, jailed to stop these sorts of preventable and unnecessary deaths happening to working men and women in our country.

It is only when the first boss sees the inside of a jail that we will stop the preventable and unnecessary deaths of working men and women in our country.

Much progress has been made, but on the big issues of the day, there is more to be done, as a united TUC will not only help to win a third term for Labour, but we demand that they protect and support the people who put them into power, the working people of Britain, and not the CBI. Support the composite.

Tony Dubbins (GMPU) seconding the composite motion said: This Congress in 2004 is different from many of those we have held in previous years. We really are at a watershed. At the Labour Party National Policy Forum a few weeks ago, the affiliated unions agreed on workplace agenda for the next parliament, and that agenda is completely in line with Congress policies. The issues included the elimination of a two‑tier workforce in local government, UK support for the agencies in the Temporary Workers' Directive, protection from dismissal from eight weeks to 12 weeks in disputes, Bank Holidays outside the four‑week statutory holiday period, inclusion of the statutory right to bargain on pensions and an increase in redundancy pay, to name just but a few.

On other issues, reviews have been agreed and the door is open to further progress. On a number of additional issues, although the door may not be wide open, it certainly is ajar for further discussions.

I am certainly not suggesting we have achieved all that we want or that this is the end of the road. It really is the opposite. It is the first step up the ladder. However, there really is only one possible way of climbing that ladder and that is by ensuring that in the general election we have a Labour Government returned to office. We must not forget too quickly or easily the Tories' record or, indeed, what they would do to us and our members if they got back.

They will get rid of the recognition legislation; they will get rid of the legislation that ensures equal treatment for part‑time workers; they will get rid of the protection we have against the two‑tier workforce and we will not be arguing about whether the period for dismissals in dispute should be eight or ten weeks, because any employer would be able to dismiss any worker, no matter how lawful that dispute is. Further, what will happen to the European Social Chapter from which we gained so much over the past few years?

That is just a few of the nasty anti‑union policies they will be introducing. I am not pretending we will not consistently have to exert unrelenting pressure on a Labour Government, as Tony Woodley said, to make them deliver, but we cannot afford any splits, we cannot afford divisions and we have to work together in the interests of working people who we represent.

If we can do that, maybe next year we will be at Congress with a new Labour Government, having taken some very important steps to achieving real fairness at work. .

Peter McLoughlin (NASUWT) supporting the composite motion said: Congress, I refer to the paragraphs on the second page which highlight sections 64 and 65 of TULR, which confer on members the right not to be unjustifiably disciplined. In effect, they obstruct internal disciplinary reaction against members who fail to act in accordance with union rules and objectives.

A basic right in a free and democratic society is the right to organise. Part of that right must be the right to draw up rules and a constitution free from state interference. Whilst these sections remain on the statute book, unions taking legitimate disciplinary action against members who break those rules are at risk of a complaint to an employment tribunal.

Recently, NASUWT had a barrister, a solicitor, the DGS and a legal officer tied up for days in preparing for an employment tribunal hearing into a complaint of unjustifiable discipline. It collapsed on day one. It was when a member had been issued after due process with an unpublished warning.

The time, cost and effort in defending against such claims, which can be mischievous, diverts resources from the provision of services to members. Section 64 has also been used cynically, as we know, by racist and Fascist organisations to undermine trade union equal opportunities policies and secure compensation to fund their vile activities.

No other membership organisations are hidebound in this way. Employer organisations do not have such barriers. There is no parallel interference in the internal affairs of political parties, but for trade unions, which are the most democratic of organisations, not have the same rights to run their own affairs as a golf club is a disgrace.

Section 7 of the Act gives members the option to complain to a certification officer. It enables disaffected persons to complain about nearly every aspect of a union's organisation. Recently, NASUWT was involved in four days of gruelling legal argument regarding accuracy of minutes, nomination procedures, the relationship between executive in the regions, even farcically whether the term 'general secretary' in the rules is a generic term or has to be taken literally.

This residual Tory legislation is a direct interference in trade union democracy. After seven years, UK legislation is still inconsistent with our international obligations. It is still in breach of international labour standards; it is still not complying fully with the Human Rights Act and it is an insult to this Movement.

We, therefore, call for an urgent review of the effect and impact on trade union organisations of these sections of the Act with a view to eventual repeal.

Steve Kemp (National Union of Mineworkers) supporting the composite motion said: Congress, I want to speak about fairness at work, the rights at work, the right to be members of a trade union and the right to organise to work in a safe workplace. Such a bedrock is the base which all of us here this week should believe in.

I agree with Roger and others that have come to this rostrum already this morning. This Government have gone some way to improving rights at work. The Minimum Wage Act has benefited some two million workers. Six million part‑time employees became entitled to the same rights as full‑time employees. Legal entitlements for British workers to be paid holidays is, of course, welcomed. Other improvements have been implemented, but still we are faced with a large slice of Tory anti‑trade union law and, to be honest with you, it is just not good enough.

Composite 1 asks for the Labour Government to conform to UK obligations under the ILO and the European Social Charter. I find it astonishing that the Labour Party that opposed the introduction of Thatcher's employment legislation only states to us now that the vast bulk of it is here to stay.

The nonsense of re‑balloting after eight weeks on strike, the refusal to accept a fundamental right for providing employment rights from day one for unfair dismissal and redundancy are simply terrible. In particular, one piece of legislation that has affected the NUM, and I know many colleagues and unions in this hall today who have been affected by it, is in not giving a right to reinstatement where recommended by an employment tribunal in cases of unfair dismissal.

The NUM and unions do not need lectures from government about rights at work. I will tell you a story of what is happening in the coal fields at the current time, especially in Selby. With the pits which have already shut and the four pits going to be closed means that 1500 men are or will be out of work. The lads at Selby who want to transfer to Kellingley have been asked to rip up the five‑day working agreement, the eight‑hour shift arrangement and accept so‑called flexible working. Flexible working! It is unbelievable! It is like a stick of rock at Brighton! That is how flexible it is.

Miners have been told at the current time that if they wish to continue employment they have to work compulsory shifts, night shifts and 10‑hour shifts at the weekend, with a minimum duration of, like I said, 10 or 12 hour shifts. When the employer can do that and unions are seen to be helpless, then no wonder we call for trade union rights to be improved because, at the end of the day, those NUM members, some of whom have worked in the industry for 30 years, did not have a right. There is no choice whatsoever, so the employer can come in and give them those terms and conditions.

This Movement needs to keep the campaign going to promote additional Labour values based on workers' rights, trade union freedoms, decent jobs and respect. We do that through our own trade union and the TUC. I can think of no better organisation than a united campaign to repeal all anti‑trade union laws.

Lastly, I would like to thank all those unions that have supported the NUM, past and present, 20 years on from the dispute. Thanks a lot.

Maria Exall (CWU) supporting the composite motion, said: I am speaking to point 7 on the need for an automatic right to reinstatement for employees unfairly dismissed.

This right is important because of the facts. The facts are these. A minuscule 0.03 per cent of unfair dismissal cases in the UK achieved reinstatement. In the interests of fairness, something must be done. What is the point of employment tribunals and all the procedures if the option of getting your job back is not allowed?

The current situation is a licence for employers to pick on people be they union reps, those discriminated against; basically, anyone they do not like, knowing that there is no real redress. The right to reinstatement is important to us in the CWU because of our own experience with the Critchley workers sacked for fighting for union recognition, but, more recently, the case of Mick and Tom Docherty.

Tom and Mick were involved in a row after a football match which attracted national press attention. They were subject to no criminal charges as a consequence, yet Royal Mail sacked them anyway. Fellow postal workers in north London took industrial action to support them. The return to work was negotiated on the basis of how an employment tribunal would rule, but it was only after the threat of further industrial action that Tom was reinstated and Mick got a financial settlement.

Two things follow from this case. It took two years to resolve. How much simpler if management had just complied with the employment tribunal in the first place, and that is only fair, surely, for we, as trade unionists, are compelled to comply when we are deemed to be in breach of the law; so why not employers? Secondly, Tom and Mick got justice in the end because of the solidarity from their fellow workers, but most cases are not resolved in this way and the massive injustice continues.

The CWU wholeheartedly supports the Charter of Workers' Rights agreed at the 2001 Congress. If this is to be more than a wish‑list, the next Labour Government must bring the UK into line with international law and give us our rights.

As trade unionists, we aim to create respect at work for our members, in fact, for all employees, but our Movement itself has to live in a political system that has no respect for our human rights; the legal right to strike, the right to take solidarity action and the right not to lose your job because of unfair treatment. All these human rights are denied.

How can we promote fairness at work when our rights are held in such contempt? Let us work to make respect at work real. Let us all stand up for the dignity of our Movement.

John McGhee (Fire Brigades’ Union) : I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of members of the Fire Brigades' Union to thank you and the sisters and brothers you represent for the tremendous support you extended to us during our long and very bitter but, thankfully, now resolved pay dispute.

I would like also to thank Brendan and his staff for their assistance in helping to resolve that dispute. I am sure my own general secretary will have something more to say about that later on in the week.

The solidarity you showed with the fire fighters and emergency fire control staff illustrated the real meaning of the motto 'Unity is Strength', but we know that solidarity, always essential in winning improvements in pay and conditions, is very often not enough. Forces in governments have always had the law on their side and have used it to drive through their will against that of working people even amid strong and determined opposition.

In recent years in Britain, many of us have looked with some envy at our colleagues in Europe where workers individually and collectively enjoy better employment rights.

A great opportunity has just been missed by this government to right a wrong dating back to Thatcher's anti‑union policies and its determined opposition to the inclusion of the Charter of Fundamental Social Rights in the draft European Constitution. That is deeply regrettable.

Despite some improvements since Labour came to power in 1997, UK employment law has short‑changed working people in a number of important areas, including ILO conventions and the European Social Charter. This Government's often luke‑warm commitment to fairness at work was also shown very recently in our pay dispute.

When this Labour Government introduced legislation giving powers to impose pay and conditions and seize control of the fire engines and fire stations crewed and staffed by our members, and despite our dispute having been resolved, these Draconian powers remain in the statute books as a threat to free collective bargaining in the public sector and directly contravene the ILO conventions and the European Social Charter.

These powers should in any country that claims to be democratic be removed, and that a Labour Government should be resorting to such anti‑union measures is frankly a disgrace. It will be next year and the years beyond that we will be coming to this rostrum and saying: 'We demand the abolition of Labour is anti‑trade union legislation and not just Thatcher’s.' It is an absolute disgrace.

Sisters and brothers, we must unite, fight for better employment rights and support this motion.

Joe Marino (Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union) supporting the composite said: I am speaking, in particular, to that paragraph which talks about insolvency and administration laws and pensions.

I want to tell you a story, and it does not matter what industry is involved. My story will be familiar to everybody. When workers turn up at work at six o'clock in the morning and they are told not to start work or they are taken to the canteen and told: 'You, you, you, you, away you go, your job has gone. You, you, you and you, we will look at later', what rights have we got in order to protect our people in that situation?

As I say to Digby Jones of the CBI, and, to the Government as well: That is the position in Britain today. That is the reality. That is a true story that we faced in Salford just a few weeks ago and one that I know many of you have faced up and down the country.

It is an absolute disgrace that workers are treated in this way. That is why we called for reform of these laws. We are not asking the government, we are not pleading with the government. I think we have a right to demand of the government that they protect working people in that situation.

Let me turn to the pension issue, because what really galls is the situation where certain chief executives and employers are paid millions of pounds in pension rights for failure and our people lose their pittance of pensions when they are thrown out of work in this way. If that is not something wrong with society today, then we do not know what is.

I think Bob Crowe has it right when he says: 'We are not in a situation where we plead on these issues. We have to be in a position to demand of those issues.' If we are looking forward, as I am sure we all are, to the next Labour Government, these are the kind of issues that we need this government to work on.

We have a right to say that we demand protection for our people from those who say they are our Government. Our union supports Composite One, and particular reference to these particular issues, and we hope Congress will support that.

Chris Morley (National Union of Journalists) supporting the composite motion said: I am a first time delegate. So much to put right and so little commitment from those who can do something about it. We have our shopping list to make the workplace fairer and better. When things go wrong, there is one simple remedy which is already available and almost always given the two fingers by the employers.

I want to underline the points raised by the sister from the CWU. I am talking about the right to automatic reinstatement after unfair dismissal. Foreign colleagues express amazement when you tell them that an employment tribunal in this country when making a reinstatement order cannot legally enforce it. It is a pity that the Prime Minister did not have his speech brought forward today so he could hear this debate.

I would like to look him in the eye and ask why a good trade unionist, an NUJ member, could be allowed to suffer this injustice? Eugenie Verney, pictured here was a part‑time sub‑editor and NUJ branch chair at the uniquely union‑hostile Daily Mail‑owned newspaper, the Aberdeen Evening Express..

Not to put too fine a point on it, she was shamefully stitched up and made redundant. They advertised for a replacement as she appealed the decision. A real no‑brainer for the Tribunal. Unfair dismissal. They ordered the paper to give her her job back, but, to no one's surprise, it was not forthcoming, despite there being vacancies. She waited six months for a remedy hearing when all the company had to do was sit back and tell the Tribunal the employment relationship had 'irretrievably broken down'. The Tribunal agreed.

Eugenie walked away with nothing but the loss of earnings and, to add insult to injury, she would have been awarded compensation had the Tribunal simply upheld the unfair dismissal claim without a reinstatement order.

Such orders are rare, as you heard. Just eight made last year and six the year before, but when they are given, it seems they are not worth the paper they are written on. In Eugenie's case, her former employer would be the first to howl with outrage if a trade union ignored a court order issued against it; yet they are more than willing to show contempt of the law when it suits them.

Let us nail this nasty little get‑out clause and give our members a real chance for justice.

Tony Donaghey (RMT) supporting the composite motion said: Fairness at work. I want particularly to draw attention to the need for action. John Smith promised that Labour would introduce employment rights for British people from day one. It is a tragedy that he did not live to keep that promise. Here we are, seven years into a Labour Government, and still the most repressive anti‑trade union laws in Britain are in place outside international law and outside EU conventions.

Fairness, not favours, we are told, and we hear a lot about fairness. The Government are even going to abolish unfairness to foxes, and quite right too, but it is high time that a Labour Government abolished unfairness to working people.

When RMT members at Stagecoach in Devon were on strike last summer, it was all fine and dandy for the company to bus in scabs from other Stagecoach subsidiaries, but if we had called trade unionists in those self‑same subsidiaries to take action in support of our colleagues, we would have been hauled into the courts so fast our feet would not have touched the ground. It seems that solidarity action is fine for the bosses, but not for working people.

We need to repeal all these nasty anti‑trade union laws. We need employment rights from day one. We need a charter for workers' rights. We need the automatic right to reinstatement for dismissed workers who win industrial tribunals. Delivering progress on unemployment rights remains the litmus test for a Labour Government. This is not a favour. It is a fairness. This motion reaffirms our call for an end to all these nasty laws, but it also calls for a campaign.

The General Council should take note that this motion calls on them to organise a national demonstration and a lobby of Parliament as soon as possible.

In his Morning Star article the other day, Brendan Barber said that we no longer have to demonstrate against mass unemployment. Maybe so, but we certainly need to demonstrate and lobby to bring an end to a web of legislation designed purely and simply to deny workers the right to take effective collective action.

Let us pass this motion and let us mobilise the Movement to demand that a Labour Government brings Britain's laws back in from the cold.

Brian Caton (POA UK) supporting the composite motion, said: I support this composite with particular emphasis on paragraph 1, and expressly the concerns of prison officers to the attitude adopted by the current Labour Government to anti-trade union laws in general, but specifically to the Criminal Justice

& Public Order Act 1994. The POA would wish to thank the TUC, affiliate unions, and the leadership of the TUC over the past 10 years for the support given to the Association in our quest to have trade union rights returned to prison officers in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Those rights were removed from our membership in 1994 by a Tory government intent on destroying the POA as an effective voice in opposition to the immoral act of prison privatisation and the overcrowding of prisons.

At that time we were heartened by the support shown by the Labour Party, in opposition, to our stand against overcrowding and prison privatisation but, more importantly, the opposition to the removal of trade union rights from prison staff. Promises were given to our Congress by all senior members of the Labour opposition and, more importantly, a letter was then sent by the Labour opposition spokesman on home affairs, Tony Blair. This is what it says about our trade union rights: 'An incoming Labour Government will want to put this situation right and ensure once again that prison officers are treated in the same way and with the same working rights as other public servants and recognise the status of the Prison Officers’ Association as an independent trade union.'

That was absolutely the unequivocal intent of the Labour Government on gaining governmental power, and we have sought enactment of that pledge from the Labour Government since it came to office. In 2005, we will seek the removal of section 127 of the Criminal Justice & Public Order Act that criminalizes prison officers for taking any form of action. This is dependent on the signing of a self-shackling agreement that means prison officers should never even contemplate any form of action.

Congress, the POA registered its case with the International Labour Organisation and we will take this United Kingdom government to the European courts to ensure that prison officers are treated no differently than any other public servant in this country, and no differently than our members were treated as a free and independent trade union prior to 1994. Further, the POA unreservedly supports the repeal of anti-trade union legislation that shackles our unions and attacks the democratic process of union self-determination. I say this to the Labour Government, and to Tony Blair, honour your commitments, stop your worldwide boasting of the restrictive practices against trade unions in the United Kingdom, get your hands off the trade union rule book and allow us to manage our affairs. Please support the composite.

Christine Howell (GMB) speaking in support of composite motion one, said: Congress, the GMB was appalled by the Government’s approach to the review of the Employment Rights Act.

Firstly, it was clear that submissions from the trade unions had been given much less weight than the views of the CBI and the Institute of Directors; but, even more seriously, the review completely ignored the Government’s obligations to uphold international law relating to rights for people at work. For the GMB the issue of fairness at work boils down to trust between government and the working citizens of Britain. Other governments in Europe give their citizens a modern and sensible package of rights, including the right to be treated with fairness, respect, and dignity at work. After seven years in power, it is clear that this Labour Government does not trust British citizens enough to let them have the rights to which they are entitled. The end result of this policy is familiar to us all -- British workers, the easiest to sack in Europe despite working the longest hours in Europe, and thousands of migrant workers vulnerable to gang masters, who exploit them ruthlessly and in some cases fatally.

Congress, let me tell you the end result of this new Labour approach: 240 engineering construction workers building the new £800m Wembley Stadium, many of them from the North East, working on a project so important to the Government and the next Olympic bid, sacked not once but twice by different contractors within the space of three weeks. Their crime? Asking for their rights under national agreements agreed between management and unions; 240 men across the country, living in digs and asked to work 66 hours a week to build a prestigious new football stadium, have been kicked around the park by their employers. What is really sickening about all this is that the law is on the side of the unscrupulous employers and the law does not protect working people who have been treated disgracefully. That is the result of this Government’s policy and it is a policy that must be changed. Congress, please support.

The President : Colleagues, I am sure we welcome our sisters and brothers from the Wembley site. Welcome to Congress.

The General Council supports composite motion one.

· Composite Motion One was CARRIED

Agency Workers

George Brumwell (UCATT) moved composite motion two.

(Insert Composition Motion Two - Agency Workers)

He said: The growth of labour agencies is phenomenal, it is global, and it is a response and by-product of the privatisation programme that is taking place not only in this country but throughout the world. The agency arrangements in this country provide workers with little or no rights; this is not to mention migrant labour. There are about 800,000 to a million agency workers working in all sectors of the British economy; there are 120,000 in local government. Agency workers are brought in, inevitably, to undermine the terms and conditions of the stable workforce. They are a vulnerable group of workers. They have no job security and very few rights.

When it comes to the law, if you look at railway maintenance for example, we have members working on railway maintenance for Corrillian, employed through an agency called Sky Blue. We had a member there for about 18 months who was then sacked. We found out that he had no right to an employment tribunal so the matter went to the Employment Appeal Tribunal, and the decision from the law courts was that there is no contractual relationship between the employer and the agency. What a sad state of affairs, he is more like a stateless person in today’s British workforce.

If we look at migrant workers in this country they are nearly all supplied through labour agencies that act as no more than middle-men. On the construction of the Scottish Parliament building we came across migrant labourers, migrant craftsmen, being paid very low rates of pay; it was sheer exploitation. I cannot understand how a £40m contract finished up costing £400m of the taxpayers’ money. There needs to be a fuller and further inquiry into that.

We are very suspicious when we find large numbers of Portuguese workers on a construction site. Inevitably, every time we investigate the use of Portuguese workers on a building site there is exploitation and low rates of pay but we manage to get it put right. I am also bound to say that Portuguese workers, to a large extent, were used on the £350m Home Office contract in London. We did not even get access because the French contractors said: 'We do not recognise your union.'
I wonder if they would recognise it if it had been in Attercliffe and they were building the same building in Attercliffe. There are double standards prevailing so far as illegal and migrant labour is concerned. If you are an immigrant working in this country you cannot open a bank account so your wages have to be paid to the agency through a middle-man, and he determines what you get paid and he determines what is deducted from your wages. The exploitation opportunities are there.

The European Union has on the books a European directive for agency workers and if that was applied and introduced in this country it would remove a lot of the abuse that is taking place, but there is an alliance of countries, including Britain, which has effectively blocked that directive. Where is the fairness in that? These are issues I think we need to be aware of. I think the purpose of European directives is to provide a level playing field for everyone competing for work and providing jobs. Unless we get that level playing field, we are always going to get the raw, naked, exploitation of vulnerable workers who have no rights with the agency and no rights with the employer. Colleagues, I move composite two.

Paddy Lillis (USDAW) seconding composite two, said: Colleagues, there are two myths about agency workers, either they are secretaries and admin workers temping in offices, or they are migrant workers trapped in the ugly twilight world of gang masters. There is some truth in both stereotypes and we are all aware of the horrific fate of the Chinese workers in Morecambe Bay earlier this year. It is also true that the single largest group of agency workers, around 30 per cent, work in the mainstream manufacturing industries, and the fastest rising group is amongst professionals and managerial workers, up six-fold in the last five years. There are now, colleagues, at least 700,000 agency workers in the United Kingdom. They are not just in the margins, in the dangerous and often illegal world of the gang masters, they are in the mainstream, often working alongside permanent organised workers in the mm core sectors of the economy. They are in the public as well as the private sector, in health and education, in the building and transport industries, in retail and food manufacturing, meat and poultry processing, and chemicals and pharmaceuticals; it goes on and on. Whatever the sector and whatever the occupation, the same threat is faced by these people. They are often employed quite deliberately on inferior terms and conditions, they rarely have access to sick pay and pensions, they receive little or no training, they are exposed to greater health and safety risks, and have precious little protection on maternity rights.

It is a myth, colleagues, that they are only there to cover peaks and troughs, holidays, and sickness absence. Barely a third of agency workers have worked for their existing employers for less than three months, the vast majority are there for extended periods as an established presence on the pay roll. They are there not just to make good the skeleton levels of permanent staff, drawn in when needed and pushed out when not, employers also often use them to undermine established pay and conditions and drive a cheap labour wedge through the existing workforce. That is why, colleagues, we need to take urgent action with tighter controls on the activities of employment agencies, with improved and extended rights to agency workers, we need a positive and proactive stance from our government, and we need an all-agency workers directive. It is about no more than minimum standards, decent levels of protection, rights for agency workers themselves, and vital safeguards for the mass of other workers whose terms and conditions are increasingly under threat. Please support the composite.

John Wilkin (NATFHE) supporting composite two, said: Congress, I want to focus on the part of this composite that calls for agency workers to have equal access to occupational pensions. The largest agency offering lecturers to post-school education found a way of helping employers to avoid their obligations under the laws to protect part-time workers. Some colleges sacked all their directly employed part-time lecturers and then offered them the same work through the agency, but for less pay, no sick pay, no maternity rights, and no pensions. They are supposed to be self-employed but we call it 'bogus' self-employment. The agency used to be called Education Lecturing Services; now it is called Protocol Professionals. Some protocol. Some professionals.

NATFHE pursued the case of one such lecturer right through the European Court. Deborah Allenby was sacked, along with 340 of her part-time colleagues at Accrington & Rossendale College, and then re-employed through the agency to do the same work on a much less favourable contract. NATFHE argued that such workers should be entitled to equal treatment with their directly employed colleagues; this includes access to the teachers’ pension scheme from which they are excluded. We have made some progress. Earlier this year the European Court ruled that the exclusion of agency workers from the teachers’ pension scheme might discriminate against women.

Congress, the growth of subcontracted self-employed status in the public sector does not just affect teachers. We want equal access to occupational pension schemes regardless of contract status. The Government could put this right, now. This would add real value to agency workers’ pay. Let us make this a campaigning issue across the Movement.

Paula Mason (RMT) speaking in support of the composite, said: Colleagues, I work for P&O and have worked for P&O for six years as an agency worker and I know people who have worked there for 12 years as agency workers. These agency workers work a week on and a week off, and then every Wednesday they are laid off work, so therefore only work a week. This means that we work with people who are on £19,000-£20,000 a year and we are receiving £10,500 a year; therefore, the employer is getting two for the price of one. This has been happening over a period of 15 years. They have now decided to give us a 2002 contract, so they call it. I call it a 'Mickey Mouse' contract. This Mickey Mouse contract is where they employed 120 of us and then in March of this year they employed another load of agency workers from Portugal that they could abuse. These Portuguese workers now work 1,000 hours more than we do but are on the same rate of pay as us, £12,500. This has been going on for 15 years and it is about time the Government did something for seafarers, and agency workers especially, and also for the younger generation of this country. It is absolutely diabolical.

Please support this composite. Do not just support it, do something about it. I am fed up with it and I am sure the youngsters are fed up with it as well. Thank you for your support.

Joe Morgan (GMB) speaking in support of composition motion two, said: Congress, what is it that agency workers have done to upset employers and the Government so much that they want to deny them the basic protections that other workers enjoy? The European Union proposal for a Temporary Agency Worker Directive actually came out in March 2002 and yet in September 2004 we are still waiting for it to be agreed. We thought the directive was back on the agenda after July’s national policy forum where a commitment was made to work with the EU Commission to reach an early agreement, yet at last week’s meeting on the issue in Brussels our government simply sat on its hands and no progress was made. Hopes for political agreement in October are also dashed as EU governments will be looking to each other to make the first move, and you can guarantee that nobody will be blinking.

Congress, this is simply not good enough. Our government - our government - has made a commitment and that commitment is going to need movement on their part. Temporary agency workers deserve day one equal treatment on employment rights. The CBI and the DTI are simply wrong to say that this will cost jobs and damage the UK’s economic competitiveness and flexibility. Even the CBI’s own research shows that most of their employers already provide parity on working conditions. What the directive will do is help to stop the abuse and exploitation of temporary workers, many of them migrant workers of cowboy agencies and gang masters. The tragedy of the Chinese cockle-pickers is, sadly, only one of a catalogue of horror stories. You would think the CBI would welcome seeing the back of illegal and unlicensed operators but, sadly, that does not appear to be the case.

Congress, the GMB welcomes the speedy progress of the gang masters bill to help tackle the exploitation of many of these vulnerable workers in the food and farming industries. However, we need to ensure permanent rights and protections for all temporary workers and improve their employment status. Flexibility can go hand in hand with fairness, employment protection, and respect and dignity for all workers. Temporary workers deserve that as much as any other worker. Progress was promised and we want to see it delivered now. Thank you, colleagues. Please support this composite.

Judith Griffiths (CWU) supporting composite two, said: Agency temporary working has become the norm for millions of workers, approximately 1.5 million to be precise, and is now a fundamental feature of the UK labour market. The trade union Movement was built historically on the basis of organising against casualisation and defending the most vulnerable sections of working people. Agency workers are more likely to be young workers. In 2002, approximately 35 per cent were under the age of 25 and 65 per cent were under the age of 35. Agency workers earn approximately 70 pence for every pound earned by a permanent employee. Clearly, this is a very attractive option as far as the employers are concerned. My daughter is an agency worker. She works in the same job as me but earns half my salary, and has been employed on a temporary basis in the same job for two years. How can that be justified in a major UK company?

Many agency workers feel no necessity to join a union given their temporary status and yet it is precisely this layer of workers that desperately needs the advice and support that a trade union can offer. It is an absolute disgrace that we have a Labour government that, along with other European leaders, is blocking the implementation of a directive that would ensure equal treatment and basic protection for all agency workers, the vast majority of whom only work as temps because they are unable to find long-term permanent jobs.

Let us step up our pressure from this Congress to the Government to introduce the EU directive for agency workers. Let us also step up our campaigning efforts in recruiting and organising these mainly young workers who desperately require our union organisation.

The President: The General Council supports composite motion two.

· Composite Motion Two was CARRIED

EQUAL RIGHTS

The President : I now turn to Chapter 3 of the General Council’s Report on Equal Rights, starting with the section on Disability, at page 33. I call Motion 21, Disability Rights in Europe.

Disability Rights and Europe

Richard Rosser (NUT) moved motion 21.

(Insert Motion 21 - Disability Rights and Europe)

He said: Congress, President, brothers and sisters, this motion comes from the TUC Disability Committee. Earlier this year when a statue of Alison Lapper was unveiled much of the popular press pilloried the idea that we could have a statue of a disabled woman in Trafalgar Square. I am pleased to say that the GLOA and the Mayor are going ahead with erecting that statue. It is right that disabled women should be celebrated in our national square. After all, a disabled man has been on the top of that pillar for more than 150 years, although so high up that most people do not even recognise that he is disabled.

Seriously, the 9.6 million disabled adults -- and we still do not know how many disabled children there are in this country, the Government still has not worked it out, but 9.6 million is what they tell us is the number of adults - deserve full civil rights, but they do not have them at the moment. We have had a piecemeal method of giving people rights in this country for a number of years. Under the Tories there were 13 attempts to bring in comprehensive legislation to give civil rights to disabled people. When New Labour came in on a manifesto commitment to do just that, they quickly did not do it and instead used the existing weak and full-of-holes Disability Discrimination Act actually to bring things forward.

Recently, we have had a new bill, which was scrutinised by a parliamentary committee, to try and strengthen that legislation. Unfortunately, the Government have rejected most of the recommendations that that committee, from both houses of parliament, put forward. Why the resistance? It is the same resistance that we have been hearing about this morning in other areas of employment law, 'We do not want to make it too difficult for the employers.' How is it that in other countries, much poorer than ours - remember, we are the fourth richest country in the world - are managing to introduce this legislation?

I have just come back from the Disabled People’s International World Summit in Winnipeg, Canada. There we were heartened to hear from many parts of the world with a far lower economic base than us where legislation was actually going forward and campaigning was going on. We as a trade union Movement need to support that work. We need to support it across the world. We need also to ensure that the draft European directive, which the European Disability Forum has formulated, is actually brought into legislation. It should have come in during the European Year of Disabled People. What is the point of having a European Year if we do not end up with some legislation at the end of it?

We have the Employment Directive but that only covers employment. It is in fact something that will force this Government -- they would not have done it otherwise -- to lower the employers’ threshold from October 2004. So, in a couple of weeks’ time one million employers will be brought under the Disability Discrimination Act, and seven million more employees. It would not have happened if the Government had been left to their own legislative agenda; it happened because of the Equal Employment Directive across Europe.

Let no one in this hall say that Europe does not affect us favourably; it does. We have to play a fuller part there and we as a union Movement have to fight for this directive to be implemented. For instance, in areas like transportation, currently in the UK I am protected when I go to the airport but I am not protected when I get on the plane; they can discriminate against me as much as they want, and they often do. The Directive for Europe will actually cover all carriers and within ten years they will have to implement it.

Why does the Government not sign Protocol 12? It gives equality before the law on any legal issue. Why should we not have it so that equality issues are taken account of when any other rights issue is being looked at? What is the coyness about this? Come on, if we want human rights legislation, surely we should have it when it comes to the courts and our rights. Of course, we need to campaign in our workplaces. We must applaud Amicus for their Workplace Champions Campaign, which was funded under the European Year, but it is an example that should not just be left to the history books, it is one that we should all take back. We need workplace representatives to organise strongly and negotiate with each employer to get a better deal for disabled workers in the workplace. With the law as it stands at the moment there is no anticipation; an employee arrives and they are told: 'Oh, we’ll make some adjustments.' We have to fight for a situation where all workplaces are decent places for all people, including disabled people. I move the motion. Thank you.

Janet Seymour Kirk (Amicus and TUC Disability Committee) seconding the motion, said: Richard Howitt, MEP, Chair of the European Parliament All Party Disability Intergroup has been fighting for the EU to debate and pass this disability directive all of last year, and is still trying to do so in 2004. It was his hope in 2003, the Year of the Disabled People, that this directive would go through making all the campaigning during 2003 worth its weight. Unfortunately, some countries felt unable to allow this to be passed and have fought and won, at least for the moment, to keep it still a prospective directive. What are they afraid of? Like the last government, and unfortunately this Government too, they believe that this will cost them money and possibly their standing with big businesses, resulting in loss of jobs and therefore the loss of production. We know this is not so.

Disabled people have to fight twice as hard for their jobs but they are less likely to take days off, and they are known to be more diligent in their work. Our members are fully aware of the impact that Europe has on issues that we as unions campaign on, and the difficulty of achieving any progress. I found this out for myself a few years ago. I felt privileged to represent my union on a project with eight other countries in the EU, which later extended to 12. We were attempting to find a basic criterion that all countries could agree on that would bring more disabled people into mainstream employment. As part of these discussions we touched on transport to work and I asked that it be termed as 'accessible transport' in the document. The word 'accessible' was not in most of their languages and it therefore took us nearly an hour to come up with a small sentence that meant the same thing. Some countries are making, and have made, great strides to include disabled people in their workforce -- France and Germany come to mind -- but others still have a great way to go.

What would help those countries now, of course, would be to get a greater majority of companies willing to make themselves accessible. It is unfortunate that due to their reluctance we have to have written within this directive the need for such compliance to be demonstrated on a requirement for future funding and contracts. William Hague (my MP, by the way, unfortunately), when I pointed out to him that he really had not listened to what disabled people had said to him would be better for the country on his six months learning tour before he produced the DDA, replied that we should have persuaded the public of the need to change concerning disability instead of pushing for more legislation. Congress, please support.

Mark Fysh (Unison) said:I am Chair of the Disability Conference, and speaking in support of the motion. I welcome the call for the ratification of Protocol 12 but believe we should get our own house in order. Real political power can only be achieved when a group gains access to status and wealth; this then means that the government of the day has to listen to that group. We, the disabled, have neither acquired status nor wealth, our position in society is given to us, and according to the press yesterday we are the deserving and undeserving poor with benefits cut. Our employment status is large volume, low pay, dead-end jobs, and yet it could be very different.

The DTI, the TUC, and Unison, in Oxfordshire, are looking at funding a graduate-style entry scheme for disabled managers - yes, managers - at £21,000 a year, from scratch and, if successful, will be placed in permanent employment with the practice rolled out across the country. Real access for disabled people, possibly as many as 9 million, will have a huge impact on goods and services in this country -- cars, clothes, leisure, white goods, everything this country buys and uses. We could be the life and death of your industry.

I challenge the trade union Movement, the Government, and the CBI, to see us not as a handout burden but as part of the economic and social assets of this country. Is it relevant to you? Oh, yes, it is. Remember, you will all become old and disabled. You will demand access to the goods and services that we need now. What price real equality? Support motion 21 and Protocol 12. It is vital to us all. Thank you.

Gareth Davies (Community): I also represent the Disability Committee. I suppose most of us aspire to a few fairly basic things like freedom, unity, peace, all that sort of thing. However ,justice is overarching because, without that, you cannot have them.

I come from the National League of the Blind and Disabled section of the new union, Community, that came into being on 1 July this year. It was formally launched at the TUC last week. I am its President. God knows how that came about but there we are! I went with the Section Secretary, Joe Mann, to Brussels in March 2000, and we attended the debate on the Anti-Discrimination Directive in the Parliament. This is absolutely pivotal to the whole thing because everything else flows from it, a bit like the Civil Rights Act in the United States.

It seems to me that it points not only to the importance of what we need to do about disability but also to the importance of what we need to do about Europe. Europe is not about straight bananas or that you cannot call it ice cream. That is only the last tormented scream of the demented minds of the media moguls who do not want to be regulated properly. Europe is our future. When we say we want to go forward we need to be looking to a good 'yes' vote in the referendum and we need to be pushing our own agenda in consort with that as well.

Disability is not important in its own right; it is only important because everything else is important. I hope that Congress will put this resolution down between the posts and make it the official policy of the British trade union Movement.

Phil Davies (GMB) supporting Motion 21 said: Since coming to power Labour has had a good record on improving the lives of disabled people. Key reforms under the Disability Discrimination Act are due next month with more to follow. Whilst important and welcome, these reforms still fall short of disabled people's expectations for equal treatment and opportunity. Disabled people have waited far too long for equality. It is time for full-blown civil rights for all disabled people. That is what the GMB wants; that is what this Congress wants; and that is what disabled people want. That is why ratifying Protocol 12 is so important.

As we know only too well, establishing rights at European level is no guarantee of creating rights at home. A decade ago, under the Priorities Supply Scheme, quality government contracts could be delivered by highly-skilled, disabled workers. The Tories unfortunately scrapped that scheme in 1994, arguing that it was in breach of European law. This had a devastating effect on the likes of our members in Remploy. Instead of skilled manufacturing employment, many disabled workers were reduced to low skilled jobs and low status jobs. Since then, the GMB -- along with other unions -- have campaigned and lobbied in Brussels, and beyond, to reform the European Public Procurement legislation. We want the law changed to ensure that public contracts could be reserved for supported work places.

Earlier this year the hard slog paid off: we achieved that crucial reform. Now that seems to have been the easy bit. We did not think then that we would have to do battle with the Treasury's Office of Government Commerce. The OGC has a fixation with free markets. You would be mistaken for thinking it is a hangover from the Thatcher era, but obviously that is another story. These free market ideologists dislike the idea of reserving contracts for disabled workplaces. They dislike social employment, environment or any other kinds of consideration that you can think of. Such things muddy the water. They argue, "Don't buck the market", so in that consultation on transposing the Euro Directive into UK law they tried to strangle the GMB reforms at birth. We cannot allow this to happen. With your help they will not succeed.

The President : The General Council supports Motion 21.

· Motion 21 was CARRIED

Age Discrimination & Equality

The President: I will be calling the General Secretary during the debate on Composite Motion 6 to explain the General Council's position.

Jonathan Baume (FDA) moved Composite Motion Six.

(Insert Composite Motion Six - Age discrimination and equality)

He said: It was Marx who said that anyone can get old, all you have to do is live long enough. That was Groucho, not Karl by the way!

People are taking that advice to heart. The average age of the UK population is rising. There are some 19 million people aged 50 and over in the UK, 40 per cent of the population. By 2020 more than half the population will be aged over 50, and there will be 2 million fewer working people under 50 than there are now. By 2040 there will be 15 million people aged over 65.

These changes will have profound effects socially, economically and politically, yet we live in a society that undervalues older workers and the elderly in general, where far too many pensioners are still condemned to a life of poverty and where one in four workers have faced age discrimination.

In 20O6 we must implement the EU Directive on equal treatment in employment. For the first time it will be illegal to discriminate on grounds of age. It will be a momentous change in UK law and a further benefit of our active engagement in Europe. The government promised draft legislation this summer to allow workers and employers two years in which to prepare. Yet there is an eerie silence. It appears to be because the government are unwilling to confront employers who seem keen to undermine the legislation before it is even enacted. Put simply, employers want the government to retain mandatory retirement ages, despite the EU Directive.

What do workers want? Credible surveys suggest that more than three-quarters do not want a fixed retirement age. Our members know that just because they have reached 60, 65 or even 70 it does not mean that overnight they have nothing to contribute to the workplace. By being forced to retire against their will, many workers also suffer financially and they have their rights infringed. Yet older workers already account for almost one-quarter of the UK's annual economic output. If mandatory retirement ages are abolished, up to one million extra older people can be in work contributing 30 billion to the economy each year, saving billions in reduced benefits and generating more tax revenue.

Moreover, CBI pressure to retain retirement ages does not seem to make sense for business itself. Two out of every five workers are employed, particularly in small businesses where there is already no fixed retirement age, and so employers have an access to a wider pool of talent and the experience of older workers. Yes, abolishing retirement ages may create some short-term adjustment challenges for some employers but, in the longer-term, business, society and the wider economy will benefit.

Let me be clear. This is not about the pension age. Retirement age and pension age are different issues, and we will be debating pensions tomorrow morning. I know some unions have genuine fears that any change in retirement age, which is currently normally 65, will allow the government or employers to raise the pension age. My view is the opposite. If we retain mandatory retirement ages in the forthcoming legislation, which will probably end up at 70, there is a real danger that company pension schemes or the state pension age will also be raised to 70. We have to make a judgment. I believe that by abolishing fixed retirement ages we have more chance of protecting the current pension age. The debate is about choice, it is about flexibility and it is about the right of an individual who is fit and able to do the job to stay in the job until they choose to leave, not when the employer uses an arbitrary cut-off to force them to leave.

We should not forget also that age discrimination is not just about older people. It will apply to people of every age, young and old. There will be no upper age limit and no lower age limit after leaving education. There will be no exclusions by the employer’s side, nor for senior management. We will all be covered by age discrimination law.

I urge the government to end the equivocation. No government minister would dream of discriminating against somebody because they were, say, Bengali, or because they were gay or because they were a woman, so why should the government consider it acceptable to discriminate because someone is 65 or 70?

Anthony Powell, the novelist, said that growing old is like being increasingly penalised for a crime you have not committed. Improved lifestyles, advances in medicine, greater understanding of the science of the body mean that our children -- maybe even our generation -- may no longer face those penalties and we can reduce those penalties in the world of work. Every single one of us in this hall will benefit from this legislation. We will have new rights, new choices, new opportunities. The trade union Movement must remain in the vanguard of the campaign to end discrimination against older workers and the elderly. Let us win for older workers the dignity and the respect they deserve.

Pat Carragher (BACM-TEAM) seconding Composite Motion Six said: we have waited far too long for advances to be made on the issue of age discrimination, and I think what this motion is about is trying to demonstrate how we can make progress and, at the same time, introduce what I would term progressive flexibility on this issue. Being progressive is an important part of this motion because, as we make advances on this issue of age discrimination, we have to make sure that the approach is voluntary and is going to be even across the piece in terms of the aspirations that union members have.

Reference has already been made to the EU Directive and I have to say that the initial government response on the Directive referred to in the motion was that there should be a harmonisation down in terms of removing age discrimination with redundancy terms within the state redundancy framework. I have to say that that is a bit too indicative of the penny-pinching approach that the government have in regard to where it sets the balance between the interests of working members of this Movement and the interests of business. Surely it cannot be right that when Ireland are able to say that they will harmonise up in line with the spirit of the Directive that the UK, fourth largest economy in the world, are able to do no better than simply say, 'No, we intend to harmonise down'.

One word of warning here. Since this motion was framed we have had a commitment from the Warwick Policy Forum to improvements in state redundancy pay. I would call on the government to make good that commitment and, in the process of doing that, make sure that when they transpose this Directive they do not harmonise down the aspects dealing with redundancy pay.

Brendan Barber (The General Secretary): The General Council supports this composite motion calling for an end to age discrimination at work, but has asked me briefly to explain some of the background to this important issue and to make clear the General Council's position on what is a key issue for working people.

Last year the government launched a consultation on a European Directive that requires Member States to implement new age equality laws. Now the government are setting up a special consultative group to look specifically at this issue of retirement age. As you know, while in this country we do have a statutory age at which people are entitled to claim a state pension, currently we do not have a statutory retirement age. They are two different things. The TUC and unions have been very clear about our agenda and our aims. First, we want an end to discrimination against workers on grounds of age. We know that too many workers face prejudice, whether it is young workers excluded from access to pension schemes or older workers denied the chance of training, passed over for promotion purely because an older face does not fit.

Secondly, if we are to clamp down on prejudice and discrimination then all workers, regardless of age, should enjoy employment protection, and we know some employers do not want that.

Thirdly, I want to make absolutely clear that we are determined to protect the pension age, the age at which working people become entitled to claim a state pension. It is enshrined in the state pension scheme and, of course, it is also in hard won union negotiated occupational pension schemes too.

The TUC totally rejects the position put by the CBI that the only way to solve Britain's pensions crisis is to make people work longer and harder for less. We know that the CBI wants the state pension age to increase to 70, and they argue this in the full knowledge that many, many workers would simply not live long enough to claim what is due to them. But work until you drop is not the answer and the TUC, together with the National Pensioners Convention, will continue the campaign to keep the state pension age at 65.

Campaigning for protection against age discrimination and campaigning to keep the state pension age at 65 are complementary not contradictory aims. Greater flexibility on retirement yes, raising the pension age no.

With that explanation, on behalf of the General Council I ask you to support the motion.

* Composite Motion Six was CARRIED

Economic and Industrial Affairs

Energy and environment

Peter Clements (Prospect) moved Composite Motion 15.

(Insert Composite Motion 15 - Energy and Environment)

He said: The UK energy policy is facing turbulent times. We find ourselves at a point where a number of largely independent factors are coming together to require a complex balancing act if all or any of the government's objectives are to be achieved, for example, the continuity of energy supply or CO2 emissions. The factors include inexorable growth in electricity demand of around one to two per cent each year, a country moving from 65 per cent coal and no gas-fired generation in 1990 to a target of 75 per cent gas-fired generation by 2020. Depletion of UK oil and gas reserves means that we will be importing up to 80 per cent of our gas by 2020, and this from areas of potential political and cultural instability.

The government rightly focus on support for renewables and energy efficiency and the deregulation of the electricity market. As all of this goes on, so we have to strive to meet our energy policies. For the vast majority of consumers the priority is economic and security of supply, which most would argue is the responsibility of the state and not the market. Yet increased reliance on imported gas brings the prospect of long-term interruptions of supply, whether through technical problems or political instability with being at the end of a long pipeline from Russia to western Europe.

The UK is ill prepared for, and unfamiliar with, such interruptions because, in recent generations, we have always had gas on tap. The UK has around four per cent of annual gas usage as a storage capacity, which is about two weeks’ worth at the current rate of consumption. Whilst we support the further investment of renewables, including wind power, it should be recognised that wind power also brings with it concerns of intermittency.

A further part of the policy conundrum relates to protecting the environment, specifically to CO2 emissions. The move from coal to gas has given the UK an artificially impressive start in this area and the role nuclear power could play to redress the problem cannot be underestimated. Even Professor James Lovelock, guru of the environmental movement, said that nuclear power has a significant part to play in any energy mix.

Yet there is still a long way to go to meet our stretching targets. Indeed, government statistics state that UK CO2 emissions went up not down last year. The aim must be a balanced mix of energy generation, with the inherent security that accompanies diversity. There are roles to be played by carbon free renewables, by clean coal - of which there are significant UK reserves -- and by nuclear new build, along with the waste issues that derive from it. This is a challenge not just for our generation but also future generations, and decisions made today may take a generation to be realised. We cannot wait for interruptions of supply to act; we must act now,

Barry Morris (Community) seconding Composite Motion 15 said: Very soon the European Commission will decide the amount of carbon dioxide big users of energy throughout the European Union will be able to release into the atmosphere free of charge. The EU is fulfilling a responsibility accepted by all 25 EU members to cut greenhouse emissions and give effect to the Kyoto Protocol. Tony Blair has committed us to reducing the amount of gases we put out by one fifth by 2010, more than any other EU country. But we accept that.

The accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere poses a grave threat to the planet. Already the people of Tuvalu in the Pacific are resigned to leaving their island because of the melting of the polarised caps when their island will sub-merge. There will be legions of other consequences, mainly unpredictable save that we can be certain that they will cause major disruption and suffering, particularly for the poorest of our world.

Britain will be at a disadvantage compared with all other manufacturing countries outside the EU. None except Japan has ratified Kyoto. None will have to worry about cutting gas emissions. We do not complain about that either. The government have given their word and we must look after the planet. It is the only world that we have. But in accepting the cuts British manufacturing must not be put at a disadvantage compared to our other EU comrades.

The outlook for British manufacturing is the best for years. In the steel industry alone several companies in Britain plan, over the next two years, to increase production. But steel is a very competitive business and the investment will not happen if the EU scheme makes it relatively more costly to produce in Britain. After all the cuts the manufacturing industry has suffered in recent years we are not going to let victory be snatched from us at this stage.

I ask you to support the motion and support the TUC in keeping manufacturing jobs in Britain.

Ian Lavery (NUM) supporting the composite said: It is 20 years since the Tory Government launched the attack on the British mining industry for the sole political purpose of destroying not only the National Union of Mineworkers but the trade union Movement as a whole. The sheer stupidity of this vindictive attack has left this country in the perilous position of facing a severe energy famine by the year 2020. The dash for gas has depleted our own indigenous gas reserves and, at the same time, as a nation we have been sterilising the vast coal reserves that we have been blessed with. By 2020 we will be importing energy to the degree of 90 per cent of our requirements, 70 per cent of which will be gas. It will be imported from the most politically unstable countries in the world, like Russia, like Iran, and like Algeria. The gas will be transported through huge pipelines, through many countries, until it gets to the end of the line, us here in Britain. That has to be wide open for terrorist sabotage.

Since our own coalfields suffered the terrorist sabotage of Margaret Thatcher, which saw the closure of more than 200 pits and a loss of another 280,000 coal industry jobs, we have become more and more dependent on gas. We now have the obscene spectacle of the most advanced coalfield in the world, the Selby complex in South Yorkshire, closing down because coal owners refuse to invest in its future. This single act has sterlised eighty years of precious coal reserves.

The Kyoto targets agreed by the government simply mean that emission levels into the atmosphere need to be drastically reduced. We agree with this but it is the way in which we do that. We believe quite clearly that clean coal technology is the answer. It is not new, it is cheap, it is efficient, it is user friendly, and could in many ways close the gap in terms of the energy deficiency that we face. We can as a nation burn coke cleanly and should be investing on that. We have a great opportunity. Oil prices are at an all time high, nuclear power is under close scrutiny. The indigenous gas reserves are at an all time high in terms of prices and increasing. Renewable targets have been set at unachievable levels. World coal prices are at record levels.

We will be here in the future. We will be here to remind those politicians and everyone else of what has been said for generations by the National Union of Mineworkers. We will be there to remind them all. We take little pleasure in saying 'We told you so'.

Dougie Rooney (Amicus): First of all, we would like to state that our union completely and totally supports Composite 15. We congratulate the National Union of Mineworkers for their stance and their determination to keep going, even in the face of all the horrendous opposition and the dastardly deeds that have been done to them over decades, but the previous speaker was absolutely right. In the situation we are faced with in this nation, where we have no coherent energy strategy, one is moving from pillar to post and that is no way to run an economy. The result of that is that we are now in a position where we are dependent, as speakers have said, on imported oil and gas, our nuclear capacity needs to be re-strengthened and renewed, and we should not be using gas in order to generate electricity.

There is an important point here. Nuclear generation and gas generation generate electricity at what is known as base load. That is 80/85 per cent of our electricity. However, we need coal-fired power stations because they provide the other 20 per cent and that 20 per cent has to be flexible. When you or I get up in the morning and switch on the electricity, or come home at night, that creates a peak. That can only be met by flexible generation; coal-fired offers that flexibility. The problem is that because of the contributions on the EU regulations that you will have heard about, the Large Combustion Directive and also the Emissions Directive, that will seriously compromise the ability of what is left of the coal-fired power stations to meet the flexible demand required in particular during winter months. Therefore, we could be faced with power cuts towards the end of this decade. That is not exaggerating; it is as simple as this. During the winter months, if these power stations -- as they will have to -- reduce their generating hours because of those Directives in order to meet the environmental targets that we have set ourselves, we will be in serious trouble.

Therefore, following what the previous speaker said, and what our amendment, included in this composite, states quite clearly, we need coal-fired, clean coal generation as a matter of absolute urgency. The government should take an initiative to invest in this. Even though it is public money, we should get a spin off to our manufacturing base and our construction industry in doing that. It is absolutely essential that in the very short term we are able to take an initiative to get clean coal power stations built and start using coal-supplied generation for the flexibility that is required.

Patrick Carragher (BACM-TEAM) supporting the composite said: I find it deeply ironic when I try and understand what is happening with energy policy in this country. We have had the dash for gas; we have had the run-down of the coal industry; we have had a market failure where the deregulated market is unable to bring forward from the private sector investment to renew the fleet of generating stations that the country has and the mix between nuclear and coal within that. I find it ironic that when we have that market failure it is not possible to build coal-fired power stations in this country but it is possible to get Export Credit Guarantees from the DTi to build them in India and in other places.

Let me say that coal will continue to be burnt world wide. As the previous speaker said, it is the only fuel that can provide the flexibility to manage variable loads. Any government would be ill-advised to throw away the remaining large resource that the UK has in terms of its coal reserves. I seem to recall that 15 or 20 years ago the UK was at the forefront of research on clean coal technology. O.K., we have climate change and that is a challenge but that challenge will have to be met by developing technologies that will capture carbon and burn coal efficiently. We have lost ground since the privatisation of the British coal industry on that issue. If we are going to have a progressive and balanced approach to energy policy into the future we need to commit ourselves through government to demonstration plants for clean coal technology.

If I may, I would just like to echo a point that has been made: if we do not get this issue of variable loads right, make no mistake, the politicians will be having to answer questions when people are sitting round burning candles because of power cuts.

Helen Rose (UNISON): UNISON is supporting this composite but with some reservations. Like other unions, UNISON welcomes the fact that we now have a government that sees the need for an energy policy, unlike the previous Tory Government whose energy policy was not to have one. The government's White Paper on energy has found broad support for the policy of encouraging renewable sources of energy and energy conservation.

However, UNISON has two reservations about the government's White Paper. Government policy is still heavily driven by the belief that market forces will be sufficient to ensure that our energy needs are met. In the light of the recent announcements by the major energy suppliers of the forthcoming increases in the price of electricity and gas, by four times the rate of inflation, we can all gauge the exact success of the policy. Let us not forget the impact of these price rises on Britain's four million people in fuel poverty and the 30,000 excess winter deaths it causes every year.

The motion notes this policy also succeeded in turning the UK into a net importer of gas. This is hardly a ringing endorsement of the success of market forces.

UNISON is also not convinced that there is a case for new nuclear stations, either on capacity or environmental grounds. It is true that nuclear stations do not produce the greenhouse gases that are the cause of climate change, but nuclear waste is still a major problem and we are still looking for a solution.

However, despite these reservations UNISON supports the overall position of the motion. Furthermore, we would urge all unions to support a planned energy policy based on the strategic needs of this country for a safe, secure and environmentally sustainable supply of energy rather than the narrow interests of the shareholders and directors of private companies.

Tom Brennan (GMB): GMB supports Composite 15 on Energy and Environmental Policy. Energy is the life blood of each and every nation. We here in Britain are extremely fortunate in having the enormous supplies of fossil fuel and the ability to design and manufacture world leading technology. However, we are in danger of squandering this advantage by not having a coherent long-term energy policy. We have suffered through lack of investment in the new generation of nuclear energy and, indeed, other sources including renewables, chip and clean coal technology.

There was for many years a complete absence of any form of energy policy. When the market ruled, planning went out of the window and conservation was not even on the agenda. This artificial market-led approach resulted in an earlier than necessary reduction of the UK coal industry, a squandering of UK national resources, the need for a higher level of imported gas from more volatile sources such as North Africa and the former Soviet Union. And more importantly a serious skill shortage. We are left with problems of nuclear generation with British energy dependent on government financial support. Is it not the time to re-nationalise British energy? Security of supply both now and in the future means that market place alone cannot determine energy prices and energy policy. The market does not consider the long term, so energy supply and security is far too important to be left solely to market forces.

The lack of a coordinated energy policy is directly responsible for the 12.5 per cent hike in energy prices announced by British Gas last month, a price rise caused by no longer having access to North Sea gas and due to the run-down of the UK coal industry and the dash for gas.

Protection of the environment is also a vital part of any balanced energy policy. Conservation of the environment should not be sacrificed for the demands of the market. The energy industry must have effective environmental safeguards, safety controls and enforcement but they also need a highly skilled and well-trained work force of adequate size. We cannot leave safety and environmental protection to chance. The government must develop a coherent and balanced energy policy for the future. This should include changing the remit of the regulator, OFGEM, to take into consideration strategic issues such as safety, security of supply and Britain's wider long-term energy interests. It should also include an investment in developing the skills of the work force and the commitment to supporting higher levels of research and development. We need a balanced energy and environmental policy that makes the best use of all our resources, expertise and technology.

Please support the motion.

The President: The General Council support Composite Motion 15.

* Composite Motion 15 was CARRIED

Conference adjourned until 2.15 p.m.

MONDAY AFTERNOON SESSION

(Congress reassembled at 2.15 p.m.)

The President: Many thanks to the group, Lowering the Tone, who have been playing for us this afternoon.

Congress Awards

The President: We start this afternoon with the section in Congress where we honour and recognise the important contribution of lay activists, who are the bedrock of our Movement. Last year, for the first time, we introduced three new awards to recognise the different roles which union reps now play in the workplace. Alongside the Women’s Gold Badge and the Youth Award, we introduced awards to recognise the specific contributions of Health & Safety reps, Learning Reps and Lay Organisers. It was a move which was widely welcomed, not just as a recognition of the contribution made by some of the outstanding individual award winners but as recognition of the contribution made by thousands of lay reps in work places across the country. This year we have again asked affiliated unions to nominate lay reps. Before we meet our winners, we are going to show a video which will tell you a little bit more about them and their achievements. This video has been sponsored by Browell Smith & Co., solicitors, and I would like to thank them for the support they have given us and hope you enjoy the video.

(Video shown)

We have seen the video and now it is time to meet our award winners.

Women’s Gold Badge

The President: The winner of the Women’s Gold Badge is Ann Hills of USDAW. Ann works at Tesco. She was actively involved in helping USDAW to gain recognition in Tesco in 1969. She was one of the first members to join USDAW from Tesco. USDAW now represents more than 100,000 employees in the company. As branch secretary, Ann first fought sex discrimination cases on behalf of USDAW members more than 20 years ago when the climate was very different. Such cases were hard to win. Unfortunately, Ann is out of the country today and her Award will be collected by USDAW President, Marge Carey. (Applause) presentation of Women’s Gold Badge.

Congress Award for Youth

The President: The recipient of the Congress Award for Youth is Chris Stiles, who is a member of the T&G, who organised a union branch in a poultry factory, which has a workforce comprising 50% migrant workers, made up of Somalians, Gohan and Portuguese workers. Chris developed links with the workers, organised volunteers to translate for the Union, he gets no time off for his union duties so he does all this in addition to a 48 hour week factory shift. (Applause) Presentation of Congress Youth Award.

Learning Rep Award

The President: The Learning Rep Award goes to Mary Locke, a member of UNISON. She is the rep and branch education co-ordinator working at Selly Oak Hospital. She has been the learning rep since March 2003. Mary is a domestic worker in a hospital. Her focus has been on supporting part-time low paid women workers. Mary negotiated a paid time-off agreement for UNISON learning reps but now she has supported new learning reps to get involved in the wider Union. Mary Locke. (Applause) Presentation of Learning Rep Award.

Safety Rep Award

The President: The Safety Rep Award winner is Elizabeth Corbett, a GMB member and safety rep at Automotive Lightning. Elizabeth has negotiated a bullying and harassment policy, a rehabilitation programme and led several initiatives to improve rest areas in the workplace. She was actively involved in the launch of the GMB’s domestic violence pledge card in June 2003 as part of the Daffney Project.

(Applause) Presentation of Safety Rep Award.

Organising Award

The President: Finally, the Award for Organising goes to Melanie Jenner, a PCS lay organiser in the Home Office. During the past year, Melanie has led a campaign to re-structure and re-vitalise her local branch. During the recent pay dispute, Melanie launched another campaign to recruit new members, which led to some 400 more civil servants joining PCS. As a result of her efforts, the union in the Home Office’s Croydon Branch has been re-vitalised, with three active branch committees, 400 new members, one 100 new distributors and the union’s training programme for new reps has been re-vamped. Unfortunately, she cannot be with us today but she will collect her award on Wednesday morning. Thank you, Melanie Jenner. (Applause) Presentation of Organising Award.

Address by General Secretary

The President: Delegates, in the past few minutes we have been celebrating the work which has been done day in and day out by lay reps, but to be effective those reps need the support of their unions and for unions to be effective we need to work together through the TUC, so it is entirely appropriate that after seeing our lay reps at work we should now hear from the person whose job it is to speak on behalf of the whole trade union Movement. This is only Brendan’s second year as General Secretary and it has certainly not been quiet. It is not just headline disputes like the firefighters which has kept him busy, but he has also helped quietly to resolve many other problems away from the public spotlight. I know that Brendan argues our case forcefully, both from the corridors of power and from Trafalgar Square. He has a detailed grasp of particular issues and the capacity to see the big picture. I have great pleasure in inviting Brendan Barber to address Congress.

Brendan Barber (General Secretary): Roger, thank you very much for those words of introduction. It is great to see that so many delegates made sure they got back early for the start of the session this afternoon to make sure that they did not miss my address to Congress. (Laughter)

The next General Election is almost certainly less than a year away. So our debates this week take on a special significance. We have to formulate detailed policies on a host of matters of crucial importance to working people, but we face a greater challenge, too. That is to think about the big picture, to set out our vision. It is no exaggeration to say that we stand at a defining moment. On the one hand is the American model - deregulation, casual hire and fire, minimal levels of social welfare, long working hours, an economy in which trade unionism is under constant attack from corporate leaderships desperate to deny working people a voice. Vast wealth is generated, for sure, but look how it is divided. Obscene wealth for a few sitting alongside desperate poverty for too many. The alternative, for which we have to be the standard bearer, which is a hugely important battle of ideas, is the model which we have developed here in Europe, based on secure welfare states, social partnership, a strong framework of rights, both for citizens and workers. Our case is compelling. The quality of our lives hinges critically on our public services and our welfare state. They are a vital force for social cohesion, the glue that binds our communities together. We know, too, that giving workers a stronger voice at work does not get in the way of economic efficiency. It enhances it, as independent research has demonstrated time and time again. Our way, the Union way, is the route to greater prosperity and greater fairness, too. In union workplaces we win fairer pay, with a mark-up of 8% over non-union Britain. In union workplaces our people work safer with half the accident rates of non-union Britain. In union workplaces we deliver better training opportunities, a growing gap as our army of learning reps makes an even bigger impact day by day.

So I give the lie to those who dare to question the relevance of unions and the TUC. Perhaps we need to do more to publicise and celebrate our achievements. Of course, there is a huge amount still to be done and the day that we stop being passionate about righting wrongs will be the day that our Movement died. Our members want to take pride in the Movement that wins for them. That is how we will meet our biggest challenge, which is rebuilding our membership, our organisational strength.

Just think of some of our wins in the course of the last year. Last year we said that we would campaign for decent pensions for all. We have propelled pensions right to the top of the political agenda. Our campaigning has ensured that no one can now ignore the workers whose final salary schemes have been closed while company directors stuff their own funds with gold; young people denied jobs with pensions, and the women suffering the worst deal of all, many not even eligible for the State retirement pension, that most think is a right. The pensions crisis is deep, for sure, but let us pay tribute to the workers and their unions who, from the depths of despair, facing the loss of their lifetime’s pension saving, have led the campaign for fair pensions treatment for workers when firms go bust. Their courageous battle has won the Pensions Protection Fund to ensure that no workers in the future face that catastrophe, and they have won the Compensation Fund, too, for the victims in recent years. Of course, the funding may well not yet be enough so the campaign goes on. But let us thank the thousands of working people who took to the streets with us in London in June in our TUC led pensions demonstration. That showed Ministers and employers that they had to act.

Our campaign for better protection and stronger pension rights should make us all proud to be trade unionists. Last year, too, we said we would put the fight for long working hours right at the forefront of our campaigns, and we have put the spotlight on our long hours culture. In Britain we have the combination of the longest hours and the fewest public holidays in Europe. Countless workers do unpaid overtime effectively working for free until the end of February.

Of course, the statistics do not tell us the full story. They do not tell us about the low paid workers who have to work every last hour just to make ends meet, or the working families where millions of children simply do not see enough of their mothers or fathers. That is why the battle to end the UK’s shameful backing of the individual opt-out from the 48 hour week continues. I thought the Government thought that this might be a quick win for them and for the business lobby, but they were wrong. A year later we are still fighting. The European Parliament has said the opt out must go. Let us, perhaps, just pause for a moment to praise those members of the European Parliament who backed us and not the party line which had come from London.

Now the CBI has been forced to discuss how to end abuses that last year they said did not exist. Now, thanks to union campaigning, Labour is pledged to stop employers counting back holidays against Europe’s four week minimum paid holidays entitlement. Millions of mainly part-time, mainly low-paid, mainly women workers, will benefit. That should make us all proud to be trade unionists.

Last year we pledged to accelerate our learning and skills revolution and help thousands more working people. This year, as we plan for a new Union Academy, our army of learning reps is 8,000 strong and growing fast. I visited new learning centres in the west country, the north-east, the north-west and London and more are on the way. I have met people able to read and write for the first time, people learning new skills and expanding their prospects up to and beyond university level thanks to their unions. They were let down, perhaps, by the education system, let down by the world of work but not let down by our Movement. That should make us proud to be trade unionists.

President, I do not have enough time spell out all of our achievements and victories. Let me mention just a few - a new minimum wage for 16 and 17 year olds; new information and consultation rights about to be enshrined in law; protection from US-style union busters, about to become law; and soon the law will be changed, too, as Congress demanded to make it easier for us to expel racists and fascists from our midst. Let us pause for a moment to pay tribute to all of those trade unionists who work night and day to ensure that the poison and filth of the BNP was not allowed to make headway in the European and local elections. (Applause) I think that work, too, should make us all proud to be trade unionists.

After ceaseless TUC and union campaigning, the end is at last in sight of the disgraceful two-tier workforce in our public services. Last in my list but by no means least is a new law to protect migrant workers against ruthless exploitation by gangmasters has been won. I pay tribute to the T&G and Jim Sheridan MP for all the tremendous work which went into winning that advance. (Applause) What happened in Morecambe Bay on the night of February 5th must never be allowed to happen again, but that terrible tragedy shows exactly what does happen in a gobalised, deregulated, casualised, non-unionised economy. It shows why our vision has to prevail.

Every affiliate has their own wins to report. We should pay tribute to the members and the leadership of the Fire Brigades Union. They stuck together, battled on and now, at long last, they have settled their dispute after months of difficult negotiations. I was pleased to be able to have worked with the union to broker a full and final settlement of all outstanding issues. It was just a shame that I had to do it on three separate occasions.

Congress, there is no great secret as to why this has been a year of real advance for our Movement. It is because we have worked together. When the FBU asked for support, they got it. When the ASW workers needed support, they got it. When our members fighting the BNP needed supported, they got it. By working together we have achieved the most important advance of the year, and that is the prospect of a new relationship with this Government. Let us be frank. The phrase 'love-hate-relationship' could have been invited to describe how we get along with the Labour Government. Yes, we recognise the achievements. We don’t forget the destruction that mass unemployment caused, the damage caused by decades of under-investment in the public services. I have nightmares about just how bad things could be again when I hear speeches from the Opposition attacking basic rights at work and when they label tolerance and opposition to discrimination as political correctness gone mad. I even woke up the other night from a nightmare that John Redwood was back in frontline politics.

Of course, that does not mean that we have not had our differences with the Government, and the second term has seen more than its fair share of disappointments. That is not just because of the deeply controversial and unpopular military action in Iraq.

Congress, let me return to the bigger picture. When I addressed Labour’s National Policy Forum earlier this year, I said that what was missing from Labour’s second term was any sense of a comprehensive programme for the workplace, to deliver our vision beyond full employment, to quality employment for everyone. We did have a joint programme in the first term. We made progress together; the Minimum Wage, union recognition, the New Deal and signing up to the Social Chapter. You know the litany well. But we did not secure an agreement for the second term so we have to change that for the third term. That, really, is the significance of the understandings and agreements secured at Warwick through the Labour Party National Policy Forum. I pay tribute to the astute, disciplined and, above all, the united way that Labour affiliates took forward so much of the common policy that we have thrashed out at successive Congresses, using that link to the full at the one time in the political cycle when it has most power. Warwick has given us real sense of a programme on which we can work together with this Government. Of course, there are some big issues important to us which remain unfinished business. Much work needs to be done to make some of those commitments into detailed practical policies. Yet I think that the programme put together in Warwick has made us more at ease with each other than for some time. Best of all, it has given us a new sense of common purpose and a confidence that we can make sure progress towards our goals.

I am looking forward to the Prime Minister setting out his commitment to those understandings and to the next steps to take them forward. We will make the greatest progress if we are strongest ourselves. So our priority must be to get the millions back into the union family. Tackling the organising challenge is an ever higher priority for the TUC. We created the Organising Academy; we are tripling the number of courses for activists and officers. We act as a clearing house, encouraging unions to share experiences, good and bad, with each other. We try to ensure a one movement approach, avoiding wasteful inter-union rivalry. Ultimately, of course, it is not the TUC that can recruit new members into our ranks. That is the job of each and every union. It is your decisions in the individual affiliates, your choices, for example, on how you allocate resources, that will make there real difference. Congress, we have got some crucial battles ahead; to win the organising challenge, to win political change, to argue for our union ways, going beyond full employment to quality employment, and we will win if we stay united. Of course, there are many different views in this hall today. Everyone of you has your own priorities, but we come together this week because we know that together we are stronger. We are always stronger by far if we stick together; small and medium sized unions as well as big unions; unions that do not affiliate to the Labour Party alongside those that do. We are the voice of Britain at work. Men and women, black and white, young and old. When working people are in need, we do not walk on by.

Congress, President, that is why we are proud to be trade unionists. Thanks for listening. (Applause)

The President: Thank you very much, indeed, Brendan, for that stirring and thoughtful address which has given us much to reflect on and debate during Congress.

Strategic Review

Anita Halpin (National Union of Journalists) speaking to paragraph 1.6 of the GC Report) said: Paragraph 1.6 of the General Council’s report describes the Strategic Review process. In particular, it talks about how we, as a Movement, make an external impact.

I would like to raise two points mentioned in this paragraph. The catch phrase of the Strategic Review was 'finding the missing millions'. In their response, a number of unions, including my own, argued that we need to be more imaginative, even, dare I say, bolder in making links with other social movements. Those unions which raised the issue stressed that this was a crucial part of making an external impact. While this is referred to quite properly in the annual report, I think Congress should know that, maybe, it does not quite get across the strength of feeling made in a number of contributions in this issue. As I have said, we need to be bolder and we need to seek recruits in non-traditional areas, and not always have dialogue with what might be termed the usual suspects.

Of course we need to develop and build our organising agenda, but that agenda may too often be directed at workplaces where we have members, where we have had members and where we want more members. Of course, we need to make trade unionism attractive to young people. It is a truism to say that the young people are our future, but I think we ignore at our peril the real care and concern that those young people have for their future. That is why so many of them join the millions demonstrating against the Iraqi illegal war.

In believing that a better world is possible, youngsters embrace the principles of the World and European Social Forum, and I am glad that the TUC has come on board with that. The point that my union and others were making during the Strategic Review process was that we must be more prepared to make links with new and different and atypical partners, if I can use that phrase, for once.

President, to my second point. At the end of the same paragraph there is a brief reference to TUC constitutional issues. Those who know me know that I am a bit of a constitutional hack, but I would argue that it is very important to get our own house in order democratically to be attractive to those who want to join us, and who, particularly in the younger generation, are suspicious of institutional bureaucracy. Again, I believe the report does not quite give the flavour of the concerns of my union and others about aspects of transparency, democracy and accountability of the relationship between the General Council and its Executive. It is not the main point I am making now. I think the whole Strategic Review process was very worthwhile. I am just emphasising something here which has not had the stress which I believe it deserved in the report. I thank you for your time.

The President: Thank you, Anita. Since we started this afternoon, we have been joined by some of our guests. I want to introduce from the Workers’ Bureau at the International Labour Organisation in Geneva, Elizabeth Goodson. From our sister TUC in Japan, RENGO, Suitomo Mauri. I am pleased to be able to report that the two leaders of the two trade union centres in Israel and Palestine are with us now. Welcome to Amir Peretz, the General Secretary of the Histadrut, the Israeli TUC, and Shaher Sae’d, the General Secretary of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions. (Applause)

Union Organising

Tony Woodley (Transport & General Workers’ Union) moved the following Composition Motion:

(Insert Composition Motion 3 - Union Organising)

He said: President and Comrades, we all know and we have just heard it in Brendan’s speech that organising is the key to our future. We say it at every Congress. We agree that without bringing those millions of unorganised millions of men and women into our ranks then trade unionism as we know it does indeed have a limited future. With our headline union membership now down to just over 6.4 million, that is more true than ever before. Let us accept that there have been some great initiatives. ISTC, now Community, has done a sterling job in growing their union. The TUC’s Academy for Organisers has done a fantastic job and even my Union did not have the brains to join that earlier than it now has. However, what we do need is a culture change throughout the whole of our Movement. In our case, the T&G is making, maybe, what is one of the biggest cultural shifts in its history to try and grasp the new opportunities that are out there, millions of opportunities because of the new jobs that Labour has also created. We are refocusing our time, money and effort on duplication and away from admin and placing it into organising as a whole union. It is not just about recruitment. It is about growing and winning and delivering satisfaction in the workplace, getting our activists active once again. By this time next year we aim to have more than a hundred new full-time organisers on the streets, many young men and women, many from our ethnic communities and backgrounds, on the streets and in our communities, growing trade unionism, fighting back for workers, leaving self-sustainable organisation behind. You have listened to Digby Jones who asked the question: are trade unions relevant today? Let us not dismiss the question. Let us ask ourselves the question in all honesty. Over the past 20 years or so, have we done enough to fight back to campaign and instil a confidence in workers whereby they willingly want to join trade unions. There have been, in my view, notable exceptions, but I believe, in broad terms, the answer is no. The membership density speaks for itself.

A new mood exists amongst workers, indeed, amongst our members. We have to capture the moment and re-connect to the needs and aspirations of working men and women who need our help and support. In some cases, I believe that we have become to remote from our members themselves. If this is a fact what more can the TUC do to lead and give support and help us to grow our Movement? The composite before you sets out some of those things that we can do, but, above all, and first of all, we can actually help each other by acting in a much more principled way. Let us stop the poaching of each other’s members and agreements. Let’s not pick up the invites from the gaffer for that single union deal knowing that another union is already there recruiting. Let’s stop doing that. Let’s stop behaving badly and let’s start behaving in a principled manner. We want a principled trade unionism, not a competitive trade unionism. Indeed, Derek Simpson and myself have tried to lead from the front, along with other colleagues on this, with leads that we have shown. I would sooner see more than one union on a site growing the density of trade unionism than a single union deal delivering neither membership nor employee satisfaction. I want a TUC campaigning even more than in the past to see if we can deliver this. In relation to the great rally on pensions, let us give credit where credit is due. Could we have done it a bit sooner, maybe, but let us give credit with what we have done. Above all, it has to be a TUC supporting those unions which are organising, giving research support and even more training for organisers. That will help us grow.

My vision is a TUC much closer to the daily work and concerns of the affiliates. It does mean that the TUC, like the T&G, must refocus its resources, in my view, on growing and winning and moving away from the a la carte menu of services that it provides whilst some of useful, then quite frankly we can no longer see these as priorities above organising. We have got to wake up. It is a wake-up call, in my view, that we have to organise or die. I accept that the T&G is slow to wake up.

I finish on this point and I pose one question. What legacy do we leave for those who follow us? It is in our own hands. The choice is ours. Support the composite. Thank you.

Leslie Manasseh (Connect) in seconding the composite motion, said: I would like to start with some simple if, perhaps, uncomfortable views about our immediate future. Congress, unless we grow in numbers we cannot grow in influence. Unless we put organising at the top of our collective agenda, we will not grow and, unless that means practical changes to the way in which we set priorities and allocate resources, it will not work, because appointing a few dedicated organisers is simply not enough. We have to build organising into everything we do.

There are more than 25 million workers in the economy. Over three-quarters of them are in the private sector. So, if we look at the size and profile of the TUC membership, we can see how big that target is. Unless we make a massive investment in organising we are not going to hit it. Obviously, we must campaign and negotiate on the issues that matter, that touch the lives of the people who we represent. That said, how we use our resources lies at the very heart of the organising challenge. If alongside relevant campaigns we spent time, money and effort on organising, we will reap the benefits. If we do not, we risk bumping along the bottom, organising traditional but shrinking sectors, seeing the age profile of our members steadily rise, leaving vast tracts of the economy unorganised and, perhaps most crucially, being seen very largely as a public sector phenomenon.

This means for many of us re-allocating resources and, perhaps, stopping some of the things that we have taken for granted. For example, Congress, can it be right when resources are so tight to spend millions of pounds every year holding conferences to refine our policies and re-jig our rule books when millions of workers have never been asked to join a trade union? Can it be right to make decisions which simply add to an ever-growing list of priorities when we know having scores of priorities means, in effect, that we have none? Can it be right to maintain structures which do not visible contribute to growth or renewal? Do we focus on the workplace or our own internal organisation? Are we inward or outward looking? We need honest answers to these questions and we need to think long and hard about what we do and how we do it. The good news is that organising works. The investment is worth it.

My union has grown by more than 20% in the past few years and that is organising white collar workers in a recession-hit and shrinking part of the private sector, the so-called ICT industries, where trade unionism has a very shallow footprint. We have even gained collective representation for 13,000 managers who were on individual contracts. We do not have a magic wand or a unique formula. That is down to organising. Twenty per cent of our employees are dedicated organisers and every committee has an explicit organising role.

I ask you, Congress, to support this motion, not because you think it is yet another good idea amongst the very many this week, but because it offers a way of addressing the most serious tasks ahead of us. Thank you.

Joanna Brown (Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists): My union is speaking in support of the composite and referring you specifically to the fourth paragraph, which is about self-employed workers. Organising is about recruiting workers into unions but it is also about keeping them in when we have got them. If we are to do this successfully we must be relevant to all workers at all stages of their working life. This includes people who are self-employed.

According to the 2001 census three million people in Britain are self-employed. They work in lots of different industries, including construction, sales, catering, finance and health. Are all of these three million in a union? I think we know the answer to that. They are not, although I can tell you that around 4,000 are members of the SCP so we are playing our part in organising this important group of workers. The career patterns of our members, chiropodists and podiatrists, are very flexible. Many of them move between the NHS and the independent sector, so they want different services at different stages of their careers. This is typical of the workforce as a whole, where jobs for life are becoming increasingly rare.

So what sort of services are we talking about. Clearly, self-employed workers do not have a need for collective bargaining but they do have a need for information and advice to help them in their working lives. This could be about pensions, benefits or training opportunities. It could be how to comply with complex legislation, such as the Disability Discrimination Act or the Data Protection Act. It could be about contracts or health and safety. These are precisely the kinds of areas where the TUC has great knowledge and expertise and could act as a resource for unions. The TUC website has sections for agency workers and home workers, encouraging them to join a union, but at the moment the self-employed are the missing three million.

Within this composite there is a request to the General Council to investigate the needs of this group of members with a view to providing additional services, and I hope this issue is not overlooked when the composite is acted on by the General Council.

Please support the self-employed and support the composite.

Alan Grey (Prospect): My union supports Composite 3 and, in particular, I am speaking to bullet points 9 and 10 on promoting the positive benefits of trade union membership and encouraging students and young people to become members.

Congress, I surprised myself this morning by arriving at the Conference centre early. I will probably shock myself if I do it again this week, but I was extremely interested to see, when waiting for Congress to start, that we were projecting the benefits of trade union membership on the screen behind us. Clearly, trade union members benefit on pay where trade union members on average earn 17% more per hour than non-union members. There are clear benefits other than pay where unionised workplaces have greater access to family friendly policies, where a union presence ensures a fairer workplace with better procedures for handling employment relations issues. In relation to pensions, it is very rare for there to be a final salary scheme in non-unionised workplaces.

This is the message that we all know, Congress, but it is a message that Prospect believes we have to get across to the 80% of non-members in the private sector and the 40% of non-members in the public sector. Our message has to be particularly targeted at young people and students, because membership density in the working population between the ages of 16 - 24 is only about 10%. You do not have to be a genius, Congress, to predict that unless we can successfully recruit and recognise these young people, the positive rules we have recently made will be reversed.

Prospect recognises that the organising challenge for unions is immense. Students and graduates are under-represented at both growing ends of the private sector employment spectrum. Poorly paid insecure work in the service and retail sectors and in the hi-tech areas, where pay may be higher, there is still great insecurity. Most unions have success stories about recruiting young people. In Prospect we have made great strides in recruiting archaeologists, which is mostly a young professionals occupation. We have to analyse those successes and learn the lessons and use those as the foundation for a major recruitment and organising initiative aimed at young people. I do not believe it is being too dramatic to say that that the future of the trade union Movement depends upon it. Thank you.

PRIVATE

Kevin Curran (GMB) : While trade unions remain very strong organisations, we should also acknowledge that trade unions are at present failing; strong because the Movement represents millions of people at work and is the biggest voluntary membership body in the country, and it sets the standards for every person in employment in the UK; but failing because we are becoming increasingly ghetto‑ised in the public sector and are not recruiting effectively in the private sector services.

British trade unionism has become process‑driven; too many of our resources are spent on an endless round of meetings and committees; the same people talking to the same people over and over again while millions of unorganised workers go about their daily business. I am convinced that we will continue to fail and become increasingly marginalised unless we bring about real, lasting and substantive change.

Every part of the Movement needs to answer some fundamental questions. How can we better consult, inform and communicate with our activists and members in their workplaces? How do we respond to the steady decline in membership levels? How can we trim bureaucracy and devote more time and resources to frontline recruitment, representation and organisation? How can we increase support of resources to activists in workplaces to grow our organisations? How do we inspire a new generation of inclusive, effective and confident workplace leaders? How can we become more involved in community initiatives? How do we achieve 100 per cent membership in every workplace where we have a member and, moreover, 100 per cent membership in every workplace that does not yet have any members?

Each part of our Movement should take a look at what it currently does in the light of these challenges. The GMB's view is that trade unions have never been more important or more needed. We must overcome the barriers. We must overcome the challenges that are holding us back. Now is the time to reconnect with people at work. Let us not compete or duplicate. Let us reconnect to our purpose; do what we are good at; organise and protect people at work. Let us be confident and assertive in the process.

Just prior to this Congress, a number of journalists asked me what I expected the Prime Minister to say at this Congress. I said: 'What I would love the Prime Minister to say is: ‘Join your trade union like I have.’' Tony is in the T&G. He has certainly led by example and the message from Tony should be: 'Do what I have done. Join your trade union.'

John Hannett (USDAW) : I believe we have some real room for optimism here. In fact, we would not have been having this debate in this Composite maybe many years ago. Too many of us were thinking it was an automatic right that people would join trade unions hoping that recruitment took care of itself, believing people naturally joined unions and assuming it was a matter of course.

Bearing in mind what has so far been said at Conference, from the point of view of USDAW and the Movement, we have some real room for optimism. I think, Brendan, the General Council and the TUC's organising academy can take real credit, in fact, for issuing a real wake‑up call but, more than that, giving an incentive and a way forward, injecting some real lost vigor into our recruitment and our organising work, putting some real management and steel into the process and, in fact, helping us all to see recruitment and organising for what it really is. It is a skill that needs training, developing and updating. It is about being positive and giving the right message and the right lead.

The TUC organising academy has, in fact, been a real catalyst. In my own union, USDAW, we have now managed to move the agenda on and established our own academy, which is in its second year. It consists of key activists who are keen to give the right message and we have had some tremendous dividends so far.

The recruitment and the organising is directed, focused, monitored and evaluated and it is about linking to the campaigns that are important to our members, like our retail violence campaign, an issue that struck a chord with many retail workers. We train our officers and we train our union representatives. We invest in; officers to recruit and develop reps and build our infrastructure, and reps, in fact, to take the lead in the workplace.

Let me just give some evidence to say that there is still a demand to be members of trade unions. Let me just give you one or two figures which demonstrate the case in USDAW terms. In my own union, we have now recruited 14,000 members more than last year, 21,000 more than the year before and 28,000 more than in 2001.

As the Composite rightly points out, this is not just a numbers game. It is about influence and about raising the right issues. In an organised workplace, we can talk to the employers with integrity and authority because we understand the issues. In an organised workplace, an employer can rely on a view being authentic, being rounded and widely supported by the workforce. What it means is we have clout and we have influence.

We are well‑used to focusing on work and how and who we recruit. The composite enables us to do that, to work together in a joined‑up way and to recruit those many, many members who are not yet in the trade union Movement. Please support the Composite.

Kevin Kelly (PCS) supporting the composite motion said: We believe that organising along with campaigning on important membership issues is the key to building a strong, healthy, growing trade union Movement. PCS has recently adopted a national organising strategy aimed at PCS becoming an organising union.

We recognise this is more than simply recruitment and a numbers game. A key priority for PCS will be to build and properly sustain a workplace organisation to enable our members to campaign and win at a local level. We are now prioritised and are organising work across the whole union, mapping all areas, identifying our strengths and weaknesses, identifying new areas in government and the private sector where there is currently no union presence and directing our resources towards winning recognition.

PCS has achieved our target of 300,000 members, so we are ahead of schedule. We now have over 316,000 members. In the DWP section alone, we have increased our membership by over 15,000 in the last 12 months. This is because our members in that section stood up and fought on issues such as pay and appraisals, taking strike action in defence of our members' terms and conditions.

Organising young people is critical to our future. PCS has set up a young members' network and appointed an organiser to co‑ordinate. We are confident that a strong campaign and structure will soon develop in the next few months.

PCS fully supports this motion, but there are two points we would like to see developed. Firstly, point 5, the organising academy. We would like to see a long‑term commitment to it from the General Council.

Secondly, point 10, we believe the TUC should give greater profile on youth work in a similar way to that of the STUC's work campaign.

Unions are at their best when they are bold, stand up and represent members. Organising is not an end in itself, but it is a means to increase our chances of winning the crucial campaigns and fight on issues such as jobs, pensions, pay and equality. That is why organising, combined with campaigning work, are crucial to our future successes and delivering real change at the workplace and in wider society.

Susan Highton (UNISON) supporting the composite motion said: Organising, development and recruiting is the first priority in every union. It is within my union, UNISON. I am pleased that it is on the agenda for the TUC. I am proud to belong to a union. I am proud to belong to an organising union. I am proud to come to this Trades Union Congress on behalf of our members within our union, but I call on others in this conference hall. I want to take that feeling and that belonging to a wider organisation, i.e. the TUC, to my grandchildren and their grandchildren, but unless we carry out what this Composite is asking, unfortunately, it may not happen and it may not be possible.

Trade unions are declining, but let us ask ourselves why. After eighteen long years of Conservative Government we are all still picking up the aftermath of them attempting to bring down the trade unions. Also, society is changing and we need to change with our members and our potential members.

The composite calls for the General Council to carry out points (i) to (x) and for all the unions to carry out points (a) to (e). I know we all agree, at least I hope we do, but let us not just vote and support. Let us go back and do the work.

I know we all have large agendas and lots of priorities, but let organising be one of the top priorities. I want to see my grandchildren standing on this rostrum talking about organising as a day‑to‑day part of their activities.

Read this Composite. It says a lot, it asks us a lot, and it makes sense. It asks us for a comprehensive review. It asks us for training around organising for the union. It talks about supporting and training reps to take organising work.

This composite is the future of all of us and we want to be powerful and deliver for our members, our members who our grandchildren will be representing. There is a lot more to say, but, unfortunately, my nerves are starting to break now with so many people in the hall as well as our Prime Minister. .

* Composite Motion 3 was CARRIED..

Address by the Prime Minister: Rt Hon Tony Blair MP

The President: Tony Blair became Prime Minister on 1st May 1997, seven years ago, and this Government has accomplished some major achievements, some of which have been reported here today - the National Minimum Wage, union recognition, devolution for Scotland and Wales, and, in particular, unprecedented levels of economic stability, low unemployment and low inflation. Twelve months ago, this became the longest serving Labour Government in history. That, too, is a great achievement. It is also an opportunity for reflection on the agenda for the third term that we will all be working on and for, an agenda for moving beyond full employment to quality employment.

As the voice of Briton at work, unions have a crucial role to play in working with the Government on that agenda and the issues we both care about - social justice, economic prosperity and a fair society. As we heard in the previous debate we know that we must organise even more new workers to make the union voice stronger, speaking up for Britain’s hard working families, working on their behalf with the Government. Tony, we are all delighted to welcome you here today.

PRIVATE

Address by the Prime Minister: Rt Hon Tony Blair MP

The President: Tony Blair became Prime Minister on 1st May 1997, seven years ago, and this Government has accomplished some major achievements, some of which have been reported here today - the National Minimum Wage, union recognition, devolution for Scotland and Wales, and, in particular, unprecedented levels of economic stability, low unemployment and low inflation. Twelve months ago, this became the longest serving Labour Government in history. That, too, is a great achievement. It is also an opportunity for reflection on the agenda for the third term that we will all be working on and for, an agenda for moving beyond full employment to quality employment.

As the voice of Briton at work, unions have a crucial role to play in working with the Government on that agenda and the issues we both care about - social justice, economic prosperity and a fair society. As we heard in the previous debate we know that we must organise even more new workers to make the union voice stronger, speaking up for Britain’s hard working families, working on their behalf with the Government. Tony, we are all delighted to welcome you here today.

Rt Hon Tony Blair MP (Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party): Roger, Congress, as ever before, the TUC speech, I am not short of advice. The difference this year is that I agree with it. Some have told me not to break the agreement at the Warwick Policy Forum in July. Some, notable Brendan, have said it is time to come out in favour of social partnership, not to be embarrassed about it. All have told me not to lose touch with the concerns of the hard-working families it is our and my duty to represent.

So, I come here to praise Warwick, not to bury it; to advocate social partnership, not belittle it, and, above all, to demonstrate that our and my priority is and always will be the lives, living standards and quality of life of Britain’s hard-working families, the men and women who play by the rules and expect others to do the same; who worry about the bills and the mortgage and making ends meet; who struggle with the modern burden of work and family life, and who do not ask or expect miracles, just a fair chance to make the most of life for them and their children.

I frankly admit that too many people look at the past few years and see how the political and media agenda has been dominated by nothing but foreign affairs. There are all sorts of explanations I can give. The world agenda since September 11th 2001 has been different; different for the leaders that have stood by America since then; different for the leaders that have not, but dominant for both.

I cannot apologise for what I think about the world since September 11th or what I have done in the war against this vicious terrorism we face. That would be insincere and dishonest.

But vital though that war is, the daily lives of our citizens here in Britain are not about foreign affairs. It is interest rates, the workplace, taxes and bills, schools and hospitals, crime and anti-social behaviour. Their stage is not the world; it is here on our streets, our towns, villages and cities.

Yet even at the height of the crises of the last three years - since I stood here in this hall on 11 September and spoke about this new form of terrorism our world faces - we have never stopped working on that domestic, bread and butter, real life agenda.

But I acknowledge that it has not seemed like that. I have never been away from those issues that make daily life good or bad for our people. But too many people watching the news every night might think I have. If I can put it like this: even if I have never been away, it is time to show I am back.

The best way of doing that, however, is not words but to prove it by action.

Over the weekend I got out the first speech I ever made to a Labour Party Conference, not as leader but as Employment spokesman back in 1990. I said that a Labour Government would introduce a minimum wage, a legal right to union recognition, sign the Social Chapter, restore trade union rights at GCHQ, improve maternity leave, introduce paid holidays, end blacklisting and remove the power of automatic dismissal for those lawfully on strike.

Congress, we have done every one of those things as a Labour Government. But we only did them by being in Government, not in permanent Opposition.

There is another thing I want to remind you about that period. The name of my opposite number in the Tory Cabinet that gave us mass unemployment, soaring interest rates and the Poll Tax. You may remember him. Mr.Michael Howard.

I have told you what I said in 1990. Let me tell you what he said in 1990. He said that the minimum wage would cost one million jobs and that the Social Chapter would cost another half-million jobs. He was talking nonsense then. He talks nonsense now. If we want to keep our economy strong, we need to keep Mr. Howard in Opposition.

None of this - not the economic strength, not the legislation to correct injustice at work, came through chance, but through choice. The choice you made was not to make demands you knew would not be met, nor to hark back to the past but to understand economic stability had to be the irreducible bedrock of economic opportunity and social progress.

Seven years on, our long-term interest rates are the lowest for 25 years, matching continental levels. Employment has risen steadily without generating inflation. Economic growth is currently the highest in the G8 main industrial countries with 29 quarters of consecutive growth since 1997. The public finances are in good shape. Immense productivity challenges remain, but the foundations of future prosperity are being laid.

The difference that we have made by that choice and by the action to the living standards of hard-working families since we came to office is crystal clear. Average monthly mortgage payments are £400 less under this Government than under the Conservatives. Property repossessions, so devastating during the late 1980s, are now at a historic low. Families are far better off with living standards growing by a fifth since 1996/97. The average working family with children is £1,350 a year better off in real terms since we came to office. The poorest fifth are over £3,000 a year better off in real terms.

It is a clear reminder that economic stability is for a purpose - to create a fairer, more prosperous society with decent provision for the least advantaged, and world-class public services for all.

Full employment has transformed regions of the country left behind in the 1980s. Across Britain’s cities, city centres and riversides that had become drab, empty at night, are now vibrant. Derelict factories and empty warehouses have been converted into new homes and businesses providing the jobs of the future. Britain is working, its economy now one of the most dynamic and competitive in the world.

As a result, Congress, we are the only major nation in the world that for the last two years and the next two will be increasing public investment in healthcare and education as a percentage of national income. The only one!

Alongside that, as I was hearing this morning from people engaged in combating poverty all over our country, 700,000 children have been lifted out of poverty; almost two million pensioners relieved from acute hardship, and there has been record help for poorer families through extra childcare benefit, tax credits and family support.

So when I hear people saying that we should pursue Labour policies not Tory ones, I say what could be more Labour than record jobs, record investment in the National Health Service and millions of people lifted out of poverty? Yet you do not continue to govern on the basis of your record but on the basis of your vision of the future.

The truth is that despite all of these advances, modern life for many of our people is tough. Yes, there are jobs but they are often insecure. There are still too many people who are sick and disabled who would like to work but do not have the opportunity to do so. The minimum wage may give protection but it is hard to raise a family on it. Years ago, if we talked of pensions, we meant pensioners. Today there is real anxiety amongst those of working age as to how to save for their retirement. More women work than ever before but balancing work and family life is a struggle and equal pay still an aspiration not a reality for millions of women in Britain’s workforce.

What is more, even if people are in work, reasonably secure, even if they are comfortably off, the economy they work in is part of a world market that has never seen such revolutionary changes in technology, in consumer tastes and in the scale of competition. China and India today, each with well over one billion people, means that every nation in Europe, including ours, no longer competes only with America and Japan, let alone only with each other.

So how do we, us in Government and you in the trade unions and business, help our people cope with change, survive it and prosper in it?

When I opened recently one of the many new community centres in the former coalfields in the north east, there was a union banner which featured a picture of Peter Lee, who in the 19th Century founded the miners’ union in the Durham Coalfield. The union was formed to break the virtual serfdom by which the coal owners ruled those that worked for them. The union successfully fought for miners’ rights. In time, in Durham alone over 150,000 people employed in the mines, but the union did more than fight for them at the workplace. It founded mutual societies to provide them with help for medical care and pensions. It looked after legal claims and families that were bereaved. The unions stood for solidarity not only at work, but also in life.

No one works in the mines of Durham today. The whole economy of the north east is new. The jobs are new. The way of life is new. Within a few years of the mines closing, Fujitsu, one of the great Japanese hopes of inward investment, had set up its factory in my constituency and closed it again when the microchip market collapsed. The process of change, therefore, is constant.

So the issue for trade unions is the same as for the rest of us: how to adapt to change, to keep principles intact whilst the reality in which those principles exist is being transformed around us?

Once before, many of the trade unions represented here today took a decision to put aside the past in order to equip the Labour Party to govern successfully. Today, I ask you as social partners to do the same, to help the country succeed. To me, this is the significance of what was agreed at Warwick.

There can be no return to the industrial relations framework of the 1970s, no move away from the enterprise and dynamism a modern economy needs. We cannot and will not reverse the programme of change and modernisation that together with record investment is delivering public services combining equity with choice and excellence.

Union members are not just workers. They use the National Health Service. They need good state schools for their children, and they know that the welfare state of 2004, not 1945, has to be one that re-distributes opportunity not merely pays more out in benefit.

These changes, as much as the money, are allowing us to cut dramatically the waiting time for operations; make sure, for example, that no London Borough today has pass rates of under 40 per cent for GCSEs, up from 25 per cent in 1997, and has made long-term youth unemployment literally disappear. This is not selling out; it is paying back, reducing inequality, extending opportunity and giving hope.

Warwick should be seen not as diluting these changes but conditioning them with one very important basic set of principles: good jobs do not come with bad work practices; successful employers d not succeed by abusing their employee, and quality public services do not achieve excellence by undervaluing public servants.

In other words, our belief is that the more we value, invest in, understand and resolve the dilemmas of those that produce the wealth and services of our nation, in the modern world, the more likely we are to have the future we desire.

So what does Warwick mean in practice?

First, let us be clear. For Britain to prosper and thrive in the future, we need a vibrant modern manufacturing sector, just as much as a powerful service sector. Manufacturing in the UK has gone through a difficult time as it has in every developed country in the world. There are real successes in Britain: pharmaceuticals, aerospace, ICT and the biotechnology industry; truly world-class enterprises, of which any country should be proud.

Britain’s car industry, once thought to be in terminal decline, has been reinvigorated, gaining a new lease of life.

Nissan in Sunderland is the most productive car plant in Europe, last month producing the millionth Nissan for the UK market. The new MINI built at Cowley is a runaway success with half-a-million cars now coming off the production line, and the sector as a whole is now the UK’s largest source of manufactured exports.

But there is a huge amount still to do. We will continue to see how investment in technology, the tax system for capital investment, and help for businesses to grow can benefit manufacturing. In every region, each regional development agency is now tasked with working up a strategy to build on the particular strengths of its manufacturing enterprises, helped by the budget from the Department of Trade & Industry.

This Government is now set to make the largest sustained investment in science for a generation - £3 billion a year! Such a commitment means modernised labs, better pay for researchers and new research programmes at the cutting edge of human knowledge.

Let me also make it absolutely clear, that the Government is absolutely determined to protect research staff facing daily threats of intimidation and violence from animal rights extremists and will bring forward legislation to ensure that this is done.

For manufacturing and the whole economy Warwick signifies that skills, vocational education, once a social cause, are now an economic imperative. Britain will not succeed if over a third of its workforce lacks basic qualifications.

We have started by creating a new framework for skills and are on course to meet our 2007 target to help 1.5 million adults get basic skills and qualifications. We are also working with the TUC on the proposals for a TUC Academy to take the skills agenda even further. Since 1998 we have invested £35 million in the Trade Union Learning Fund, and put union learning reps on a statutory footing. We want to treble these numbers by 2010.

Education Maintenance Allowances have been extended to every 16-19 year old from a low-income background remaining in full-time education. We are extending the offer of free tuition for those without Level 2 qualifications to every worker, and we are now examining whether it is possible to extend financial support to those aged 19-30 years old to get Level 3 qualifications which, along with the other changes, would represent the biggest expansion in access to skills for half a century in this country.

In over a third of the country, we are now piloting employer training schemes, helping employers give time off for their staff to engage in training. We have expanded Modern Apprenticeships already from 70,000 to 200,000 but I can tell you that by the end of 2006 we are now aiming for 300,000 Modern Apprenticeships in Britain today.

Next, because there is today, rightly, far greater interaction between public, private and voluntary sectors to deliver public services, we have agreed a new deal to tackle the two-tier workforce.

In local government, we have already acted to end the ‘two-tier’ workforce. At Warwick we made the commitment to end it across the public sector and we will fulfil that commitment as a Government.

In some workplaces, there is a long hours culture regardless of whether it is productive. We have introduced a right for people to choose not to work more than 48 hours, and an entitlement for the first time to four weeks paid holiday a year. We are committed to ensuring that people are able to exercise a genuine choice about the hours they work.

Let me repeat the commitment we made at Warwick that in a third term, if elected, the Labour Government will extend the paid holiday entitlement, so that the four weeks is always an addition to eight days of public holiday.

Our new family friendly law means that employers are now required to consider seriously requests from parents with children under six - or disabled children under 18 - to work flexibly. Nearly one million parents have taken advantage of the new law, and have applied for a change in working hours. Eight out of ten requests have been met in full.

It is not right that mothers or fathers are refused time off to see their sick child through a hospital operation, the right to time off when a family member is ill.

So we want to build on what has been achieved so far.

We have made a commitment, as you know, to our social partners not to introduce any changes before 2006. But the time is right to start thinking about the next steps in this area. In particular, we will examine how we can extend this right to flexible working to the growing numbers of citizens who have caring responsibilities for the elderly and disabled.

From the spring of next year, employees will have new rights to Information and Consultation at work, not preventing necessary change at work but ensuring that employees are treated as partners in that change.

We will Act to root out abuse at the very bottom of the labour market where working people are most vulnerable. The Government will support Jim Sheridan MP’s Private Member’s Bill to curb exploitative activities among agricultural gang masters. We will improve protection for migrant workers, strengthening measures against employers who seek to exploit them. It is neither fair for those who are exploited, nor for those firms who do play by the rules when a few rogue employers are able to get away with ignoring the basic law.

You know our concerns on agency workers to maintain the necessary market flexibility. But whilst we must meet those concerns, we will support the EU Directive on Agency Workers.

We will ensure greater safety for front-line workers in retailing, transport and the public services, those who in working to help others face the constant daily threat of violence and anti-social behaviour.

We will publish proposals on corporate manslaughter in the current Parliamentary session, and introduce legislation to ensure that corporations are prosecuted for a serious criminal offence where they show such wilful disregard for their employees that it results in death.

Finally, building on Barbara Castle’s Equal Pay Act, Margaret Prosser’s Women and Work Commission will enable us to ensure that in our generation we close the gap in pay and opportunity between men and women at the workplace.

This is not an agenda about flying pickets, secondary action or the closed shop. Leave the past to the past. However, it is an agenda that if carried through will radically improve the lives of Britain’s hard working and hard-pressed families. Work with us to get these changes. Help us to fashion them in a way that most benefits your members, actual and prospective. Make a reality of the social partnership with sensible forward-looking employers who share the belief that efficiency and fairness go hand in hand.

Trade unions have a past of which they are rightly proud. Today they are also reaching out to the future. In the public services, 'Agenda for Change' in the National Health Service, the 'Schools Workforce Reform' programme in education, it is true, mean radical change in the way services will operate, but they are changes not just supported but in many cases shaped by constructive trade union participation.

Across the private sector, unions like Amicus at Rolls Royce, Unifi at Royal Bank of Scotland, CWU at Alliance and Leicester have protected or enhanced company pension schemes in imaginative ways to protect their members. The GMB, GPMU and TGWU are now actively involved all over Britain in setting up skills and learning centres with the help of the Government’s Modernisation Fund. The shopworkers union is not just increasing members but taking the lead, where the employer is in difficulty in helping the company change, restructure and prosper.

One final area for work: pensions. There is no easy solution. The blunt truth is that the population is ageing; people live longer and yet want, unsurprisingly, the higher living standards they experienced while working, to continue into retirement. We need to get the balance right between what the State, ie., the taxpayer, the individual and the employer each contribute; and we need to get the system right to facilitate that contribution. But one thing I can say to you, however, is that the Basic State Pension and the guarantees against pensioner poverty will always be an essential part of our solution to this issue; and you in the trade unions should be, along with business and industry, part of the partnership to get this issue right.

Those who said unions could never adapt to the challenge of the new economy and its changes are being proved wrong. Of course, wherever there is the possibility of industrial disputes, those capture the headlines. But the true face of modern trade unionism is not to be found in the exception of industrial breakdown, but in the broad rule of social partnership and progress.

We will not go back to the agenda of the past, but there is much for us now to do on the new agenda and to d it together. To people at work, wondering whether membership of a trade union has anything to offer them, I would say: go and see. See what a modern trade union can do; see the breadth of services they provide; see the help in troubled times they can give, and if you want to, as is your democratic right, join. In doing so, join us in building on the record of the past few years to seek new ambitions, new heights to scale, new ways to work, live and prosper.

I go back too that 1990 speech. I said then: 'These are the forward-looking priorities we shall establish by our historic decisions today. The British people can now be clear. It is the Tories, not us, who believe that industrial relations is merely industrial warfare, arcane endless legal disputes about strikes and pickets as if the field of employment were merely a field of battle. It is they who are unable to escape the politics of conflict and grasps the potential for partnership. It is they who embrace the agenda of the 1970s and 1980s because they have no answer to the problems of the future. Let them: leave the past to those who live in it. This Party belongs in the future and we can address that future with confidence and hope.'

It was true 14 years ago. It remains true now. (Applause)

The President: On behalf of the Congress, Tony, thank you very much for building on the National Policy Forum understandings at Warwick, looking towards the third term agenda. I can assure you, on behalf of the TUC and Congress, that we look forward to working with you and the Government in winning that third term and putting the commitments into practice through a third-term Labour Government.

Organising and recruiting women at work

Debbie Coulter (GMB) moved the following Motion:

(Insert Motion 10 - Organising and recruiting women at work)

She said: Trust me to get graveyard slot after the Prime Minister’s speech!

Throughout the course of this week, quite rightly, we will be spending much of our time discussing the debating how to grow the trade union Movement. The previous debate focused on the questions of how we can widen our appeal to non-union members, what we can do to attract new recruits and how we can organise workers to ensure that they are protected and represented.

Often the starting for these debates is that there is a specific group of workers, perhaps a minority group, that particularly need our support or attention. The motion is not about a minority group being discriminated against. This motion is about how we, as a Movement, are failing to grasp and missing the opportunity to organise and recruit among a massive workforce, and that massive workforce consists of women.

In 2004 there are more women in employment than ever before. Women now make up 46 per cent of the workforce. That is an awful lot of people whose needs and aspirations are being overlooked by the trade union Movement.

It is now time that we got serious about recruiting and organising women at work. It is time that we develop fresh and imaginative strategies that will appeal to the fastest growing section of the workforce.

The GMB is calling upon the TUC to work with all affiliates to develop a comprehensive package of measures that will address the needs of women workers into the 21st Century. The starting point is to listen to women about what matters to them in the workplace.

We want to see and we need to see the development by the TUC of nothing less than a new deal for working women; a new deal that will enable all unions to campaign, recruit and demonstrate to this huge workforce that the trade union Movement is a progressive force for good acting on their behalf.

Central to this package must be the issue of unequal pay. Nearly 35 years after the passing of the Equal Pay Act we are nowhere near ending pay discrimination. We know that less than one in five companies have even examined the difference in male and female pay. If employers do not even bother looking at this issue - they are not even pretending to pay lip service to the notion of equal pay - what chance is there of ever achieving it? It is obvious that compulsion is required.

The EOC is recommending compulsory pay audits and the pressure must be maintained on ministers to put these on the statute book.

A little cautionary note to the Prime Minister. I do not want to see equal pay ended within a generation. Did he say that? I nearly fell over. It is illegal, it is immoral and it is unjustifiable. We cannot allow our women members to be discriminated against any longer - never mind within a generation.

Protecting pensions is now a major priority for all, but for many women the pensions crisis is nothing new. Less than half of all women workers receive a full state pension on their retirement and urgent reforms specifically targeted are needed to decrease the number of women who are guaranteed nothing more in retirement than poverty.

We must act decisively on the important issues as well, like training and skills development, flexible working and better health and safety which can disproportionately affect women workers.

The dividends to be gained from a concerted effort to recruit women workers are there to be seen. Amongst our public services section, our largest group of members is in the GMB, which has 61 per cent women membership. This growth has been achieved by focusing on a bargaining agenda on issues that affect women workers, like school support staff, by asking them and by concentrating negotiations on what they identify as being their needs.

The need for us to demonstrate the relevance and purpose of trade union membership to this significant proportion of the workforce has never been greater. The opportunity before us with more women at work has never been grater. The challenge before the TUC now is to seize that opportunity, to put the issues that matter to women at the centre of the agenda and to make sure that, collectively, we can deliver for women at work.

Annette Place (Unison) seconding motion 10, said: Frankly, I have to tell you that I am very pleased to be doing this. I was expecting after the Prime Minister’s speech to see more people in the balcony than there are on the floor of Congress but, happily, that has not happened.

This motion is particularly useful for Unison to be seconding as we have almost one million women members, more than two-thirds of our union, but we do have the potential for so many more. This motion also nicely complements motion 16 in setting a TUC priority agenda for women. Whether you call it a 'new deal' or a 'fair deal' does not really matter, what does matter is achieving these demands, in full, as a matter of urgency.

Tony Blair said that equal pay is an aspiration for millions of women. Why is it an aspiration 35 years after the Equal Pay Act? One of the quickest ways to make this aspiration a reality is, as the previous speaker said, to make the pay audit the statutory duty of all employers. This is about the core business of our trade unions. It is not about flying pickets, or strikes, or closed shops, it is about organising, recruitment, negotiating, and campaigning, but this time it is with a difference. This time it is with an emphasis on women’s rights at work and in the community.

In order to achieve these demands we must ensure that women are able to participate fully in all trade union activities and decision-making, and, dare I say, leadership as well. Our overall equality targets for women can only be achieved through active organisation to break down society and organisational barriers. It is crucial that we open up training and development opportunities for women if we are to narrow the pay gap and provide real development opportunities for women, particularly those in lower grades working part-time who get least access of all.

We know from our experience of providing workplace learning opportunities for women that it does make a difference. The kind of information that we glean from providing our services to women in education should be available to us from all employers and we should be requiring employers to monitor their own performance to make sure that they are addressing the needs of their workforce and their service users. A good example is where the figures for local government training spending tell us that 40 per cent of it goes to those with existing management qualifications while those undertaking vocational qualifications get less than 12 per cent. The gender inequalities are embedded in these figures. That is another aspiration, I think, to make a reality.

Whilst I am up here I will just take the opportunity to promote the fringe meeting on Wednesday lunchtime, which will launch a charter for women. Sisters, brothers, whilst women still earn a lot less than men, face sex discrimination and harassment at work, whilst our members still have to juggle work and home commitments, we have to prioritise this work as set out in the motion. Do not just put up your hand, please make sure that you take these demands forward now.

The President : The General Council supports the motion.

· Motion 10 was CARRIED.

Organising Black Workers

Wilf Sullivan (Unison) moved motion 11 on behalf of the TUC Black Workers’ Committee.

(Insert Motion 11 - Organising black workers)

He said: I think the first thing to say about this motion is that it is not just another motion about race. Often, when we talk about issues of race they are seen as minor issues in relation to the trade union Movement. This motion is about organising black workers as black workers are a significant part of the workforce in this country. It addresses the vital issue of levels of membership and participation amongst black workers who are working often in the worst parts of the economy. The Prime Minister talked earlier about good employers but we all know there are many bad employers out there, many employers who exploit workers, who have poor health and safety, who maximise their profits by getting what they can out of their workers.

There was a time when black workers in this country proportionately joined trade unions far more than white workers, but that is not the case any more. This is something, I think, that if trade unions are going to survive and if they are going to prosper and grow really have to address; that is what this motion is about. Currently, we are working in a background where there is still double the unemployment in the black community and in some parts of the black community triple the unemployment than there is with white workers. In an economy that is supposed to be dynamic and where there are job shortages, there are migrant workers being exploited and trafficked. These are all vulnerable workers that we as a trade union Movement need to be organising, need to be recruiting, and need to be addressing the problems they face.

Congress, the Stephen Lawrence Task Group, I think, highlighted the problems that black workers face in this country. In some ways it was a wake-up call not only for the Government and society at large but for the trade union Movement. I remember the helpline revealing stories about people’s experiences that I do not think others actually believed happened any more. It showed that things have not really changed and that black workers, as with other workers, need the trade union Movement as much now as they ever did.

However, if we are going to reach out to these workers and bring them into the trade union family, we need to stop seeing race discrimination as an individual issue, as something that when somebody experiences it at work we run off and get them a lawyer. It is a collective issue. If we are going to make real change, then we have to convince people that the only way they can deal with it is deal with it collectively.

I always think that part of the problem in terms of recruiting black workers now into the trade union is that we do not make real changes in the workplace. The limit of our ambition seems to be to get somebody compensation after they have been discriminated against. If that is the limit of our ambition, then we cannot expect black workers to come and join the trade union Movement. What they need is real change, they need to be able to have a fair opportunity to get jobs, they need to have a fair opportunity to get promotion, and they need to have the same opportunities for training as everybody else.

This motion is talking about strategy for change, it is about how we must have a strategy to organise collectively and bargain on behalf of black workers in the workplace to bring about that change. It recognises that we must start monitoring, setting targets, making sure that we progress, and making sure that it is not just words. Congress, as a race committee we have a vision about what we want to see, that is, that black workers see the trade union Movement as a natural home, where black members have their aspirations met and, as a result, there is a high level of membership and participation, where we have strong links with the black community, and that we understand their issues are our issues and our issues are their issues. Unless we do that, Congress, we cannot be talking seriously about tackling the problems of some of the most vulnerable members of the labour force. We need to reach out from behind the workplace door and demonstrate to people that we are worth joining. Unless we demonstrate to people that we can work on their behalf, then there is no reason at all why we should believe that those people should come and join us.

The last thing I will say, Congress, is that our view of what the labour force is out there has to change. It is not just an all-white labour force any more. We would as a race committee ask you to help us make that vision a reality. Thank you.

Sybil Dilworth (Unifi) seconding the motion on behalf of the Race Relations Committee, said: President, Congress, this motion was overwhelmingly supported at this year’s Black Workers’ Conference. It clearly shows and reiterates the points already made by my colleague, that black workers wish to engage in the growth of their respective unions and the TUC in general. In fact, this motion is more vicious than that, it is more than just concentrating on recruitment and recruiting black workers into the unions. The conference which I had the honour of chairing this year wanted to emphasise the links between the trade union Movement and the communities in which we live, communities in which day by day there are things happening.

When I go to work and say something has happened, people say, 'Oh, yes?' They are surprised. Why are the people surprised? Why are my colleagues surprised? Because they do not feel the same impacts and do not notice the things that are happening to black workers. Everybody believes that because we are there in the office working along then everything must be the same, but when we walk out of that door there are things that affect us in our communities that nobody else but us know about. The press do not report the issues that are happening. People come home from the services and die and a very very tiny article is put in the press, yet this is somebody who was out there fighting in Iraq, in a war that not necessarily all of us agreed with, doing their duty by the people who are around us and our peers. With that, I would say we have to look at our own communities and work for them.

How can I say I am working for my community? I am only one person but we are a collective grouping and as a collective grouping we must therefore work together to achieve what is best for us. If we do not make it clear as a union that there are things out there that can be achieved directly and indirectly via the union, then it all falls apart, and the membership that you are looking for to support and sustain the trade union Movement, and indeed for us to support and sustain ourselves, will crumble away, there will be nothing there. There will be no young people coming forward to join in, there will be no new workers, no matter what age they are, coming forward to join in and take part in a movement that should be there to protect and guide all, and not the chosen few.

I would ask you all to support this motion, and I really think that you all will do so. I would also ask you to examine the TUC Equality Report, look at your own union’s record, and look and see what improvements you can actually make. Also, get a copy of the TUC Supported Black and Ethnic Minority Workers Trade Union Movement Strategies for Organising, Recruitment, and Inclusion. Use those tools, make us count, help us to build that effective force that we are looking for so that we may move on and move forward. Please support.

Mohammad Taj (T&G) speaking in support of the motion, said: For years we have talked about the need to organise and recruit more black workers. We have talked a good talk on equality but the end result, as we all know, is that the black workers are still badly treated at work. They are in insecure employment, with low pay, long hours, dangerous working conditions, discrimination, and employers turning a blind eye to racist practices. Of course, we have had some success but not nearly enough. The key is not just recruitment but also to organise and, most important, to make sure that we have more black organisers, more black officers, and more black people involved in organising campaigns.

Black and ethnic minority workers are often in so-called difficult to organise workplaces, such as small private businesses where there is no statutory right to trade union recognition, employed as agency or temporary workers. We are not saying it is going to be easy. It will be a challenge but it is a challenge we must meet as a movement. The challenge is going to take commitment, resources, and moral courage to do the right thing. In the T&G we have seen some success. For example, at Riverstone Spinning in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, we organised a workforce that was 50 per cent Asian, mostly Punjabi-speaking. We have short meetings at different times to fit around workers’ shift patterns. We brought in a Punjabi-speaking steward from another textile workplace to speak to these workers. All our campaign materials were published with Urdu translations. We gained around 200 members and, of course, recognition at the end. We now have trained shop stewards, many of whom are Asian, we now have systems in place to overcome the language barriers, and we have redesigned our training programmes to meet the needs of these workers.

We as a movement need to show black and ethnic minority workers that unions are here to help and support them in their struggles, and we must involve them in everything we do. Congress, please support this motion.

Sevi Yesidali (PCS) speaking in support of the motion, said: This is an important motion that PCS fully supports. Even though there has been some progress made within the trade union Movement, this is nowhere near enough. You only have to look round this room to see how few we are. In the 21st century it is time things changed. Black people are first, second, third generation in the UK. Not only does the trade union Movement need to support and encourage black members, we must also give black members every encouragement to participate in that activity, in recruiting and retaining black members, achieving a greater involvement of black members in the democratic processes, addressing the issue of under-representation and improving our structures, supporting the principle of self-organisation, not as a barrier but as a bridge into mainstream activities at all levels of the trade union Movement.

Trade unions must be as accountable as employers. The trade unions have to get their own house in order if they want to preach to others. The reality is that black workers often feel that trade unions are not there for them and key to this is the fact that they do not see other black people in trade union roles. We need to ensure that the diversity of the membership is reflected throughout the Movement and that institutional racism is eradicated from within all our structures.

Bev Miller (Unison) speaking in support of the motion, said: Self-organisation needs to be integral to the pursuit of equality for members who face discrimination purely for being black. Self-organisation encourages black participation and activism within trade unions. Unison’s black workers are able to meet as a self-organised group. I would not be chair of the National Black Members Committee if Unison had not actively promoted self-organisation. This has enabled black workers to come together to identify their issues and priorities. Self-organisation has undoubtedly ensured that the voice of black members is heard. The existence of self-organisation has been beneficial to many black workers by providing the opportunities to meet to give each other mutual support and encouragement. Without self-organisation many black workers would be isolated and vulnerable to racist practices at work.

Unison has recently created its own anti-racist strategy, which is a direct response to the Race Relations Act. Unison cannot hope to recruit, organise, or retain black workers unless we put our own house in order. We cannot criticise employers for ineffective race equality policies or schemes if we do not have an effective race strategy. We cannot hope to make real progress in fighting race discrimination unless we involve black workers collectively in this struggle. Black workers are capable of taking the lead in highlighting and campaigning against racism in the workplace. Monitoring of black workers can help to identify where black workers are and ensure they are given information regarding self-organisation. Unison’s anti-racist strategy will result in detailed action plans with targets that can be measured and that cover all aspects of the union’s activity.

This strategy has been devised with the consultation of black members and as a result their voice has been heard and is represented with a Unison strategy. Black workers in Unison have gained confidence and strength by being able to organise, meet, and campaign as a self-organised group. The issue of racism is not one which should be dealt with only by black workers but by all workers who recognise that racism is an injustice and unacceptable.

Equality for all needs to be a mainstream priority within unions and black self-organisation within Unison has clearly helped to raise and address the issue of racism at work; self-organisation is not about separatism, it is about empowerment. Please support the motion and the principle of self-organisation.

Sam Allen (NATFHE) , speaking in support of the motion on participation of black workers within the trade union Movement, said: I would like all delegates, please, to take a moment to look around yourself, look around the Congress hall. What do you see? What you see is one of the main reasons why it is not good enough or will not be good enough this afternoon simply to vote for this motion without starting to think about some of the strategy to address the key demands in this motion. There is a business case for all unions to ensure full participation of their members at all levels of the union structure. The trade union Movement, our Movement, has lost quite a lot of members in the last year, since the last time we met in Congress 2003. I do not have details of the breakdown of the numbers by race or ethnicity but I am sure most of them, or a large percentage of them, are black members and union activists who have simply had enough and cannot cope with the union, or the structure does not address some of their concerns and their feelings.

The motion is calling on both the General Council and all affiliate unions to develop a detailed strategy for organising black workers across the trade union Movement and to facilitate more participation of black members in union activity. Comrades, brothers and sisters, it is no good raising up your hand this afternoon, we must all go back to our union to begin to campaign for policies to address the demands of this motion. Tony Woodley, in an earlier composite, said: 'Organise or die.' I will go further and say, get your black members involved in your union or you will continue to lose them.

Gargi Bhattacharyya (AUT) speaking in support of the motion, said: 'People have already said this is a funny kind of motion in lots of ways but instead of us coming and shaking our fists and saying, 'Do something for us,' it is much more reflective; it is about things that we might want to do for ourselves. I am really pleased that it is the first motion that comes from Black Workers’ Conference as a proper policy motion. Our first motion from Black Workers Conference was for the right to put motions. I think it is a key sign of our development as black trade unionists that we have been able to have that debate and bring it here. We really recognise that all our aspirations rely on our being able to organise and include new generations of black people.

A lot of the debate we have been having has been about trying to remember our histories and traditions from our own communities, about what organising means in a very modest, low key, face-to-face way. I always think that if you cannot speak to one person, one-to-one, and persuade them, you may as well give up on meetings, committees, and conferences because you are not going to be any good to anyone. Let us remember that everyday version of organising, which is about human relations and persuading people about the credibility of the Movement. It also concerns some of the things that were spoken of in the earlier debate about organising. I was really pleased to hear from Anita Halpin about the need to make connections with other social movements. We recognise from Black Workers’ Conference that there is a whole new generation of politicised young black people, especially through the anti-war movement, especially through the anti-globalisation movement, but also through community politics, who are not coming to us, who do not recognise that trade unions have a role in those battles for freedom and justice, who really do not know what we do. We need to pool that talent because that is who is going to take us forward to the next step. I also think it is a step forward for us as a Black Workers’ Conference because at long last it is not asking for white charity. It is not saying, 'Please, please, please, General Council, do something for me, I am so poor, benighted, I can’t do anything for myself.' It is saying, 'We can do it.'

I think we are looking for a model of organising that is not just about recruitment as people say, it is not just about filling our existing structures but about learning again that we can make change. The best gift we have for people is that sense of excitement about what collective impact is. If we cannot remember that making change is possible, we will not persuade other people to join us. Please support the motion.

Azim Hajee (Prospect) speaking in support of the motion, said: I am pleased to support this motion on behalf of my union, Prospect, but it is a particular privilege to do so along with 241 delegates from 41 unions who voted at this year’s 11th TUC Black Workers’ Conference to submit this motion to the annual Congress.

Congress, the principle of self-organisation is, of course, a fundamental tenet of all trade union activity. It is the very essence of our diverse Movement that drawers of water and hewers of wood, that firefighters and nurses, train drivers, doctors, and engineers, should seek to organise themselves to improve the quality of their lives. Yet, Congress, as you know, the notion that black trade union members, black firefighters and nurses, black train drivers and civil servants, should want or need to self-organise was for many years steeped in controversy and misunderstood by our Movement.

Congress, it is just over 20 years ago that thousands of local government workers, like myself, in Camden, Hackney, Lambeth, Liverpool, and Birmingham, formed their Black Workers’ groups. Over those 20 years our Movement has recognised that the sole activity of these workers, and their colleagues in the Civil Service, among Post Office workers and among journalists, transformed our unions. Black workers brought new ways of organising and new ways of networking, new issues and ideas: the notion that community-based campaigns against the deportation of asylum seekers, for example, was a legitimate concern for trade union branches; the notion that black delegations should visit mining communities to show solidarity and support; the notion that striking miners and firefighters should be welcomed into Notting Hill Carnival, or Guadiaros, or mosques; and the notion that racial violence and racial attacks, or racial murders, were legitimate concerns for trade union branches and conferences.

Few of us, Congress, will ever forget the vibrancy of that community or family campaign that brought Neville Lawrence to address our Annual Congress when every delegate on the platform, and on the floor of Congress, wore that orange ribbon for the Stephen Lawrence Family Campaign. The Stephen Lawrence Task Group, however, with the TUC, took the issues raised by the campaign one crucial step further so that its lessons were carefully stitched into the very fabric of our Movement and our day-to-day activity. Congress, in the same way this motion from the 11th Black Workers’ Conference seeks to ensure that the fire, imagination, and new blood, that our conferences engender, and others like it, are then re-focused, re-channelled, and embedded into a detailed strategy for organising black workers and increasing their participation at all levels of our Movement.

Suresh Chawla (BECTU) speaking in support of the motion, said: President, Congress, sisters and brothers, as trade union activists and advocates of equality we have a duty to ensure that our unions are reflective of the industries we represent and the nation within which we live. Recruitment and retention of black and minority ethnic members are only two of the issues. What is equally important is that our trade unions reflect our asset of diversity at each and every level, from branch reps and committees, through subdivision and divisional committees, right up to the executive committees on which so many of us here serve. It is not just about our membership but also the staff that we employ to help us run our unions, particularly our national officials and our secretariats. If we are serious about a reflective inclusive trade union Movement, we have to be serious in every single area.

Comrades, I urge you to make a proactive stance and effort in your own unions and support this motion.

Harpal Jandu (GMB) speaking in support of the motion, said: The recent TUC Equality Audit Report identified the major work required to recruit and organise black and ethnic origin workers. Much more effort is needed to create a trade union movement that reflects our contemporary society. For too long lip service has been paid to a strategy to recruit and organise black workers. Now we must all ask ourselves, are we doing enough? There are roughly 600,000 trade union members of ethnic origins but only 8 per cent out of 7.4 million members. Why are we not attracting more members from ethnic communities and, importantly, why do we not have more black activists? All unions have the responsibility to put their own house in order. We need to conduct a race audit for our membership and implement a strategy of education so that we raise awareness of the issues we face, as the step we must take to improve the situation is quite a sustained commitment.

The report of GMB Congress 2003 highlighted the inherent problem in my own union. The GMB report said it needed to look at discrimination and to begin discrimination enquiries. You need to look at yourself and your own practice. The GMB has taken this advice to heart. We are serious about taking the measures necessary for our organisation to make sure it is fit for purpose and to ensure that we are better equipped to provide protection at work for more black ethnic origin workers. The major recommendations include: the ethnic minority membership to be employed at activist levels with figures published annually, a race equality strategy to meet the minimum requirement set by the Race Relations Act, a national recruitment strategy to include targets for the black and minority ethnic membership that reflects local and regional demographics, and a conservative training programme throughout the union that includes increasing awareness, education, and race equality.

Congress, protection of employment rights is central to our Movement. Many black and ethnic workers are among the group most in need of collective protection and representation in the workplace. If we are to grow and improve this Movement we must build our membership among the black workers. Now more than ever is the time to educate, the time to organise, and the time to deliver. Please support the motion.

The President: The General Council supports the motion.

· Motion 11 was CARRIED

Manufacturing

The President: I now turn to Chapter 5 of the General Council’s Report on Economic and Industrial Affairs, page 53, the section on Manufacturing. I call Composite 9.

Economic and Industrial Affairs

Derek Simpson (Amicus) moved the following composite motion:

(Insert Composite Motion 9 - Economic and Industrial Affairs)

He said: President, colleagues, I have just a slight aside before

moving in. I moved a similar resolution last year but the President did not realise that I was moving, not seconding, and pinched two minutes off me; maybe I ought to put a bid in to get the two minutes back on this occasion.

Another aside, colleagues: we have obviously heard the Prime Minister speak and he has made a number of points, many of which will impact on a number of issues of interest to colleagues, and certainly on manufacturing. I, like unfortunately many other people, dash outside on these occasions but the spin that has been placed on it is that we were a little bit lukewarm in our reception of the Prime Minister. It was a good speech, we gave a reasonable acknowledgement, but we were not actually leaping in our seats at the contribution. I actually think that that is an unfortunate spin, and I have said so. I actually believe that key to many of our concerns is obviously the return of Labour for a third term.

One of the key things, however, of the Warwick discussions is to recognise that these are stepping-stones along the way and they are not complete solutions in themselves. I want to highlight just two of the issues that are referred to in the resolution that I believe are actually key, and at the moment still need more attention. First, I do not think that we will ever be able to defend manufacturing jobs in the UK unless we have a level playing field on legislation with the rest of Europe. I actually believe that, whilst ever it remains easier, cheaper, more politically expedient to dismiss UK workers, even when they are more productive, even when the companies they work for are profitable, companies will take decisions that reflect badly and the UK worker will come out second-best.

The second issue is one of government procurement, where £109bn has been spent by the UK Government. There is an argument that a very high proportion of that goes to UK companies. Indeed, it may well do but that does not mean to say that the UK companies then produce the goods in the UK. They are as guilty of offshoring as anyone else. It is interesting that in all the campaigns we have run on manufacturing we do not get the same enthusiasm from employers when we argue that government procurement should go to UK companies, meaning produced in the UK. Why? Because they are quite happy to take the jobs abroad if it increases the profit line.

I also make the point that when we look at our rail industry -- and this is an example, I think, that highlights the position best of all, almost to the point of not being able to produce a train in the UK -- we are down to almost the last supplier with the loss of Washwood Heath, yet we are the second largest consumer of rail product in Europe. There is not a German train built outside of Germany, or a French train built outside of France, for example. How is it that they can organise their industry in such a way that they support their own indigenous workers? We should be able to do the same, and should in order to support manufacturing.

We have argued that 10,000 to 12,000 jobs a month have been lost in manufacturing. We said that last year. I checked the statistic before coming up. You know that I do not speak with notes and I do not have piles of statistics. It is as simple as this; if it is anything it is worse than when I said it last year, we have lost more jobs. At that rate we cannot sustain a modern economy without a manufacturing base. So, this is our message: Yes, we want a third Labour term; yes, we will unite behind Labour; yes, we will do everything to get them returned and, yes, they have to start paying some attention to the fact that UK citizens in manufacturing are not second-class. Thank you.

Tony Burke (GPMU) in seconding the composite, said: The composite draws attention to the tragedy that has been the story of British manufacturing over the last 20-30 years. The composite also draws attention to the remedies that are needed in order to protect and defend what is left of our manufacturing industries in the UK. We fully support everything that Derek has said about the current crisis in manufacturing and the need for a level playing field across the European Union.

We also want to draw attention to the central role that the new Information and Consultation Directive will play in protecting and supporting manufacturing businesses in the UK.

Congress, everybody is aware that manufacturing is shrinking in all industrialised countries. We are also aware that the decline has been much faster and much more devastating in the UK than in other European Union countries. We find it strange that we also happen to be virtually the only country in Europe where workers have no formal information and consultation rights. The UK remains the only country where employers fail to value and listen to the views and concerns of their employees.

The lack of formal channels to inform and consult workers has played a key role in the continuing low productivity and the lack of skills that has brought about part of this crisis in manufacturing. We believe that the Information and Consultation Directive gives us a unique opportunity to address that deficit. It gives us a chance to build structures that will force employers to inform and consult their workforces about decisions that will affect them and their families. It will also help to address the narrow, short-termism that blights UK manufacturing in this country.

Despite the views of the CBI, and others, let us get it right, our members do care about their companies, they do care about how their companies perform, they care about skills, they care about training, and they care about their future. Congress, all the evidence shows that informed and consulted workers are far more productive. It is no coincidence that productivity is much higher in countries such as Germany and France where information and consultation procedures exist, and where companies just cannot be closed down and jobs transported in search of lower wages and higher profits. That is why it is essential that the Government use the opportunity they have to implement the information and consultation legislation in the most comprehensive and robust way possible. Congress, there is only one chance with this legislation; if we get it right, then manufacturing will at least have an opportunity to survive and recover, and can possibly move towards what the Prime Minister described as a vibrant and modern manufacturing sector.

Support the campaign to defend manufacturing in the UK, support manufacturing workers, support our industries, and support the composite.

Keith Hazlewood (GMB) speaking in support of the manufacturing composite, said: The DTI review of the Government’s manufacturing strategy states that British manufacturing cannot compete in all areas of industry, and nor should we try. What a scandalous statement from a Labour government. Over three-quarters of a million manufacturing jobs have been lost since Labour came into power in 1997. Investment in manufacturing has declined by 26 per cent since the year 2000. Our trade deficit on manufactured goods is expected to be £40bn in 2004. Our government is at rock-bottom of the European Union state aid league table, providing the lowest amount of funding for industry across the G15. UK workers still receive pitiful low levels of training in comparison to their counterparts in the European Union.

Congress, every year we pass motions calling for the Government to do more to help manufacturing and every year we continue to witness the decline of the sector. The Government must lead the way in championing manufacturing by encouraging better investment from employers, by delivering first-class R&D back-up, by requiring employers to invest in up-skilling their employees, and by providing the right market framework for our industries to succeed.

The GMB believes that by working together, government, employers, and unions, we can develop the new industry forums into specialist industrial clusters, to develop strategies that can deliver a prosperous future for specific industries, such as clothing and textiles, furniture, defence, and for our members that work in them. In the rapidly growing procurement market, we expect our government to ensure that we have a level playing field for UK plc, a level playing field providing our companies with the training, skills, and expertise necessary to open up European markets and win vital contracts. We also want to see the Government joining with us to demand an ethical dimension to all future procurement contracts, ensuring that in future all contracting authorities are legally obliged to consider social, employment, disability, and environmental issues when awarding contracts.

Congress, we know that British manufacturing can have a brighter future and that our members’ jobs rely on competing in tough global markets. We expect our government to lead the way and help our industries instead of raising the white flag at the first opportunity. Colleagues, support our manufacturing industry and support the composite.

Joe Marino (BFAWU) speaking in support of the composite and specifically to the parts of the composite in relation to low-cost selling, said: May I start by thanking the TUC and the General Council for the work they have done in the past 12 months on this issue. It has been most useful to us and to those unions with members certainly within the food industry. We used to look at the food industry and think it was a protected industry in many ways that did not have to worry about what was happening outside the shores of the UK. That is now no longer the case. Certainly, as the world gets smaller, as communications get quicker, and as transport gets easier, then we are facing all these difficulties that other parts of manufacturing have suffered.

I think also the TUC needs to be congratulated for its manufacturing conference a while ago, which again passed the campaign to highlight why manufacturing is so important. It is also important that we keep this particular campaign going. Whilst we highlight in passing this motion, as we did in our motion last year, the issue of low-cost selling through retailing, it is not only there that it is happening but all sectors of manufacturing are suffering from this same low-cost selling issue, in clothing, and elsewhere, where jobs then are taken abroad because of these issues. It is an absolute disgrace that people are abusing the power they have in the UK, and many of the UK retailers as well, in order to get companies to push down prices by brown envelope audits, and so on, and auction work they already have, never mind the thousands of workers that are as a result thrown out of work. We welcome what the TUC have done on this and it is certainly the way we will take it forward in the future.

The final point I want to make is on the General Council Report where it mentions low-cost selling and talks about the best practical option to make progress on the issue, which is to seek a strengthening of the current code of practice. All right, we will give it a go. We will see if we can make that code of practice work. Some of us have great doubts about that. The code of practice is no good unless it is backed up with real, tough, legislation where we can make this an issue. We will certainly give it a go and try and find a way to take it forward. At the end of the day, it is the food-manufacturing base that we are talking about. I think Tony Blair was talking about people working together; if we can build relationships there and build them together with other people like farmers and the farming industry, and so on, in order to push this forward, then all the more better that we can do that.

I would like, President, if I can, to congratulate the General Council and thank them for what they have done, and hope we can see this Movement take it forward to get a fair deal for workers in the food industry. Thank you.

Peter Booth (T&G) supporting Composite Motion Nine said: In debates on manufacturing it is always worth just reminding ourselves what manufacturing still represents in our economy today. Three and a half million workers, their families and their communities still rely on manufacturing for their livelihoods and jobs. That represents 60 per cent of our exports, 20 per cent of the country's GDP and indeed 80 per cent of the economy's research and development, a vital part of the economy.

Composite Motion Nine is about the present and the future, it is not about the past; it is about trying to establish modern manufacturing in an increasingly globalised economy where we have to compete with the rest of the world, but we need the support to be able to do so. Composite Nine draws attention to the decline but points the way to a better future for manufacturing. We cannot ignore the fact, as Derek mentioned earlier, that, yes, we are still losing around 10,000 jobs a week. If we look back a little bit just to last week in the Transport & General Workers Union we were notified of two further manufacturing plant closures in Yorkshire: a carpet manufacturing company in the North-east of England going into administration; and Boddingtons, the brewery, a world famous brewery in Manchester, announcing that it intended to close only two years after it had agreed to stay in Manchester to produce local jobs and maintain that brewery and indeed maintain a world class product where it has been produced since 1778. Our union will be supporting those workers to maintain those jobs and to retain that brewery in Manchester. Once again we see that this is an abuse here in the UK where our members should be able to have proper consultation before these decisions are taken and not after they are made by the company behind closed doors.

That is why the information and consultation part of this motion and our campaign is so important. Public procurement is also mentioned in this motion. What we have seen recently is a major contract for battledress for the Ministry of Defence being up for tender, been done by UK companies since the last war, only to see that this £50 million contract is now being taken away from companies in the North-west of England to be taken to the South-east of China. This is public money, public funds, a strategic development for the Ministry of Defence being taken from the UK, along with the jobs of British workers. It is not good enough and we cannot accept that can be a situation. Indeed, we welcome for that reason the change of approach that we have heard about today at Warwick.

There is one key to the future of successful British manufacturing. The Prime Minister quite rightly reminded us of the successful economy and of the massive levels of investment in the public sector. Absolutely right. We need the same level of investment in the private sector, in manufacturing, to have a sustained, successful viable industrial economy.

Ray Hill (Community) supporting Composite Motion Nine said: I work at Scunthorpe, the largest steel plant in Britain. Yes, we still have a steel industry where we have had increased productivity at double-digit rates annually for 20 years and more. Steel is an essential component of most manufacturing production and exports, and it is very costly -- about £35 per tonne to import across the Channel. Yet, one of our mills was closed this year with the loss of 100 jobs. The order book went to the main foreign competitor. A combination of governmental neglect, an unsustainable and unstable exchange rate with the Euro and woefully incompetent and greedy mis-management since 1990 has meant that Britain is bottom of the steel making league in the EU. But we have opportunities now: sterling has lost value against the Euro and incompetent and greedy mis-management has been turfed out. The government show signs of recognising the importance of manufacturing to Britain, but Ministers still have a long way to go.

On public procurement, for example, the Corus plant in France produces 95 per cent of the needs of the French rail system, whilst its Workington sister plant has only 65 per cent of the British rail market. The government say, with much justice, that since 1997 growth here has been faster and more stable than in any of the other large EU economies, and that it has created the conditions for manufacturing investment to succeed. The harsh reality is that the government still assign a lesser place to manufacturing industry than its counterparts in other EU countries. You see this in a wide range of other economic and foreign policies. We ask that our government really make manufacture the top priority and use the rules as our EU partners do.

Closer government involvement may not succeed. British business people for more than a century have simply refused to invest in Britain, preferring to go for far off dubious products abroad. There is plenty of scope for the government to change their support to encourage manufacture in Britain again.

The President: The General Council supports the composite.

* Composite Motion Nine was CARRIED

35-hour working week

Billy Hayes (CWU) moved Motion 34.

(Insert Motion 34 - 35-hour working week)

He said: It is most appropriate that we are discussing this late in the day after a very long day in terms of the work we have done.

Conference, the facts of overwork in the UK are clear enough. Full-time workers put in the longest hours in Europe at 43.6 hours a week compared to a European average of 40.3. The situation is getting worse, not better. The average working weak increased between 1998 and 2003 by 0.7 hours. Over the same period, the number of people working more than 48 hours has doubled. This is not the 21st century that we were told of in the late 20th century. There was going to be the collapse of work and we were all going to be riding around in hover cars with 2-day and 4-day weeks. This is the 21st century in UK Britain. Overwork may be good for profits; it is bad for workers.

Overwork also allows employers to avoid new investment and avoid real industrial progress. With high levels of investment and a shorter working week German productivity is 27 per cent above UK productivity and the new bargaining agenda for family friendly policies depends upon us ending overwork. The CWU believes the time is right to begin to re-establish the fight for the 35-hour week. George Brumwell was telling me -- he sits next to me on the Council -- that they had a fight for 35 in 1972, I think it was, and they achieved a 39-hour week, which was a big break through.

We believe that, as a Movement, we now need to refocus on this question of a 35-hour week. We believe the time is right. The big advantage of legislation is that it extends the minimum standard across the whole workforce. You have heard some discussion about the impact of the 35-hour week on jobs. Denis MacShane, Minister for Europe, argued in a recent article in the Guardian that Germany and France support for the 35-hour week has resulted in high unemployment. Where have we heard that kind of argument before? We heard it many, many years ago in terms of the minimum wage. It is our union's belief that we now need to re-establish the campaign for the 35-hour week, backed up by legislation through Parliament at the most appropriate time.

Let us be clear about this, Conference. There is a growing suggestion in government circles across Europe that the fight for 35 hours is somehow old-fashioned and not in line with the flexible labour market. Be absolutely clear about this: this is something we need to watch and guard. If we do not, then the idea that having legislation to support the shorter working week is incompatible with a modern and competitive economy. If we can have legislation that enshrines Bank Holidays being extended, which is obviously welcomed by lots of workers in this country, if we can have legislation that supports a minimum wage, then, yes, we can have legislation that supports working time. We were told it would be impossible, that we cannot have it in our economy, but we look to the experience of France where the French Government quite bravely and quite imaginatively introduced a shorter working week supported by legislation.

There will be those who tell you that really this is now rolling back the whole question of the shorter working week. Even in that debate within France there is no suggestion that it rolls back much beyond what has already been established by legislation. There has been some tinkering with it.

We want to have a campaign so that if you support this motion today that starts a long-term campaign in the same way as we established a campaign on the minimum wage. That is the way we see it if you are prepared to carry this motion today. It is not incompatible with our policy on the Working Time Directive; it complements the policy on the Working Time Directive. Most crucially it holds the government to account, to start to move through the whole question of working time supported by Parliamentary legislation. It is not asking the government to do something for the CWU that we cannot do for ourselves. You heard today about Alliance & Leicester, how it is an imaginative company. We secured a 35-hour working week there; we have 37 and a half in some of the business units in the Post Office, 36 hours net, and 36 hours in British Telecoms.

In inviting you to support this proposition, may I say that if this trade union Movement is to re-establish itself we have to get down to dealing with the long hours and low pay in this economy because shorter hours will make bad employers address the issue of working time if it is supported by legislation.

I commend this proposition to you; I hope Conference will support it. It is not incompatible with the Working Time Directive. We need to start today to re-establish a campaign for a shorter working week.

Hazel Harriett-Jones (SoR) seconding the motion said: Our organisation represents the 16,000 NHS radiographers. The government's Agenda for Change proposals require our members to accept an increase in the standard of working hours from 35 hours to 37 and a half. To add insult to injury, this is expected of us with no commensurate increase in pay, thus a pay cut in terms of our hourly rates. This clearly contradicts the Department of Health's Improving Working Lives policy and good practice policies of family friendly working.

Radiographers already provide a 24-hour service and take part in waiting list initiatives to achieve government targets. Our contribution is already increasing well above 35 hours in many cases. I myself worked 53 hours last week, along with many of my colleagues across the UK.

Pushing up standard hours will only serve to exacerbate the effects of long hours on our members' health and the welfare and wellbeing of their families. Studies by the Work Foundation show that hours matter: 61 per cent of the British workforce would like to work fewer hours. In the UK we work longer than our European counterparts and have the highest proportion of workers working over 45 hours per week. There is plenty of evidence of long hours exploitation of workers in the UK.

The experience of radiographers and other health professionals facing a working hours increase for no extra pay is another illustration of the cynical willingness and determination of the government to exploit members of smaller unions. It is this cynicism that threatens to fudge the long hours issue. The news that colleagues on the Continent have been put under pressure to increase their working hours, having fought to bing them down to 35, should make us even more detetermined to end the long hours culture in the UK.

I urge you to condemn long working hours, condemn exploitation and support this motion.

Working Time

George Brumwell (UCATT) moved Composite Motion 20.

(Insert Composite Motion 20 - Working Time)

He said: I would like to remind Congress that the Working Time Directive was a health and safety measure. It was the one Directive the Tories could not veto because it was a health and safety measure. We are sadly disappointed that the government's application of the Working Time Directive is half-hearted, to say the least.

I want to give you a few of the problems that we face, certainly in our industry. It is all about work-life balance and we have had successes. The biggest job in Europe is Terminal 5, and the client insisted that the Working Time Directive conditions on that site would apply. The contractor was skeptical about it. It was implemented. The working week came down to 48 hours, no loss of pay, and productivity went up. That contractor is now rolling out the conditions of that site throughout the whole of its labour force, 6,000 to 10,000 workers at the end of the day.

The DTi and civil servants within the DTi are claiming that workers do not want the opt-out. Of course, that is the conclusion they will come to if they talk to the employers. If they talk to the workers' representative they will get a different story.

I want to remind this Congress that the Working Time Directive is not about working hours, it is about the fact that for the first time in this country there was a legal right to paid holidays. If I tell you that six years on we still battle to try and get 20 days paid holidays for workers in my industry it takes a little bit of believing. There are thousands of workers being denied their rights to paid holiday. Anybody who has bought a house recently will know Persimmon Homes, the biggest house builder in the country, a turnover of £1.9 billion, profits of £350 million and the Chairman's package is £2.25 million, of which £169,000 is pension. They are sacking our members because they have the temerity to go to Employment Tribunals to establish holiday pay. Mr Prime Minister, where is the choice when you deal with an employer like that? The rub is that if our members exercise their right, a statutory right, in an Employment Tribunal they are shown the door. They can establish their holiday pay but then they are told they have no employment rights to go and claim unfair dismissal. We have one case going to Europe to try and establish our members' rights and I suspect there is another one on its way to Europe to establish rights.

Therefore, far from giving workers the choice it is really about listening to the needs of workers in this very hectic life style and work-life balance that they have to operate in. My members do a heavy job, it is rigorous, they pay with their lives, they pay with their health and they pay with injuries. They have to travel and work in the worst condition imaginable. They deserve the dignity not to have to scrimp and scrape and crawl for a statutory paid holiday. Whether it is 20 or whether it is 28, six years on if we have not been able to establish that what chance have we got?

I would say to the DTi, and the civil servants within the DTi, start listening to the needs of workers who operate within a climate of fear, because workers do operate in a climate of fear: if you do not shut your mouth you are out. There is another side to this debate about the Working Time Directive and I want to move Composite 20 and hope you fully support it.

Peter Pendle (ACM): Out of 70 unions at this Congress only three submitted motions on working time. That is three motions out of 140. That is a shame. Whether you work in the public sector or the private sector the long hours culture is a real problem, a key issue facing our members. Whilst I have sympathy with what Billy Hayes says, the issue for ACM members is enforcing the current legislation.

Evidence of the long hours culture that is thriving in education comes from our own members. Earlier this year we carried out an extensive survey of ACM members' working conditions. Almost two-thirds of ACM members, many of whom carry heavy teaching work loads, regularly work in excess of the 48-hour maximum week with nearly one in five working more than 60 hours per week. Nine out of ten members say they take work home on a regular basis, and an alarming one in seven members have been diagnosed by their own GP as suffering from work-related stress at some point in the past 12 months. Not a single member who took part in the survey said they worked less than 35 hours in any week.

What about the opt-out? Only four per cent of college managers have opted out of the 48-hour working time regulations according to our survey. They simply feel pressurised into doing whatever it takes to deal with an excessive work load. This means that the further education sector is heavily reliant upon its managers subscribing to the long hours culture and it is paying little regard to the law. The desire to meet unrealistic targets is serving to turn dedicated professionals into stressed out, over worked robots. Meanwhile the colleges that employ them continue to flout the working time regulations with abandon. Of course, managers who are forced to accept the long hours working culture are more likely to expect the same from those colleagues that they manage.

ACM wants it members to have a proper work-life balance and to enjoy good health. The workplace should not make our members ill and it should not destroy their family life. That is why ACM is pleased to be seconding this composite. We want to make it clear that there should be no opt-out from the 48 hour limit and we want you to press government, MPs and employers to develop policies that lead to a genuine reduction in working time. We have launched our own campaign to raise awareness of the problems of excessive hours amongst our own members and we will be seeking agreement with college employers on improvements to our members' work-life balance. Those that do not can expect employment tribunal claims regarding breaching the 48-hour limit. Let us call time on excessive hours. Please support this composite.

Annette Goss ( FDA ): According to the DTi's current consultation on working time, the government believes strongly that UK competitiveness should not depend on people working long hours, but the government as an employer remain wedded to long-hours working practices. The government need to take the lead on this, to take the issues seriously, to explode some of the myths about long-hours working. It is hypocritical to expect other employers to act to reduce long hours if the government will not deal with it themselves.

In 2002 the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry said we needed a new push for working time reform in the public sector, and to tackle the long hours culture. We are more than two years on now. It is a slow push. The issues remain.

Much is made of this culture of long hours working. The issues go far beyond a culture. It is the individuals who are working long hours. They work those long hours to get the job done. Frequently it is in reality more than one job. Government have said that we should work smarter, but that is a contradiction. We are in an advanced technological age that should allow us to work smarter and not longer. If people are doing one job we should not need to work such long hours. Senior civil servants are actually required contractually to work such hours as may be necessary for the efficient performance of their duties. Whilst that might be expected to cover peaks and troughs in work loads, for many there are now only ever peaks. Long hours working seems to have become the norm for all civil servants. The work is, of course, being done for free.

Opt-outs? Well, the government do not seem to be too concerned about complying with the opt-out provisions. Generally these seem to be ignored. Tony Blair said earlier that people could choose to work less than 48 hours. Actually people are doing whatever it takes to get their jobs done. The heart of the problem is the sheer volume of work. One member in a recent survey commented "Work load on senior managers is out of control". Nobody cares how much you need to work. Those work loads were set to increase. The government are now proposing to shed jobs to increase efficiency. Where is that link? Cutting staff numbers? Will that not mean that more people will end up doing more than one job? Less people and more work? Does that not lead to increased work loads and inefficiency. Reducing excess hours and achieving work-life balance will not happen until Tony Blair, ministers and senior officials really behave as they preach. Support us.

Brendan Barber ( General Secretary ): I wish to indicate the General Council's support for Composite 20, but the General Council has asked me to make a point of reservation on Motion 34.

First, I would like just to say that I think the debate this afternoon has illustrated graphically the realities of the long hours culture that afflict too many workers in Britain today. Indeed, I touched on this issue very strongly in my speech earlier this afternoon. This has been a major, major campaigning issue for the TUC. Our objectives have been to look to make a difference now because there is absolutely no doubt that the Working Time Directive is not being applied properly in our country. Employers are able to side-step the requirements too easily. The individual opt-out in particular has been abused with workers in countless circumstances effectively given no genuine choice about their working time. We want to make a difference now, but also of course to have a longer-term vision for how we want to move forward.

It is really that dimension of Motion 34 that I need to draw your attention to. Most of Motion 34 is very, very strongly supported by the General Council but it does seek to commit us to the objective of putting a 35-hour working week on a statutory basis. The General Council's concern is simply that the principle of a long-term perspective is absolutely right, and gives a sense of ambition to our campaigning, but we will need to do a lot of work to consider exactly how such a statutory limit would work. In France they have had a particular kind of model, averaging working time out over a period with a pretty rigid limit on the amount of overtime. What would be the implications for overtime if we had a new regime based on legal prescription? We need to do that detailed work to consider really how a statutory framework would work, and how it would be enforced.

We are committed to doing that work but we are also committed for sure to keeping up our pressure now for movement from the government to affect the position now. You can be sure that the TUC's "It's About Time" campaign will be taken forward very vigorously in the coming year.

Linda Newman (AUT) speaking in support of Composite Motion 20 said: In the next few weeks some of your children and thousands like them, 43 per cent of those eligible, will be registering at British universities. Those students, their parents, including many of you, expect them to be taught by inspired and creative teachers who are the leaders in their subject field. I am here to tell you that those teachers and the staff who support them have impossibly heavy work loads and work unacceptably long hours, leading inevitably to stress levels that destroy any creativity and damage health and family relationships. To illustrate, at the University of Cambridge no less the counselling service originally set up to help students has had to be recently extended to cope with the level of calls for help from overstressed university staff.

We in universities welcomed 1.9 million students in 2003, compared to 1.2 million in 1993, without any comparable increase in staff numbers during that time. No wonder that a recent AUT survey revealed that two-thirds of staff reported working more than 45 hours per week, and one-third over 55 hours, and during our vacations too.

But British universities do not only teach. The government, the nation, the industries and organisations in which you work expect university staff to deliver high quality research to boost the economy and support cultural and social life. It is in everyone's interest, in this room and beyond, that university staff have the time to teach and research well. The range of speakers in this debate shows that the long working hours culture damages us all, our health and safety, our own wellbeing and that of those who provide the products and services on which we depend. That is why the AUT is supporting Composite 20.

Vicky Knight (FBU): The FBU is supporting Motion 34. Britain suffers from some of the longest working hours in Europe. This has resulted in high costs in terms of health, welfare and wellbeing of British workers. It is bad for the economy as the UK lags behind its European neighbours in productivity.

Those who argue against shorter working hours today say the nation cannot afford them. What rubbish. In the nineteenth century we heard the same arguments against banning children from working in our factories. After the second world war we heard the same arguments against sick pay, and in the 1970s we heard the same arguments against equal pay. In the 1990s there was a huge outcry about the Working Time Directive that provides a statutory right to four weeks annual holiday. The arguments that these advances for working people would irreparably damage the economy and business were also bogus. They were wrong then and they are wrong now. An ever shorter working week is the hallmark of an advanced economy.

Despite our laggard status in Europe, UK productivity in both the public and the private sector continues to rise and is at an historically high level. In exchange for their higher productivity workers deserve reduced working hours. During our pay negotiations, the FBU put in a claim for a 35-hour week with no reduction in pay. Even our options, which involved anti-social hours and shift allowances, were rejected. Hardly modern, hardly advanced and hardly flexible. The Fire Service national employers rejected our claims on the grounds of cost. Quite simply, caring for their employees, the workforce, was too expensive.

We still believe that FBU workers, and in fact all workers, have the right to shorter working hours but the reality today is that our members work 42 hours a week and we believe our members deserve a 35- hour working week with no loss of pay, with no detriment to any remuneration that they quite honestly deserve. This Labour Government have a real chance to make real change. Tony said the best way he could show he was back committed to the domestic agenda, to British working people, was through action. A 35-hour week with no loss of pay should be one action he should take.

Support Motion 34.

Malcolm Sage (GMB) speaking in support of Composite 20 said: Our government appear to be badly confused. On the one hand they are actively promoting a positive work-life balance and improving family friendly work practices, whilst on other hand they are busy locking us into a long hours work culture for another generation. We know we cannot have both. That is why we have consistently told them that long hours is the single most corrosive force against developing a healthy work-life balance, but this is an issue they seem to prefer to remain confused about.

The government and the CBI argue that we need more labour market flexibility to be competitive and that is why they want to keep the individual opt-out in the Working Time Directive. British workers have the dubious pleasure of being way ahead at the top of the league for the longest working hours in Europe, yet compare that timetable to Europe's productivity and we are way down. Working long hours does not make us more productive; it makes us tired, stressed, ill, and a health and safety hazard to ourselves and those around us. The only flexibility being tested by working excessive long hours is how far British workers will bend before they break. Frankly, I am not optimistic about the future competitiveness of our economy where it is based on our members being tested to destruction and burned out. Sadly, we are not winning the argument.

An EU proposal revising the Directive on working time is set to come out of the EU Commission in the next week or so and the news is not good: keeping the opt-out, undermining the trade unions bargaining role on reference periods to calculate the 48 hour average and pushing that out to 12 months, undoing the judgment on on-call time. Congress, the long hours culture has to go; the opt-out has to go. But we have a real fight on our hands to get there and we must keep up the pressure.

Please support Composite Motion 20.

Billy Hayes (CWU) exercising his right of reply said: I would like to recognise all the points that Brendan made in terms of the detailed work that needs to be done. Obviously the issues that Brendan raised need to be taken into consideration. However, I will say one thing about the whole question of working time in the UK. One of the reasons why we are in this position on the Working Time Directive is that the UK is the only country in Europe that has never had any statutory rights in respect of the hours worked in this country. If you look across Europe, even before the Working Time Directive was introduced, there were actual legal limits on working time.

One speaker mentioned that we need to be dealing with the here and now. Absolutely, but there is one thing that traditionally we are very bad at as a trade union Movement and that is being strategic. This motion is about being strategic and I hope that Conference will support it on that basis.

The President : The General Council is supportive of Motion 34 with the comments made by the General Secretary and the General Council is also supportive of Composite Motion 20.

* Motion 34 was CARRIED.

* Composite Motion 20 was CARRIED

Congress adjourned for the day

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