2004 Congress verbatim report Tuesday
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: 0207-405 5010. Fax No: 0207-405 5026
SECOND DAY: TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14
MORNING SESSION
(Congress reassembled at 9.30 a.m.)
The President : Colleagues, I am sure you would like to join with me in thanking NHS Jazz who have been playing for us this morning. Thank you very much. (Applause)
May I take this opportunity to remind delegation leaders that the ballot for the General Council and the General Purposes Committee takes place this morning. Ballot papers should be collected from the desk outside the TUC stand situated in the ground floor exhibition area just inside the main front doors of this centre. Papers will only be provided in exchange for the official delegate form. Please note that the ballot closes at 12 noon today.
I now call Gerry Veart, Chair of the Congress's General Purposes Committee, to give a further report on behalf of the GPC.
Gerry Veart (Chair, General Purposes Committee): I have two things to report this morning: one, the Emergency Motion on pensions has been distributed round the hall this morning. The motion will be taken after the pensions composite this morning.
The second point I have to report is that one of the candidates for Section J has withdrawn his nomination. This has been approved by the General Purposes Committee. Accordingly, you will find the name of John Walsh from Amicus scored through on the ballot paper.
That concludes my report.
Address by Harold A Schaitberger (General President, International Association of Fire Fighters, United States of America)
The President : In my speech yesterday I mentioned I had just been to the United States where I had the pleasure and privilege of spending some time with the local unions campaigning for Kerry/ Edwards. I saw first-hand how involved the American unions are, and therefore it gives me great pleasure to advise you that this morning as an important item of business we have the fraternal address from the American trade union centre, the AFL-CIO.
I am very pleased to welcome Harold A Schaitberger who is the President of the International Association of Fire Fighters. You will recall that after the terrible events of September 11 many British fire fighters established a special bond of solidarity with their New York counterparts. That is why I want particularly this morning to invite Andy Gilchrist, General Secretary of our Fire Brigades' Union, to say a few words about that unique friendship and to introduce our special guest. Andy, I would like you to introduce Harold.
Andy Gilchrist (FBU): It is a pleasure, and of course a privilege, on behalf of the General Council to welcome our AFL-CIO delegate here to Congress. Everyone recalls where they were on September 11 2001. Many of us were here in Brighton at the TUC, astonished and horrified at what we were being told was occurring in the United States of America.
A few weeks after that my union asked me to take over a contribution to the fund to support the fire fighters and the families of fire fighters who had so tragically lost their lives in that event. That is when I first met Harold Schaitberger who, for me, is the President of the United States of America fire fighters.
It is tough being a trades unionist; we know that. I guess that is the case in America. But to see someone deal, with such integrity and in such a noble way, with the tragedy of losing 343 heroic public servants like that was an inspiration to me. I attended his Conference, which he carried with enormous magnanimity. I will say this as well. The respect shown to Harold from all fire fighters across America was warming for us to see.
It is with great pleasure that I give Congress the President of the United States of America Fire Fighters, Harold Schaitberger.
Harold A Schaitberger (General President, International Association of Fire Fighters, AFL-CIO/CLC): Andy, thank you very much for that kind and generous introduction.
President, General Secretary members of the General Council, Congress, sisters and brothers, I bring you warm greetings from the AFL-CIO President, John Sweeney; Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka; Executive Vice-President Linda Chavez-Thompson; and our entire Executive Council on this, the 136th Congress of the TUC.
I also bring the good wishes of the 267,000 members of my union, the International Association of Fire Fighters. My Executive joins with me in extending our goodwill and our solidarity to each and every one of you.
I would like to thank you for allowing me to be here today, for having me here today, to take part in this again historic 110th exchange of the delegates between our two great labour organisations in a relationship that began going back to 1894. That strong history, our commitment to continuing this partnership, is clearly an example of how important the AFL-CIO -- our affiliates and their members -- feel about working together feel and their concern and commitment about working with you, the British trades unions and the TUC. The unity, the work that we do together day in day out, every day in support of each other, has continued through good times, tough times, and unique challenges to all of us. My union, the IAFF, knows very well, and has experience first hand -- as was just mentioned by my brother Andy - - the importance of our relationship and the value it brings to those we represent.
I will always remember the outpouring of compassion and support from the entire British trade union Movement during that horrific day, and the days and weeks that followed, three years ago just last Saturday, when terror struck on American soil like never before. We are eternally grateful for the assistance of our brothers and sisters in the FBU who sent members to work on Ground Zero, shoulder to shoulder with my members, as well as their generous contribution to our relief fund in our efforts to try take care of the families who lost their loved ones that day -- 343 of my members along with 2,700 innocent civilians murdered at the hands of terrorists.
To my brother Andy Gilchrist, and the FBU, I want to say thank you for your help, your support, in that time of need. We will never forget it. I also want to acknowledge how you inspired my members, my union and my affiliates by the strength and the resolve that you displayed in your efforts to demand a fair contract for your members. You have our admiration for the steadfastness you have shown in representing your members.
Today I would like to talk about three issues, issues that are the focus of this Congress and all of our unions every day. First, there is globalisation and the need to make the world economy for working families everywhere work for them. Globalisation certainly is not a new trend to any of us. It has been expanding around for several decades. It is not new to corporations; it is not new to us in the labour Movement as the 110 year history of working together really shows. But globalisation is a widening challenge to trades unions everywhere. It is aided by advances in technology, -- in telecommunications, in the liberalisation of international financial markets and in quicker and more efficient transportation.
Simply stated, on the ground, in the workplaces, in almost every way, globalisation on balance, in my view, has been a disaster for workers and our members. The only way to change that is for us, all global unions, to be working more directly together, to ensure that we do not allow our workers to be pitted against each other in the race to the bottom. We must work together closer than ever before to turn around the trend of global capital and multinational companies that are moving around the world trying to find cheaper and cheaper labour, which has little or no protection. In the United States, this scheme of scouring the globe for every bit of leverage to force manufacturers to compete against each other, to lower pay for workers, to eliminate employer-paid benefits and to increase working hours as the only means for a worker to earn more, all in the name of lower prices, is called the Wal-Mart Economy.
Sam Walton, who founded that company, and his good old boys from Betonville, Arkansas, love to run these television ads that you may or may not see. It has this silly little star that is a happy face bouncing around the TV, lowering prices on products, but what that ridiculous yellow ball really represents is a cruel irony for workers across the globe, one that is turning our country and yours into a society with highly-strung, overworked and under paid citizens.
The predicament that Wal-Mart is putting the world in, one where it sells itself to consumers with its lower prices, while at the same time convincing people and markets that it is good to keep their workers' wages low and their benefits virtually non-existent, is going to be hard to turn around. When you add privatisation -- which you call private finance initiatives, what American business calls outsourcing, and what I call screwing the workforce -- on top of the Wal-Martisation of our economy, the picture gets very bleak. We are now seeing virtually all of our well paid union manufacturing jobs being exported from our countries at an alarming and growing rate to underdeveloped nations, exploiting their workers for more and more profit. Now we are even seeing service sector jobs and white-collar jobs being outsourced -- high-tech, computer, help on line jobs, airline reservation phone centres and even, in the United States, our federal income tax returns are being handled from bases in India.
The numbers projected for the increase in this job exodus over the next decade are staggering. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund -- dominated by the United States, the United Kingdom and other major industrialised countries -- continue to give support to this model of what it likes to call world development, but this is not development in my opinion. I think it is closer to being destruction. The results are clear: the rich simply get richer, workers are asked to do more for less and poverty is on the increase.
That is why John Sweeney challenged the recent ILO World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation, to address these issues in ways that were recommended by the Director General. In his report to the ILO the Director General outlined the goals that we all share: an economic floor to stop the widening gaps between the rich and the poor, extending social security to all workers, promoting living wages, increasing minimum wage levels, reforming income taxes and increasing welfare benefits for low income workers. President Sweeney also endorsed global goals of influencing poverty reduction strategies, underscoring the rights of workers to organise, eliminating labour abuses and improving the quality of employment in small and medium sized enterprises. He pushed for a new multilateral framework on immigration, the establishment of a Global Policy Forum unit to address macro issues, and decent work audits of the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO.
Whilst these are some ideas to fight back, there is no easy answer to the problems created by globalisation. But one of the most obvious solutions is that we -- all of us, each one of our unions, this Congress, our Federation -- need to grow bigger. We need to become stronger and we need to do it through organising, which is the second topic I would like to comment on this morning.
In the United States, our own problems with recruiting new members are well documented. We have gone from representing roughly one-quarter of the workforce in the late 1970s to representing barely one-eighth today. There are many reasons for that decline, like the decimation of our industrial and manufacturing base, which traditionally had high density union membership, but in my opinion the biggest reason for our decline is the erosion and the weakness in our nation's labour laws. Recent studies have shown that there are more than 40 million workers in our country who would join a union tomorrow if they simply had a fair chance to do so, but when they go to sign up or conduct a union election employers in our country -- a number of which are owned by European-based corporations like Saint Goban and First Group National Express -- harass our people, intimidate workers, and too often even fire them. In the United States, the sad case is that the price of joining the union is often the loss of your job, your livelihood, placing your family at great risk. There are not many people in our current economy who are willing to risk their jobs and their livelihoods in these times.
A partial answer for us lies in the peaceful legislation we are backing in the United States Congress. It is called the Employee Free Choice Act, which now has more than 200 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives and 30 in our United States Senate. The Act provides for recognition of a union once workers are provided with authorisation cards signed by a majority of those workers. The tactic is commonly called "majority verification" or "card check". It eliminates long and drawn-out election procedures that provide opportunities for employers to interfere with the workers and bust their drive to unionise.
The Act also prevents employers from stalling the bargaining of first contracts by requiring mandatory arbitration once impasse is reached in those first delicate negotiations. The Act further levels what is now simply an uneven playing field, that is heavily tilted towards management by stiffening penalties for employers who violate the Act or other labour laws.
Getting such a piece of legislation through our government, of course, requires a lot of work, and the first step to see the day that this legislation is enacted -- and which is my final topic this morning -- is for the American labour Movement to get rid of the current President of the United States and get senator John Kerry elected. It is a Herculean task, but one which my union and indeed, our entire federation, is working on with a single focus and with unprecedented resources.
I believe that to have impact and gain influence in politics you have to be bold, and you have to be willing to lead. Thirteen months ago when John Kerry was at 9 per cent in the polls, my union made a strong statement in our presidential election process by stepping out for the candidate who the media at that time -- and the talking heads and the alleged political pundits -- said should fold his tent, get out of the race, "You are finished". Well, we stood tall, we did the right thing, because we truly believed in our candidate. I told John early on, when times were very difficult for him, "Win or lose, the fire fighters give you their word and their hand that we will be the last ones standing with you". Now he is standing with us, and he is ready to stand with all of us, and he is going to win.
I can tell you that last Fall, during the dark days when things were difficult, we were surprised -- some were surprised, we were not -- when John shot to the forefront. Now he is the Democratic Party nominee. In 52 days we will be electing our 44th President of the United States, John F Kerry, and we will be saying to John W Bush "You are fired". (Applause). Every day for the next seven weeks we will make our case for John. We will also be speaking out loudly, and aggressively, about the need to get rid of George Bush this November. We know Bush will never under any circumstances support or sign the Free Choice Act. His administration has America's labour Movement in its cross hairs and we believe his policies on taxes and immigration are simply wrong; his positions on trade and global economy have hurt workers.
We believe that his rush to war without a plan to win the peace has hurt our country's standing all over the world. Now we see over 1,000 of our young men and women, who wore the proud uniform of our country, coming home on C130s in flag-draped coffins, and thousands more in veterans hospitals, injured and disabled, trying to learn again to walk without a leg or how to live without arms or hands.
Our country may be one of the lone superpowers left on our planet but we have been a terrible neighbour to too many nations around the globe, and it is time to change that. We will change that by electing a new President. You have probably heard George W Bush's rhetoric about securing our homeland in these times of unthinkable threats only a few years ago, but my members -- as well as my sisters and brothers here in FBU -- understand that they are expected by their citizens to respond to every disaster, natural or man-made, including those that terrorists may cast upon us using weapons of mass destruction. I am tired of George Bush being tall on promises and photo opportunities with his arms around my members, while being so terribly short of providing the equipment, the training and the personnel that my members need to do the job they are expected to do and protect our homeland. Simply put George W has left my members vulnerable in our ability to effectively respond in time in the next attack. There is something very wrong when we are using America's resources to open fire stations in Baghdad when we are closing fire stations down all over the US. It is time for that to stop.
No issue strikes more at the heart of trade unionism than George W Bush's anti-labour, anti-worker actions. He has done everything he can to discourage organising, to encourage union busting by companies, to outsource public service jobs. He has stripped collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of federal workers all in the name of our security, which I say is simply B.S. He has failed to support union rights for millions of state municipal workers who still wait for basic worker rights that private sector workers have enjoyed for seven decades. But we are fighting back because we cannot tolerate any more of a Bush administration, any more than you can tolerate another Tory-controlled government. It is John Kerry that we must elect as the man who stands with the workers in America, with a 20-year record of supporting legislation that helps unionisation and union members. He supports raising the minimum wage. He will make sure that healthcare becomes a right for everyone rather than just a perk for the privileged few. He will ensure that our social security system is funded to provide vital benefits that seniors deserve after decades of service to our nation. He will restore the respect our country once had and heal the wounds that have been inflicted on nations around the world. When he is elected as our next President he will sign the Employee Free Choice Act the second it hits his desk and our union membership will begin to grow.
That is why this year the AFL-CIO is spending $45 million as a federation, and each of our national unions are adding to that tens of millions more. We are doing that to defeat George W Bush and elect John Kerry. But our real strength is not just money, no more than money is your strength. Our strength in the political process is people, our workers, our members, and our unions are putting thousands of volunteers in the field to maximise the vote from union families. In fact, the night that President Bush gave his acceptance speech to the Republican National Convention we had 15,000 volunteers out that evening visiting over one million union homes.
I know the trade union Movement here in Great Britain faces similar challenges in your upcoming elections and in meeting the problems created by privatisation, globalisation and all the other issues that strike at our members. I know that we are together concerned in fighting the pilfering of our pension plans, the loss of pension benefits, which simply allows the lining of the pockets of those corporate executives who are so greedy.
I want you to know how honoured I am to not only be standing here before you today to say we look forward to continuing to work together, but also to make sure that we continue to strengthen the bonds that have been forged in more than 100 years of our shared effort. I guarantee that every union from every nation represented in this Congress has a friend in the American labour Movement, my union and our great federation, and we will be there standing with you as we fight toe to toe with the Wal-Marts of the world, the privatisers and the George W Bushes of this world who are attempting to tear down everything that those that preceded us in this great struggle shed blood to build. Solidarity is not just a word or a phrase; it is the core of what we are together, and the spirit for all of us to embrace to better the life of the members to whom we have given an oath and an obligation to represent their interests -- the members who make all of our economies, our businesses, our governments and our communities around the world actually work.
So to you I say solidarity for ever, thank you for having me today, may God bless you and may God bless our labour Movements. Thank you. (Applause)
The President : On behalf of all of Congress, with much honour, and as a sign of solidarity, not just with the speaker but with the entire American trade union Movement in its struggle in the forthcoming election, it gives me great pleasure to present Harold with the gold badge of Congress.
Presentation of the TUC's Gold Badge of Congress
Some of the delegates have asked me if a former General Secretary of the postal workers union has rejoined the General Council, but they are wrong. No, we are very, very privileged and pleased that the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Alan Johnson, has agreed at very short notice, understandably, to join us here today. He is on the platform. We welcome you now, Alan, and look forward shortly to hearing your address.
Pensions and Welfare
Pensions
The President : I now call Composite Motion 7 on Pensions. The General Council supports the composite and I will be calling on Jeannie Drake to explain the General Council's position.
Lucy Kelly (Amicus) moved Composite Motion 7.
(Insert Composite Motion 7 - Pensions)
She said: I move this composite with a heavy heart. Over the last two years my union has been forced to deal with the tens of thousands of members who, to varying degrees, have seen their savings, retirement plans and future security taken from them. We have seen members' futures dashed through a combination of short-term employer reactions, lack of statutory protection and a continued misguided impression that the voluntary approach to pensions provision will somehow come up with the right result. It will not. It is time the government realised this.
Given the investment market falls we have seen in the last three years, given the increased costs of improved mortality and given the increased costs needed to run decent occupational pension schemes, I can see no better justification for the introduction of compulsion. The lack of employer commitment to long-term contributions on a voluntary approach, the fact that according to the Association of British Insurers there is a savings gap of £27 billion, and the evidence of poverty line pensioners, support our claim -- a claim that simply states that without a compulsory employer contribution of ten per cent of salaries to employees’ second pensions, as well as five per cent contributions by members themselves, we will continue to see the perpetuation of pensioner poverty and the widening gap between rich and poor.
Colleagues, in 1979 those pensioners in the top 25 per cent income bracket had a total average income level of 76 per cent of average earnings. By 2001 this level had risen to 87 per cent. But those in the bottom 25 per cent income bracket -- typically those with no occupational or private pension income, at whom this issue of compulsion is mainly aimed -- had an average income level of 23 per cent of average savings, a level that by 2001 had fallen to 21 per cent. How can we continue to pursue a failed policy of voluntarism when it is clear that a statutory requirement for all employers and employees to make a contribution towards retirement would go a significant way towards eliminating pensioner poverty?
Let us be clear, whilst we will always fight for the maintenance and up-rating of the basic state pension we should not fall into the trap that some employer organisations, notably the CBI, are now laying before us and agree that compulsion can be taken off the agenda if the basic state pension is increased significantly. I say to all those who think that the state pension should be higher, so do I. I say to all of those who think that the earnings link should be restored, so do I. But I say to all of those who think that this will solve the problem of pensioner poverty, I cannot agree. The state pension was designed as the foundation stone of retirement provision in this country, but to say trade union aspirations would be satisfied by a significant raise would be wrong. Simply lifting the current and future pensioners just above the poverty line is not enough. We say that that would be a starting point but what we need to be campaigning for is high quality, secure and respectable second pensions for dignity in old age.
Colleagues, for too long we saw employers pay nothing into final salary schemes. We saw them erode surpluses and hide behind the argument that when times got hard they would be there to foot the bills. Well, times are hard and I do not see much coming from employers. What I say to you is, support this motion, lobby and campaign alongside us with government to introduce compulsion. Introduce it now.
Hugh Lanning (PCS) seconding the motion said: In seconding Composite 7 I do not want to repeat many of the good points in the motion. I want to focus on three issues: the links between the public and private sectors; explain briefly the specific issues we face in the civil and public services; and, most importantly, discuss how we go forward together.
CBI and employers contrast public and private sector provision, but it is a myth. The average civil service pension is £5,000. Low pay means low pensions. Individuals move, start work in one sector and finish in another. Workers are moved, privatised. Our members in Astra were; their pension fund was raided, then the firm went bust and now 14 years on they are still campaigning for their pensions. The announcement on the two-tier work force was good, although a date would have been handy, but it must include pensions. Without that it would be an empty promise.
In the public sector the Green Paper proposed moving not just the retirement age but also the pension age to 65. This is not about allowing people to work longer because we are living longer. Every year the pension age is put back is a pension contribution saved. It is raiding the pension pot in the same way as any bad private sector employer. Yesterday the Prime Minister was virtually silent on pensions but he did say good jobs do not come with bad work practices. It is a bad work practice, a fundamental breach of faith to rip up your own employees contracts to make them work longer to get their current pension entitlements. You do not deliver world class public services by announcing you want to get rid of 100,000 civil servants at the same time as you are telling the rest 'Five More Years'. That is why pensions are part of our dispute and one of the issues that we will be balloting on if we do not get satisfactory reassurances.
Public sector pensions are currently on a delicately balanced pack of cards. In the Civil Service we are still waiting for proposals. Many other areas are in discussions -- teachers, the health service, emergency services, local and central government. We are talking to the employers but not enough to each other. It is not enough for pension officers to meet and exchange notes.
We have called for a further day of action but we support the composite and specifically point (x). But we want that point to be real, we must support, coordinate and cooperate; we must work together. If we negotiate separate deals in isolation the bottom line will be just that, the lowest common denominator. Our challenge is to protect the public sector pensions as a benchmark for the future.
At our fringe meeting last night, 12 General Secretaries -- now dubbed the dirty dozen -- pledged support to the PCS, about which Mark will say more later. I want to repeat one point that Dave Prentis made on pensions, urging that we should learn lessons from the past, pledging support for the PCS. We should stand together, he said, and if that involves industrial action to quote Dave, so be it. I agree; the PCS agrees. In supporting this motion we must support each other or, as Tony Blair rightly pointed out, most of us will live long enough to regret it.
Tony Brockman (NUT): The National Union of Teachers welcomes this composite. We fully support its call for improved pensions and an improved pensions framework for all workers, and for major improvements in universal state pensions, to end the disgrace of reliance on means-tested benefits. Together with other public sector unions, the National Union of Teachers has been campaigning against the government's plans to raise the normal pension age for teachers and other public sector workers to 65. We wholeheartedly congratulate the TUC for organising the pensions march and rally on June 19. This composite builds on that. It calls for the General Council to assist and coordinate not just campaigning but action by unions and for a National Pensions Day.
Teachers are appalled at the prospect of having to work beyond 60 to avoid a worsened pension. We have secured protection for those aged 50 or over, but for tens of thousands of younger teachers the government's proposals mean that they and other public sector workers are faced with unilateral changes to their conditions of employment that reduce the pension that they signed up to and have paid for. They did not come into teaching with the expectation of higher salaries; they came into teaching to enhance the life opportunities of children. They did expect though that the government would honour the pension promises made to them, promises the government now threatens to break. Tony Blair said yesterday on pensions that there are no easy solutions, so why is his government taking the easiest solution of unilateral worsening of pensions by imposition. Conference, that is not social partnership; it is precisely the opposite. It is not the partnership he offered yesterday.
Congress, the National Union of Teachers will continue its efforts to protect teachers' pensions and to continue to campaign with the TUC for improved pensions for all workers in both the public and private sectors. We urge this Congress to send a united message to government, that imposed worsening of public sector pensions is not the way forward. Instead it should work with TUC and affiliated unions to secure improved pensions that properly reflect the needs and circumstances of private and public sector workers and also provide a substantial improvement to the state retirement pension. Support the composite.
David Porter (TSSA) : President and Congress, if there is one thing on which everyone with the slightest knowledge on pensions can agree it is that the subject is complicated. Indeed, for many people, it is so dauntingly complex that they put off making any decisions about their pension provision until it is too late. Somehow we have to break into this level of ignorance and ensure that every worker is much better informed and able to make the choice that suits him or her best. The point is that the decisions you make early in your working life will have a huge impact on your later life, especially when you are no longer working and are relying on that pension as your sole source of income. Each employee needs to make their own pension choice which is most appropriate for their own personal circumstances. Leaflets, advice sheets and booklets are all useful, and the Government have a help line - Pension Power for You - which is also of assistance.
An independent evaluation of the help line illustrates the problem. It found that only 4% of the callers were under 30, and that the service was much less likely to be used by men, ethnic minorities and manual workers. So the TSSA thinks that the best way of helping individual employees is to allow them to talk things over in the workplace with someone who is approachable, is able to give genuinely impartial information and has no financial axe to grind. That is why we are calling for a network of lay pensions representatives to be set up in the workplace. They would have the same status that learning reps and health and safety reps have currently. They will be given training and time off to undertake their duties and their role will be to give information to employees and liaise with the pension scheme trustees. They will be able to cut through all of that appalling pensions jargon, such as AVCs, contracting in/contracting out, SERPS, defined benefits, etc - of which there is a whole dictionary. They could cut through that and explain things in simple understandable ways. We think this development could make a major contribution to moving the mystique of pensions and ensuring that workers have the information they need. We urge you to support Composite 7.
Ged Nichols (Accord) : Our contribution to Composite 7 was a technical motion, no. 28 on your agenda, which is self-explanatory. I wish to endorse everything that has been said already and I would like to endorse the call for everybody to pay up for pensions. Thank you.
Paul Keenan (ASLEF) speaking in support of the composite motion, said: Sisters and brothers, I am going to refer to pensions and in particular state funded pensions. When Labour swept to power in 1997 many trade unions and trade unionists felt that a Labour Government would put right the wrongs and injustices imposed on working people by 18 years of Tory misrule. An obvious example of misrule and abuse of workers was the treatment handed out to pensioners, people who have contributed to the wellbeing of the nation for all of their lives and now they deserve some dignity in their retiring years.
In 1980 Thatcher abolished the link with earnings and that resulted in a shortfall in the state pension of £30 for the single pensioners and £50 a week for a couple. It took away their income and it took away their dignity, dignity that comes through a decent income, enough to feed yourself and to keep yourself warm in the winter, enough to clothe yourself and to enjoy a few simple pleasures. So why has not Labour restored the link, especially since we have the most successful and buoyant economy for the past 30 years? It is a fact that we are the fourth richest economy in the industrialised world. Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, says that our national cannot afford to pay a decent pension to state pensioners. So it is a myth of monumental proportions created by well-paid Labour politicians who should know better.
The National Pensioners’ Convention recently published its manifesto. It is a good read because it tells the truth. The full title is: 'Towards Dignity, Security and Fulfilment in Retirement'. That is an apt title. The manifesto clearly illustrates that 1 in 5, some 2 million, pensioners still live in poverty. Less than 12% of women receive the full basic pension in their own right. Millions of pensioners are struggling to meet the rising costs of council tax and utility bills. It does not end there. Pensioners who receive an income from one source or another of just £131 a week pay income tax. It does not seem true, but it is. Over four million households, not pensioners - let us be clear. I am not talking about individual pensioners - have savings of less than £4,000. The problem does not end there. It does not end with the current pensioner poverty.
The Government have a cunning plan to reduce the amount of the nation’s wealth, the gross domestic product it spends on the state pension by more than 20%. There can be only one result from this awful decision: a time bomb. The problem of pensions today will be increased sharply for the pensioners of tomorrow. Why, when there are record levels of money in the National Insurance Fund - a massive £30 billion. Not £30 million but £30 billion! - of useable surplus? What is the hidden agenda? Why can’t pensioners’ money stored in the National Insurance Fund be spent on state pensions? The answer is clear. The political will does not exist. The Government which we have supported and elected are putting big business first. That situation can be seen wherever you look.
Let us be clear. The state pension remains the bedrock of the pension system. Support the composite, support the National Pensions Day and support the Pensioners’ Manifesto.
Jack Dromey (TGWU) : Congress, friends, brothers and sisters, in modern Britain there is a grotesque contrast between the millions who now fear retirement and the boardroom pensions bonanza, the chief apologist for which is Digby Jones, the man who waters the workers’ beer. Our call today is for action to end the pensions crisis, action in the work place to say 'Hands off our pensions', and action by Government. Ministers have already made some welcome moves; for example, warmth in the cold through the Winter Fuels Allowance, and Warwick promised more, including action to give workers a real say in shaping and running their pension schemes with at least half of trustees member-nominated; action to make pensions a bargaining issue; action to provide TUPE protection to pensions. No worker should ever lose out because they are transferred from one employer to another and action to breakdown those barriers that for too many years have condemned women, carers and the low paid to poverty in retirement.
What we do not want is action to let employers raise the retirement age, being forced to continue working because you cannot secure a decent income at normal retirement age is not a real choice.
Next, we need action to ensure that the Government’s proposed Pension Protection Fund and Financial Assistance Scheme are fully funded so that they can protect and compensate every penny to every worker who has lost out. The Government have pledged £400 million and that is a good start, but with at least 65,000 entitled to assistance the £400 million is simply not enough. So industry must also put its hands in its collective pockets and match what the taxpayers have given. Private greed caused the problem. What we now demand is that the guilty face up to their responsibilities to their victims. Workers at companies like Massey Ferguson, Hybernia Foods, Lister Petter, United Engineering Forgings, Mayflower and Turner & Ewell, are some of the workers today to whom we pledge our total solidarity.
Workers in those companies thought they had a simple deal, that they paid into a pension scheme which would pay them when they retired ensuring security and dignity in retirement. They were wrong and now tens of thousands face hardship and poverty.
Finally, above all, we need action for a new pensions settlement in the third term, built on twin pillars. On the one hand, we need a decent state pension linked to earnings, the goal of that great campaign led for half-a-century by the 90 years young Jack Jones who is in this hall today, and, on the other hand, a mandatory obligation on all employers to provide and contribute towards a decent occupational pension scheme. Then, and only then, will workers be able to look forward to a life after work enjoying security and dignity in retirement. Thank you.
Mary Turner (GMB) speaking in support of the composite motion, said: Congress, the need for workers’ pensions to be protected has never been greater. Digby, that is why trade unions are relevant. The GMB calls upon the Labour Government to take radical action to honour the Party’s historical commitment to look after the British people from the cradle to the grave.
Many workers are witnessing the abandonment of their pension schemes by foreign multi-nationals, along with the erosion of benefits by companies, especially Digby’s friends. Those who cut the costs to secure public sector contracts must be stopped. Even the most careful savers are seeing their retirement income plummeting. Voluntary agreements have failed. Surprise, surprise! Trade unionists have never got anything voluntarily from employers, only what we have fought for or by a change in the law.
The Labour Party must urgently address the need of workers in retirement. Only decent level contributions from companies compelled to take pensions provision seriously will help to close the £27 billion savings gap. In order to protect workers transferred from the public sector to the private contractors, the GMB says that mandatory admitted body status for local government contracts is essential. The layering of transfers as contracts move from one bidder to another means that there are not just a two-tier workforces but three, four and five. The benefits to be gained from the mandatory admitted body status are not just restricted to the workforce. Some contracting companies already accept that continued provisions through the Local Government Pension Scheme makes good sense and would support a level playing field for their bids based on best practice. Involvement in the public sector pension schemes should be a right for everyone working on public sector contracts. The Government should honour this right by listening and acting upon our demands.
Employers must be compelled to protect the pensions of public service workers whose contracts as transferred mandatory admitted body status is the best way to achieve this result.
The Government’s focus on good guidelines is not protecting working people, and it is high time companies were given clear instructions to take pensions seriously; not maybe, not tomorrow, but a new law which says 'You will from day one'. The GMB believes that clear leadership involves taking bold and imaginative steps to tackle the pensions crisis facing working people. GMB wants the pensions promises to be honoured.
Let me add that local government pensions have got weaker through the continued privatisation of our services. Stop the privatisation and then you will see a growing Local Government Pension Fund.
Colleagues, I have referred to Digby. Let me it clear that I am not referring to Digby, the world’s largest cuddly dog. It is the other Digby that I am referring to.
Pauline Thorne (UNISON) speaking in support of the composite, said: Congress, we hold this debate at a time of unprecedented threat to the likes of ordinary people to obtain a decent pension. Never has the threat of insecurity hung over the heads of so many of our members and others across the Movement. This is a threat to workers in every sector of the economy. We have many examples of our own members receiving inadequate pensions in the contracted out public services, but we also have more and more examples of the same practices within the public sector. UNISON members working for Birmingham University have seen the closure of their final salary scheme to new members, and now the Government are taking forward proposals to raise the age of receiving an unreduced pension in the NHS and Local Government Scheme. We deplore the fact that many schemes, even those in the public sector, are discriminatory. The Government must address this injustice. We are told that changes are necessary because the cost of the scheme has increased, yet no evidence of this has been produced. We are told that workers still have the choice to retire earlier than 65, if they wish, so long as they take a reduced pension.
Is this the same choice that will reduce the pension of a woman contributing to a local government scheme for 25 years and retiring at 60 on the salary of £15,000 by nearly 30% from £90 a week to £63 per week? What kind of choice is that?
Finally, we are told that our pensions have to be cut back because they have become politically indefensible as a result of the crisis of pensions provision in the private sector. I will tell you what is indefensible, and it is not the modest pensions provided by the public sector scheme. It is the contribution holidays taken by the employers when the Stock Exchange profits were high. We have all witnessed the sickening site of company directors packing their pockets when closing and cutting schemes for ordinary workers. There are two standards - one for the rich and one for the rest of us.
I am glad the Prime Minister took the time in his speech yesterday to highlight pensions but, as he himself said, words are not enough. Alan, you must commit your Government by redirecting the Pensions Commission and its policy focus, instead of asking the question whether compulsion is needed, to how best and how quickly can compulsion be implemented?
Bob Petty (Community) : As Brendan said yesterday, we should take courage from the progress made this year in confronting the pensioners’ challenges. We won the Pensions Protection Fund so there will be no more people like our one thousand members in Allied Steel & Wire who lost most of their entitlements because the company went bust. It could not meet its pension commitments to its pensioners. That is some reward for the prudence and thrift of some of them in paying into the scheme for more than 30 years.
In the wake of the ASW case, ministers guaranteed pensions when companies go bust with debts to pension funds. They had to because Community forced the issue by taking up the legal case against them under EC legislation.
However, the Protection Fund will not ease the plight of those thousands of working people and their families whose case brought home to millions the precarious position of pension schemes. After saying that they could not help, the Government did agree to set up the Financial Assistance Fund with £400 million for the ASW people and more than 60,000 others to restore some of their pension losses.
Community welcomes that decision, but £400 million is not nearly enough to stave off the risk of penury to people denied their entitlement by their employer’s insolvency. We are pressing ahead with our case against the Government in the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. We believe that we will win and that we will benefit all victims of employers’ improvidence.
We were also the first union to take strike action to keep a defined benefit pension scheme when the employer intended replacing it with the stakeholder scheme. Again, we won. Our members demonstrated that they were prepared to fight hard for their rights. Delegates, I believe the working people generally will show their familiar fight if pressed. We can win in restoring the link between state pensions and pay increases. We can win to end discrimination against women pensioners. We can win in making pensions a transferable benefit. I support this motion.
Dave Guppy (AUT) speaking in support of the composite motion, said: Let me start by scaremongering, and where better to start than with the workers’ paper, The Financial Times. From Monday’s FT we learned that US Airways has filed for bankruptcy. This could add $2.1 billion to pension fund liabilities to the PBGC, which is the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. So what, you might say? On our side of the pond we are about to get the new Pension Protection Fund, which is like the PBGC and there are significant worries that it may be overwhelmed by such kinds of claims. It is said of British Airways that BA is a pension fund with an airline attached. We have got the Emergency Motion before us concerning the Turner & Newall workers whose own pensions are now threatened. The moral of all this is be afraid - be very very afraid! That is why it is so good that pensions are moving up the political agenda. As Brendan pointed out in his address, the TUC has and will continue to push on this issue.
However, there are significant obstacles, the not least of which is our own ignorance. Again, from Monday’s FT, and I quote: 'Trustees', that is pension fund trustees, 'are heavily reliant on a small number of consultants and have been blinded by science by fund managers telling them to invest in exotic assets'. That is quoting David Blake, the director of the Pensions Institute.
All too often we are blinded by the science of the scheme’s actuary and the pension rule book. This leads me to Composite 7 and what I felt was an enormously imaginative, potentially brilliant and overpowering suggestion which came from the TSSA about lay pension reps. That does dovetail very neatly with the Government’s wish to raise levels of financial literacy. There are potentially some good synergies there.
Finally, I warmly support the composite and, particularly, those elements which would give the workers more confidence and empower them. Thank you.
Micky Nicholas (FBU) : President and Congress, the Fire Brigades’ Union would like to place on record its appreciation for the outstanding contribution and commitment of Rodney Bickerstaffe and Jack Jones, amongst others, in continuing to highlight and expose the scandalous plight of today’s pensioners.
We, therefore, welcome the TUC’s on-going campaign to shout from the rooftops the inequality facing today’s workforce. With regard to future pension shortfalls, where is the money? Who stole it? Maxwell was not the only robber baron out there.
The composite talks about pension income that bears a decent relationship to pay. How is this for starters? A pension after 7 years, a full pension after 20 years with 8% contributions. Needless to say, there are not too many vacancies in the Houses of Parliament for that nice little number. Two fire service members doing the same job of work with different pension arrangements - two tier pensions from our Government which talks about fairness and equality. Where is the fairness and equality within that particular ethos?
We have heard about compulsory work increased to 65 and voluntary beyond that, no doubt followed by youth unemployment. The maths just do not add up. Let the old retire with what they have earned and employ the young. That, respectfully, Minister, and proper investment and funding is how pension schemes are funded.
This Movement needs to intensify the lobbying of MPs and the pensions industry. We need to continue to mobilise and inform our members - the current workforce - to fight for and fully represent our pensioners and to ensure protection for our children in the future.
In supporting Composite 7, we demand the taking of necessary action because pensions are not only an issue for the future but they are an issue for the hear and now.
The President: Congress, it now gives me great pleasure to introduce Jeannie Drake to put the General Council’s position. Jeannie has led on pensions for the General Council, and we thank you for your work.
Jeannie Drake (General Council) : Pensions have marched their way up the agenda of political domestic policy issues in the UK. That is a reality acknowledged by the Prime Minister in a recent speech and a major focus at the General Council’s campaigning this year under the banner 'Pay up for Pensions'.
Pensions are an inter-generational issue. The challenge for us all is to secure a new settlement for pensions that gives a decent standard of living for the pensioners of today and ensures a system that will provide for the pensioners of the future. The General Council has campaigned relentlessly to defend pension benefits in the public and private sectors and to achieve an improved and durable framework of pension provision for all workers. They organised a successful pensions demonstration in June and have argued with the employers accelerating the closure of DB schemes and offering no or inferior money purchase alternatives. There must be an increase in the level of compulsory pension contributions if future pensioners are not to face poverty in old age.
A priority for the General Council in the next year will be press the Government to extend the level of compulsory contributions that employers must make to workers’ pensions. Whilst acknowledging that the Government’s first priority has been to increase the income of Britain’s poorest pensioners, the General
Council continues to argue that the state pension must be increased and means testing must be reduced as part of a permanent solution to the pensions challenge.
We have pressed the case for an extension of the TUPE regulations to protect pension rights on transfer. We are also focused on getting women a better pensions deal from the State system, the occupational system and, in terms of closing the pay gap, particularly for part-time workers which so directly contributes to the high numbers of women on low incomes in retirement.
The tragedy of pensioners and workers losing their lifetime pension savings when their employers have become insolvent leaving huge deficits in their pension funds has appalled everyone. The Pensions Bill will mean the introduction of the Pension Protection Fund which will protect members’ pensions in the future. Recognition should be given to the Government, actively supported by the TUC, for their determination to put such a protection in place. It is a major piece of pension protection reform for workers which is much under-stated and which the TUC lobbied for for so long.
Finally, we must also fight for more money for the financial assistance schemes, for those who have already lost their pensions and for whom the formality of an Act of Parliament is too late. We have to fight for them as well as welcoming the protection fund for the future.
Congress, we must ensure that or claim 'Pay up for Pensions' becomes a reality. We support.
* Composite Motion 7 was CARRIED.
Federal Mogul/Turner and Newall
The President: We now come to Emergency Motion 1. In calling Amicus to move it, I am sure Congress would like to welcome the delegation of Federal Mogul workers and their families who are with us today for this debate. (Applause)
Derek Simpson (Amicus) moved Emergency Motion 1:
Following a meeting between the joint unions and Turner and Newall management on 2 September 2004 at which the company made clear that no more money was available to fund the pension scheme, Congress is alarmed at the situation facing 40,000 Turner and Newall pensioners. The situation arises from the insolvency of US parent company Federal Mogul. The company chose to take 15 of the last 18 years as contribution holidays, with Federal Mogul responsible for 3 of the last 5 years. They were allowed to do this because inadequate UK law lets them and MFR regulation was too weak. With a shortfall of £300m on a going-forward basis and a deficit estimated at £875 million if the scheme was to wind up, failure to save the pension scheme would result in the single largest ever wind-up of an under-funded scheme in the UK and would seriously test the expensive annuity market in the UK.
Although efforts continue to save the scheme, if the pension scheme is wound up, 20,000 deferred pensioners could face losses of up to 70% of their pensions and 20,000 existing pensioners will not get inflation-linked rises. Congress recognised that whilst American workers in the same company are protected by an insurance scheme, workers in the UK, until April 05, are not. Congress supports the joint unions in asking the Government to investigate and if necessary intervene to bring about a successful resolution to this issue. Joint unions also believe that the inadequate insolvency law should be made stronger to protect workers and pensions. If after all avenues have been exhausted and the scheme proceeds to wind up, the Government should give assurances that the financial assistance scheme (FAS) or Pensions Protection Fund (PPF) would include the Turner and Newall scheme members. Without this our members could face financial ruin in retirement through no fault of their own and despite years of contributions. If this is allowed to happen confidence in the Government and in pensions will be severely hit.
He said: President and Congress, the issue in front of us typifies the discussion, comments and contributions which have just been made in the last motion. It is reading a little bit like a Hollywood blockbuster: 'Produced by Federal Mogul, starring Turner and Newall. A cast of thousands - 20,000 deferred pensioners, 20,000 active pensioners. A complicated plot'.
Before I came to the rostrum, I went through the details of what our national and local officials have been dealing with, grappling with the complexities of the scheme. It is unbelievable. Were I to come here and try and describe the detail of it, it is almost impossible. It is a complicated plot, indeed. We have got some villains in the plot - people who are responsible for the crisis that our colleagues here with us today and around the country are facing. There is one thing missing from this Hollywood blockbuster at the moment, and that is the heroes. Somebody needs to step in and sort out this mess, a mess that we hope that some of the measures which you have just voted for will address, such as the Pension Protection Fund and some of the compensation for colleagues who fall before the watershed, but here is the nightmare scenario. A large number of employees are involved, there is a tremendous financial liability and pension holidays have left the pension funds denuded of assets. This is a crisis that is going to be tremendously difficult to address. We do not know what the answers are. Money cannot be conjured out of mid air. The Government must be concerned about taxpayers’ money. We have no confidence that the pension industry can step forward and fill the gap or that the employers can face the responsibility. I also ought to draw to your attention the fact that the crisis is so bad that to pay into the pension fund to anywhere near to compensate it would close the company and force it into liquidation. That is the measure of this crisis.
The resolution before you calls for action, an investigation and for us to look again at those measures that are only partial to solve our existing crisis without this addition, but to look at that to see what can be done to alleviate this tragedy for many many thousands of people.
We will try and get a solution. We will sit down with Alan, who has already agreed, and I hope they tell him that he has agreed, that he will meet a few of the people and hear the personal tragedies and stories. We will sit down with the Government and with your support of this emergency resolution we will carry forward your conviction, embodied in the motion that you have carried and in the motion that hope you will support.
Barry Camfield (TGWU) in seconding the Emergency Motion, said: I salute the Turner & Newall workers who are in this hall today in their hour of need. My remarks are directed at the Labour Government and those ministers directly responsible for pensions and to all Labour MPs and the Party itself. We are asking you to act now, with urgency, to help the thousands of workers and pensioners at Federal Mogul/Turner and Newall who now face ruin, crisis, a financial disaster for them and their families, to intervene to bring a measure of justice to these British workers so brutally treated. Are we not entitled to expect our Labour Government to act. Was it not founded to stand on the side of hardworking people? If this scheme is wound-up, as Derek has outlined, 2,500 workers now face huge losses directly in their pension entitlements. They will be receiving less than 40% of what they expected and more than 35,000 pensioners and deferred members will be losing out. Where is the incentive for people to save for their retirement? The T&G says it is a lottery as to whether your hard earned retirement money is taken from you at the stroke of an accountant’s pen.
I agree that the Pension Protection Fund is a welcome step forward, and we welcome it, but in reality we think it is woefully inadequate. We reckon that, overall, it would cover something like 53 pence a day. We call on our Government to act now. We know that company directors will get a pension somewhere around 26-times greater than the average worker. Those directors have no fear or insecurity about their retirement. Eighty per cent of them are in a final salary scheme with a contribution of around 20% to their pensions.
The Unions have met the DWP and told them of our concerns. Following the decision to close access to the Financial Assistance Scheme and that the scheme might not be eligible for the Pension Protection Fund next year, our people fall between two stools covered by no safety net.
In conclusion, President, with Labour MPs’ support the unions have set up an all-party support group to help us in our campaign.
We say to our Prime Minister, to our Secretary of State and to this Labour Government, you must act now, intervene and help us. Do not let Labour’s epitaph be: 'We had office; we had power; we had a huge majority but we forgot our purpose and our cause'. Suppose the unions, support the pensioners and the workers at Federal Mogul/Turner and Newall. Help us now. We need your help.
Kevin Curran (GMB) : We are one of the unions who have members affected by the crisis at Federal Mogul, and therefore we wholeheartedly support this resolution.
We urge Congress to increase the pressure on Government to stop UK pension scheme members being caught up in the financial manoeuvrings of overseas parent companies. The Labour Party first implement the philosophy of cradle to grave. It cannot and should not stand by and let those citizens remain in the trap which threatens them with the loss of such a significant proportion of their pensions.
The ups and downs of company survival may be a global issue but the security of pension arrangements is a national issue and it should be addressed by this Government.
The workers and pensioners of Turner and Newall know that their American counterparts are not living under the same cloud as they are. Legislation in the United States provides them with some protection. Similarly, the company’s workers in Germany and Italy are not facing 70% losses in their future pensions.
The question has to be asked: what is our Government doing to protect our workers? Funding for the Financial Assistance Scheme is already pitifully low on the basis of 60,000 potential claimants. The additional 20,000 victims from Federal Mogul will be in danger of making each individual share little more than an insult.
Our brothers and sisters who have come to this Conference from Federal Mogul are looking at as little as £335 per year from the scheme. With additional claims, this sum could be reduced to £250 per year. However, the workers of Federal Mogul do not even know if their Government is going to regard them as eligible.
The idiosyncracies of insolvency law mean that workers could be left out in the cold, unable to access either the Assistance Scheme or, indeed, the Pensions Protection Fund. We will continue to make every effort to ensure that the pensions promised to these workers is honoured. The Government must be pressured to play their part and to assist. Please support the call for the Government to act. Please support the resolution.
· Emergency Motion 1 was CARRIED.
The President: As the emergency motion was carried unanimously, that is a message to take back to the rest of the workforce.
Address by The Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP
The President: I am sure that Congress will be aware that Andrew Smith, who was due to take part in a panel discussion on pensions, has now left the Cabinet. We would like to take this opportunity to extend our thanks to Andrew. It has been a pleasure working with him. He will be missed for his steadfast work on behalf of some of the most vulnerable and needy in our society. None the less, we are very pleased to invite to Congress Andrew's successor, an old friend who is no stranger to our proceedings, Alan Johnson. Of course, Alan is no stranger to Congress. He last addressed us in 1996 in his previous guise as General Secretary of the CWU - a more radical version of Billy Hayes - because on that occasion he had the rare distinction of moving a motion at Congress on union rights that was opposed by the General Council and which Congress defeated. As they say, seven years is a long time in politics.
Alan has kindly stepped in at very short notice, but in line with his earlier career in rock and roll, he has decided to manage without the backing group in the form of the panel, which had been planned, and instead Alan has agreed to perform solo. We are very pleased that Alan has taken the opportunity of speaking at the TUC Congress today immediately on taking office to make his first major speech on pensions. It is a great pleasure to welcome you back as our guest. This time you have the chance to speak after Congress has voted.
Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP (Secretary of State for Work and Pensions): President and Congress, it is a great pleasure to be back here for the first time since England won the World Cup. Thank you, Roger.
One of the first things I did on becoming Secretary of State last Wednesday evening was to ask the General Council if they would allow me to make my first speech as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions among fellow trade unionists here at the Trades Union Congress. My responsibility is for work and pensions broadly. I think it is fair to say that during my 17 years as a TUC delegate the emphasis was on work. Now it has, rightly, switched to pensions.
A combination of circumstances have propelled this issue up the political agenda. There was a certain complacency in the 1990s. It was not just the over-dependency on a booming stock market. It was the fact that Inland Revenue rules encouraged a short-term approach and nobody was seriously facing up to the enormous changes that had affected society since the creation of the Welfare State.
The average person now spends more time in education, fewer years at work and far longer, over twice as many years, in retirement as they did 50 years ago. We ought to celebrate that success. It is a great advance for our society, but we also need to deal with its consequences.
Be in no doubt, Congress, that the biggest, real and deep-seated crisis we faced when we came to power, and Jeannie referred to it and so have others in the debate, was pensioner poverty. The state pension had increased only once in real terms in 18 years. Its value had declined dramatically. The poorest pensioners were generally the oldest pensioners, most of them women who had been adults when the welfare state was created and who had incomplete contribution records.
Two things were certain. The first was that they suffered a mean existence on as little as £69 a week. The second was that they could not wait years for a solution. We were right to make these two million pensioners our priority.
Under the Tories many of them faced the stark choice of eating or heating. Now winter fuel payments of £200 and £300 for those over 80 mean a tax free payment to all households on top of the basic state pension.
The Minimum Income Guarantee provided a stop gap but its replacement, the Pension Credit, means no single pensioner need live on less than £105 a week and no couple on less than £160 a week. For the first time, pensioners are rewarded for having saved, rather than seeing their savings taken off their benefits.
In less than a year, three million of our poorest pensioners are being paid Pension Credit with an average of £1,000 arrears being paid as a tax free lump sum. What is more, Pension Credit is accessible - one free ‘phone call and it is sorted for five years. If pensioners cannot call, the Pension Service will make a home visit.
The Pension Service is dedicated to helping pensioners access their entitlements in their local communities. It is a personalised service which has also led to the take up of Attendance Allowance, Carers Allowance, Council Tax Benefit and Housing Benefit increasing dramatically.
As a result of this Government’s reforms since 1997 we will, this year, spend an extra £10 billion on pensioners. That is over £7 billion more than if the basic state pension had simply been linked to earnings.
We are targeting this extra money at the poorest pensioners. Almost half of it is going to the poorest third of pensioners, who, compared with the 1997 system, are better off in real terms after adjustments for the cost of living by, on average, £1,750 a year. That is 1.8 million pensioners lifted out of poverty.
Under the Tories, carers, the long-term disabled and those with incomplete contributions, who I have already mentioned, lost out on building up rights to the state pension. In the main, these are women. We have addressed this injustice by creating the State Second Pension. You do not hear much about it in the media. It provides a second pension which is up to twice as good as its predecessor, the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme. It is benefiting some 20 million carers, disabled people and lower income earners. These are the people who did not benefit much from SERPS including five million long-term disabled people and carers.
Congress, these are crucial issues. The agreement we reached at the National Policy Forum in Warwick included an important statement of what more we need to do to tackle poverty and increase confidence in pensions. We will honour that agreement.
The Pensions Bill already contains measures which the TUC has skilfully championed for many years. The groundbreaking Pension Protection Fund will mean that, for the first time ever, people in defined benefit pension schemes based in the UK will be protected if their company goes bust and leaves the pension scheme under-funded.
The trade unions have championed the cause of those men and women who have suffered terribly because of the absence of such protection, and this Government, and my predecessor, Andrew Smith, in particular, who has laid so many important foundations for the future, have listened and acted. Making the Pension Protection Fund a reality will mean bringing real security and peace of mind to more than ten million members of defined benefit schemes.
The Financial Assistance Scheme will bring significant help to people who have lost out already. The details are being finalised in consultation with the TUC and others, but it is a piece of retrospective help that few people would have thought possible a few years ago.
The Pensions Bill does more to protect the pensions of workers. The new flexible and pro-active Pensions Regulator will further bolster security by tackling the risks to members’ benefits whilst enabling well-administered and secured schemes to continue without unnecessary regulatory burdens.
The Pensions Bill will place in law TUPE style protection of pensions for workers affected by company transfer or merger. We are talking about private to private transfers, which were previously left out of any TUPE protection. We have laid regulations to enable trustees to require a solvent employer, who wants to wind up its pension scheme, to buy out members’ rights in full. Defending those with decent pensions is at the very heart of what the Labour Movement is about, but it is only part of the challenge.
Given greater confidence and security to save for retirement, our next challenge is to make people aware of the need to make provisions for their retirement and support them in doing so. Our Informed Choice Programme is focused on giving individuals the information they need to empower them to take control of their retirement planning.
As a result of the spotlight now shining onto this issue today, helped greatly by the TUC and its affiliated trade unions, today’s workers, who are tomorrow’s pensioners, are worried about the level of income they will have in retirement, and they are concerned that they will either have to save more or work longer. Our approach is to give people greater flexibility to make decisions about when and for how long to work.
Our age discrimination legislation, combined with state pension deferral, will break the cliff-edge between work and retirement and give people greater opportunity and greater rewards for working longer if they wish to do so.
One thing we are already doing, which will be of particular interest given one of this morning’s motions in the composite, is to change regulations to allow employees to continue working for the same employer whilst drawing their occupational pension. This part of your Conference policy has already been met in this year’s Finance Act.
Flexibility is crucial. To empower people to decide for themselves how long they work is key. This Government will not raise the state pension age. This Government will not force people to work to 70 years of age. However, we have to face up to the problem of many people not saving nearly enough for retirement. That is why we set up the Pension Commission, enhanced by my former Deputy General Secretary, Jeannie Drake, to examine the current pension landscape, to analyse the underlying trends and to consider whether we need to move towards greater compulsion.
I look forward to receiving their first report next month, which will set the scene and make an important contribution to the wider national debate on pension provision. This debate will take place against the background of a wider programme of work that involves Government, employers and the unions. We are committed to go further in our examination of women’s pensions, and during the Committee stages of the Pension Bill we committed to producing a specific report on this subject next year. We are working to increase the involvement that employees have in the running of their schemes.
The Pension Bill includes a measure which will ensure that employees who are active members of a scheme and/or their representatives have the opportunity to feed in their views on proposed changes to their pension arrangements before the employer makes a decision.
We believe in the value of employee involvement. I would like to conclude my remarks, Roger, by saying a word about member nominated trustees, which Jack Dromey and others mentioned in the debate. Everyone agrees that member nominated trustees are a good idea. They add a different perspective to the trustee board and they allow those boards to have a wider range of skills and experiences to draw upon. If members are involved in the running of their scheme, it can make them feel that they have a real stake in their pension provision. So I can announce today that we have decided to take a power in the Pensions Bill to enable us to ensure that 50% of pension scheme trustees are member nominated.
I suggest, Roger, that it must be some kind of record to have two conference decisions met within ten minutes of them passing. I think it reflects our common objectives, which are to tackle pensioner poverty and to increase the income levels and quality of life for pensioners both today and in the future; to improve the confidence and security with which people can save for their future retirement; to increase the amount that people save for their retirement and the amount that employers contribute; to help people understand complex pensions issues so that they can make informed choices about working and saving for retirement, and to increase the involvement that employees have in the running of their company pension schemes. These are common objectives. I cannot pretend, Roger, that in my sixth day in office that I have found the pouch of fairy dust that I can sprinkle around to allow me instantly to resolve the challenges we face. However, I do know that my understanding of those challenges has been greatly enhanced by listening to this debate and coming to Brighton today. Thank you for giving me that opportunity and I look forward to working closely with you during the coming weeks and months.
(Applause)
The President: Thank you very much, Alan. Thank you for coming so soon after taking office and thank you for quickly mastering your brief. Thank you for fulfilling two of the promises and, in particular, thank you for listening to our debates this morning, which the delegates most appreciate.
Public Services
Dave Prentice (UNISON) moved Composite Motion 10.
(Insert Composite Motion 10 ‑ Public Services)
He said: Congress, none of us can question Labour’s commitment to investing in our public services. We have record investment, with £18 billion going into schools and hospitals in the next three years. That is why it is such a tragedy that this term has been characterised by our differences rather than by the values we hold in common. I make no apology for that. UNISON will continue to oppose market‑based reforms that destroy our public services.
Choice? Who could argue with choice? But the real issue for our public services is not choice but capacity. People want good local health services, decent schools, better local transport services and safer streets. What did they mean by 'choice'? Schools choosing their pupils; flagship hospitals choosing their patients and cream‑skimming those that bring in the most cash.
Where is the choice? Where is the choice for the most vulnerable? The elderly patient told she is blocking a bed; the home carer auctioned off to the lowest bidding private company. Where is the choice for the council tenant voting to stay with their council, but told by ministers that a vote against transfer is a vote against having their repairs done? Choice based on markets is the denial of choice for our poorest communities and we will oppose it.
Privatisation is not yesterday’s debate. It still wreaks havoc. Look at Jarvis which was responsible for the Potter’s Bar disaster and market leaders in PFI battling to survive, and hospital managers turning to the business pages to see if they have a service still left to run.
Ballast, a Dutch company, walking away from Tower Hamlets’ PFI school; leaving schools half‑finished; bailiffs grabbing everything; a workforce left without a pension; parents sick with worry and when PFI fails, it is communities who pay the price!
How many more failures before they learn; learn that there is a link between the sell‑off of care homes to the private sector and last week’s report of national haemorrhaging of care home beds? Crisis points reached. Where is the surprise?
As property prices soar, private owners sell off homes, whatever the cost in human misery, and some politicians still denying that there is a link between dirty hospitals and the huge rise in MRSA. Nurses are blamed for not washing their hands. I will tell you who is to blame: those hospitals which in the past 20 years have washed their hands of their cleaning contracts! Sacking cleaners; selling off the rest; treating them like dirt; cutting corners; cutting pay; cleaning staff told they are non‑core, not central to the business.
Now, Congress, we have the Gershon Efficiency Review with its £21 billion of so‑called efficiency savings in the Civil Service, in the NHS and in local government, putting staff under even greater pressure driving a privatisation agenda.
Of course, we want to see investment in the frontline, efficient procurement, and we will work with the Government to achieve that, but to tackle the so‑called back office, softening it up for privatisation, will not wash and we will not wear it.
No frontline worker I know asked for the carnage we are now seeing in the Civil Service. No frontline worker I know asked for outsourcing. We stand shoulder to shoulder with our brothers and sisters in the Civil Service unions.
Better and more efficient public services are part of our agenda, but you do not improve services by threatening job security, cutting pay and conditions, attacking pensions or by deriding office‑based staff, making them pawns in a political game.
We must build on our achievements in winning record investment, ending the two‑tier workforce, praising the achievements of public service workers ‑‑ a strong united union voice. But, Congress, now is not the time to soften our opposition to privatisation.
Sandy Fowler (EIS) seconding Composite 10 said: I fully endorse the views just expressed by our UNISON colleague. You will not be surprised to discover that I wish to concentrate on the part of the motion which deals with the quality of newly built and refurbished schools delivered through PPP and PFI schemes and talk, if you will forgive me, of the Scottish experience in that direction.
At this point I would not wish to rehearse our principal objection to the use of such schemes, although recent experience in Fyfe, in the Lothians, would make us question the foolishness of a policy which mortgages the future of the Scottish state to companies whose financial viability and commitment are doubtful, to say the least.
Yes, we do need to campaign for proper publicly‑funded schemes. However, no matter their shortcomings and our misgivings, public/private partnerships do exist. They are up and running and they are in Scotland a financial option of the Scottish Executive and consequently, of almost all local authorities for future new‑build and refurbishment projects.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister referred to the issue of the two‑tier workforce. I have to tell you that in Scotland that agreement preceded the one in England and Wales and was signed in November 2002. While the dangers of that two‑tier workforce seem to have been reduced, there are still serious concerns about many of those schemes.
EIS recently carried out a national survey of new‑build and refurbished schools within Scotland with the help and co‑operation of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland. The clear message of this survey is that teachers are extremely concerned about the quality of new or refurbished schools and the ways in which those schools will affect teaching and learning.
The main concern of teachers and, indeed, of other workers within schools is the complete lack of meaningful consultation or input at the design stage of these new school facilities. Teachers and other employees are continually questioning the value of building schools without asking for the input of the people who will work in them every day.
The survey enforces the message we have been sending out for years, that there must be an appropriate involvement of all stakeholders to develop the brief and contribute at all stages. Teaching and non‑teaching staff, pupils and parents need to be able to participate, not merely to be consulted. Our evidence suggests that all too often that so‑called consultation was very, very limited.
Sadly, the results of our survey again suggest that such schemes do not provide good value for money to the public purse in the long‑term. Too much has already been spent, which is not considered good value for money. If we are to get value for money and to ensure quality education for our young people in the future, then lessons must be learned and stakeholders meaningfully involved in future schemes.
Andy Gilchrist (FBU) supporting the composite said: Solidarity is a word that is often used within this trade union Movement despite the legal straitjacket that we often talk about as well. I want to put on record that in our union we were so proud to see the solidarity that you offered us through two long and very difficult years in our dispute. I want to put on record as well the tremendous support we had from the TUC. I will particularly point to Brendan Barber, the General Secretary. Thank you very much for your support.
If solidarity is about standing together - the defence of public services, indeed the maintenance of public services - we are going to have to stand together again and possibly in a way that we have not had to do for a number of years. That is just to enable the people who work in the public services to continue delivering the magnificent services they do, often in the most incredible and difficult circumstances.
I have no difficulty admitting, indeed praising, the Labour Government for the tremendous commitment and, indeed, investment they have put into specific areas of the public services. I will tell you what, though, it is no good putting increased finance into public services if they are simply creamed off by private contractors through PFI and PPP.
While we are on the subject of things that governments occasionally get wrong, spending plans for public services should not actually include slashing 100,000 decent workers in the Civil Service. As I said last night, we, the Fire Brigades’ Union, will stand and respect and support any decisions the Civil Service take in order to defend their jobs and their people’s families, which we heard so much about yesterday.
Public services do not need cuts. They do not need criticism. They need more and better trained public servants and that requires investment. In our own Fire Service in this country, we are seeing a service now developed where what you get if you have a fire depends on where you live. I make no apology for calling it 'the fire service by the postcode lottery'.
We also have a system where the regional fire controls, the first people you speak to in the fire service who are the people who give you initial advice before a fire engine reaches the fire, are to be scrapped by this Government. I will tell you this. We have looked at your report, Government, and the figures do not add up. I suggest you get somebody else to look again at that.
So stand with the Civil Service unions and stand with the rest of the public service unions in defending the finest public sector unions in this country.
Christine Murray (AMO) supporting Composite 10 said: AMO is fundamentally opposed to PFI, to market testing, to Best Value, contestability and any other label that is used to mean privatisation of our public services.
The Magistrates’ Court Service has experienced the idiocy of PFI buildings where PFI has shaped how services are delivered, rather than the courts directly identifying needs and priorities and determining the design of buildings and service requirements.
The Magistrates’ Court Service has seen spiralling costs of PFI buildings and LIBRA, the computerised case management system for magistrates’ courts. As many of you will be aware, in the case of LIBRA, there was eventually only one bidder for the contract which negated choice and meant that the Government were, in effect, held to ransom and costs trebled from the original bid.
The obsession that this Government have with privatisation is based on fundamentally flawed thinking that everything private is good and everything public is bad. We challenge that distorted thinking and demand to see the evidence upon which these assumptions are based. But, of course, there is no evidence.
The common theme surrounding all PFI contracts are the escalating costs. Inevitably, service delivery is adversely affected as there is a need to reduce costs to pay for PFI. The grant allocation for the Magistrates’ Court Service in 2004/2005 saw an overall increase in budget of 2.5 per cent. Good, you may say, but the LIBRA and PFI charges increased by 111 per cent eating into funding for improved services. The core objective of the criminal justice system of joined‑up justice is seriously compromised by PFI as a proliferation of PFI projects increases fragmentation.
As we heard at yesterday’s fringe meeting hosted by NAPO, the proposed National Offender Management Service is yet another example of why core services will be privatised and organisations forced to compete against one another.
Shamefully, privatisation is now moving into areas that we never thought possible. The latest threat in the Magistrates Court Service is in relation to enforcement of fines, court security and private sector enforcement agencies; the latter representing a lack of democratic control with powers of forced entry into people’s homes, the powers of search and access to primary data. No area is now safe from privatisation.
Good public services do require public sector capital investment. It is fundamentally wrong to seek to profit from the justice system and, in particular, the incarceration of offenders.
Janice Godrich (PCS) supporting the composite motion said: May I thank those unions which have expressed solidarity in this debate over the serious issues facing Civil Service workers? I know that Mark Serwotka will echo this when he speaks in detail on that specific subject in the next debate.
All unions are entitled to be cynical and forthright in our condemnation of the continued search for privatisation by this Labour Government. It will be recalled, and often has been recalled, at this Congress that we witnessed a series of 'U' turns since 1997 when promises by shadow ministers were ditched almost as quickly as their red boxes were opened. It turned out that air was for sale after all and that the onward march of privatisation was unrestrained by a new Labour Government.
Then we get told what works is what matters; an apparent attempt to convince us we should all be pragmatic in our attitudes. However, when we see the reality in the massive PFI projects, such as new hospitals and which are about mortgaging the future, facing a future generation to pay for this generation’s needs, that is a shameful waste of taxpayers’ money on interest for borrowing and a shameful case of short‑termism aimed at winning votes now but at a high cost 10, 15 or 20 years ahead.
Our experience of privatisation is deeply disturbing, not only in terms of the disruption to our members’ careers and future livelihoods and the problems of the two‑tier workforce, but we see the handling of private contracts completely out of control. Contracts including important quality and standard requirements are not properly monitored or controlled, penalty clauses for failures are not enforced and also some contracts are placed for more than 10 years, some as long as 20 years, putting the reality of proper control even more in the distance.
We have now identified a further very serious threat. Two weeks after the 1997 general election, New Labour privatised the delivery of the Department for National Savings to Siemens’ Business Services, despite pre‑election assurances not to do so. In the last few weeks, we have discovered proposals by Siemens to off‑shore central government work and transfer about 250 jobs to India whilst at the same time laying off 400 young temporary workers in areas of low employment opportunities, including Glasgow and the north‑west.
Siemens has told the Government that the original contract is not financially viable and it needs to reduce costs. It stands to save millions. The only group to benefit from this proposal is Siemens’ profits. Siemens need the specific consent of government ministers to off‑shore this work. If consent is given, there is a clear, obvious implied threat to many other public sector jobs and existing private contracts.
Off‑shoring of public sector work would be a scandal. I urge all unions to support our campaign to prevent this happening and at the same time renew our demands for quality public services delivered by properly paid and resourced public sector workers. Please support.
Brian Traynor (POA UK) : For more than 10 years, the Prison Officers’ Association, along with our brother and sister unions within the criminal justice system, have been arguing the case against privatisation of prisons. This privatisation has now been extended to the Probation Service and other public sector services that work within the criminal justice system. We remain opposed.
Under the National Offender Management Service, this process will mean the selling off of large areas of our services hidden behind the term 'contestability'. We have never disputed that public sector services should be high‑performing and efficient. We would say that if any surplus monies are found ‑‑ and it is a big 'if' ‑‑ they should be redirected into the services that have been starved of funding for years, such as the NHS, the Fire Brigade or Education, and not into the pockets of the directors or shareholders of private companies.
Earlier this year, I was fortunate to attend a lobby of Parliament organised by our brother and sister unions. It was well‑attended and supported by large numbers of MPs. I was heartened to hear speakers from unions such as AMO and NAPO in support of our cause; speakers such as Judy McKnight, Tony Benn and John McDonnell, pledging to fight this issue all the way.
This is a song the Prison Officers’ Association has been singing for a long time. No one should make profit out of the misery that victims of crime suffer. Their suffering should not be a vehicle to line the pockets of fat cat, get‑rich companies. The selling off of public services has gone far enough. Prisons are not for profit; neither are probation services. Congress, add your voice to ours. Support the motion.
Debbie Coulter (GMB) supporting Composite 10 said: Let’s not beat about the bush. Choice in public services is a red-herring. Choice is only ever an option for the few, not the majority, especially when choice and diversity too often mean that service quality still depends upon your postcode.
There is no quick fix. The private sector certainly does not have any magical management expertise to offer. Consider PFI schools: some are too hot, some are too cold, some have no natural light, some have no room for a staff room and some do not even have room for the right number of desks and chairs.
It is a scandal that over the past few decades neglect of the nation’s school buildings has allowed them to fall into such a state of disrepair. It is a scandal that this is how our children can end up being educated in the 21st century. But it is a tragedy that millions of pounds of tax payers’ money have now been spent just to replace one set of problems with another.
Lack of competence on the part of PFI contractors ought to make the Government and the public authorities wake up. Jarvis is currently going through its PFI death‑throws, but it is not the first and it certainly will not be the last. In the chaos and uncertainty, it is the service user and the workforce who suffer.
We, in the GMB, remain clear, that without a comprehensive fair wages legislation, contractors and public authorities will keep finding ways to squeeze non‑existent efficiency from our members’ wages.
Rumours of the death of the two‑tier workforce have proved to be premature. The workforce code for local government still has too many loopholes and we do not yet have a road map for how much it will be extended for the rest of the public sector. However, we do have a firm commitment from the Government and we must unite to ensure that the implementation lives up to the hype.
Above all, we must encourage the Government to abandon the quick‑fix and focus on sustained investment, investment in direct services, in publicly‑owned infrastructure and in publicly employed people. Let us oppose privatisation, keep public services public and support the composite.
· Composite Motion 10 was CARRIED.
Civil Service
The President: Composite Motion 11 is supported by the General Council.
Mark Serwotka (PCS) moved Composite Motion 11.
(Insert Composite Motion 11 ‑ Civil Service)
He said: I start again by thanking Brendan Barber, the 12 general secretaries and you, the delegates, who packed into the PCS fringe meeting last night to hear our case to campaign against the Government’s decimation of Civil Service jobs and services to the public.
May I start by reminding you of three key extracts in the Prime Minister’s speech yesterday? He told us that successful employers do not abuse their employees and they do not undervalue public servants. He told us that the time had come for there to be an end to working families having to worry about paying their bills and their mortgages, that they just want a fair chance. He told us to work with him and to talk with him.
Prime Minister, on behalf of the 530,000 people that you employ, our call to you today to is to practise what you preach. Why do I say that to the Prime Minister? Think about what his Government are currently doing. 104,500 Civil Service jobs to go; 20 per cent of the work force; 20,000 jobs to be forcibly relocated out of London and the south‑east; attacks on Civil Service pensions, forcing people to work five more years when they were promised they could draw their pension at 60 and, even more disgracefully, attacks on people’s right to paid sick leave with the Chancellor threatening to withdraw paid sick leave in an attempt to reduce sick absence.
These proposals were announced on national television without any consultation with the workforce or the unions. It is wrong to sack people by text; it is wrong to axe people’s jobs on national television because these announcements have nothing to do with more efficient public services. It is party politics at its worst. It is playing politics with people’s lives, people’s futures and people’s families. It is cuts not based on evidence or more efficiency, but cuts for cuts’ sake in order to outdo the Tories in a general election.
To make matters worse, the Government now tell us that our members are faced with bureaucrats, that there is a difference between backroom staff who can be cut and frontline staff who deliver key services. Anyone who has worked in public services knows you depend on a dedicated team of professionals behind the scenes to deliver every frontline service.
What are the effects going to be of these cuts? There will be offices closed, compulsory redundancies, more stress at work, lack of promotion prospects, people forced to uproot and move hundreds of miles. The early effects of these cuts are that the Government will close 10 pension centres and shut down 550 benefit processing sites throughout the UK. Services will be decimated. These are services that every single member of the United Kingdom relies on from cradle to grave, because, far from being faceless bureaucrats, what services do our members deliver? Here is a small sample: child benefit; food safety; tax credits; Customs & Excise; education; health; passports; driving licences; driving tests; welfare; New Deal; health and safety; minimum wage; buying a house; crime prevention; criminal justice; transport; security; defence; museums and galleries; equality and pensions.
Which one of these services does not matter? Which one of these services should be cut? We say none of them should be cut. The people of the United Kingdom have a right to have first class public services. Our members have a right to job security and to be valued for the work that they do.
It is absolutely obvious, if these job cuts take place, there will be mass privatisation of Civil Service work because somebody has to do the work. It inevitably means there will be even more privatisation on top of the privatisation the Government have already carried out.
We have a warning to the Government. It is this. Look at the example of British Airways. British Airways cut staff to the bone, allegedly to be more efficient. The result this year was chaos at our airports while people had to queue up and wait because there were not enough staff.
Having a delay in your flight to New York is one thing, but not being able to access vital public services the pensioners, the sick, the disabled and the vulnerable depend on is absolutely another. That is why our union, as a last resort, is balloting for national strike action on November 5. It is a last resort because we want to talk, not go on strike, but when you have a dialogue with the deaf, there comes a time when you have to stand up and be counted.
We want to talk to the Government about more efficiency, persuade them to stop wasting millions of pounds on private sector consultants and millions of pounds on failed privatisation. That is why if we do not get the reassurances about no redundancies, about no staffing levels being cut without negotiation, no attacks on pensions and no attacks on sick leave, that action will take place if our members vote 'yes' in a ballot.
All history tells us that with attacks of this size we will not win this campaign without solidarity from our brothers and sisters in the trade union Movement. We appeal for solidarity today, we appeal for solidarity in the weeks to come, because when we march together and take action together, we are stronger. Further, we appeal to all unions who have problems of similar issues like pensions and job cuts to talk to us to see if we can co‑ordinate our campaign and co‑ordinate industrial action, if necessary.
Britain’s civil servants are essential. Britain’s civil servants provide key services from the cradle to the grave. Support us in this composite today. Support us in the weeks ahead. Tell the Government that we are fed up with them knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Stop attacking your public servants. Praise them, support them, value the work they do and stop this disgraceful butchery of public service jobs. Work with us and we are confident we can win this campaign because every one of your members depends on the services that we provide. Thank you.
Paul Noon (Prospect) seconding the composite said: I want to add the particular perspective of professional and specialist staff in the civil and public services represented by my union. I also want to set out briefly the positive case on what the Government should do now, not just what they have done badly. That has been pretty plain for all to see.
The Government argue that the size of the Civil Service has increased since Labour was elected. The reality is that professionals working for government are down in number by more than a third over the past 10 years. Physicists, chemists, engineers, electronic experts, veterinary staff, environmentalists and other important specialisms have all suffered. This has reduced the Government’s ability to respond to the demands of an increasingly knowledge‑based society. There is now a knowledge gap at the heart of the government machine in the UK with the Civil Service dangerously short of technical and scientific expertise.
The Government are at risk of being ambushed by new scientific problems by GMOs, BSE, foot and mouth and MMR. Cuts in professional and specialist staff have led to a dumbing down of government with a loss of in‑house expertise. The single biggest feature of this has been privatisation. The current administration has privatised air traffic control, defence research, medical advice on disability benefits, engineering support to the navy and horticultural research. It plans to sell off the Forensic Science Service and the Silsoe Research Institute ‑‑ world leaders in crime detection techniques and agricultural engineering, respectively. We say this must stop.
What should the Government do now? First of all, talk to us. Sit down with us to determine how to deliver effective and official public services which meet the needs of citizens whilst respecting the rights of government employees. We want improved service delivery. Arbitrary cuts on the basis of crude head counts to outdo the Tories and the Liberal Democrats are no basis for sensible government. It was only in the year 2000 that the Civil Service unions signed a partnership agreement with the Government which committed the Government, amongst other things, to manage positively the process of change and avoiding compulsory redundancies. We want them to stick to it.
Next, the process of change needs to be properly and coherently managed. There should be no need for either compulsory redundancies or compulsory transfers. It may not surprise you to know there are many civil servants who would quite like to get an exit visa from the Civil Service, given the state of morale at the moment. With proper redundancy terms, that might happen. It has to be managed effectively on a service‑wide and voluntary basis.
Next, we want to see an early agreement in moving to a fair, coherent pay system across the Civil Service that might produce interchange in redeployment rather than the present chaotic and hugely resource‑intensive system that prevents movement. The process of pretend delegation with no negotiation on treasury remits to departments and agencies is demotivating and has been the root cause of strikes and pay protests of our members and the Health & Safety Executive of many other areas.
Finally, all measures to implement the Government’s efficiency agenda should be equality‑proofed. The Government should practise for their own staff what they preach for others. These steps could form the basis of a positive agenda if ministers ‑‑ there are new ministers who want to do this ‑‑ actually want to follow this path. The view of Prospect, the view of professionals and specialists in the Civil Service, is that this is the only sensible way to proceed.
Lorimer MacKenzie (FDA) : It is a great shame that the Civil Service unions have to come to Congress to ask you to pass a motion of this sort. Governments throughout the years have urged the UK workforce to aspire to be as good as the competition, to be the best in Europe, to be the best in the world. They have been willing to look at all sorts of examples to import working practices, no matter how inappropriate, to help deliver more efficiency; yet when they already have one of the best, if not the best, Civil Service organisations in the world, is their reaction to praise it or to invest in it? No. They decide to cut it and cut it without the evidence that cuts are necessary.
As civil servants, we are told that when we develop policies for ministers, we should make sure that our work is evidence‑based. We are told that we must always consult our key stakeholders. That is very sensible; an approach with which we, the FDA, wholeheartedly agree. What we object to here is that the Government, when looking at their own staff, have done neither.
We have had the Gershon Report on efficiency. There is no evidence in that process that the cuts are anything other than a crude numbers exercise; the result not of spit sensible analysis but of political expediency. Not only did the Government ignore the need for evidence, but they also failed dismally to discuss this with us, the unions, surely its most major and key stakeholders. It is a classic case of the Government saying: 'Do as I say, not as I do.'
We have no difficulty with the idea that efficiency can be improved. All of us here want the most efficient delivery of public services, but cuts are not the same as efficiency. The workload which ministers will expect us to shoulder will not reduce.
We are told that we are in a knowledge economy. Delivery in the modern world is dependent on knowledge, skills and experience. In the Civil Service, the Government have a huge well of knowledge, skills and experience; perfect, you would have thought, for the current environment. However, the Government’s approach risks throwing much of this away. When it has been thrown away, when the targets for cuts have been met, when they realise they have lost the knowledge, the skills and the experience, by then it is going to be far too late to fix.
For such a large and risky project, you would have expected a good co‑ordinated strategy. You would expect a well‑planned approach with clear outcomes and benefits, but we have none of this. There is no strategy. There is merely a series of individual departmental processes. There is no commitment even to ensure that the programmes will be such to equality audit. Not only are the cuts ill‑conceived, but they will be implemented without any attempt or assurance at fairness.
The FDA wants to talk to the Government. We want to negotiate. We want to engage in partnership, as the Government wish. However, at a time when we are endeavouring to be positive, when we are endeavouring to be constructive, we are faced with the unedifying spectacle of the Government and the other major political parties behaving like schoolboys engaged in a pissing contest to see who can cut most Civil Service jobs. We support the composite.
Rosie Eagleson (AMO) supporting Composite 11 said: July 12, 2004 was a grim day for our public services; grim for the people who work in them and grim for the people who use them. The Chancellor’s announcement amounted to a redundancy notice by Parliamentary proclamation. He struck fear and uncertainty into the lives of hundreds of thousands of public servants. We were shocked to hear Tory and Labour politicians vying with each other, outbidding each other, desperate to prove that each could slash ever more jobs.
We want a Labour Government vying to promote good employment practices, competing to create and sustain decent public sector jobs and making quality services a reality. Caricatured and belittled by politicians of all parties, it is a sad fact that civil servants are seen as an easy target.
These job cuts appeared from the blue, are arbitrary and unexpected. Many of our members and their families contrast the unwillingness of the Chancellor and the Prime Minister to maintain these public services with the seemingly bottomless pit of money available to finance a deeply unpopular war.
The Government like to talk about achieving these cuts through greater efficiency. The announcement by the DCA, the department responsible for running the courts, consisted of vague, meaningless statements about unspecified savings, mostly in an agency which has yet to come into being, resulting in 1100 job cuts. Fear and uncertainty pervade because no one knows where the axe will fall.
We cannot afford to create yet another under‑funded agency at the heart of our justice system. Job cuts of this scale are inevitably service cuts. There is no arbitrary distinction between frontline services and so‑called backroom activities.
Getting a case into a courtroom relies on a whole range of back office staff and support. The Gershon Report was charged with releasing backroom resources and enhancing frontline services, but the Government specifically excluded any examination of the impact of PFI on service delivery, in our view, by far the most significant diversion of resources away from frontline services.
We cannot underestimate the impact on civil servants and potential recruitment to the Civil Service. Recruitment and retention are already a problem. Low pay and a tax on pensions are now compounded by a lack of job security. Our members work in difficult jobs. They deserve praise and affirmation, not denigration. These cuts are a betrayal of civil servants and of the public.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister said successful employers do not succeed by abusing their employees. Quality public services do not achieve excellence by under‑valuing public servants. His words ring hollow unless these cuts are reversed.
Dave Ward (CWU) said: The CWU is supporting this composite in total solidarity with PCS, who face similar problems to our own. May I remind Congress that this Labour Government’s decision to axe 100,000 jobs in the Civil Service comes hard on the heels of their decision to put in place a so-called renewal plan for the Post Office based on axing 30,000 jobs. At the time we knew the Post Office had financial difficulties, albeit in our opinion they were deliberately over-exaggerated. As a union we also recognise that there was a need for change in the postal industry but because the ethos of this government has shifted away from improving public services to improving the commercial bottom line, we ended up with a renewal plan that was 100 per cent focused on profit and nought per cent focused on service.
Where has the Government’s balance-sheet mentality taken Royal Mail? In three years we have moved from an over-exaggerated financial crisis to what amounts now to a real crisis in customer confidence with the service we provide to the public. Who takes the brunt of the criticism? You have guessed it, our people on the front line, ordinary postal workers having to deal with the public’s complaints on a daily basis.
What has happened to the real culprits? They just move on. There is no accountability or responsibility for them, they simply switch their focus to the next round of public sector job cuts. Like PCS, and from our own bitter experience, we reject the flawed logic which says that you can cut your way to an improved service. The Government must be made to understand that you cannot have a quality public service on the cheap.
Conference, this motion also talks about the needs for challenge, the growing casualisation of our public services. Let me explain how our members see the problem of casualisation. In Royal Mail they see casuals brought in on a daily basis. They know they have not been properly vetted, they know they have not been trained, and they know they do not have a uniform. They are just sent out with a map pointing them to the start of a delivery. Imagine the damage this does to the image of the industry and the people who work in it. It undermines the status of the job, it undermines the trust and integrity that the public expect from those who deliver their public services. I am not blaming casual workers, it is not their fault. We must now convince the Government to act against the casualisation of public services. It is not just the amount of jobs but the quality of those jobs, and the need to invest in the public sector’s greatest asset, the people who work in it.
So, strengthened by our own experience, we call on all other unions to support PCS in publicising the effects of plain job cuts on the delivery of frontline services, to back their planned day of protest, and to raise these issues with the public sector forum and government. I would also ask the General Council to have a real serious think about the strategy that you are going to have to put in place to carry out the terms of this motion. All of us know, the whole of the Movement, is facing very serious challenges and perhaps now more than ever we need to feel again how solidarity can be a positive experience for the workers we represent.
Steve Sinnot (NUT) speaking in support of the composite, said: I am pleased to support the civil servants in their campaign to defend services and to protect jobs. The NUT knows how false the separation is between the back room and front line. We know and value the contribution of civil servants to implement those things that are securing and improving our schools and, indeed, our education service. We know, too, how damaging will be some of the cuts that are proposed.
There is within the Department for Education and Skills the Family and Vulnerable Children’s Unit. That unit assists schools and local education authorities dealing with vulnerable children, it deals and assists in implementing an equalities agenda, and it deals and assists in support for ethnic minority children. The cuts that are proposed are savage. Almost one in three jobs will be taken from that particular unit. We will oppose any cuts in the services to local authorities and to schools. Composite 11 recognises that the proposals for cuts in Civil Service jobs are also an attack on the whole of the public sector. Therefore, the need for unity across the public sector and across all public sector unions is essential.
This composite calls for the establishment of a group to assess the impact of the so-called efficiency review and, indeed, of workforce reform. Different unions will have different experiences of public sector reform. The NUT will wish to play a very full part in the work of that group. The NUT will wish to tackle within the group the positives and the negatives of workforce reform. For us, we will certainly wish to emphasise our experiences - our experiences - of the negative impact of workforce reform.
In doing this, Congress, we will not wish in any way to question the trade unionism of any one. We will wish to work closely with colleagues in defending the whole of the public sector, in defending and giving full support to our colleagues in the Civil Service. Support composite 11.
Carole Maleham (Unison) speaking in support of the composite, said: Congress, the plans for reform in the Civil Service by cutting is a very bold move, but let us be clear, the message from Unison is even bolder: you can do it but not in our name and not with our support. The recent Gershon Report promised more money for school support staff, healthcare assistants, and police support staff but we do not think it should come from cutting 100,000 jobs in the Civil Service. We value all the staff team equally, from cleaners to chief executives, from Wakefield to Whitehall. I doubt we will see the money, anyway, because Gordon Brown has more tricks in that budget than Paul Daniels. There are tough efficiency targets to meet that will mean even more cuts.
Congress, we in Unison stand alongside our Civil Service colleagues but not just because the Government plan to attack their jobs and the service that they provide, but because of the attack on our members as well. We want to warn the Government that the cuts in jobs means worse services. What we want is the Labour Government committed to delivering the best public services possible, a government that realises that they must invest in the public sector workers. Where we think the Government is prepared to invest we have been prepared to work with them. We have signed agreements that will reform public services, but we have signed and will only sign for reforms recognising that all public servants have an equally important part to play in delivering the services.
All public servants, whether they are civil servants, local government officers, from schools, police, transport, and healthcare service, the Government has to remember that in order to deliver good services you need backroom support; to provide a first-class service you need a team. You also need money and we need plenty of money to do this. Where there are good agreements and well-funded, they tend to work; where they are not, they are undermined. We warn this government, your sums do not add up, your cuts have an effect on every service, and your reforms cannot be done on the cheap if you want to do them properly.
Congress, Unison stands shoulder to shoulder with our Civil Service colleagues. Support this composite motion.
Gerard Dempsey (GPMU) speaking in support of the composite, said: The GPMU shares the outrage at the news of the massive loss of 104,000 jobs to be inflicted on the Civil Service by the Government. It is a scandal. It is not just an attack on our civil servants and the PCS trade union, the cuts will have a direct effect on the well-being of all our members, on those working, on the unemployed, on the disabled, and retired members. It is a further attack against our public services. It will impact on all our communities and ordinary people. It will hit the most vulnerable hardest, such as the people who have to rely on benefits or need support.
The Civil Service is being treated as a political football with Labour and the Conservatives engaged in a grotesque game of who can cut the most jobs. Cuts on this scale will have a massive impact on the Government’s ability to deliver core services, such as getting people back into work, the New Deal, the Sure Start programme, and winter fuel payments to our elderly and retired. We are talking about real people and real lives.
Tony, Civil Servants have mortgages and families and do jobs that matter, such as making sure students in further education obtain financial support. Congress, let us not fall for the lies, the myths, and the spin. The workers affected are not people in pinstripes and bowler hats, but in fact some of them are the lowest paid, struggling on wages well below the Low Pay Unit’s decency threshold. Undermining morale and pay does not send out the right signal from any employer; it is an own goal. Congress, let us get it right, there is no division between manufacturing and our public, social, and civil services, we rely on each other and we are united. Let us campaign together.
Finally, Congress, I find it ironic and really galling that at a time when we rightly condemn these rogue bosses who sack staff by text and email, we get a Labour Government and a Labour Chancellor sacking 104,000 workers publicly on the television in a spending review statement. Is that insensitive, or what?
Congress, let us send a clear message today, support this motion and support the PCS.
Jeremy Dear (NUJ) speaking in support of the composite, said: I come not to praise Civil Service job cuts but to bury them. Comrades, there are times when myths repeated enough, exaggerated enough, take hold, that it is workers asking for too much money which fuels inflation, and that it is waste and bureaucracy which is at the heart of the deficiencies in our public services. It is also a myth that there is an army of Whitehall pen-pushers under-employed with no role in the delivering of quality public services.
Of course, it has traditionally been the Right Wing and sections of the media who peddle such stereotypes but with the Chancellor’s announcement of the savage cuts in Civil Service jobs this Government has shamelessly embraced that red-tape mantra, demonising civil servants in the process. Incidentally, what example does it set employers with the introduction of the Information and Consultation regulations for the Chancellor to sack 100,000 workers live on TV? Of course, we are asked to support the idea that such job cuts will only affect backroom staff and free up resources for front line services. Have we not been here before? It is the same old refrain for those who seek political cover for cutting services and axing jobs. Delivering quality public services relies on both front line and support staff; without the necessary back-up services delivery inevitably suffers. We are talking about job centre and benefits staff, customs staff, pensions staff, immigration officers, coastguards, air traffic control staff, librarians, prison and court workers, and many more, the very public services so many of our members rely on; it is not about luxuries but an essential part of the fabric of our society.
The result of such job cuts means all our members and their families will receive a poorer service at a greater distance from their homes and communities. I echo Mark’s rallying call, if we are to defeat such cuts, and we must, solidarity is vital between backroom and front line staff, between civil servants and the public, between public sector and private sector unions. Each of us must be ready to do all we can to mobilise our members, to lobby, to march, to demonstrate, and where necessary to act in defence of quality public services.
Gary Doolan (GMB) speaking in support of the composite, said: Congress, critics of the GMB Keep Public Services Public Campaign have told us we are out of touch with the public mood but I am sure you agree that the 6m trade unionists and their families represent a pretty good cross-section of this British public. We know that the public want, expect, and deserve, first-class public services; second-best is no longer good enough. GMB members say the Government must listen. We are all service users and many of us are public servants too. We say it is the Government that is out of touch with what the people want from the public services. We know that so-called efficiency savings do not result in quality improvements but in second and often third-rate services.
The GMB commends this government on its record investment programme and the jobs it has created, and we agree that raising public service standards is at the heart of today’s debate. This will be the key ground on which the next election will be fought and won. Congress, here we must draw a line. The GMB will vehemently oppose any move to cull any civil or public servants for cheap electoral gain. We reject the Dutch auction offered by the main parties. We reject the lack of consultation and notifications of redundancies via parliamentary speeches. We reject any simplistic distinction between front line services and backroom staff. Civil and public services will only become first-class when this government treats us all as equal stakeholders.
The GMB says: stop threatening civil and public servants with P45s, consult with and involve civil and public servants in improving the services that they deliver, engage the workforce in developing sensible proposals that will not only discriminate against and damage people but also their communities.
Congress, together we can, and will, defend Civil Service and public service jobs. Let us have a coordinated campaign involving all public sector unions; we know that these cuts are wrong. The GMB applauds our colleagues in the PCS delegation for the support and solidarity they displayed for our sacked members in this hall yesterday. We call for concerted joint opposition, the defence of quality jobs, and quality civil and public services. Please support this composite.
The President: The General Council supports the composite.
· Composite Motion 11 was CARRIED
Public Services
Pam Baldwin (Unison) speaking to paragraph 5.9, said: Unison has long campaigned for better pay within the public sector and as a result of strike action in July 2002 by 850,000 local government workers the Low Pay Commission was set up. Unison welcomed the Commission’s report, published in October 2003, for offering a unique and overdue opportunity to overhaul thoroughly the treatment of local government staff. The Commission recommended that all councils should carry out equal pay audits and pay and grading reviews to a specified timetable. You may well ask what did this involve. An equal pay review involves comparing the pay of women and men doing equal work, investigating the cause of any gender pay gaps, and closing any gaps that cannot satisfactorily be explained on grounds other than sex, which is long overdue amongst local government workers.
Key recommendations of the report are that above-inflation pay increases are justified on equality grounds, all local authorities should undertake to carry out equal pay audits, the NJC should investigate issues of pay awards for particular groups such as term-time workers and part-time workers, London weighting needs to be reviewed, the single status agreement and NJC job evaluation schemes are to be fit for purpose to ensure proper job evaluation and ranking of jobs and, most importantly, that the trade unions should undertake joint working with employers at all levels to deliver on single status equal pay and other equality issues; last but not least, that central government finance should be made available for initiatives to help close the gender pay gap.
President, Congress, Unison welcomes the Low Pay Commission’s Report, in particular their rejection of regional pay bargaining and the support for the national agreement. Unison commends this section of the report to Congress.
Fire Services dispute
Ruth Winters (FBU) speaking to paragraph 5.12, said: I know we have already had delegates up here thanking the TUC but I would really like from the bottom of our hearts to thank the TUC, and Brendan, for the role they played in resolving our dispute.
The one reason we are getting up under this paragraph is not to go over it all again but as a matter of accuracy. The matter of accuracy concerns the meeting that was held on 2nd August which fell apart with no agreement, and where the national employers, Labour and Conservative, working together scuppered that agreement. This paragraph actually states that at that meeting the employers’ only objection was to the 'stand down' agreement. Normally, we would not speak to a paragraph but there has been so much misinformation put out about our dispute that I think this needs to be put on record.
The employers objected to the 'stand down' agreement and they also refused to pay us the second half of our pay, which was the 4.2, and they would not give us any decision on that. I think that has to go in there as well; it has to be recorded. Brendan said it was a shame that it took them three times to try and resolve the dispute. It was a bit like a ground hog day, I have to say, but I think the whole point of ground hog day is that you are supposed to learn from your mistakes and that is something the employers never did.
I will also take this one opportunity to say that I did listen very carefully to Tony Blair yesterday and what he said. He actually talked all the time about 'social partnership' but there will only be social partnership, and it will only be effective, when they stop causing situations where strike action is something that has to be taken. Our second ballot was only going to be a 'yes' vote because we were having to ballot to get what we had agreed, not for anything else. Until this government stops actually causing the problem in the first place, interfering in industrial disputes, then we will not get any further.
Once again thanks to the TUC, and could we please have it recorded that that matter of accuracy needs to be sorted. Thank you.
The President: We now move, Congress, to receive an international visitor. Last year I was privileged to lead a General Council delegation to Palestine and Israel. On the West Bank we saw many really depressing things: the wall being built around Palestinian villages, the desperate poverty, the unemployment caused by travel restrictions, and the devastated compound where we met President Arafat. One meeting we had with the Palestinian Minister of Labour was disrupted because Shaher Sae’d, the General Secretary of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, had been stopped from leaving Nablus by a roadblock. We had to get the ILO to intervene and secure his passage to join us at the ministry.
A TUC delegation met Shaher and his colleagues in both Nablus and Ramallah and we invited him to Congress. We understand that it has been difficult for him to get here, but he is here today and it is my great pleasure to welcome one of the brightest lights in the Middle East. Shaher Sae’d, I invite you to address Congress.
Address by Shaher Sae’d, General Secretary, Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions:
Dear brother President, General Secretary, brothers and sisters, it is a great honour for me to be with you attending your conference and taking this opportunity to express the greetings of the PGFTU, Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions, to your organisation, which is enriched by experience that is reflected in your independence and freedom.
Sisters and brothers, this is the second time that I have had this opportunity to address your Congress. At the time I last spoke to you, we had a huge hope that peace and security would be won by my country, and other countries in crisis as well, but unfortunately no one could put an end to the backward escalation in the economic, political and security situation in Palestine which is getting worse and worse in view of the policies of the Sharon Government.
There are still over 480,000 workers out of 850,000 in the labour force in Palestine without jobs and living in great poverty. All cities, villages and refugee camps are cut off; movement is forbidden after 7 o’clock in the evening until 7 the next morning. These cities and villages are no more than big open prisons. The Israeli Army and settlers continue their terrifying attacks on the Palestinians, killing and injuring thousands of our people, including our children. The Israeli Army continues its invasions into the cities, villages, and camps, day and night, arresting, killing, uprooting olive and palm and other fruit trees, and demolishing houses, roads and workplaces. Life has become as horrible as hell.
The daily suffering of our people on the checkpoints barriers cannot be described in ordinary terms. Hundreds of fixed and mobile checkpoints cut off the roads of the West Bank and Gaza and paralyse people’s plans and spirits. It is a regime which violates all international conventions and human rights legislation.
It is an impossible issue for the Palestinian workers to start their day normally, going to jobs to earn a living, although this is a normal human demand. Thousands of our workers who try to get to their jobs, universities, schools, or even social events, have been arrested.
The discrimination and separation wall has made the situation even worse, physically separating families, preventing people from farming their land, and taking over a third of the Palestinian land and water resources.
Sisters and brothers, you have certainly read through the report of the TUC delegation to Palestine, headed by the President of the TUC and the General Secretary, the objective conditions, the difficulties and obstacles which Palestinian people face daily. Despite this suffering, I am pleased to tell you that we succeeded in conducting our Constitutional Congress in May. It approved several key historical resolutions, among which was to support all actions to establish an independent and democratic Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital, which has been occupied since 4th June 1967, side by side with an Israeli state, both living together in security as good neighbours.
On behalf of the PGFTU and myself, I would like to confirm that peace and stability cannot be achieved in the region unless the Palestinian people achieve their rights, freedom and independence, according to all relevant UN resolutions, in particular resolution 242 and 338. The settlements must be removed. I repeat, the settlements must be removed. The killing of innocent civilians everywhere must end. These actions must be strongly condemned. There can be no peace with the land confiscation. Products made or grown in settlements must be boycotted by all means to force the settlers to leave Palestinian lands.
We support a just and comprehensive peace that recognises the rights of all people, whoever and wherever they are. We look forward, hoping and wishing to achieve social protections and to create jobs for our workers and improve our labour movement’s rights and freedoms.
The PGFTU strongly support the ILO Fund for Palestinian Employment and Social Protection. We urge all governments to contribute to it.
I thank you again hoping that your Congress will succeed in achieving more rights and more progress for your workers and for your people. Thank you.
The President: Thank you very much, Shaher, and we send the greetings of Congress to you and all of your members in all of the sections.
ECONOMIC AND INDUSTRIAL AFFAIRS
The President: Delegates, we now continue with Chapter 5 of the General Council Report, Economic and Industrial Affairs, page 61. I now call Composite Motion 12.
Future of Health and Public Policy
Lesley Mercer (CSP) moved composite motion 12. She said: It is somewhat humbling to follow our previous speaker.
I want to start moving composite 12 by linking it with the previous conference motion. Certainly, we do not want to see extra funding for the NHS at the expense of vital Civil Service jobs. We in the NHS, like in education, realise that it is a contribution of all workers, support workers, admin workers, as well as clinical workers, that makes the NHS what it is, a fantastic national asset which belongs to all of us here. It is something that we believe is worth celebrating and cherishing for the care it gives. It certainly does not deserve the denigration that it gets constantly from some quarters. I suppose it is always true that one bad news story will make for much more exciting copy than 12 examples of plain good service. The truth is that there is a lot more good news out there than bad.
It is true that it is taking time for the extra money going into the NHS actually to start to show tangible differences, but the reality is, comrades, that it does take time to train up more professionals, it does take time to develop new working practices, and it has taken time to negotiate a better system for paying NHS workers, which we believe will stand the test of time. Improvements are now starting to come on stream and for those of us who believe in our National Health Service, free at the point of need, and irrespective of the ability to pay, the future for the NHS is a good one.
My union is especially pleased to see that health promotion and the better management of long-term health conditions are starting to move up the political agenda. Both these areas are crucial to the Government’s vision, which we share in the CSP, of moving the NHS away from just being an emergency service for the sick to a service that positively supports quality of life. The members I represent can make a big contribution in all these areas, from cutting down waiting lists through to preventing hospital admissions in the first place.
There are many examples of where the NHS is truly moving in the right direction but, clearly, we are not completely there yet. To some extent healthcare, like other parts of the public services, is still a lottery, depending on where you live or depending on what your needs are. A manual worker in this country will still live on average 7.1/2 years less than a professional worker. Within the NHS itself workloads are too high, staffing shortages still persist, and the partnership approach to change is yet to be fully embedded into our culture.
I am afraid the launch of the NHS plan this June is a case in point. Whilst the plan contains a lot that we in the CSP agree with, we also have some concerns and questions that we believe would have been far better addressed and discussed before the plan was launched rather than afterwards. We are unsure, for example, how the theory of patient choice is going to be translated into a practical reality. We seriously question the proposed scale of private sector involvement in the future. We strongly disagree with a statement in the plan that pay linked to performance will create stronger incentives for service.
It is in order to address these kinds of concerns that we call in this composite motion for a stronger role for the public services forum. The CSP was one of the unions that actually first supported the idea of a public services forum but its credibility does rest on the extent to which it can deliver genuine dialogue. We also call on the TUC itself to support affiliates by providing quality research, in particular on the choice agenda, so that we can start to unpick from the spin (which is undoubtedly there) what the real issues are for the users of public services, including health, and how they are going to impact on the users and our members.
Congress, just winding up, there are two ways to look at the NHS. One way is to dismiss it as a concept past its sell-by date, which is an idea that has credence in some quarters. The other way is to recognise it for its achievements and positively engage to spread these achievements further. Not surprisingly, the CSP believes strongly in the latter approach. Please support the motion.
Ann Pollard (SoR) seconding the composite, said: The greatest problem we face within the NHS are targets imposed on us by government but not followed with the relevant revenue and staff resources to implement them. As healthcare professionals we believe in early diagnosis and treatment. Targets that are introduced without any dialogue can lead to the reduction in the level of services elsewhere in the NHS. Why is it that people most able to give good advice to government on service issues, such as practising radiographers, are never asked.
The Government has recently introduced a scheme into the NHS to reduce the number of patients awaiting an MRI scan. There are issues that question if this policy can work. Firstly, the Government has contracted this out to the private sector to implement and, more importantly, the desperation to provide a quick-fix solution has missed the point about capacity that already exists to do this work within the NHS. Over recent years extra funding and government spending initiatives provided excellent MRI facilities in most parts of the country but in many cases there has been no funding provided to run these scanners. Within my own trust, we had to reduce the use of our scanner to just three days a week.
The result of this private provision initiative is the scandalous situation, I believe, that public money is being spent on a privately provided service in trusts where NHS equipment is actually mothballed. Radiographers are being employed by the private company to operate their MRI scanners. Where are the extra radiographers going to be recruited from if not from vital services? This then leaves gaps in a profession that is already experiencing a severe recruitment retention problem leading to non-delivery of services for patients elsewhere due to this lack of staff.
NHS staff, and the Society of Radiographers, are committed to improve the service to all patients. Why, oh, why, does this Government find it so hard to talk to us about implementing and introducing change? Though I congratulate them on some of their improvements within, I would implore dialogue be undertaken with NHS trade unions when developing policy.
Congress, please accept this motion so that my patients can receive the service that they have paid for. Thank you.
Jonathan Baume (FDA) speaking in support of the composite, said: I despair at times about politicians. We have a critical debate to undertake on the future of public services yet it has been reduced in the Civil Service to bowler hats versus the front line as politicians bid against each other to cut Civil Service jobs, and in the NHS it is bureaucrats versus nurses and doctors. It is an insult to the electorate.
In reality, the NHS is undertaking the biggest single public sector reform programme in the world. Who are these bureaucrats? The FDA represents senior managers. We know that many senior managers actually have clinical backgrounds. Birmingham Children’s Hospital, Gt. Ormond Street, Guys & St. Thomas’s, their chief executives are all doctors. Many primary care trust chief executives have come from nursing backgrounds. Hospitals are introducing modern matrons, all nurses, who are key clinical leaders with management roles. Look at the advances in new technology in healthcare, the human geno project, the use of robotics, the massive investment in information technology. They have tremendous significance for clinical research and practice. Busy front line clinical staff have many talents but not necessarily in managing rapid change.
For the NHS to work - and whether we like it or not the structures are those that the politicians have set - we need quality management. Moreover, in the UK 6 per cent of healthcare spending goes on overall management costs compared to an average across the EU of 9 per cent and about 14 per cent in the United States. So, we have a false debate. The FDA wants an NHS that empowers and recognises everybody’s contribution. We should put far more value on the ancillary staff, porters, kitchen staff, laundry workers, without whom no hospital could operate. Let us not only focus the healthcare debates on nurses and doctors, crucial though they are. They could not do their job without other professionals, the physiotherapists, the radiographers, speech therapists, and others.
Instead of rhetoric about bureaucrats, we should welcome development and support to enable all of these people to enter into management roles, if that is how they want to develop their careers. Let us utilise everyone’s talent and end this myth of the bureaucrat. The FDA supports the composite.
Christine Wilde (Unison) speaking in support of the composite, said: I have been a health service worker for over 30 years. The Government is putting historic levels of investment into the NHS. To a large extent this investment is paying off; patients are getting quicker and better treatment and death rates from killer conditions, such as heart disease, are substantially down. All too often the Government’s additional investment into the NHS has been undermined by an approach to reform which fails to listen to staff or to recognise that in order to improve the NHS there must be investment into its principal asset, its people.
Back in June, the Government published its five-year improvement plan for the NHS. It contained an extension of the popular expert patients initiative to cover the whole of England by 2008. It stressed a renewed emphasis on health promotion and public health but it was published without any prior consultation with staff or trade unions. The public service forum was given no opportunity to have input into its contents. Staff in the NHS were not asked what they saw as problems or what they believed were the next steps for delivering improvement in the NHS. The Government apparently did not see the logic in consulting people in the know, working the system, dealing with the public, assessing their needs; far better to be advised by experts in long-distance knowledge of the NHS.
Had they been asked, staff may well have been able to offer some useful advice to the Government. They may have had some tips on how to eradicate MRSA, pointing out, for example, that where contractors are allowed to reduce the number of cleaners below what is needed standards will inevitably suffer, and on calling for a return to the in-house team system. I was discussing this very item with a fellow trade unionist at Tolpuddle, who was in full agreement. They may have called for more stringent protection for whistle-blowers so that staff are empowered to speak out when there is bad practice. We are not blind to what is wrong or unfair, incompetent management, but we need to speak to provide for our families. They might have talked about the pressures of constant structural changes in the NHS, almost one major reorganisation a year since 1982, and they might have pleaded for a period of stability to allow them to focus on the job of patient care in the front line. We have been through more reorganisations than government reshuffles, and there lies a success story that gives us confidence.
I believe most of all the message that would have to emerge would be, the NHS needs investment in its principal asset, its staff: it means treating staff fairly, it means seeing the potential of staff and working with them to develop it. The reality is that no one is more committed to the NHS and patient care than the staff working in it. Well done to the Government for all the good things it has done in the NHS so far but there is a need for further improvement. The Government needs to do more work together with staff by both listening to us and investing in us. Thank you.
The President: The General Council is in favour of Composite 12.
Composite Motion 12 was CARRIED.
(Congress adjourned to 2.15 p.m.)
TUESDAY AFTERNOON SESSION
(Congress re-assembled at 2.15 p.m.)
The President : I call Congress to order. Many thanks once again to NKS Jazz who have been playing for us this afternoon. Thank you very much. (Applause)
Presentation of Equality Awards
The President : We now come to the presentation of the first ever TUC Equality Awards. The trade union Movement can be proud of its long record in promoting equality and combatting discrimination. It is now six years since Neville Lawrence received a standing ovation from Congress in recognition of his campaign for justice for his murdered son. In the intervening period we have taken a close look at our structures and recognised what needs to be done to ensure that our unions promote equality both in theory and in practice. Last year we had our first ever equality audit in which we took a critical look at ourselves. This year we recognise the positive work being done by unions through the first of what will become biennial equality awards.
I now invite the Deputy General Secretary to present the awards.
Frances O'Grady (Deputy General Secretary): It gives me great personal pleasure to present these awards, a personal pleasure because these awards prove that organising is at the heart of equality, and that equality must lie at the heart of organising. The awards recognise the groundbreaking work of unions to promote equality in the workplace and in the wider community.
Unlike other TUC awards, the equality award is to unions as organisations, not to an individual. That is because we recognise that while individuals play a vital role the big challenge is for unions to work collectively for change. These awards show us that unions are tackling equality with imagination, creativity and determination. They are using the organisational strength of working people to challenge discrimination, prejudice and inequality.
But unions are also meeting the need of members in new ways. Each of the winning entries demonstrated the real recruitment and organising potential of equality campaigns, because workers want to see unions win real change, real improvement, in their working lives and real changes in their communities. One of today's winners increased its proportion of black members by nearly 40 per cent in the months following their campaign. We need more campaigns like this. They work for the members, they work for the union and they make a real difference.
The awards are in two categories, one for unions over 100,000 members, and one for our smaller affiliates. The award recognises that unions are working to promote equality for union representatives, for members and for workers, including challenging workplace cultures that exclude and discriminate. Several of the entries showed how unions helped put new laws on disability into practice. Amicus's Champions at Work project has trained 94 disability champions, and the T&G has carried out 115 workplace disability audits. Other unions, like the NUT, looked at ways to deliver equality across the board, across the union. But this year, the first year, by far the greatest number of entries covered race issues.
Turning to the awards, the first award is for unions with fewer than 100,000 members. The winning project was carried out with imagination and flair. The union provided practical and much needed career advice and support for its black and ethnic minority members. It organised 530 individual meetings for members with key top executives -- black workers trying to get a break in a highly competitive world to smash what you might call a white ceiling -- who have now, as a result of the union's work, landed new and better job contracts. It has led to a recruitment surge amongst black professionals in that union, a 37 per cent increase in black members joining the union and two new black NEC members.
BECTU's 'Move On Up' project has come up with the sorts of results that really demonstrate the organising potential of good equality initiatives. I am delighted to invite BECTU's General Secretary, Roger Bolton, Janice Turner from the BECTU press office. who worked so hard on the project, and new NEC member Suresh Chawla to collect the awards on behalf of BECTU. Please welcome them. (Applause)
Presentation of the Award
Roger Bolton (BECTU): I am delighted to accept this award on behalf of BECTU. The 'Move On Up' initiatives that we launched in partnership with industry partners made a real difference, got black members jobs in the industry in a way that would not have been possible without this initiative. I am very grateful to the TUC. Thank you very much.
Frances O'Grady (Deputy General Secretary): This year the judges decided to highly commend an entry from one of our smaller specialist affiliates that shows great promise and initiative. Following the success of the 'Let's Kick Racism out of Football' campaign, the Professional Footballers' Association is tackling the bias against retired black footballers who are not moving into the coaching and management levels of football. A player coach liaison officer has been appointed and the union is introducing a new mentoring scheme. The PFA want to make sure that black talent is seen at all levels of football and not just on the pitch.
The PFA members who are here today to collect the award were pioneers on the pitch, and are now helping their union to take this project forward. I invite the Professional Footballers' Association's Chief Executive, Gordon Taylor, to come and collect the award, along with ex- England players Cyril Regis, Luther Blissett and Paul Davis, also the wonderful Bobby Barnes and the brilliant PFA Equality Officer Simone Pound.
Presentation of the Award
Gordon Taylor (PFA): Thank you very much, Frances. It is a real pleasure to be here and to have our initiative recognised by our colleagues in the TUC. I would expect nothing less.
It is ten years now since we began our 'Kick It Out' campaign and it has been really encouraging to see the way that other initiatives have developed throughout Europe, and indeed in the TUC with the 'Respect' campaign.
You see the quality in front of you with such great black players as Cyril Regis, who you will know, particularly for West Brom and England; Luther Blissett who performed so admirably for Watford and then in Italy and England as well; and then Paul Davis of Arsenal and England. We must not forget my colleagues with the PFA. We have Pete Smith, who is back on his home territory where he used to play so well for Brighton; Bobby Barnes, formerly of West Ham United who you will know; and last but not least a young lady who has taken over so well from my deputy, Brendan Baxon (?), as our Equality Executive Officer, Simone Pound.
The point I wanted to make is that we have such great players who are fully qualified as coaches. Our initiative is about their being recognised by those most important of all, employers, and seeing how much better things will be when they adopt an equalities policy. They should recognise the talent that is there, showing itself now, integrated so well not only on our football pitches but which need also to be given a chance on the touchline as managers and coaches and in the offices as administrators and in the boardrooms as directors.
Thank you very much indeed.
Frances O'Grady (Deputy General Secretary): That has made my day!
Now to the award for unions with over 100,000 members. The winning union in this category has carried out an ambitious project that reflects its size, its organisational capacity but I would say it also reflects the level of its ambition. It has taken on the challenge of the BNP at the local level, and challenged the far right in the workplace. It has put its money where its mouth is, but it has also done the hard work of organising with activists in parts of the country where racism is a real threat to black people, working with anti-racist campaigners as well as -- and here is a hint -- council workers. Every member living in a ward where the BNP was standing in this year's council elections was sent a direct mail union leaflet. Advertisements were placed in national newspapers to warn voters in the European elections of the dangers of the BNP.
Changing workplace culture by promoting equality and community cohesion is a central part of the union training programme that this union put on. The training stresses the contribution of black and migrant workers to the public services and the essential role they play. I know that the union's General Secretary has been personally committed to steering this campaign, and together with his national Executive Committee in my view has shown true leadership. The project has exactly the balance of grass roots involvement and commitment from the top that is necessary, essential, for success.
Please can General Secretary Dave Prentis, activist from the north-west Rena Wood and UNISON's Race Equality Officer and mover of the Black Workers motion on organizing, Wilf Sullivan, collect the TUC Equality Award on behalf of UNISON.
Presentation of the Award
Dave Prentis (UNISON): Congress, it is a great honour to receive this award on behalf of the whole of UNISON, a united union totally committed to stopping the BNP in its tracks. But the great surprise of our union was to see the results on the Friday morning last June. The BNP had failed to make the inroads it had boasted about and for that there could be no greater prize.
But we cannot be complacent. They are still moving forward. Much more needs to be done but I am really proud that UNISON has made a difference. To show that we work in partnership I would like one of our activists just to say a few words to you.
Rena Wood (UNISON): I would like to say thank you for the privilege of accepting this award on behalf of UNISON. I would like you to know that without the commitment of our General Secretary, Dave Prentis, the support of our National Officer Wilf Sullivan, and all the activists who got involved in the campaign, we could not have succeeded.
The most important thing is the fact that we worked alongside all the other trades unions, community groups, multi-faith groups at local, regional and national level and without all of your support we could not have succeeded but the work goes on.
Thank you, colleagues.
The President : Congratulations to not only those who won but to all those who took part. We hope that biennially there will be more and more people participating.
Address by Amir Peretz, General Secretary, Israeli Histadrut
The President : This morning we heard from Shaher Sa'ed, the General Secretary of the Palestinian Trade Union Federation. I mentioned to him that I met him when I was leading the TUC delegation to the Middle East last November.
As well as spending time with the Palestinian General Federation on the West Bank the TUC delegation also spent time as a guest of the Israeli TUC, the Histadrut. I am pleased that Amir Peretz, the leader of Histadrut, is also here at Congress. Amir is a leading figure in the Israeli peace movement; he is also fighting off the right wing deregulatory, privatising government of Israel.
The Israeli trade union Movement faces the same problems of globalisation that we all face but they do so in an economy that is debilitated by the costs of waging war and isolated from obvious trading partners.
We had previously invited Amir to address this Congress but at that time he was involved in a general strike and he put the general strike first. This year the same clash could have happened as the Histadrut is in very serious dispute with their government. However, I am pleased that they have timed their general strike this time for next Sunday, freeing up Amir to come here today. We are very glad therefore to have him, and I have great pleasure in inviting Amir Peretz, General Secretary of Histadrut, a member of the Israeli Parliament, to address Congress.
Amir Peretz (Israeli Histadrut): Dear President Lyons, General Secretary Barber, Executive members of the TUC, Congress, brothers and sisters, it is a real pleasure and honour for me to attend the TUC Congress, and I would like to thank you for the kind invitation.
It is especially important now to think again about the implications of capitalism, the place of the human being in the process of globalisation, and how the globalisation of rights not just the globalisation of capital will be realised. It is especially important now that trades unions around the world cooperate among themselves in order to intensify the struggle against the exploitation of workers and child labour.
Let me now turn to the political questions that engage the free world and, above all, the question of terror that threatens the peace of the entire world. The terror of the new millennium is a primitive terror, and therefore it is dangerous. It is possible to find security answers to missiles, tanks and electronic warfare, but it is impossible to fight against the suicide bombers who are live human bombs. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to stop them.
There are many who admire the terrorists and describe them as idealists who are ready to sacrifice their lives for their beliefs. However, we must not legitimise the killing and murder, especially when we speak about innocent citizens and children. The outrageous act that occurred in the school in Russia clarified for all of us that terror has no boundaries. A week before the murders in Russia there was an outrageous event in Israel when two buses were blown up by suicide bombers, leaving many families without their loved ones.
I was born in Morocco. I came to Israel and I grew up in Israel. During my service as an officer in the Israeli army I was severely wounded and spent two years in hospital. I left hospital in a wheelchair. When I first stood on my feet again I swore to myself that the next war I was going to fight was the war for peace.
I live with my family in the city of Sderot -- the city of peace -- which is on the border of Gaza. My city is attacked daily by Kasam missiles that fall inside the city and in people's backyards. I was the Mayor of Sderot for several years, and since that period I have declared publicly that a Palestinian state is in Israel's interest. I tried to influence Sderot's residents to support peace and co-existence on a daily basis and asked them not to lose hope since those who lose hope for peace enable the murderers to win.
Right now we are sharing a new ray of hope. In my opinion, the Disengagement Plan from the Gaza Strip is the only alternative we have in the present political situation in Israel. At the moment, a right wing government is in power, so we must do everything possible to push this plan forward even if it is not perfect. In my opinion, if the Disengagement Plan is implemented it will be a historical step that will change the Israeli psychology and will provide legitimacy for the cost of the evacuation of the settlements. I would prefer a comprehensive peace plan, but Israel has a right-wing government that is ready for the new plan of Gaza First. I know that many are afraid that Gaza First will become Gaza Last.
However, it is clear to us all that in order to reach a comprehensive peace the agreement must also include solutions to the West Bank. Therefore, despite all our fears we must support the Disengagement Plan in the hope that it will jump-start the peace process. I do not intend to rest until a comprehensive peace is achieved, based on two states for two nations, an Israeli state and a Palestinian state, living in peace side by side.
It has been said before that the worst peace is better than the best war. I believe this to be true; I know this to be true. I can assure you that the Histadrut will continue to be committed to the peace process in general, and to strengthening its relationship with the PGFTU in particular, as well as the solidarity amongst the workers.
Everyone knows that I fully support equal rights for Palestinian workers. However, as long as the acts of terror continue with every new horror, I can do less and less. I call on my friend Shaher Sae'd, head of the Palestinian trades unions, despite the difficult situation that exists between the Israeli Government and the Palestinian authority, to sit together with us and we shall look for workers' groups on both sides to cooperate. I hope that the day will come when we will be able to set up a trade union federation in the Middle East, which will serve as an umbrella for peace and for people-to-people action.
Until that time comes I call on you, my friends from the TUC and my friends from all the trades unions all over the world, to view the peace in the Middle East as an international mission, and to invite groups of workers from both sides to meet in your countries. Only pressure from citizens who want peace will influence the leaders in the Middle East to take courageous steps and to ensure the future of children of all the nations in our region. All of over the world, even where there are wars, conflicts, hunger and poverty, no one can stop people dreaming of a better world so we too will continue to struggle for peace and justice for all.
Dear friends, I would like to seize this opportunity and thank you for all the support you have provided us during us with during these hard days and for inviting me to this honourable meeting. (Applause)
The President : Amir, thank you for that address. The TUC, as confirmed in our delegation to you and to the Palestinian General Federation, stands ready to assist in any exchanges, meetings, training and assistance when the two unions in the region seek mutual assistance. We will be there. Thank you very much for your contribution. I know it is a difficult time for you with the impending dispute and I am sure that Congress will wish you all the best in your dispute with your Thatcherite Government.
The Government's five-year strategy for education
Learning and skills
Chris Harding (GPMU) moved Composite Motion 18.
(Insert Composite Motion 18 - Learning and skills)
He said: It is well over a year now since the government introduced its Skills White Paper and somewhat longer since it gave union learner representatives the right to paid time off to undertake their duties. These initiatives have transformed the lives of many workers who, without these new rights and entitlements, would not have improved their skills levels and ultimately their employability. The government are now beginning to recognise that unless trades unions are involved as real social partners within the skills and learning agenda, they will be unable to deliver the improvements to productivity and employment that they seek.
However, we still have an awful long way to travel to ensure that the potential benefits can be experienced by all. For far too long workers in this country have had to rely on their employer in order to improve their skills. We all know the majority of employers can be no more trusted with the skills and learning agenda any more than they can be with other improvements in the workplace. Government estimates suggest that the country loses over £10 billion a year from poor literacy and numeracy rate among adults, but employers and the CBI in particular would rather complain about the cost of sickness levels and red tape than make a real effort to tackle the real issues.
It is very clear that if we wait for employers to offer training to workers to close the productivity gap, increase the country's competitiveness and meet the personal aspirations of every worker in this country, we will be waiting for ever. It is a credit to the Labour Government that more workers have access to training and that the number of union learner representatives is growing all the time. Despite these government initiatives, UK employers remain locked in the 1980s and are stubbornly consistent in their negative approach to the training agenda. We have gone as far as we can with offering employers the choice to train and we have run out of options.
What is now needed is a courageous step, a step change from the government. Despite the present state of manufacturing and our low levels of productivity, workers still do not have the right to paid time off to undertake training to an NVQ level 2. Workers should not have to rely on their employer to voluntary join an employer training pilot to gain this right. The right to paid time off for training should be unconditional. We need to be able to bargain on behalf of our members on the issues of training and learning, something that is essential in any democratic economy, as is bargaining over pay and conditions. We need tough action taken against those employers who refuse to train or engage with trades unions on the skills agenda. The government need to have the courage to introduce statutory training levies on those factors that fail to improve the skills levels and meet the sector's training needs, whether there is a Sector Skills Council in place or not. The government need to introduce to introduce a statutory obligation for employers to introduce workplace learning committees to ensure that employers work with union learner representatives in every work place, not just in those workplaces where the employers choose to.
In further education, where the gap between vocational and the so-called academic route is not only distinguished by inadequate provision in colleges but also by the wages and resources for staff, we need greater government support.
This composite calls for a strong government with a clear sense of vision to introduce what are, by European comparisons, modest changes to the way workers gain training and citizens meet their personal aspirations. These changes would not only look after the interests of workers but the long-term interests of the economy and the overall prosperity of our nation. We ask Congress to support the composite motion.
Paul Mackney (NATFHE) seconding Composite Motion 18 said: Over the last few weeks the CBI and government ministers have given us helpful advice on how really modern unions should be embracing education and training issues. I do not wish to sound ungrateful but it occurred to me that the TUC has been in the vanguard on these issues since its founding Manchester Conference. The fact is we are still waiting for the government and the employers to catch up. For example, the demand for a right to paid educational leave has been running as a Congress item for longer than The Mousetrap and it is still not on the Statute Book. It is almost impossible for many workers today to find time to study and juggle caring responsibilities, travel arrangements, work with shift patterns and so on. Although the employee training pilots have clearly shown how enabling people to study in work time transforms the situation, less than 30 per cent of the UK workforce have intermediate skills compared with 50 per cent in France and 66 per cent in Germany. This skills gap will not be closed without an obligation on all employers to contribute to training for the economy's needs rather than for the narrower needs of specific firms.
Despite the new Facility for Sector Skills Agreements, the skills gap is not going to be sorted out until the business veto on industrial levies or similar arrangements is removed. It was the CBI that persuaded the government to keep training out of the Information and Consultation Directive. It is rank hypocrisy to suggest that unions are insufficiently committed to training when it is the narrow business lobby that has been standing in the way of progress. It is high time the key role unions play in committing workers to education and training was recognised by the statutory right to negotiate on these issues on workplace and education training committees.
On Monday the Prime Minister acknowledged the role of learning representatives, backed a union academy and said financial support for 18 to 30 year olds for Level 3 or A level equivalent qualifications is under consideration. These are all good things. But the colleges are still grossly underfunded, with college workers earning seven per cent less than those in schools. These are now subject to an absurd tiered arrangement whereby colleges with the most problems -- usually in the urban areas -- receive less money than the rest. As in other parts of the public service, we want good local college provision, not an artificial choice between first and second class establishments.
Finally, top up fees: £9,000 for a degree course will saddle most young people with a lifetime of debt. Forget putting money in for pensions; they will not have money for that. This policy shovels votes to the Tories who are now proclaiming, loudly, that they will abolish the fees and, softly. that they will cut higher education.
The only good thing about the policy is that it has brought NATFHE and the AUT closer together in saying that education transforms people's lives. We maintain that access to it should be based on the ability to study, not the ability to pay.
Christine Bond (BECTU) supporting Composite Motion 18 said: I want to talk specifically about the Sector Skills Councils.
The councils, a trail blazing idea, need the active participation of unions and the union learning representatives to ensure that the learning provided meets the needs of our members. The union representatives have a pivotal role in the development of the Sector Skills Council agreements. Sector Skills Councils need to be employment led, not employer led. To do that we must have union representation on the board. It is important that unions play a strong part.
Training of the workforce must be high on the agenda for all unions because it is a condition of success in the modern world. Training and retaining are requirements our members face everyday. Whether it is improved skills in language, computers, health and safety or the new technology that seems to change daily members rely on their unions to argue their needs. I find I need training every few years on how to use my mobile phone. Many of you probably need training on how to use an MP3 player. Change is a constant we all face now.
It is important that all workers, whatever their employment status, are covered by the work of the Sector Skills Councils and included in sector skill agreements. A number of motions have highlighted the change in employment patterns. What have been called atypical workers is becoming more the norm than the exception in many industries. We need a strong contribution from unions and union learning representatives on the Sector Skills Councils to ensure that training that is appropriate to our members is given.
Please support the motion and the commitment to training.
Adrian Askew (Connect) : Congress, we have heard a lot this week about Digby Jones and what he has had to say about his future of the world of work, a world in which trade unions are irrelevant, but thanks to a pick and mix employment workers will be able to choose the juiciest jobs with the security of their skills to protect them come what may. I wish I could be so confident, but that would just be complacency because international comparisons consistently show us to be lagging behind our European neighbours. The ill-informed naivety of Jones’ speech is surpassed only by its hypocrisy. He called on us, the trade unions, to focus on skills and training as if this would be some novel idea. The facts are that it is the unions which have put thousands of learning reps into the workplace. It is the unions who have worked with the Government to drive the early successes of the Sector Skills Councils, and it is the unions who are pushing the skills developments to be seen as a right for all workers. Further, it is the unions who are working with the first Government since the 1970s to make a real effort to close the skills gap.
So what about the employers? Some recognise that a well-trained workforce is an asset to be valued. Sadly, there are many more who neglect investment in skills who ride on the back of the good employers continuing down in a spiral of decline. This situation cannot continue.
Last year Congress debated globalisation and how we, as a Movement, could tackling off-shoring. Whatever your view, improving the skills of the workforce has to be a way forward, a way forward for workers, employers and the UK economy. The point is that the employers and the Government must work with us or face the only real alternatively, which is statutory obligation and training levies. Far from being irrelevant, trade unions are already championing the cause of skills and training in the workplace. It is time for the employers to join with us on this because, as Bob Dillan once said, 'You’d better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone'. Please support Composite 18.
Peter Pendle (ACM, Association for College Management) : ACM welcomes recent Government initiatives aimed at lifting the status and quality of vocational education, and encouraging many young people and adults to take up opportunities on vocational courses. In particular, we welcome the Level 2 entitlement established for adults and the revised framework for apprenticeships and the extension of these opportunities to older learners.
Commentators regularly call for an improvement to the status of vocational learning. The academic/vocational divide is widely regretted, but one of the main reasons for the comparatively poor status of vocational education is that much of it has been sub-standard. On the whole, it is not surprising that vocational education has not enjoyed high status. As a nation we have failed to invest in this area of education in the way that we have invested in academic education. Disproportionate resources have been targeted at HE and the academic qualifications that people get. A much smaller resource, an entirely inadequate resource, has been available to vocational education. As a nation, we have often failed to take vocational education as seriously as we should have. Consequently, we have failed those people whose talents and aspirations would best be developed by vocational programmes.
We welcome the greater investment that this Government have made in this area but much more is needed.
We have witnessed an out-pouring of indignation from the media at HE fees policy which will require those on university courses to contribute to the cost of their education. However, the fact is that until recently, adults on a Level 2 vocational course were liable for the fees for their training, and that fact has generally escaped comment, as has the fact that adults on a Level 3 vocational course still have to fork out for their fees for their training. Do not be fooled by what Tony Blair said yesterday. He did not announce any new money for those people.
In contrast to the indignation around HE fees and grants, when EMAs for disadvantaged 16-18 year olds were widely publicised in the early summer, they were criticised as a bribe by the very same newspapers and television programmes which rue the changes to the HE policy. The goal of the Government’s Skills Strategy will only be achieved through adequate and effective investment in vocational education. ACM calls on the Government to establish a universal entitlement to free and excellent education up to and including a first full Level 2 entitlement. Creating and delivering that entitlement will take additional and substantial investment in vocational education and training. Such an entitlement would substantially support the development of the skills base necessary for a prosperous economy and would equip individuals with the resources for personal development and growth.
Please support the composite.
Anne McCormack (UNISON) speaking in support of the composite, said: I am an 11 plus failure but I have a passion for education.
The Government will never meet their targets on skills as long as the FE sector funding is subject to the whims and vagaries of the Learning and Skills Councils who dictate what we teach and where teach it, but without passing legislation to force employers to give paid time off for training. In my college funding for work-based learning has been drastically cut. We have been so successful in our E-to-E programmes in getting disaffected young people into education and training that the LSC is now refusing to pay us because we were too successful.
As an aside, we have been very successful in Government, too. Malcolm Wickes, John Healey and Alan Johnson all visited St. Helen’s College as FE Ministers and went on to greater things. Gordon Brown has also been, but time will only tell what his progression route will be.
Why are we successful in delivering work-based training? It is because we pay the training, not the employer. If employers are so reluctant to engage in work course development, when they are the ones saying that they need more skilled workers, then what price is their commitment to work course development on Sector Skills Councils?
The Government, the TUC and its affiliates must take steps to ensure that SSCs are employment led and not employer dominated. We agree with the call for union SSC members to up-date and consult our relevant unions, but we also want the TUC to maximise support for union Sector Skills Council members to help them carry out their role and actively promote union policies on the skills agenda, not being on the balcony and out of the game.
Indeed, to be frank, the record of employers under a voluntary system has been at best patchy. At worse, their contribution has been non-existent and dictated by self-interest. Without proper safeguards, increased employer involvement in policy and the allocation of funds will simply result in increased public subsidy for the status quo, a system which distributes opportunity unequally favouring those already qualified and on higher rates of pay, neglecting those front-line workers whose working day revolves around face-to-face delivery of essential services, neglecting party-time and shift-workers, a system which has failed hundreds of thousands of our members who have already been let down, a system which is still struggling to come to terms with the shortage of literacy and numeracy skills in our workforce, a system which has met that any mention of the buzz word 'competitiveness' drives us further towards a low skilled, low waged economy, a system which has led the UK to poach skilled people from less developed countries which can ill-afford to lose them.
If Sector Skills Councils and our efforts to support them are going to be effective and make the radical changes we need, we must have statutory rights to paid educational leave, to concentrate the minds of employers on the real issues, to empower our members and negotiators and to stimulate the demand for skills and progression. If we are going to challenge those employers who say they will not or cannot engage, we need the rights to information and consultation missing from the regulations. Our members deserve the right to high quality and training. It benefits our employers and improves their profitability. Employers must pay their part in supporting this agenda and put their money where their mouths are. Please support.
Marge Carey (USDAW) speaking in support of the composite said: Congress, we are ever more ambitious about learning and development at work, not only intensifying our efforts in the continuous struggle on vocational training but thinking and becoming committed to a wider and more ambitious agenda, thinking radically about our members’ learning and development needs beyond the workplace and beyond vocational needs, thinking about their genuine and abiding interest in gaining and developing all manner of skills and knowledge, skills and knowledge which are useful and relevant to them, not just their employer.
Statutory rights to learning reps was an absolute massive step forward, guaranteeing us a role and presence in the life-long area of work, beginning at last to see the workplace as a resource for learning and development in general as well as a place of work, building a relationship between worker and employer which is deeper than paid employment alone, and making life-long learning reps real champions of learning throughout workers’ lives, so much so that the better employers have seen the point and the benefits, employers working with my union in distribution, food manufacturing, home shopping and retailing.
Our achievements in USDAW include over 450 life-long learning reps now in place and nearly 10,000 USDAW members returning to some form of learning. As a quick aside, I am one of those returning to learning. I am doing PC maintenance, not with a screwdriver, so when my computer freezes I can actually fix it rather than kick it. We also have 30 on-site learning centres in place, and we need to build on that foundation and develop strategically. We need a guaranteed mechanism to bring life-long learning reps and employers together, to anchor and structure that effective relationship in the way the health and safety reps have a statutory role and statutory right to form a committee. We need to develop and embed those rights and structure sin our learning and development work. It is vital to encourage and support the excellent work our union learning reps carry out on behalf of their members.
It also makes good business sense for the employers, too, moving forward in a planned, rational and managed way rather than in an ad hoc piecemeal way.
Congress, we are standing on some very fertile ground for ourselves as organised delegates of life-long learning, for decent employers looking to recruit and retain the best and then invest in them, and for the Government to try and build a 21st Century workforce adaptable, able to learn and to go on learning. Most importantly, it is for workers themselves needing and deserving to go on learning and developing throughout their lives. Please support.
Tony Conway (PCS) speaking in support of the composite, said: President and Conference, PCS members working in the public and private sector have a major interest in the successful delivery of education and skills. Not only do we need to see a major extension in the education and skills provision for all employees, not just the few, but PCS members working in those Government departments - the DFES, Dti and DWP - plus other public sector bodies, such as the Learning and Skills Councils, Sector Skills Councils, regional development agencies along with the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. PCS members, therefore, Congress, play a direct role in ensuring that this country delivers high quality training and education for people in work, in education, the unemployed and in communities. Without the dedicated support of those civil and public servants, the Government would not be able to deliver its Skills Strategy, build its better schools, remove the scourge of illiteracy and reach its target of 300,000 apprentices.
There is no doubt that under-investment in schools and colleges, in our FE sector, in workplaces and communities, is reliant on the market. The lack of central government leadership and intervention has got us to where we now are.
From the latest OECD comparisons, the UK is 18th in the world as far as the number of adults over 25 with Level 2 skills. Seven million adults have serious skill needs in literacy and numeracy. One in five of school leavers leaves school at 16 with less than a Level 2 qualification. These figures, of course, Congress, hide massive inequalities. This inequality persists beyond people’s lifetimes, passed from parents to children and within communities. The situation is exacerbated by poverty wages, unemployment and flexible and low-skilled work. It segregates women from men and black from white. To put this situation right, Congress, we need genuine partnerships; public sector trade unions with employers and Government. We need to value those employees.
So what are we faced with?. We are faced with a staff cut at the DFES of 30%, which will undermine our aspirations and Government targets across all areas of schools, and for those families with children in higher education. The Learning and Skills Council is to lose 800 jobs, with staff forced out and unilateral changes in terms and conditions, with poor wages for trainees. The DTi is to suffer a 20% staff cut in the area of business support, and the DWP is to lose 30,000 jobs, putting more pressure on frontline staff. The very real fear from my union and others is, once again, that after six years of improvement the Government are opting out. We can, will and must succeed. We will press for additional resources, oppose the cuts and fight for better pay, demand statutory rights to time off and develop our learning representatives and the need for compulsory levies. We must succeed. Our children demand us to do it and our communities demand us to do it.
· Composite Motion 18 was CARRIED.
The Government’s five-year strategy for education
Mary Compton (NUT) moved Motion 50 and amendment).
(Insert Motion 50 - The Government’s five-year strategy for education)
She said: The big idea in this strategy can be summed-up in one word - choice. Choice is important in matters of taste. I might prefer a red jacket to a blue jacket, or beans to sausages. I might even choose when I want to slip out and buy myself a bar of chocolate. There is also democratic choice. I might prefer a new Labour Government to a Tory one, or a New Labour Government to a Tory Government, but when it comes to my children’s education, I do not want choice. I want entitlement. I want to know that my children will get a good education at their local school. So is this what is being offered in the five-year plan? Far from it.l
The Prime Minister has said that choice is a product of an imperfect world where people are either stuck with a poor service on their doorstep or they exercise their choice and go elsewhere. This simply is not good enough. Choice for some, by definition, means no choice for others. Choice for the articulate, the middle class and, perhaps, even for some of the hardworking families that the Prime Minister is so fond of, but what about choice for the children of parents who do not have the transport, means or motivation to exercise choice? What about children with emotional or behavioural difficulties, or whose parents are too oppressed to care? Are they not, too, entitled to a good education?
There is another great irony at the heart of this document. It denigrates comprehensive education. Now it is no longer referred to as 'bog standard', but as 'the lowest common denominator'. Yet, what does the most thorough investigation of standards ever carried out on education worldwide, the OECD Piza Study, tell us? It tells us that those countries where schools are segregated, like Germany, do badly, whereas those with a fully comprehensive system, like Finland, do best.
The idea of choice is not an original one. Choice, diversity and a new framework for schools! Do you know who invented that title, Congress? The Tory Government in 1992. They invented grant maintained schools. The school where I teach as going to be one of them. The parents voted overwhelmingly against it. They wanted to remain part of the LEA and part of the community of schools in our rural area. So what does this five year plan do? It talks about, and I quote, 'the complicated and time-consuming process of local decision-making to go grant maintained' and proposes, and I quote again, 'to sweep these obstacles away entirely'. There is not much democratic choice there, then.
By the way, the document expects that all schools will have a uniform and a house system. Not much choice their, either - Harry Potter schools for everyone.
What is this really all about? The Government say they want joined up services for children and it wants all schools to be independent. How does that work? The Government say they want strong public services but this document massively extends the role of private sponsors and private sector involvement. For example, there will be 200 new city academies sponsored by private individuals like Peter Vardi, who for £2 million can get a school which will foist their particular religious or philosophical views. In his case, his view is that Adam and Eve are historical characters. There is growing evidence that sponsors of academies are expecting schools to purchase services from companies which they own. What is more, Congress, these academies have the right to determine their own pay and conditions.
Such a situation not only threatens teachers’ livelihoods but will make it even more difficult for desperately underpaid and vital support staff, like learning support assistants, to get the decent national pay scales which they so richly deserve. The two-tier workforce is alive and well and this five-year strategy will make the situation worse.
The Prime Minister likes to praise social partnership. As far as I know, not a single trade union was consulted on the expansion of privately sponsored independent schools. So not much social partnership there.
This motion calls on the TUC to respond with all the relevant affiliates. Then National Union of teachers has a suggestion, and I wish Charles Clarke was in the hall to listen to it. We do not want choice for some but properly funded local schools with manageable class sizes for all children. Please support Motion 50 as amended by the NASUWT.
Pat Lerew (NASUWT) in seconding the motion said: President and Congress, whilst seconding Motion 50 you will see from your agendas that the primary involvement of the NASWUT in this motion was in the amendment which the proposers have accepted.
The area of false, exaggerated and malicious allegations by pupils against teachers is one which we have been highlighting and campaigning on for years. During this time, there have been nearly 2,000 members of NASUWT alone who have been investigated by the police following allegations of criminal abuse. That works out to an average of 12 per month. Conviction has followed in fewer than 4% of these cases, but the cost to all of those who were eventually vindicated has been incalculable. For many of them, the judgment came too late to prevent nervous breakdown and the break-up of their family relationships. Most are incapable of walking back into a classroom and some have even committed suicide. It was the highly publicised suicide of a head teacher last year which brought the head teacher unions alongside most of the other teaching unions to join our postcard campaign to MPs and a petition of 30,000 signatures to the Government for anonymity for teachers faced with such allegations up to a court decision.
We are not attempting to protect those who abuse children. Such people have no place in schools and all allegations must be investigated thoroughly, with those found guilty facing the full consequences of their appalling and damaging actions.
Because we have seen the results of too many elongated and publicised investigations, we welcome the recognition in the five-year strategy of the vulnerability of teachers and other school staff to spurious allegations and the commitment to publish proposals to defend their interests.
We also welcome the Secretary of State’s guarantee made since the publication of the five-year strategy that foundation schools will not be able to waive teachers’ pay and conditions, nor weaken any existing contractual agreements. Unfortunately, we have no such commitment for city academies where we foresee major problems.
Although there remain issues in the five-year strategy which require a detailed discussion and consideration, we trust that the Government will see that entering into these discussions is the best way forward to improve the educational opportunities of all our young people.
Rachelle Wilkins (GMB) speaking in support of the motion, said: Congress, at the centre of this generally welcomed five-year strategy is an ill-concealed grenade. Representation and bargaining for school support staff will be blown out of the water by the fast-tracking of foundation status for schools which want it. As long as the majority of support staff are employed by local education authorities and come under the National Joint Council for Local Government Services, the support staff unions at least have a fighting chance of building on the progress we have made in tackling low pay, discrimination and exploitation. We will have a fighting chance of promoting professionalism, career opportunities and recognition for all our members, and a fighting chance of ending the abuse of term-time pay. Let’s face it, Congress. The track record of schools on employment practices is not good.
The goodwill of support staff is ruthlessly exploited. Pressure to work overtime is brought to bear but no extra pay comes with it. Multiple short-term contracts are used to secure maximum flexibility. However, through national and local educational authority collective agreements we have been able to ensure that school support staff have some protection and safeguards. Raising standards in our schools relies on a professional well-trained and highly motivated workforce of both teaching and support staff. This strategy does not recognise that. If large numbers of foundation schools get the freedom to rip up collective agreements, this will force us to negotiate with thousands of individual schools and this will take us a long way back down the hard road we have travelled to get official recognition of the crucial contribution made by support staff to raising school standards.
Unless national terms and conditions and pay scales for support staff apply, the prospect of each school being an independent employer will be strongly opposed by the GMB. We call upon you all to join us in rejecting this damaging threat to national pay bargaining.
Marion Lloyd (PCS) speaking in support of the motion said: I work in the Department for Education and Skills. PCS members in that department, as part of their responsibilities, regulate and monitor the education standards across our State provision. Like the rest of the Civil Service, we are facing massive job cuts across our department. If this Labour Government are successful in their objectives, who will be left to ensure that consistent standards are in place and give support and advice to LEA schools and teachers?
Yesterday we heard Tony Blair talk about all the money allegedly going into education, health and public services, but you tell me how that squares with a third of Civil Service workers in the DfES. We all remember Blair’s famous catchphrase: 'Education, Education, Education', but for us, it is cuts, cuts, cuts. The Government’s five-year strategy is dressed up in fine words about personalisation and choice, opening up services to new and different providers, freedom and independence, but this is merely window-dressing for yet more privatisation, more cuts and the lowering of yet more standards. Even if you believe those words, how can they be delivered when the DfES is being decimated? Who will they turn to do it then? Already it is in the private sector with the Reg Vardi’s of this world and other multi-millionaires are free to impose their own values and standards on our education system.
New Labour talks a lot about joined up government. These attacks are a joined-up attack. The conditions were hard fought for and won by people decades ago. We need a joined-up response to stop privatisation in education, the extension of a two-tier education and what will result ultimately in an attack on our right to defend workers.
What is happening in education and the cuts we face demonstrate clearly that the Government’s drive to out-Tory the Tories by butchering the Civil Service in a frenzy of cuts does not only hurt the workers who deliver that service but those who use it. In the case where I work, it is the young people of our country. They are the people who will pay the price. That is why it is important that every union in this hall joins up in our campaign to protect not only our jobs and services in education but across the whole of the public sector. Support this motion. Support the Civil Service workers in our campaign and support our one day strike on 5th November.
· Motion 50 was CARRIED.
‘Every child matters’ - children’s services
(Insert Motion 51 - ‘Every child matters’ - children’s services)
Chris Keates (NASUWT) moved Motion 51. She said: The Government’s strategy at the heart of the ‘Every child matters’ process is to protect those children at risk of harm or neglect whilst ensuring better services for all. It is also about tackling the disparities in income and opportunities for young people and their families throughout their lives and few could disagree with these aims.
This motion identifies the range of issues the Government must take into account if this ambitious agenda is to be carried forward successfully. A key component of the success will be funding. Evidence obtained from multi-agency collaborations and partnerships piloted throughout the country are a testament to the cost-intensive nature of reorganising children’s services in this way. A move towards the greater integration of services will carry significant financial implications. The proposed changes must not be premised on the basis that they will reduce service costs. The elements of the strategy, such as extended schools, which will provide a range of services on one site, schemes to engage parents, such as accessible universal parenting support and the extension of family learning programmes, ensuring that school buildings are in a fit state to take their place at the heart of the community, the recruitment of training of specialist staff, the introduction of family friendly policies and working practices to enable parents to fulfil their family responsibilities are all essential elements of success. They will not succeed if they are under-funded.
Whilst there is a great deal in 'Every child matters', which is to be welcomed and will command universal support, there are a number of difficult areas which will require careful consideration. The following are some examples: ensuring that schools make an effective contribution to the realisation of the Government’s Children’s Agenda but are not diverted from their core function; consideration of the appropriate leadership structure for extended schools; support for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children; the unique identifier for each child; the operation of the Common Assessment Framework; the terms on which multi-disciplinary teams are established; the funding strategy including the allocation of resources. All of these require detailed consultation with the unions representing workers in all areas of children’s services, including those representing school staff through to the Civil Service unions and, in this context, the question must be posed of how this agenda can be delivered effectively in the context of the proposed massive job losses in the Civil Service.
It is right that the strategy highlights the adverse impact of poverty and low income on progress, achievement and life chances of children and young people. It must be recognised that the proposals will not by themselves overcome the fundamental effects of poverty and deprivation. Whilst a number of the projects identified by the Government will help, what is also needed is an overhaul of the tax and benefits system and specific measures to tackle inequality and to regenerate schools and the neighbourhoods they serve.
The measures of appropriate funding, parental involvement and the strategies to tackle deprivation and inequality are essential components of success. It must be right to seek to address the problems of fragmented provision for children’s services.
What is equally essential is the recognition by government of why fragmentation of services, which it seeks to address, exists, and why when a number of agencies are involved with an individual child the result can often be no single agency taking responsibility. This fragmentation has been caused by such policies as privatisation, contracting out, local financial management, deregulation of pay and conditions and performance tables. These policies undermine institutional co-operation, collaboration and information-sharing. They have impacted adversely on the ability of schools, social services and the health sector to recruit and retain the necessary staff as they breed insecurity, leave staff vulnerable to poor management and seriously undermine morale. This situation must be recognised and addressed.
The crucial and determining factor in the successful implementation of this important strategy will be the involvement of trade unions as representing the staff in these services and involvement in genuine social partnership. The trade unions must be seen as part of the solution, not the problem, if we are to provide the high quality services to which children are entitled.
The President: Just to tell Congress, you will note that we have been joined by our good friend, Charles Clarke, the Secretary of State for Education and Skills. He will be addressing us later, but I am sure you would like to give him a warm welcome for joining us. (Applause)
Chris Tansley (UNISON) in seconding the motion, said: UNISON represents members involved in all aspects of the Government’s proposals for improving children’s services, from support staff in schools to social workers, care staff and health workers. We have said, and I said at Congress last year, that we welcome the Government’s proposals for closer working arrangements between all agencies involved in child care, but with many qualifications, some of which are already contained in this motion.
UNISON agrees with the movers of the motion that the emphasis of parental choice in schools is a distraction. Parents already made a choice when they voted out a Tory Government and voted for a government for increased funding to State education to improve all of our schools. It is this policy that the Government should continue with.
Along with the NASUWT we welcome the chance to join the Government and all our sister unions in getting down to detailed talks on the workforce reform proposals that are set out in the workforce strategy page. We urge Ministers to remember that we already have long-standing bargaining systems for all these groups of workers which we will strongly resist being undermined by any of these changes.
We also urge Ministers to listen to our front-line staff when contemplating another round of organisational change.
One of the key factors which emerged from the Victoria Climbie Inquiry was the organisation and turmoil evident in the agencies concerned, some of which was due to constant reorganisation fatigue.
We also call for increased funding for these wide-ranging changes. We can have the best policies and best procedures in the world, but if the agencies running them continue to be under-funded and under-staffed, they will not be deliverable. We all want these proposals to succeed and not to have to contribute to any more inquiries into the failings of an under-resourced and over-stretched child care service.
The President: Motion 51 is supported by the General Council.
· Motion 51 was CARRIED.
Education
Dr. Mary Bousted (ATL, Association of Teachers and Lecturers) moved Composite
Motion 11.
(Insert Composite Motion 13 - Education)
She said: Congress, the central theme of all the motions contained in this composite is that education is nothing if it is not a human activity. ATL does not need to be convinced that this Government are serious in their purpose and intent towards education. We recognise that since 1997 there has been major and sustained increases, year on year, in education funding. Yet it is undeniable that despite record levels of investment, severe and stubborn problems remain. Most worryingly Britain remains at the bottom of the league table of staying-on rates of post-16 year olds. Last year we were 17th out of 23 OECD countries for 17 year olds staying on into full-time education. These figures give rise to a few questions. Why do young people walk away from education? Why do so many young teachers leave before they have completed five years in teaching and why do so many teachers retire early through ill-health and stress.
ATL believes that one of the main causes of dissatisfaction on the part of teachers and one of the causes of alienation from education on the part of young people is the divide which has developed between what should be two intimate related activities - teaching and learning.
I became aware of this divide, this double-think, when I read the OFSTED report into the first year of the Literacy Strategy in secondary schools. The inspectors stated proudly that standards of teaching had risen as a result of the Strategy, but that there had been no visible improvement in the standard of pupil learning. Think about that statement: standards of teaching have risen but there has been no corresponding rise in the standards of learning. How can that statement make sense? The answer can only lie in a view of teaching which is predicated on performance, on teachers working under the weight of countless directives and a feeling that they have to go through the motions of obeying every instruction contained in the mountainous strategies which have cascaded into their classrooms.
What these strategies under-estimate, I think, is the undeniable fact that if children and young people do not enjoy learning these skills, if they are not interested in and inspired by what they are being taught, if they see little relationship between their school work and their interests and concerns in their lives, then they will reject education as strongly as they feel rejected when they fail to perform in the SATS tests.
A school curriculum which is too narrow and dominated by the ever present spectre of testing and performance tables will not inspire challenge or change children and young people, and it will not motivate teachers and give them an incentive to stay in the profession. We know that, during the course of the next ten years, there will be a desperate need to recruit and retain teachers in the profession.
ATL has commissioned a major report into pupils’ views of education. We want to hear what pupils in Year 8 - that is 13 - 14 year olds - thought about their experiences in schools. Here are some of the key issues emerging from our report. Young people want less focus on learning alone in the classroom. They want learning to be enjoyable involving the learner in a supportive environment where relationships with teachers are effective for learning. Young people want to be trusted more and to be given responsibility for their learning, and they want less stress and fewer tests to interfere with their learning. Listen to their own words on the subject. One pupil said, 'I don’t think the tests are good because sometimes people crack under the pressure and get nervous'. Another said, 'I don’t see the point of it. There are too many tests and they stress you out'.
Congress, there is a strong possibility with the new concept of personalisation at 14-19 and the concept of choice within Thomlinson that things can change. Things must change. The TUC is committed to life-long learning. We must enable young people and children from the start of their schooling to enjoy the learning process and to want to continue with their education.
Sheena Wardhaugh (EIS) in seconding the composite motion, said: While endorsing the points already made, the EIS would wish to concentrate on the demographic changes expected within the next decade and how these provide an excellent opportunity to improve learning and teaching both for youngsters and teachers.
Statistics from the Scottish Executive show that of the total number of full-time equivalent teachers employed in the primary, secondary and special sectors of just over 49,000, 18,500 are over 50. In other words, 38% of the profession will retire in the course of the next decade.
Falling school roles are anticipated in the same period. We must take the opportunity to use these demographic changes to achieve significant reduction in class size across all sectors. We argue strongly that it is not good enough merely to recruit enough teachers to maintain existing teacher/pupil ratios that call for the necessary levels of teacher recruitment and provision of resources to allow class sizes to be reduced.
The current class size maximum in Scotland across different ages, stages and sectors derive largely from agreements reached in the mid-‘70s, although recently there have been some minor improvements and there is also a commitment as part of the Coalition Agreement in the Scottish Parliament to move towards smaller class sizes in Primary 1 and Secondary 1 and 2 in English and maths. However, there are strong arguments which suggest that class size limits which were appropriate in the '70’ can no longer be considered appropriate. Reducing class sizes must make a significant contribution to improve learning and attainments.
Although there is definitive research in this area, an example of which is the Tennessee Star Project, is rather sparse, as part of the 2001 agreement the Scottish Executive is to commission research into 'the relationship between class sizes and attainment'. We await the outcome of the research with interest.
Of course, attainment is not only about exam results, but smaller class sizes allow increased teacher pupil interaction. Youngsters can be more actively involved in their own learning; teachers can achieve more meaningful assessment and planning with each youngster.
Social inclusion policies cannot be implemented effectively without smaller class sizes, and problems of pupil indiscipline, which can have such a negative effect on learning and teaching, could also be tackled more successfully with fewer youngster in a class.
In conclusion, class size is a major factor of a teacher’s conditions of service and an individual youngster’s learning condition. We call on the UK Government and the devolved authorities to ensure adequate funding for increased teacher recruitment and appropriate resourcing to allow class sizes to be reduced.
EIS policy can now be summarised as a maximum of 20 across the board in all classes in the primary and secondary sectors. This policy will be pursued in every forum and in every way possible.
The President: I now come to the supporting unions beginning with the National Association of Educational Inspectors, Advisers and Consultants.
John Chowcat (NAEIAC): I am speaking in support of Composite Motion 13 and, in particular, those paragraphs which deal with the issue of teachers’ continuing professional development.
It is a great irony that in this area where there is some much discussion about life-long learning for all and in which there is a debate of 'Seize our schools' in the future, as professional learning communities, there are classroom teachers at the moment, in the very heart of the education system, who once they are in post do not enjoy reliable systematic and on-going professional up-dating and development. Provision at the moment, I am afraid to say, is erratic. It depends on local circumstances and it depends on school budgets. Because funding for teachers’ CPD is not hypothecated, the result is that there are no guarantees of continuing professional development.
However, real progress is now possible. With the MacCrone Agreement in Scotland and with the Teacher Workforce Agreement in England the issue of teachers’ CPD, albeit very different agreements in those two cases, has been re-highlighted.
Two years ago the major report for the National Foundation for Educational Research, which looked in detail at 105 different LEAs in England, came to the conclusion that local authorities, and in particular their educational advisory teams, can play very significant roles in supporting, providing and facilitating teachers’ CPD. Now, I think, is the time for this process to move forward. There are interesting developments from the DfES. This month, September, sees the start of the DfES learning and teaching framework for primary schools and associated with that is guidance for headteachers on teachers’ CPD in particular.
Also this month will see the launch of the pedagogic pack on teacher learning for Key Stage 3. We also have the Teacher Training Agency, the TTA, now offering some very interesting post-graduate professional development opportunities accessible via its website.
We now need time and money to go into whole school teachers’ CPD programmes, to build on and to balance those particular initiatives now emerging and to have them supported properly by LEAs. A start would be for every school in the country to have a CPD co-ordinator with briefing, training and time allocated to help their staff workforce to develop their learning so that teachers can learn and move forward together. This is a cause which deserves the support of Congress. Please support Composite 13.
Brian Harrison-Jennings (AEP) : My role in supporting Composite 13 is simply to support my colleagues in ATL, the EIS and NAEIAC, and to elaborate slightly upon the contribution of my union to it. All delegates will have heard, I am sure, of the 'Sure Start' initiative. It is the highly successful early education scheme for mainly pre-school children and their parents. It takes the form of bringing new children, their daytime carers, whoever they might be, and a wide variety of educational professionals together in a number of informal settings.
Delegates may be forgiven for knowing less about the 'Keeping it Sure' initiative. This is because it does not exist yet. The Association of Educational Psychologists believes that building on the success of the 'Sure Start' scheme and learning the lessons from it, the Government should create a 'Keeping it Sure' scheme. Its aims will be to empower parents and other carers to become permanently engaged with the education system.
As children grow older, grow up and progress into the secondary sector of education, a 'Keeping it Sure' scheme would ensure that those parents and others who were such willing and committed participants in the 'Sure Start' scheme will remain committed and participating.
The way forward for our young people is not to criminalise a substantial proportion of them by sticking them on anti-social behaviour orders.. It may not work in the short to medium term. It will certainly not work in the long‑term. When one half of all children leave school with 10 A stars at GCSE and the other half leave with an ASBO, we will have created a system of educational 'haves' and 'have nots'. That will be a recipe for disaster; rather, we must do something more proactive, more positive and more preventive if we are not to alienate a significant proportion of the population from engagement and full participation in adult society. We believe that a 'Keeping it Sure' scheme, such as the one we envisage, could and must be the way forward. I urge you to support this composite motion.
Brian Strutton (GMB) supporting Composite 13 said: I am seeking to draw your attention in particular to the penultimate sentence, reference 'whole‑school staff'. The demographics of the teaching profession are rightly a cause for concern. However, the debate about skills and training, about class sizes and staffing levels, should not have a narrow teacher‑only focus. It must encompass all of those who contribute to teaching and learning in our schools, including the school support staff represented by GMB, UNISON and the T&G.
The Government have presided over a rapid expansion in support staff numbers, and credit where it is due for that, and also in the breath and depth of their responsibilities. This will continue with extended schools, so it must never be at the expense of teachers; yet schools and local authorities have been shockingly complacent about planning for future recruitment and retention of support staff.
They had assumed there will be a limitless supply of women to take up these low paid jobs because they are local and because they fit in with looking after school age children. My union has warned for some time that these assumptions cannot be relied upon.
We published a survey just last week showing that admin staff, like the school secretary you will all fondly remember, are working 5 million unpaid hours a year. That is exploitation, plain and simple. It is based on a view that there is a mum’s army willing to work for pin money, cheated through the abuse that is term‑time pay. That view has to be challenged and it has to change.
Like teachers, the school support workforce is also an ageing one. Young people will not be attracted to roles, such as high level teaching assistant, unless there are career progression pathways for these jobs in their own right and decent pay progression to match.
Falling school roles is currently a huge threat to the job security of our members working in schools, just as much as it is for teachers because, faced with falling school roles, the first reaction of a school is to seek to sack the support staff. Falling roles should be an opportunity for schools to strengthen teacher/pupil ratios and increase the vital support provided by teaching assistants, nursery nurses, technicians and others.
To this end, GMB calls upon Congress to campaign for a funding system which does not penalise pupils in schools with falling roles; a funding system which enables smaller classes to be staffed with a complementary mix of professional teachers and professional support staff.
Support the composite. I know you will. In taking it forward, please recognise the hidden school professionals, the 260,000 school support staff
· Composite Motion 13 was CARRIED.
Obesity Epidemic
Diana Markham (BDA British Dietetic Association) moved Motion 56
(Insert Motion 56 ‑ Obesity Epidemic)
She said: The British Dietetic Association believes the continuing obesity epidemic in this country, particularly among children, is a time bomb waiting to engulf the nation’s health. Childhood obesity is on the increase. Eight and‑a‑half per cent of our 6 year‑olds and 15 per cent of 15 year‑olds are now obese.
Obesity in children results in deterioration in physical health. Obesity‑related type 2 diabetes in adolescence is increasing and obese children suffer from low esteem, lack of confidence and negative self‑image. The problem of obesity needs to be tackled through both improved food choices, education and increased physical activity.
Congress calls on the General Council to campaign vigorously for measures to be taken to tackle this potentially catastrophic problem. These should include community‑based initiatives, which may focus on local food projects to disseminate nutrition messages; promote cooking skills and improve their nutritional status within communities; enable food availability and access to food at reasonable cost to lower income groups and extend nutrition activities within the 'Sure Start' programmes and to continuing the reform of the welfare food scheme.
Food advertising and promotion to children can also be tackled. Labelling on food products needs to enable consumers to easily identify healthier options. Congress welcomes the new legislation that will come into effect at the end of this year.
TV, media and shop advertising should emphasise that healthier foods are tasty and fun to eat. Special offers and larger quantity or portion sizes of unhealthy foods for children should be discouraged, as should the excessive alcohol consumption, like 'happy hours' amongst adolescents. Legislation could be introduced to provide manufacturers’ guidance on lowering salt, sugar and saturated fats in their products.
We need to improve nutritional education in schools. Recent Food Standards Agency and OFSTED reports have shown that teachers involved in nutrition education need more knowledge and confidence in teaching their subject. Improvements in school meals are required and foods offered by school caterers need to conform to the balance of good health guidelines.
In 2001, for the first time in 20 years, the Government set minimum nutrition standards for school lunches. The Health Food Policy studies have shown that inadequacies in the diets of children aged 4 to 18 years were highlighted in the National Diet and Nutrition Survey in 2000.
There is also a lack of cooking skills, food safety and hygiene knowledge amongst pupils. All school policies should include continuing professional development on the subject for staff, extra curricula activities for pupils, like cookery clubs and school gardens, participation in initiatives like the National School Fruit Scheme, which will ensure that every child aged 4 to 6 will receive a piece of fruit every school day. Currently, the average consumption of fruit and vegetables is only two portions a day against the recommendation of five portions.
The Food in Schools programme includes promoting the re‑introduction of cooking skills for children within the national curriculum and teaching children how to understand food labelling. The National Healthy Schools programme promotes healthy lifestyles to pupils, including healthy eating and physical activity initiatives. There are 10,000 schools which have already achieved Healthy School Standards status.
The Healthy Living blueprint which was launched last week on 6 September by the Department of Health sets out to promote good health to young people. It guides schools to help pupils eat sensibly and stay physically active through education in nutrition and health, food and drink choices within schools and physical education.
Finally, consumer choice: consistent and evidence‑based messages based on the balance of good health need to be used. A nationally‑led campaign engaging all stakeholders should be established. An easily interpreted and understood food labelling system for fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt should enable individuals to make informed choices. Promotions should be used to encourage children to make healthier food choices and healthier choices should be promoted in shops and on menus.
Congress believes that such initiatives as these described will help reverse the trend of increasing obesity amongst children and young people.
John Puckrin (ATL) seconding the motion said: I support the accepted amendment. The facts around the rising levels of obesity can no longer be in dispute. You just need to look at our seaside resorts, preferably when the sun is shining and the wind not blowing, and the observer will notice the size and type of donkey is changing. Larger children require larger donkeys!
But ATL is concerned, not only with the physical well‑being of our young people, but also their mental well‑being. It is a commonly accepted view amongst all those who work in school, from teachers to learning support assistants, from secretarial staff to premises officers that the children’s level of concentration and standards of behaviour are lower in the afternoon than in the morning. The accumulation of junk food in young bodies is certainly one factor causing this.
Charles Clarke will readily admit that you are what you eat and drink. He provides an excellent example of the health‑giving properties of red wine. Only last week he said: 'Good health and the effective learning go hand‑in‑hand. Schools are well‑placed to lead by examples.' Indeed, they are.
ATL welcomes the Government scheme to provide daily fresh fruit to the foundation and key stage 1 pupils. We just wish it was extended upwards. We also welcome the recent recognition that nutritional standards in school meals need revision, but the now privatised school meals service provides only part of a pupil’s intake during school hours. In all too many secondary schools, it is the vending machine that provides part, and in some cases the bulk, of pupils’ food and drink.
There are calls for the Department of Health to reduce sugar levels, yet the most popular drinks sold from these machines are sweet and fizzy and with many associated ‘e’ numbers. There are also calls to reduce salt and fat intake, yet the most popular snack that is fed by these machines is a packet of crisps.
So why do schools allow these machines of convenience? Simply put, profit. A school can make enough money to purchase at least one extra member of staff, plus on costs, from allowing vending machines on their premises. That is why ATL is linking its warning concerning the effects of excessive junk food on behaviour and learning with a call for sufficient funding to at least maintain current staffing levels and ensure the continuing rise in standards.
Congress, for the sake of all our children, support Motion 56.
Ginny Klein (Amicus) speaking in support of the motion said: I am a health visitor. Delegates, forget the pensions crisis. If this generation of children continues with today’s average diet, very few will survive to their 50th birthday. Childhood obesity and its consequences is fast becoming a major public health issue. Dangerous eating habits begin in infancy. Breast feeding rates remain low in some areas for multi‑factorial reasons, even though it is known to protect against future heart disease.
Health visitors and their nursery nurse colleagues are often the first contact when infants’ diets are discussed in their early days. Active encouragement is given to use fresh home‑cooked foods, but this is against the heavy marketing and promotion of proprietary baby foods, tempting and clever labelling that illustrates healthy‑looking foods.
Children are faced on all fronts by the intensive marketing strategy of high fat and sugary foods in supermarkets and on TV. Fast‑food outlets and take‑aways are now on almost every corner and offer cheap food. They are no longer seen as a treat but an every day option. Vending machines in schools, and often too in council‑owned leisure centres, also offer unhealthy foods. What sort of message does this give?
I welcome 'Sure Start' programmes which are tasked with helping to improve the health and well‑being of under 5s in deprived areas. Some of the programmes run 'cook and eat' courses that are aimed at teaching young mothers the skills that would seem to have been lost somewhere along the way. However, there are still many deprived areas outside these 'Sure Start' boundaries that do not have access to this work. We should bring back cooking skills into the national curriculum. Of course we should. I also applaud initiatives such as 'Five a day' and free fruit in schools.
Yes, there is a case for extending the 'Sure Start' approach to nutrition education. This could be done by existing teams of health visitors and nursery nurses. Unfortunately, staffing levels in some areas remain dangerously low. Lack of investment in recent Tory years has caused a recruitment gap yet to be breached. There just are not the health visitors out there.
The supermarkets and food manufacturers rake in their millions while selling cheap and unhealthy food to those who have little idea of what a healthy diet is. Good nutrition and eating habits come from early education and trust in those delivering the message. The expectations that food comes cheap and that home cooking is difficult must be changed.
The impending crisis in public health can be avoided. Let us stop sending mixed messages to young families. Let us start using health visitors to change eating habits and let us look forward to a healthier future. Support this motion.
Andrew Merriman (CPS) speaking in support of Motion 56 said: This is my first time at Congress. Child obesity should be a major concern for us all. I believe that if we fail to act now, it is going to become a huge problem in the future.
I am only 24 years of age, but when I was a child you came home from school, you called on your friends and you played out. You played bulldogs, whippie and football until your mum called you in for tea. I was active. I played many sports and I enjoyed it. However, now, as I am sure any of you who have teenagers will know, when children get home from school, they sit at their computers on the internet chatting to their friends. Then they sit at their play stations. They then sit and have their tea. They then continue to sit whilst watching Neighbours, Hollyoaks, East Enders, Emmerdale, Friends ‑‑ the list goes on. Children do not play out any more. They text each other on their mobiles. They do not go and call on their friends and see them. They get driven round by their parents.
I think we have to act now. I am fearful that this culture of sedentary lifestyles in children is going to become 'cool' and the phrase, 'I can’t be bothered' is going to be the coolest thing to say. I think we have to get children more active. We are not going to just look at diet. We have to look at activity. We have to get children more interested in sport. We have to prevent our children’s futures being plagued by heart disease and illness. This is not just an issue for education and health. It is an issue for us all.
Nigel Baker (NUT): We do not just have an obesity crisis; we have something much worse. We have a nutrition crisis. As if heading towards 20 to 25 per cent of the population being obese was not bad enough, we also need to confront the massive nutritional deficits for an even bigger percentage of the population, most particularly our children and young people.
Alongside our increasing calorific intake, there has been a parallel decline in intake of essential nutrients, minerals and fats. It is worth being clear about the word 'essential' because this is what the right quantity and balance of fats, vitamins and minerals is ‑‑ essential.
I give one example. Our most important organ, the brain, is 60 per cent fat. It is not 60 per cent saturated fat. If it was, there would not be a problem. It is 60 per cent, omega 6 and omega 3 fat. The most important one, omega 3, is found almost exclusively in oily fish and certain seeds. How many of us regularly eat oily fish and seeds? Much more importantly, how many of our children do? Very few children and young people eat a good nutritional diet. Maybe a third have a barely adequate one. Such is the scale of the crisis in 2004 that the majority of children and teenagers in Britain are seriously deficient in nutrients. It is not just the overweight ones. These nutrients are the oil that makes our body mechanisms work. Unfortunately, millions of children are running on very low grade oil indeed and many with hardly any oil at all.
There are a range of solutions to this crisis, but time only allows me to focus on one of them, but, undoubtedly, the most important one is regulating the marketing in all its forms of junk food aimed at children. Let us not mince our words. What Coca‑Cola and Pepsi, Walkers and Cadbury’s, McDonald’s and Burger King produce and relentlessly market at our children have almost no nutritional value whatsoever, but they are 'cool' or they are sugary sweet, or they are the product of choice of superstars or they have that nice little Disney tie‑in. For every £1 spent promoting healthy food, like Tommy Tomato and Annie Apple, well over £1,000 is spent selling junk. These companies are not going voluntarily to stop marketing their products.
When American primary children were shown pictures of Ronald McDonald and President Bush, more of them recognised Ronald McDonald, or was it just that they were not sure who was the biggest clown? That is a different issue.
Seriously and briefly, how can we help? We could start by supporting the Children’s Food Bill. As an Early Day Motion, this Bill, sponsored by Sustain and Deborah Shipley, calls for all the things in the BDA’s excellent motion. It is already backed by 170 MPs and 120 organisations, including NUT, UNISON and BDA. Every union here should support it.
Let me give you one more thing to ponder on. Who gave McDonald’s, Coca‑Cola and the rest the right to market to our children?
Mary Turner (GMB) supporting Motion 56 said: This is a campaign I have led for the last 20 years and will continue to lead that campaign until free school meals for all children and nutritional standards is the right and not what I should be standing here for.
It is nice to see Charles Clarke on the platform. I have to be fair. He is the first Minister who has actually taken an active role and interest in the nutritional standards of our children in school meals. I thank you for that, Charles. We have a long way to go, but there we are.
Childhood obesity has tripled in the past 20 years. We are heading for on obesity time bomb with our children’s future threatened by diabetes, cancer and heart disease. This, in turn, will put more pressure on the overburdened NHS. So we welcome the Government’s recent Healthy Living blueprint for schools, which aims to develop a whole school approach to health and well‑being.
At last, there will be over £1 million invested in improving the nutritional standards of school meals, encouraging schools to provide a healthy meal service and not a packed lunch, which seems to be, Charles, the trend. In my own borough and in Essex, schools can opt out of the School Meal Collective Agreement. There is a tendency now to go for a packed lunch when children, especially in some poor boroughs, like the London Borough of Brent, need a hot meal, not a packed lunch.
We need to improve training and support for school and catering staff. We need to steer our children away from a junk food initiative lifestyle. Good nutritional food is vital to raise achievement and improve pupil behaviour. We need to make sure that their guidelines are fully implemented to give all of our children, wherever their school is, the same opportunity to eat more healthily.
It is ironic that school meals were first introduced in 1904 following a Parliamentary report into malnutrition. One hundred years later, government intervention is needed again to ensure that school meals are healthy and nutritious. We need to get away from the process of pre‑cooked, warmed‑up food. We need to introduce cooking skills and awareness about diet and nutrition. We need to find new ways to promote a take‑up of healthy options instead of high fat, high salt and high sugar snacks and, of course, high profits for some of the contractors that work in these schools. We need to continue the fight for a properly funded, universal free school meals service with good quality nutritional food for all.
The food industry has to play its part too. They need to reduce the amount of salt and sugar in foods. They need to improve their labelling and stop targeting unhealthy food advertising to children. In short, they need to exercise a greater degree in social responsibility.
Obesity amongst children cannot be tackled through diet alone. The calories burnt are as important as the calories consumed. Yes, we want healthy eating nutrition, but we also need healthy and safe play. This has to be encouraged and enabled. That is why the GMB says stop the sales of our school playing fields. We need more parks and green spaces and employment of enough park‑keepers to ensure safe play and enough supervisors to ensure safe environments.
For the future of our children and grandchildren, please support the motion. President, could I say, if you look back in your archives, 15 years ago I stood on this platform and I said exactly then what has now materialised. Very sad. So let us be serious. Let us get on. Free school meals for all.
· Motion 56 was CARRIED.
The President: Delegates, before inviting Charles Clarke to address Congress, we have a short video on learning and skills which features the important work of union learning reps.
(Video shown)
The President: It is an excellent video which really does bring out the role of union learning reps. It is now my pleasure to introduce Charles to address Congress. He has had a long relationship with the Trade Union Movement, going back to his days of working with Neil Kinnock. Since he has been in parliament, he has become now Secretary of State for Education and Skills. He is, of course, the driving force behind the skills agenda and the champion of union involvement in the skills alliance. It is about the skills agenda that Charles will be speaking today.
After his speech, he has bravely agreed, or perhaps one should say 'happy', to take a few questions. So whilst he is addressing the conference, if you think of some questions, we can try them on him after his speech. Charles, it is my great pleasure to introduce you to address Congress.
The Rt Hon Charles Clarke MP (Secretary of State for Education and Skills) : Let me begin by congratulating the makers of that video, congratulating you on your own presidency and your personal commitment to this subject during your presidency, and to thank Congress for the invitation to be here this afternoon.
I want to start by taking this opportunity to congratulate all those in the TUC, in the individual unions within the TUC and the Union Learning representatives up and down the country for the tremendous and inspirational work that you are doing, which we have just seen evidenced in this document.
The Union Learning Fund is now in its seventh year and has supported more than 450 projects from more than 50 different unions working in almost 3,000 workplaces. The projects have ranged from tackling basic skills needs to continuing professional development. In one year alone, the most recent year, 2003/4, we had the following outstanding results: over 60,000 people back into learning, over 190 new learning centres opened and over 250 learning agreements with different employers.
One of the Fund’s greatest strengths is the success of union learning representatives. As you all know, the main function of union learning representatives is to advise union members about their individual training and development needs.
There were relatively few union learning reps six years ago, but since the introduction of the Union Learning Fund thousands of new reps have been trained and there are now more than 75,000 active union learning representatives across the country.
Following a consultation, we legislated in 2003 to give union learning representatives the same rights to paid time off for training and for carrying out their duties as those enjoyed by shop stewards and other union representatives at workplaces where a union is recognised for collective bargaining purposes.
We believe that with these statutory rights, those 75,000 active union learning reps across the country can be dramatically increased so that by 2010 we can help as many as 250,000 workers a year with their training and development needs.
As Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the events I do with learning representatives are literally the most inspirational. As I say, we had a touch of it in that video. But if you make a presentation to people who left school at 14, 15 or 16 feeling a failure, feeling they simply could not achieve in life beyond a certain level, having been introduced back by a trade union colleague to see their own possibilities, to get a qualification and to move forward, and to move forward, their pride and sense of achievement at that particular moment is, as I say, the most inspirational thing that I personally do.
They represent, Roger, millions of people up and down the country who have been in the past sold short by the education and training system of this country. I am talking about those five, six or seven million people without basic skills who ought to have had those basic skills but, because failings in our education system, did not have them. That is why we give such a priority in the Government - I know the Movement supports us in this - to that slogan, which was the subject of the composite earlier this afternoon, that every child matters and that every child must have the opportunity to develop their own education, their own skills in primary school, at secondary school, then through apprenticeships, through life and all the way through.
The thing which has most encouraged me in the recent month has been that in the education results that were published in the month of August, it was the schools and areas of the country which had actually done worse in recent years which were making the biggest leaps forward, giving opportunities to communities which simply had not existed in that way before.
The reason why we all celebrate this development is that we all know that educational capacity is the key to success in life. That has been a goal of the trade union and labour Movement since its very foundation. Roger, it is in that spirit that I very much welcome the TUC’s plans for a union academy, which I strongly support and which you have published today, which is yet another commitment of this Congress to developing that work in a variety of different ways.
That will be a major contribution to the work that we have to do to tackle the massive skills deficit I the country. The Government and this trade union Movement share a vision of a learning society where everyone has the opportunity to go as far as their efforts and talents will take them, regardless of ethnicity, disability, gender and social class. There must be no glass ceilings for anybody in this country and education is the way to ensure that we smash through them.
That is the reason why we introduced the National Skills Strategy just over a year ago in July 2003, which together with our Skills for Life initiative to tackle adult basic skills needs is intended to enable us to tackle the skills deficit and to develop a workforce fit for the 21st century.
The central aim of that strategy is to ensure that every individual has the skills they need to be both personally fulfilled and employed at the level that they wish to be and, by that route, to ensure that employers, public and private, have the right skills to support the success of their businesses, enterprises and organisations.
However, the core of the strategy is effective partnership between government, trade unions, employers and individuals, all recognising the key roles they have to play and focusing efforts and resources on the skills which are needed to equip everybody for modern life.
There has been good progress over the past 12 months. The trade union contribution has been absolutely crucial, but my number one message this afternoon is to seek even more support and commitment from the trade union Movement to these ambitions and the powerful contribution which has already been made.
At a strategic level, you are already very directly involved with other partner organisations to develop the national strategy in this area. I want to thank particularly Brendan and Frances for the work that they are doing to make that happen in a very committed and direct way.
However, much more than the strategic level nationally, trade unions up and down the country have a key role I developing and delivering in every workplace and every community. You are helping to take forward work across a wide range of activities, including the employer training pilots; the implementation of Level 2 entitlement, where everybody is able to get the Level 2 qualification that they need; the new arrangements for modern apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeships; the development of regional skills partnerships and the development of sector skills councils and sector skills agreements.
As I said earlier, your unions, your members and your learning representatives have been particularly effective in helping to implement the Skills for Life Initiative. As the comments came on the video, it is your learning representatives who have the particular quality and ability to reach out to engage those hard-to-reach learners which so many agencies simply have not succeeded in doing.
This is an area where we have exceeded our targets. We have set ourselves a target by July 2003 of 470,000 adults achieving a literacy or numeracy qualification by going through this process. Instead of that 470,000, we actually got 520,000 through that. Our target for this July was 750,000. I can tell the Congress today that we have gone past that figure for July 2004 and over-achieved our targets yet again.
As to the situation in the future, where we have a target in 2007 of 1.5 million and in 2010 of 2.4 million, we believe that that will be achieved as well. So we can by our work make a difference. That is the key point I think that needs to be driven home as strongly as possible.
I conclude by referring to the sector skills councils and the sector skills agreements, because the fact is that we need to work much harder than we have been able to doing the past to bring together the world of work and the world of education to overcome many of the barriers which exist in these areas. The sector skills councils and sector skills agreements are crucial to that and your role within those partnerships and agreements is absolutely central. Of the 25 skills councils that will be in place, 19 are already there and four have developed sector skills agreements.
I am very keen indeed that every trade union makes active contributions to those sector skills councils. I know the TUC - and I commend you for it, Brendan - has been working hard with other colleague unions in the Skills to Business Network to really make sure that happens often against employers and in circumstances where progress is very difficult indeed. Making that happen is tough and problematic.
However, if we are going to hit better pre-apprenticeships, 14 to 16, to expand the number of modern apprenticeships, 16-plus, foundation degrees and a better relationship right across the range, we need the full and maximal engagement. We need to get agreements which will bite in particular sectors to drive those skills forward.
I was delighted yesterday to agree to a joint request from unions and employers in the film industry to set up a new industrial training board and to put their existing voluntary levy onto a formal statutory footing, which is a great achievement and takes that whole training area forward very significantly indeed.
This agreement has widespread support from both employers and employees who see it as a positive step forward for the sector. It is an example of co-operation and commitment to secure industry investment in the skills of the workforce. But I have to acknowledge here, as many in this room have represented to me, that we need to go further because there are many employers who are not ready to commit in the way that the film employers have been ready to do.
So I want to confirm the agreement we made at Warwick at the end of July, that where this does not happen on a voluntary basis in a way that we need to see it, we are absolutely committed to doing what we have to ensure that employers make the commitment they need to take forward. We will do that on the basis that has been agreed.
Congress, as I have said, education and skills are the agenda of the future. In a rapidly changing world, economically, technologically and socially, we must equip people and organisations to deal with and control that process of change. You are often dealing with the adverse consequences of those changes, for example, in the International Labour Organisation, and education and education and skills are the key, in my opinion, to dealing with it.
That commitment is not at odds with the historic traditions of this Movement. On the contrary, it is absolutely in line with the commitment of this Movement to develop education and training at all levels. That is why we have to work together. Working together to get a strong offer of skills for every individual in the country throughout life is a plus for the individual, it is a plus for the trade union, it is a plus for the employer and the workplace and it is a plus for the country and the economy overall.
I look forward to working with you and continuing to put even greater efforts into making this happen, bringing it about and transforming the prospects of every working individual in this country. Thank you for the chance of being here today.
The President: As I mentioned, Charles has agreed to take two or three questions at a time.
Pauline Thorne (Unison) : Minister, President, Congress, I have a question about skills. The Prime Minister announced yesterday a guaranteed right to Level 3 qualifications for people aged 18-30. You may be surprised to learn that many trade unionists are over 30. I know this is hard to believe looking round this hall! Unison is the largest education trade union with over 300,000 members working in education, and we have around one million women. These women members are concerned that you are restricting it to the age of 30 and that that will have a disproportionate impact on women workers as many have to take time off to look after their children and return to work in their 30s and 40s. Is there a reason for restricting it to under 30s, and does the Secretary of State plan to extend it to other people? Thank you.
Steve Sinnot (NUT) : Secretary of State, every single delegate and every trade union here is committed to an equality agenda on skills, and indeed in schools, but we have a significant number of challenges. Secretary of State, how do you intend to improve the post-16 staying on rate for particular minority ethnic groups, such as African Caribbean boys? How do you intend to improve the number of young people in these groups attending teacher training programmes and universities?
Sam Allen (NATFHE): President, Congress, Secretary of State, we welcome your statement which clearly says you can make a difference in providing proper and good quality education for all our youngsters. However, that can only be achieved with proper and adequate funding of all sectors of education. Therefore, NATFHE’s question to the Secretary of State is: when can we expect parity of funding for 16-19 between schools, sixth form, and further education colleges? At the moment, there is no parity. Thank you.
The Rt Hon. Charles Clarke, MP, Secretary of State for Education and Skills : Those are three interesting questions. First, Pauline’s question: could I by the way congratulate Unison on the work they have been doing. I had an afternoon with colleagues in Unison who were working in this area and they have really done excellent work on this in very many ways.
What the Prime Minister was saying was that we have our top commitment to provide full funding for everybody to get up to a Level 2 qualification and we are ready further to provide the resource to go to a Level 3 qualification where that is necessary and where money is the block to making that go. I am ready to look at whether 30, which I agree is an arbitrary age, is the right one and to see where that can go. I think that is a perfectly fair question to ask, Pauline, particularly when you make your point about women generally.
The key issue for Level 3 qualifications is how are we going to get more resource into that right across the range. We are ready to put resource in but also - and I will come to this in a second - we need employers to put resource in as well.
On Steve’s point, firstly, congratulations on your election as General Secretary of the NUT; as always I look forward to a fruitful and constructive relationship. Your question was about the post-16 staying on rate and to ensure that we could really make progress in this area.
I think the absolute key here, the number one point, is the reforms to the 14-19 curriculum, which are currently being considered and will be published as proposals by Mike Tomlinson in the next three to four weeks. We need to get, as I have said earlier, a far stronger relationship between the pace of work and the place of study. I think there are very very many young people who get particularly de-motivated towards the end of their period up to 16 and who need to be much more engaged and excited in education than they actually are; they turn away, which leads to a whole series of negative consequences that are very serious.
My number one solution to your question is a reform to the curriculum from 14 upwards, giving more realistic choices for young people over that period, and really trying to make progress to encourage people to stay on. In all the educational indicators, Roger, we do very well at 10 and 11, very well at 15, very well in universities; worse in comparison with other countries is the staying on rate at 16. I believe the way to attack that is by changing the curriculum for those people.
On Sam’s point, we are moving, we have made some movement towards funding parity and we are committed through our five-year programme of spending review to make more progress. But I do want to make a hard funding point here, which is a very real one. If we are talking, as we should be, of a massive expansion of education opportunities across the range that we try to achieve in this area and if we know, as we do, that at best we are getting 3-4 per cent a year increase in state money that is going to come into education over that period, which in itself has its own funding pressures to deal with, including that, Sam, which you raised, the question is, can we get money from elsewhere to make this expansion go farther, or do we have to accept the state funding limit, which there is? I argue that’s we need to be prepared to get more money in than we currently have. That is why I highlight the employers’ contribution particularly to this approach to see if we can get more money in these areas to take it forward. I hope that deals with the points that have been raised.
The President: Congress, I have four people waiting to ask questions here. I intend to take these four and then we will move on.
Geoff Page (USDAW): The question for the Minister surrounds the statutory rights for workplace learner reps. USDAW, along with the TUC, welcomes the new statutory rights for learner reps but we would like to know what the Minister’s view is on statutory workplace learning committees. The better employers work voluntarily with learning committees and are doing a good job but there are some employers who will not even pay them lip service. Should we not have statutory committees for workplace learning reps, just like the statutory health and safety committees?
In closing, could I say that it is great to see at the fringe meeting this lunchtime, Learning Skills and Apprentices that it was absolutely packed with standing room only. On behalf of USDAW I would like to thank Frances for the work she is doing in this field. Thank you.
Gillian Lewis (Unifi) : Unifi welcomes the increasing emphasis on quality jobs and believes there is a need for resources in the workplace for quality learning backed by real employer commitment. Learning agreements are increasingly the way forward to empower Britain’s workforce access to developmental skills. There is an opportunity for the Government to drive forward this agenda by providing financial incentives for unions and employers to develop learning agreements that deliver real and tangible benefits for workers. Could the Secretary of State give his view on this idea?
Bernard Rutter (GPMU) : Secretary of State, as you will know, the TCU has commissioned a feasibility study examining the possibility of a new union learning institution which will have the potential to offer life-long learning opportunities to all workers wherever they work. To complement this, has the Government given any consideration to workers having a legal entitlement to a skills audit? This entitlement could take the form of a one-off self-testing online questionnaire, a session with an adviser, or both. The aim of this exercise will be to encourage workers to re-enter some form of education and training and it could be delivered by Learn Direct with help from union learner reps. The GPMU believes that making this an actual entitlement would help convey the message that this is something worthwhile which workers should seek to take up. Such an entitlement could be a central element of the new union academy and I believe would help to engage workers in learning and training. Thank you.
Janet Seymour Kirk (Amicus) , speaking on behalf of governors with a disability, said: Out of the 76 recommendations to the Government from the Scrutiny Committee looking into the draft Disability Bill, one of those not accepted recommendations is not to allow governors to be covered by the DDA, yet councillors were accepted so why weren’t we? There are few governors and each county finds it more difficult each year to fill those public appointments. Why are you making it more difficult for disabled people actually to be involved?
The Rt. Hon. Charles Clarke, MP Secretary of State for Education and Skills: There are four points. First, Geoff from USDAW: I am absolutely delighted that we do have the statutory rights for union learning representatives that we have talked about and on which we legislated last year. I think that will make a major impact. I am slightly more sceptical about the potential role of learning committees and the way that has been put forward. I am not convinced that a single form of organisation in every workplace, and so on, is the right way to proceed. I am, however, open-minded on this and ready to see what are the experiences of development of the union learning reps in the areas that we have.
I accept the central point that you are making which lay behind the question, Geoff, which is, that there needs to be proper organisation in each workplace to deal with the particular issue. I think we should just see how the current situation develops for a little bit before seeing how we go. This is a matter which I am absolutely ready to keep on discussing with the TUC because I know the concerns that have been expressed in Congress about this.
Gillian’s point from Unifi: I am absolutely ready to look at financial incentives to encourage the participation that you describe. In fact, in your sector the Financial Sector Skills Council was launched by Paul Boateng and myself just about a week or so ago, covering 1.1 million employees and 5.1 per cent of the economy, which will have an enormous impact on how we operate. I have specifically encouraged, and did in my speech on that occasion, work in the way that we are talking about. So, yes, we can look to financial support in the way that you suggest.
Bernard’s point from GPMU: as Bernard knows, and as other colleagues in GPMU know also, the situation with the printing employers is their unwillingness to make the kind of commitment that is necessary, something which I well understand from conversations, and that is why there are two areas where I think we need to make progress: First, in developing a centre of vocational excellence where we can work with the union, and the GPMU has made very positive proposals, which we are discussing at the moment, about how we can really get a major step forward in that area; second, as Bernard suggests, developing the skills audit through the union academy or by other means. Again the question of whether a legal entitlement is the right way to go I think needs to wait just a little bit but the development of the skills audit is certainly right.
On Janet’s point about the disability directive and the question of colleges, I am absolutely ready to look again at that point. There was a very substantial debate that went on before we reached the position we did right across government on that, but I am prepared to look at it again.
Roger, may I say that I have appreciated the chance to have the discussion with Congress this afternoon and I really do look forward to a very strong, positive, working relationship over the coming year.
The President: Congress, may I say that that address, and the questions and answers, is just a small reflection of the very close working relationship that the TUC enjoys with the Department for Education and Skills, particularly on skills and lifelong learning. We are now working so well together and the benefits are coming through seriously at workplace level as the video shows, and as each of your unions are increasingly recognising because of your contribution to the work. I think this close working with the Department is a model for how we need to develop in some other areas, too.
Charles, on behalf of the TUC, thank you for coming, thank you for the work, and thank you to all the others in the Department.
Inequality and Discrimination in Higher Education
Steve Wharton (AUT) moved Motion 57.
(Insert Motion 57 with amendment - Inequality and discrimination in higher education)
He said: We all know that higher education institutions, or HEIs, play a vital role in the nation, not only through their preparation of graduates for the world at work but through a more general contribution to civil society. While at HEIs students learn not just the subjects they are studying but also other qualities such as the importance of an understanding and an appreciation of tolerance, and the need for equality within society as a whole, principles to which all of us here are committed.
So, it may come as a surprise to learn that, despite this and despite a more general national legal framework of equality in terms of gender, race, disability, and equality, discrimination and unequal treatment are rife in higher education institutions. While this motion is specific to the issue of the research assessment exercise, we know that discrimination and inequality affect all workers in higher education institutions and we support and work in solidarity with our sister unions in the sector to end those inequalities.
Turning to the issue of the gender pay gap, average hourly earnings for women working fulltime in higher education are 18 per cent lower and those for part-time women are 40 per cent lower compared to men. While we are talking about part-time staff, 48 per cent of women work part-time in HEI compared to 38 per cent of men. The higher up the academic and related career ladder you go the fewer women you find; only 17 per cent of vice chancellors are women. Vice chancellors nowadays like to have themselves called CEOs and they often have special non-elected committees to determine their salaries, but at the same time they refuse to accept the principle of a pay audit that would start to tackle issues such as the gender pay gap.
It is not only in terms of gender that we see inequality in higher education. Only 18 per cent of lower grade lecturers and 11 per cent of professors in the so-called old universities are from ethnic minorities. While the number of disabled staff in higher education has doubled in the last ten years, that still means only 1.5 per cent of university staff.
I mentioned the research assessment exercise earlier and it features in the motion. The RAE, as it is known, is a kind of academic research pop idol or X factor. Every five to eight years academics have to produce their best research and put it forward to panels which grade that research, and that grading is then used as a means of distributing funding as part of support for universities. As you would expect, higher education institutions play games with that funding to maximise the score, they leave out staff they think would lower the score and surprise, surprise, if you are a female academic you have a far higher chance of being left out of the research assessment exercise, yet another form of gender inequality in higher education.
Although I have mentioned higher education institutions here, AUT fully accepts NATFHE’s amendment as enhancing the requirement on the heads of all institutions in further and higher education to face up to their responsibilities in fighting inequality in the profession. President, Congress, the time has come to put an end to inequality and unequal treatment in the sector. The time has come for those in charge of institutions to stop paying lip service to the equality issue and instead to take concrete steps to tackle the gender pay gap, face up to their responsibilities, and end RAE and other discrimination in higher education.
Sam Allen (NATFHE) seconding the motion, said: We in NATFHE welcome our sister union accepting this amendment to motion 57. In moving and seconding the motion, and the amendment, I am going to concentrate on the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, and the slow and in some cases lack of implementation in both the further and higher education.
The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 put the onus on public bodies. The Act insists that public sector bodies must have a positive duty to promote good race relations. It requires all public employers to publish an annual report examining how many members of staff are employed, at which level, who receives training, and what has been done to ensure that black workers are promoted in at least similar proportions to their white counterparts.
On paper the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 is one of the strongest anti-racist laws anywhere in Europe. However, a survey commissioned by the Department for Trade & Industry in summer 2003 shows that over half the colleges and universities were unable to identify a single outcome to show that they are making progress towards the implementation of the Act. Ninety per cent of colleges and 95 per cent of universities recorded that they had a race policy in place, the majority said they had produced race equality schemes and were monitoring the impact of their policies. Yet when we look at the details of the institutional practices it soon becomes clear that very few employers had begin even to address the minimum duty set out in the law; just 40 per cent of colleges and 37 per cent of universities recorded that they were monitoring staff data, and only one-third in each sector recorded that they had even begun to analyse the data, and of this 37 per cent not one has published their findings.
Congress, comrades, it is very important that we as a Movement must continue to maintain a determined campaign to make sure the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 is properly implemented by employers in both the private and public sector. I move support for the motion as amended. Thank you very much.
Dave Jones (Amicus) speaking in support of the motion, said: I am the higher education rep and this is my first conference. I fully agree with my two previous colleagues on the situation within higher education. My position in higher education as a job is technician. Just to give you a little colour of what higher education is like, I will give you a technician’s perspective. Higher education is a bizarre place to work in. Earlier we heard the pensions debacle being likened to a Hollywood blockbuster but where we work is more like the Hammer House of Horrors, the black and white versions.
Professors are living their dream, and quite rightly so. The rest of us who work there are just trying to earn a living. In some institutes professors are called staff and the rest of us are called non staff. Some professors become management and management is done through councils and senates. For those of you not familiar with the intricacies of the higher education system, I will try and give you an example. If you could picture a Tudor hall full of professors, that is a council; professors who are all geniuses in their fields but, unfortunately, are halfwits in management.
For example, we have evidence of this management trying to undertake equal pay audits and at the end of the day they said: 'Look, everybody is okay.' Then you step back and look at the job structure. Who holds those top spots in the job structure? Those crusty old men in that Tudor hall, no women, no black people or other ethnic minorities, no gay, lesbian, or transgender people, no disabled people, and no non staff. That is the way they want to keep it. Yes, let us have a full equal pay audit but we need accountability.
Certainly this management will generate policies on any given subject that you care to confront them with and post it on their website so that they can look clean to the outside world, but to non staff the reality is quite a different story. We have had too many instances of being left behind. A retired union colleague told me that when he used to negotiate with these people he had to drag them kicking and screaming into the 1970s. I did not realise that he meant the 1870s.
Congress, please support this motion because we want to drag them screaming into the 21st century. Thank you.
The President: Motion 57 is supported by the General Council.
· Motion 57 was CARRIED
RACISM
Racism and the 'Redwatch' Site .
Chris Wilson (ATL) moved Composite Motion 5.
(Insert Composite Motion 5 - Racism and the 'Redwatch' Site)
He said: ATL welcomes the helpful amendments from our colleagues in Unison and the NUT, which now form part of this composite.
Congress, the continued existence and operation of the Redwatch internet sites is an affront to democracy, to all those who value diversity, tolerance, and political pluralism. The issues here are straightforward. The Redwatch records the names, the addresses, and when it can the faces of trade union activists involved in anti-racist or anti-fascist activity. Its motivation is to intimidate, its calling is to coerce, to silence community, religious, political, and trade union leaders by implicit threats.
Congress, the breadth of these sites, for there is now more than one, is truly shocking. Read the ATL briefing on this available from the ATL stall. At least one activist from each of 34 affiliated trade unions here represented and most general secretaries are identified, as well as the activists, as well as many ordinary lay reps whose only crime is to resist racism, whose only fault is to defend their members’ interests. Leading TUC officials are named, as well as councillors and MPs from across the political spectrum. Trade unionists, members and officials from ACM to Amicus, from Connect to CWU, from GMB to NATFHE, from Unifi to Unison, are but some receiving Redwatch’s unwelcome attention. This leaves out the non-affiliates, the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and even Conservative activists, the faith groups, and the community groups.
Congress, ATL is making no party political point. We are not affiliated to any political party. Our membership is broad. But regardless of any or no political affiliation, we stand united on this, no one has the right to silence by threats peacefully held beliefs. No one has the right to intimidate trade unionists. No fire-bombing of any teacher’s car will ever be acceptable. ATL, the education union, will stand shoulder to shoulder with all those who are listed with any who are targeted, and should we now find that we, too, join them, then, Congress, we are in good company. This resolution calls upon the Home Secretary, and other relevant authorities, to close immediately all such sites. It calls upon TUC affiliates to support actively any in our Movement who risk harm to person or property as a result of being named by Redwatch. It calls upon the General Council to offer urgent advice to all affiliates.
ATL hopes that the General Council is taking notice for the Movement has been slow to respond on this question. The watchers have grown confident. Away from the light they have prospered. The number of sites has grown. The list of names, of our names, has lengthened. The details, the contacts, and the photos increase, and the links from Redwatch to Combat 18 go unchallenged. Who was it said, 'For the bad to succeed the good must only do nothing.' Congress, after we pass this composite, the General Council must act, it must not allow this composite to gather dust. It must not accept the 'Well, we’re sympathetic but it can’t be done' attitude from the Government. We know that bringing order to the Internet is difficult but, Congress, Redwatch is an ongoing injustice and, as Martin Luther King observed, 'There is nothing more tragic in the world than to know right and not to do it.'
Congress, let us now do right, support the composite, and close Redwatch.
Rena Wood (Unison) seconding the composite, said: I want to draw your attention to composite 5 at page 14 in your booklet. Point one has been covered but it is important that the General Council also talks to business; it is not in business’s interest to employ anybody that has any links with the BNP. So, what this motion is saying is not just talk to government but talk to everybody that the TUC General Council has links with.
It is important that we protect our members; we actually have a duty to protect them. Congress, Searchlight was in your pack and if you have not had an opportunity to read it, please read it. It gives very detailed information of successful campaigns around the country. If your branch is not affiliated, please do affiliate. The information, assistance, and solidarity is in Searchlight.
Looking at number three, we have to continue our campaign. Why do we have to continue our campaign? Yesterday, Roger Lyons told us, Congress, that in Lancashire the BNP won nearly 1 million votes. Yes, we beat them at the ballot box, we beat them because we campaigned, we had a strategic approach working alongside all trade unions, community groups, and faith groups, as I said earlier when accepting the award, but the point is we have to convince people to get out to the ballot box. We have to argue and tell them why the BNP is a threat. The evidence is there. The fact is that ordinary people in that 1 million voters are not traditionally racist but they bought the argument. We have to start with our own trade union members. I do not believe for one minute every one of our members understands the threat of the BNP. We have to have a very comprehensive education package and programme, that is very clear, and in terms of challenging government, Congress, we started this job last year when we passed composite 5, Opposing BNP and Racism and putting a submission to the Government’s employment review.
I want to say that in our union we had a joint anti-racist, anti-fascist working group between the North West Region and Yorkshire & Humberside, and we worked alongside community groups. We cannot do this without bringing other people on board. It is important to explain to them that it is a trade union issue, that the BNP do not want women in the workplace, the BNP do not want black people in this country, and we as black people are not a number who have to be controlled, we are allies, we are workers like everybody else. That is the message we have to get out there, not just in our workplaces but in every facet of our lives from our faith groups, in our schools, absolutely everywhere. It is coffee break chat time, put the leaflets out, affiliate, and actively - actively - support this composite. Thank you.
Roger King (NUT) in support of the amendment, said: I am pleased to hear from the Secretary of State for Education that he is going to start speaking to us again.
President, Congress, our amendment seeks to strengthen and broaden the scope of the original motion. You will be aware that the far right organisations have been seeking to infiltrate trade unions, both in order to achieve legitimacy and in an attempt to seek damages when they are expelled. If the expulsion of a member by a trade union is found to be unlawful, the minimum compensation the union has to pay is £5,900.
We believe it is essential that we have legislation in place in order to deny membership to or expel individuals who belong to racist and fascist organisations. They have no place in the trade union Movement, their principles and activities are incompatible with ours. We welcome the Government’s inclusion of a clause within the scope of the Employment Relations Bill, which will allow trade unions to expel or deny membership to individuals who belong to far right organisations. The bill, now awaiting royal assent, will remove the provision of the minimum compensation award. We would like to pay tribute to the TUC on the work they have done on the Employment Relations Bill and urge the TUC now to start an awareness raising campaign on new aspects of the legislation to ensure that it is used to maximum effect.
We must not allow a small number of individuals to use the name of our Movement to give legitimacy to the far right extremism or as a way of gaining resources to promote their racist message. Our members’ subscriptions should not be tied up in fighting court cases because some idiot cannot understand that their extreme right-wing views are incompatible with trade union objectives; nor, worst still, because a loophole allows this scum to exploit the law to gain compensation to continue peddling their message of evil. It is vital we get this right.
The second part of our amendment relates to education and the crucial role it plays in combating racism and prejudice. It focuses on the threat posed by the far right to the multi-cultural and anti-racist ethos of schools and colleges. The education policy of the BNP in their election manifesto said that they will stop the introduction and teaching of Asian languages to classes containing any native British children, and where foreign pupils have not achieved a satisfactory standard of English they should be taught separately rather than being allowed to drag down the standards and hold back native English speakers. What tosh!
Tackling racism requires genuine partnership between all the key players in education, the trade Movement, and government. Promoting anti-racism in schools, workplaces, and communities, is crucial. We know racism often stems from ignorance and fear and we need to educate everyone, particularly young people, about the consequences of supporting the far right. In moving this amendment we seek to broaden the scope of the motion and wholeheartedly agree with the content of the original ATL motion and the Unison amendment. Please support.
The President: The amendment has been included, it is Composite 5.
Jane Aitchison (PCS ) speaking in support of the composite motion, said: Congress, Redwatch, and similar sites, are terrifying for white trade unionists because in turning the nazi spotlight on us they give us a taster of what it is like for our black colleagues every single day. PCS, and its predecessor unions, have a long history of organising against fascism, stretching back to the Hither Green dispute, an all-out strike mounted to remove a BNP organiser from Hither Green Social Security Office, in South London, to today when, like many of our sister unions, we are seeking to reach agreement with management that organised fascists should not be employed in the Civil Service.
I work in Leeds and I live in Bradford, which will give you an insight into why I am up here today. In the late 1990s, Combat 18 were making serious inroads in Leeds. Leeds TUC, along with anti-fascist action and several other political organisations, organised one of the biggest ever May Day demos that Leeds has ever seen against the Nazis, and it really turned things around in Leeds. Throughout that period, TUC delegates faced massive intimidation. The secretary of Leeds TUC had his windows put through, not once but twice. A teacher in Leeds TUC had her car fire-bombed. I never walked home by the same route twice but it did not stop Combat 18 from finding out where I lived and from mounting a very frightening overnight vigil outside my house.
Redwatch is the fascists new hi-tech intimidation tool but the violence they threaten and the violence they employ is of the old-fashioned bloody variety. Redwatch even has pictures of the children of anti-racist activists on their site taken on anti-racist rallies and demos. As a mother of a three-year old, who I take everywhere and who is already a veteran of picket lines and rallies, I do worry that her picture might end up on one of these sites, but I would rather run that risk than have to face trying to explain to her that fear prevented me from taking action against these scum.
Congress, we need to combat these creatures collectively. The Government have to act to shut these sites down. It is not that difficult. We might have hoped the Prime Minister would have announced their closure here yesterday. If these websites threatened big business they would have been shut down already. The Redwatch slogan is, 'The only solution is white revolution.' Division is the fascist weakness. Unity is our strength. United we will defeat them. Congress, support the composite.
Sue Rogers (NASUWT) supporting the composite, said: The BNP are seeking a presence everywhere; they stand outside the schools leafleting, they stand for local, national, and European elections, they stand for a place in governing bodies. In this way they seek to control our society, our future, our very lives. We know what they stand for. They stand for racism, fascism, intimidation, and bullying tactics; that is what they really stand for. Their website seeks to name and identify schools where they say there is a BNP presence, whether it is a presence through pupils or through staff.
No one can ignore the fact that in the recent local and European elections there were in fact over 20 BNP candidates who were teachers. NASUWT’s policies declare that racist beliefs are incompatible with membership so imagine our sense of horror when one of these teachers actually used our name to declare and identify himself as our member. Now we have to explore both our own rules and the legal implications of how to deal with him which will avoid a financial claim that could then bolster BNP funds. We wait eagerly to see the removal of the Tory legislation that prevents unions controlling their own membership rules. For schools the BNP presents a danger where, dressed in smart suits with an external aura of respectability, they try to obtain a place on governing bodies; thereby they hope to control and to influence schools, whether through the appointment of staff, the disciplining of staff and pupils, or in foundation schools even more dangerously through some attempts to control directly the curriculum that is offered.
Our recent campaign against the BNP in the local and European elections brought resignations from some of our members. What we have to do is work together with our sister unions to make sure that those members then do not go and try and seek a home in another teacher trade union; they are the sort of membership which really none of us want. Together we can fight the BNP. This is the only way to block the racists and the fascists, and to make sure that education plays its role forward-looking, progressive, and not in any way linked with or supporting such organisations.
Amarjite Singh (CWU) speaking in support of composite 5, said: Congress, the CWU, with other unions and organisations, have vigorously campaigned to keep the BNP out of local and mainstream politics with some success, such as the London Assembly and the European Parliament. However, as Brendan Barber, TUC General Secretary, said yesterday at the anti-racism fringe meeting, one BNP council is too many, never mind 20 or so. There is no time to be complacent and we need more than ever to be proactive to expose the BNP.
The CWU has played an active role fighting the racists and fascists. Billy Hayes, our General Secretary, is treasurer of the Unite Against Fascism. With other CWU activists we have at every opportunity raised the issue of the importance of keeping the BNP out. Nationally, the unions forced an agreement with the Royal Mail that if any post-person’s conscience did not allow them to deliver the racist filth, they did not have to. At the delivery office where I am a representative, the majority of my members do not deliver the filth. I am proud of them. We have also been infiltrated by the BNP, not because they want to represent our members or that they love the unions but for financial gain and gain only. Now our General Secretary, Senior Deputy General Secretary, DGS Postal, and DGS Telecoms, have found themselves on the Redwatch website with their photographs and personal details portrayed.
Congress, when we get into dialogue with the new legislation to expel racists and fascists the legislation must be watertight and not wishy-washy. Since last March David Blunkett has had the dossier/study that shows MPs, unions, and other organisations, have objected to the site. How long does it take to shut down their site? It is vile. We say this is not good enough and demand it is closed down now.
Congress, I will leave you with a quote: 'For evil to triumph, all that is necessary is that good people do nothing.' So when there is an anti-racist rally or demo, or elections, think of the quote.
Jeremy Dear (NUJ) speaking in support of the composite, said: Colleagues, if you thought that the Hutton Report was a whitewash you should see the BNP’s website report of its laughable national demonstration they organised outside my union’s headquarters in February. I thank Unite Against Fascism, and all those unions who came to support us on that day. The BNP demonstration was allegedly about the media’s failure to report the death of Gavin Hopley at the hands of a group of Asian youths. Of course it was a failure, that is, unless of course you count the eight BBC reports, the dozens of newspaper reports, the coverage in Asian News that said he was beaten up by a gang of Asian men, all of which also reported the conviction of eight men for the assault. Of course, the BNP do not mention this because their demonstration was not about media failure but a calculated attempt to silence opposition and to intimidate those who expose the BNP and the far right for the thugs they really are.
Nor does the BNP mention its threats against journalists. Their bulletin asks their members to collate information on journalists who expose the party, like those who exposed the BNP in the recent BNP documentary. As a result, threats have been posted on websites run by neo-Nazi groups, and on Redwatch. In one chilling message they say of one of our members: 'He will go quiet when he realises his family is more important than his politics.' Another says: 'We need to find this reporter fast. If we can scare this [bleep] off we might get an easier time instead of being made to look like a bunch of muppets. We are good but we can’t perform miracles.' Visitors to the Redwatch website are told: 'Remember places, traitors’ faces, they’ll all pay for their crimes.' A new email network linked to Redwatch carries the following threat: 'Redwatch has accumulated many names, addresses, and pictures of the targets, many of whom have had nothing done to them. Now’s the time to start a proper campaign of violence and intimidation.'
As one of those people who is targeted, as one of those who has also been visited at my home, of course I am scared but I, like others targeted, will not be silenced. Be in no doubt, Redwatch and the like target not just individuals but the very values that we stand for, justice, equality, freedom of association, workers’ rights, solidarity and unity between black and white workers. It is time for the Government to act and close down Redwatch but also time for us to take our fight for our values and our message into our workplaces, our communities, and our unions, to combat this racist poison. We have no place for racists or fascists in our communities, our workplaces, or our unions.
The President: As the last speaker on this composite I want to call Peter Jones, NATFHE, who is from Burnley where there are six BNP councillors.
Peter Jones (NATFHE) speaking in support of the composite, said: Thank you, President. Congress, comrades, I am a member of NATFHE and, more pertinently, the Branch Secretary of our branch in Burnley where for some people fear now stalks the streets, where for some the town centres, the terraces of the football club, the pubs and clubs, are no-go areas, and where for many the six BNP councillors make us the fascist centre, the fascist capital of Great Britain.
I want to tell you a little story about what happened in the council chamber just a fortnight ago. An unholy alliance led by the Liberal Democrats, including the Tories and the BNP, forced through the Borough Council a motion which demanded that the executive of that council is shared amongst every party within the council. The Liberal Democrats were wanting to sit down and rule the council with the BNP, the LibDems, the Tories, and the BNP running a council, a more unholy alliance I could not imagine. This, comrades, is the reality of having fascists in the council chamber. This is what we are facing. To its credit the Labour Group decided it would have nothing to do with this. I, as a person who is not in the Labour Party, applaud those councillors for standing down and going into opposition, and I think we should do the same.
Turning to the issues of composite 5, I do not need to ask you to support it; I know you are going to. There are many of you out there, myself, our General Secretary, loads of others of you, who are on that site, we have seen ourselves there, other people have seen us there. They say, 'This is Peter Jones, this is where he works, this is where he lives. You know what he looks like now.' I could, I suppose put on a wig and put on a moustache, things like that, but that is not going to work, is it?
Let us be sure about it. These people, the BNP and their fellow travellers, come from the scum end of the political spectrum. They are Nazis. We cannot make any mistake about it, these people are Nazis and because they are Nazis we need to shut down sites like Redwatch now, and because they are Nazis we need to be brave enough in our unions to say to every one that we find in our unions, 'We are going to throw you out and we do not care about the consequences.' We should defy the law, if necessary; let us get rid of every BNP member in every one of our unions. Thank you, comrades.
The President: Composite Motion 5 is supported by the General Council.
· Composite Motion 5 was CARRIED
Diversity in the Workplace
Bobby Barnes (PFU) moved Motion 19.
(Insert Motion 19 - Diversity in the workplace)
He said: I have already been up here once this afternoon and it was with great pride I was able to stand here alongside Gordon Taylor and accept an award on behalf of the PFA for the work that we have actually done in creating diversity within the workplace and, in the broader issue, in the world of football.
It would have been unthinkable 20 years ago that anybody from the world of football could have stood here in front of the TUC even to have the temerity to discuss such an issue. Going back to the 1970s and 1980s, football grounds were not very pleasant places to be. I think almost unanimously they were the province of groups of young men, a lot of them with far right sympathies, who gathered on a Saturday afternoon and those black players who were fortunate enough to make through were subjected to organised campaigns which really related to sheer race hatred. I myself was fortunate enough to be a professional footballer in that time, playing for West Ham, and there were certain football grounds around the country where you absolutely knew you would be subjected to a torrent of abuse.
Things have moved on tremendously since then, particularly on the field of play. If you were to look at the England football team at present, if you were to look at most football teams around the country, there is a very high mixture of players of all races and creeds, not just black but from all over Europe. Football on the playing field has very much become integrated and diverse. It would be easy to be complacent and say, 'Job done', but there is still a fair way to go. We looked at the demographics of our membership and we established that there are approximately 25 per cent of footballers of ethnic minorities currently playing in the Football League and the Premier League but how many managers are there? How many directors of football clubs are there? How many chief executives? How many administrators? You could count them on one hand. So, although great strides have been made, there is still a long way to go.
The PFA, along with other governing bodies, has worked hard with organisations such as Kick Racism out of Football - and I acknowledge the T-shirt of the gentleman who spoke before - and Show Racism the Red Card. The football industry is currently booming but if you look back to those days of the 1970s and the 1980s, the crowds were down and, as I said, the grounds were not very nice places to be. If you look at an average Premiership ground, at Nationwide - sorry, Coca Cola - at the moment they are inclusive welcoming places, where families, women, and people of all ethnicities come along and watch games. That is a testimony to the way that football has worked to clean up its act, to move with the times, and to reflect the diversity of our country here today.
Just going away from football for a moment and looking at the Olympics a couple of weeks ago and the performance of the young boxer, Amir Khan, if you look at how well he actually performed on behalf of Britain, it was fantastic. But not only was Amir’s performance in the ring fantastic, I think it was so encouraging to look around the stadium and to see his family, in particular his father proudly supporting his son and wearing his Union flag waistcoat. I think it just shows how far sport has come when we are able to reach this state of affairs. I think it is congratulations to Amir Khan for his efforts during the Olympic Games.
There is much work to be done. We are not complacent. We continue to strive. As we mentioned earlier in terms of our coaching initiative, we have set up a group which seeks to address the anomaly in terms of representation on the coaching and management side of things; that is an objective we will continue to pursue. We will continue to engage with the governing bodies across football to encourage, to press, to coerce, so that football in all of its spheres can reflect the demographics of this country and reflect the diversity, which can only be of benefit to all. Please support the motion.
Patricia Auty (CSP) speaking in support of the motion, said: We are proud to second this motion from the Professional Footballers Association, as we can see how much they have achieved, not only because of the historic links between our two unions but also personally and professionally. The personal link is that my brother in his youth played for Drumcondrath and Ards in Ireland, probably one of the first black players. It was useful having a physiotherapist in the family. The professional link is because the CSP believes passionately, as I do, in the principles of equality and diversity, whether it is in the world of sport, industry, trade unions, or public services.
In one respect, Congress, I am a typical physiotherapist, being a woman. However, in another, I am sadly far less typical. Yes, you have probably guessed it, and can see; less than 5 per cent of physiotherapists are from an ethnic minority, and I am one of that small number. This has to change if my profession, along with other health professionals, is to serve properly the UK’s diverse population and its health needs, which is why we welcome and pledge to work with the Government on its latest initiatives to attract people from ethnic minorities as well as those from the economically disadvantaged. We also see a role for the TUC in vigorously and publicly supporting such initiatives as those in sport and health, and urging other sectors to follow this lead. Boosting diversity amongst student entrants is only one part of the issue; graduating with debts of £12,000 is another. The CSP is lobbying the Government to introduce a student loan repayment scheme to write off loans for those who commit to working for the NHS for five years. We think and hope such a scheme would encourage greater diversity among all health professionals, as well as having a positive image and retention factor.
Congress, we call upon you not only for support for these tangible initiatives to boost diversity in the workplace but to support diversity in career progression as well. Let us move from paper policies to positive action and implementation. Please support our motion and amendment. Thank you.
Tim Lucas (NUT) speaking in support of the motion, said: We support motion 19 with what we believe is an important reservation. Congress, we support the motion before you wholeheartedly and we congratulate the PFA on their Equalities Award made today. However, the motion refers to the people’s gain, everyone’s gain, for a lead in addressing all inequalities. We are concerned that there is no explicit mention of sex orientation and the other new equalities issues in the list that follows. Anyone who regularly attends football matches cannot but be aware of the homophobic abuse of players and others from the terraces, which is all too common at some grounds. It is an issue that we believe needs to be addressed alongside the Kick Racism out of Football campaign which the NUT sponsors alongside other affiliates. What happens both on and off the pitch has an enormous influence on our young people so perhaps I could suggest it would be useful for the PFA to meet with the TUC LGBT Committee to see if we can do some joint work.
Congress, support the motion and let us also take on the additional work of kicking homophobia out of football. Thank you.
· Motion 19 was CARRIED
Lesley Mansell, Chair of Scrutineers, presented the Scrutineers Report.
(Insert Scrutineers Report)
Congress adjourned till 9.30 tomorrow morning.
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