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REPORT OF THE 137TH ANNUAL
TRADES UNION CONGRESS
held in
The Brighton Centre,
Brighton, East Sussex
from
September 12th to 15th 2005
President: Jeannie Drake OBE
REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
Reported by Marten Walsh Cherer Limited,
Midway House, 27-29 Cursitor Street, London EC4A 1LT.
Telephone No: 0207-405 5010. Fax No: 0207-405 5026)
SECOND DAY: TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13
MORNING SESSION
(Congress re-assembled at 9.30 a.m.)
The President: Before I call Congress to order, could I just say many thanks to Cantabile who have been singing for us this morning. Your voices are really beautiful. Thank you very much indeed. (Applause)
If I could now call Congress to order, thank you very much. I hope you had a good evening yesterday, and welcome to today's business of Congress.
Could I first of all 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, which is situated in the ground floor exhibition area just inside the main front doors of the Brighton centre. Ballot papers will only be provided in exchange for the official delegation form so you will need that, and please note that the ballot closes at 12 noon today.
Colleagues, the business that was not taken from yesterday's sessions will be re-scheduled for later this week, and that consists of the Equality Audit presentation, and paragraphs 2.1 to 2.3, Motion 8, Motion 9 and Motion 19 with paragraphs 2.1 to 2.3 of the General Council report. I will give delegates as much notice as possible of when I intend to take the unfinished business and if at all possible I will attempt to begin taking unfinished business at the end of this morning's session in the order in which it was lost.
If I could now call on Annette Mansell-Green, the Chair of the General Purposes Committee to give a further report.
Report of the General Purposes Committee
Annette Mansell-Green : The General Purposes Committee Report has never attracted so much attention but it is nice to have it!
Congress, the General Purposes Committee have approved one further emergency motion, entitled Patient-led NHS, which will be moved by UNISON and seconded by Amicus. That is numbered E3.
One nomination has also been withdrawn. This was for Roger King who was standing in Section E for black workers from unions with less than 200,000 members. His name has been struck from the ballot paper.
In addition, the General Purposes Committee have approved a further collection which is for Make Poverty History. Delegates will recall that the Make Poverty History white wristbands were included in the Congress wallets and therefore we would be grateful if you could make an appropriate donation. Delegates will be interested to know that PFA have indicated that they will very generously match the amount collected, so please give as much as you can.
The President : I will take Emergency Motion E3 in the debate about the NHS scheduled for this afternoon.
You will have seen that I have been joined on the platform by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. There are a few telltale signs confirming that and Gordon will be addressing us in a few minutes, but he particularly wanted to be here early to join us for the presentation of the Congress Awards, which is our first item of business this morning.
Presentation of Lay Rep Awards
The President: As I am sure you will know, the awards were made in recognition of the vital contribution made by the lay activists who are the bedrock of the trade union Movement. For many years we have had the Women's Gold Badge and the Youth Award, and more recently we have added three other awards that recognise the growing number of different roles that volunteer union reps play in the workplace. We now also have awards in recognition of the work of learning representatives, of health and safety representatives, and -- of crucial importance -- the organising representatives. In the best trade union sense, we do not have individual winners as such but each year we choose outstanding representatives to accept the awards on behalf of all their fellow representatives.
Before we meet this year's representatives we are going to show you a video which will tell you something about them and about their achievements. The video has been sponsored jointly by Browell Smith, solicitors, and BT. I would like to thank them for the support they have given us, and I hope that you enjoy the video.
(The video was then shown)
The President: Now it is time to meet our award winners so I am going to hand over to the General Secretary to introduce them.
Brendan Barber (General Secretary): Can we perhaps move to the presentation of the awards to the winners. The winner of the Women's Gold Badge is Lesley Mansell. Lesley has been a union member for 28 years, currently a member of Amicus, and sits on its National Women's Committee and National LGBT Committee, and was a member of the TUC LGBT Committee too. Lesley was instrumental in the creation of the Leicester Women's Centre providing advice and support on a range of employment and health issues. Lesley also set up, and for a number of years ran, a national information help line giving advice on employment issues to lesbians, gay men, bisexual and trans-gender people. (Applause)
(Presentation of the Award by the Chancellor of the Exchequer)
Brendan Barber (General Secretary): The winner of the Congress Award for Youth is Fiona Smith. She has been the Young Members Officer at the Aberdeen City UNISON Branch for five years and is currently Chair of the UNISON Scotland Young Members Committee. Fiona is a workplace steward and safety rep, and has also been the Branch Treasurer for the past year. She has also organised recruitment campaigns in the Branch, specifically aimed at young workers, and holds one of the two young worker seats on the Scottish TUC General Council. In addition, Fiona has helped to develop a programme of school visits completing on average fifteen school visits a year and speaking to around 350 young people about employment rights and the role of trade unions. Fiona, come and receive your Award. (Applause)
(Presentation of the Award by the Chancellor of the Exchequer)
Brendan Barber (General Secretary): The winner of the Learning Rep Award is Joanne Wallinger. Joanne is a learning room with the Communication Workers Union, and in that role she successfully negotiated a local agreement for release time to establish a learning centre in her workplace. Given that the majority of Joanne's members work on shift patterns, find it difficult to attend fixed time courses, the flexible approach of the learning centre is something that has really made a difference. Joanne come and receive your award. (Applause)
(Presentation of the Award by the Chancellor of the Exchequer)
Brendan Barber (General Secretary): The winner of the Health and Safety Health Rep Award, Barry Gates, is a Safety Rep with the Communication Workers Union -- again! It is no coincidence in Jeannie's Presidency! Outrageous slur! As part of an initiative for the European Health and Safety Week in October 2004, he developed an information card on the dangers of asbestos. This initiative was done in partnership with the employer, BT. The card was originally planned for 1700 field service engineers in London and East Anglia. Due to demand, it expanded into other parts of the country. Eventually BT produced 39,000 copies of the card and circulated it with its own internal publications. Barry, congratulations. (Applause)
(Presentation of the Award by the Chancellor of the Exchequer)
Brendan Barber (General Secretary): Finally, the award for Organising goes to two people this year, Jessica Fagan from Amicus and Bob Woods from UNISON. First, Jessica. Jessica is a seconded rep for Amicus at Rolls Royce in Derby. In that capacity Jessica organised a project to reorganise the reps structure within the staff side at Rolls Royce, developing a new network of workplace reps and ensuring that they received the necessary support and training. Jessica also used this project to map the workplace and to build union membership, arranging workplace walkabouts and supporting reps to organise their own strategies. Jessica, come and get your award. (Applause)
(Presentation of the Award by the Chancellor of the Exchequer)
Brendan Barber (General Secretary): Bob Woods is the UNISON Branch Secretary of Barnardo's. In this role he coordinated attempts to gain recognition and to establish an effective union presence. The campaign led to a 35 per cent increase in membership and a doubling in the number of activists. A recognition agreement was signed with UNISON in May 2004 after two decades of campaigning. An important part of this was encouraging self-organisation, and with a workforce in which women make up the majority they now also make up 70 per cent of the Branch Executive. Bob, many congratulations. (Applause)
( Presentation of the Award by the Chancellor of the Exchequer)
Brendan Barber (General Secretary): Now, Jeannie, it is back to you.
The President: Thank you, Brendan. Well they are stars are they not? Makes you feel proud -- a great group of people. (Applause).
Address by Rt Hon Gordon Brown, MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The President: Congress, it is now my pleasure to invite the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, to address Congress. Gordon is on what we trades unionists describe as a split shift today: during the early part of his day he is here in Brighton and the later part of the day he is in New York. It is not the sort of working practice that we want to encourage, but it shows the value that Gordon attaches to being here with us today.
Gordon, as I am sure you will know, we do have our differences with the government from time to time, and some of those differences will be aired later today in the debate on public services and public service jobs. But we certainly recognise that you have been a towering figure in this government, with a formidable record on economic efficiency, social justice and, last but not least, the cause of combating world poverty. This is the third time that you have joined us at Congress as Chancellor. Gordon, we look forward to hearing your views on how to achieve better working lives for the people we represent and you are very welcome. Thank you.
Rt Hon Gordon Brown, MP, and Chancellor of the Exchequer : Jeannie, Brendan, General Council, members and delegates, let me thank you first of all for your invitation to speak. Let me thank you, Jeannie and Brendan, for your highly praised and respected leadership of the Trades Union Congress, and let me add my congratulations right at the beginning to Lesley Mansell, Jessie Fagan, Jo Wallinger, Barry Gates and and Bob Woods, the most important people here today. Let me thank you for the work you do, day in and day out, bargaining for members. You are the everyday heroes of the labour Movement who have built this Movement, who sustain it and who are its future in the years to come. (Applause)
I hope Congress will also allow me to acknowledge the work of men and women who have been good friends of mine, who are retiring from the General Council this year after years of service to this movement: George Brumwell for twelve years Secretary of the UCATT union; Pat Hawkes from the NUT, and let me thank her also for work as a councillor here in Brighton; and Dave Anderson, former UNISON President, and now let me congratulate him on being elected as the Labour M.P. for Blaydon. Thank you, all of you, for the work you have done. (Applause)
As we thank people today, let us today on this day of celebration for a great English national sporting success congratulate the England cricket team, of whom we are all proud, and let us congratulate London on winning the Olympics for 2012.
Friends, let me just add a personal note. This is a time when we remember also men and women who have served our Movement, and in particular this year two Titans who died earlier this year, Ron Todd and Jim Callaghan. Only a month since their unexpected and early deaths I know all of us would want to pay tribute today to two other Titans of our movement, Mo Mowlam and Robin Cook, both of whom died tragically and unexpectedly young, both with such a huge contribution still to make. Mo Mowlam was the People's Minister; she was an inspiration to women everywhere. Let us agree there must now be a fitting memorial to her achievements in Northern Ireland and beyond, and to her work. The passion of Robin Cook's commitment to social justice was and is an inspiration to us all, all of us who are influenced by him and people in every continent of the world. So, inspired by Robin's example, let us affirm -- as he did -- that whenever there is injustice we will seek to eradicate it; whenever there is poverty we will fight a war against it.
Tony Blair and I also want to thank all of you here today for the work you did in helping secure not just the re-election of a Labour Government for the third term, including the election here in Brighton again of three Labour Members of Parliament, but also for your efforts and your achievements in putting right at the centre of the political agenda causes that Tony and I share with you: the cause of full employment; the central importance of manufacturing; the moral and economic case for decent public services, universal and free for all; and, as the Warwick agenda to which we are jointly committed demonstrates, our commitment to fairness to all in the workplace. I am here today to tell you that even in the face of opposition from all other parties in the House of Commons and elsewhere, Tony Blair, I and the government will as a priority put into place this year and next the legislation that will honour in full the Warwick Agreements. So let me assure you that we will implement our agreement that no one should see their health or safety put recklessly at risk in the workplace, and we have announced legislation outlawing corporate manslaughter. Let me assure you on gangmasters that we will license and regulate employment so that we will protect lives by rooting out dangerous and deadly abuses. Let me also tell you that we are legislating for enhanced rights at work with the 8 week rule extended to 12. I want to thank Brendan Barber and the TUC General Council for making this a priority. On holidays and working hours, as you know, we are moving to add bank holidays to four weeks paid holiday.
Fairness at work means also fairness to the low paid, and it is because of your efforts, the initial commitment of John Smith and then of Tony Blair, that with Labour Britain now has a minimum wage, one that I am pleased to report will rise this year and rise next year, rising by 40 per cent since it was first introduced. The legal minimum wage, I am pleased to say, is now extended for the first time, thanks to your efforts, to 16/17 year olds in the workforce.
As Britain has historically neglected the importance of childcare, we are now implementing for parents -- as a result of Warwick -- a new national childcare strategy. Women's rights and women's equality have been unacceptably neglected for too long and so we are even now studying the recommendations from Margaret Prosser, the Chair of the Women and Work Commission. Our aim is to end once and for all the gender pay gap in our country.
Friends, having introduced under Labour the first winter payment for pensioners of £200, the first free television licences for pensioners, the first pension credit paid to over 2.5 million of our poorest pensioners, the first free local bus travel that is nationwide, we will, as we said at Warwick, and I am pleased that Jack Jones has been with us in our deliberations this week -- and this is the debate we will have when the Pensions Committee of which Jeannie is a member reports -- respond to the new Pensions Commission in its investigation into the capacity and limits of the voluntarist system by seeking to make sure that not just some but all workers in our country have security and dignity in their retirement. Let me add because it is morally wrong that when firms go under workers, through no fault of their own, lose their pensions. In partnership with you we have set up and are expanding the new Pension Protection Fund, and for pension funds that have previously gone under, for workers cruelly denied the pensions they were due, we have now set aside £400 million so that money is paid retrospectively to them.
Now friends, most of all on the future of the economy, and this is the central theme I want to discuss with you today. Since 1997 we have been building a Britain that is not only more economically stable than at any time for a generation, but a Britain that is using its stability for a purpose: unemployment, the lowest for 30 years; long-term youth unemployment, once 350,000 in our country under the Tories, now less than 7,000 - less than ten per constituency. Restoring full employment to the centre of economic policy was the first act of the Labour Government, and we are now closer to full employment as a result of our efforts together than at any time for a generation.
I want us never to forget when we talk about jobs that over and over again throughout the Tory years the right wing in our country had the audacity, and they had the arrogance, to lecture us, all of us in the Movement, that our objective for full employment was an outdated and distant dream. They told us you could not have low interest rates and high employment. They told us that unemployment was a price worth paying for other people's prosperity. I tell you that I will never forget how, when starting as an MP in 1983, in a constituency with thousands of people unemployed, I met hundreds of coal miners, shipbuilding workers, steelworkers and people in other industries thrown out of jobs at the age of 50, or before, who never expected they would work again. I met young couples who, having lost their jobs, then lost their homes. I met youngsters, once bright eyed and hopeful, under the Tories rejected, discarded, dejected, even before they had had a first pay cheque.
None of us must forget how the experts wrote off three million unemployed, how the commentators fell for the idea that unemployment was inevitable. Let us remember how many lost heart, how they succumbed to that propaganda that, as manual tasks were mechanised, as digital and computer technology replaced the jobs of skilled workers, we could bury for ever the idea that we could have an economy founded on full employment. I tell you, we the labour and trade union Movement, never lost heart. We never fell for this defeatism. We never surrendered our goal of full employment. When we passed resolutions for jobs, when all of us marched for jobs, when we rallied for jobs, when we campaigned for jobs, we were upholding to the world ideals I believe all of us uphold to this day, that mass unemployment is not only unfair but inefficient, and we were sending out an even bigger message -- the philosophy that I was brought up with in a mining and industrial community -- that we do not pass by on the other side, that our mission is to build communities where we look out for each other, where we feel each other's sorrows, where we share each other's pain, and that is the theme that runs like a golden thread through the history of our Movement, a belief that injustice should not happen to us, injustice should not happen to anyone, principles that we taught each other through hard times of solidarity, not selfishness, and they are as relevant today as ever.
When people tell us again that the impact of globalisation, the rise of China and Asia, mean that we have to lower our aspirations, when they tell us that as manufacturing becomes global -- as it has -- that we must accept somehow that full employment and good decent paying jobs are a thing of the past, I tell you that in the same way as we met together the challenge of mass unemployment with the New Deal, that in eight years has created two million jobs in this country, we should agree now that as long as we make the right long-term decisions, only if we make the right long-term decisions, can we together meet and master an even greater challenge for our times, the challenge of globalisation.
Let me tell you the scale of the challenge we face. In the last 18 months the doubling of oil prices is just one visible sign of the speed and the scale of global economic change. Asia's manufacturing output is now -- unbelievable but true -- greater than that of Europe. Asia is now consuming 30 per cent of the world's oil and China nearly ten per cent. Once only responsible for ten per cent of manufactured exports, developing countries will soon be responsible for 50 per cent of these manufactured exports. On its own, let us remember China now produces 30 per cent of the world's TVs, 50 per cent of cameras, 70 per cent of photocopiers, 90 per cent of children's toys, perhaps soon 60 per cent of all the world's clothes. At no point since the industrial revolution, friends, has the re-structuring of global economic activity been so dramatic. At no point has there been such a shift in production -- Asia moving from the fringes to the centre of the new world economic order.
At no point in our history has the speed and scale of technological change been so swift and so persuasive. Think back only to 1997 when we came into government. Then there was no digital TV, there were no DVDs, there were no video phones, there was no broadband, there was virtually no texting. Just eight years ago only ten per cent were on the Internet, only ten per cent had mobile phones, and so if in only eight years we can see such dramatic technical change then think of the impact in the next eight years of new technologies on occupations, on industries, on businesses and on jobs.
This is not, as it is sometimes said, a race to the bottom with China and India that will only be met by protecting our home goods, shutting foreign industries out, hoping the world will go away because they aspire -- and I have just returned from Asia and China -- not to race us to the bottom, but to be high skill, high technology economies. China and India are now turning out more engineers, more computer scientists, more university graduates -- four million in total each year -- than the whole of Europe and America put together. Therefore, the answer for our future will lie not in protectionism but in radically upgrading our skills, science and technology and this is the route to full employment for our times.
Colleagues, there is nothing more important to me in the next few years than preparing and equipping our nation to meet and master these global challenges ahead. I do not disguise from you the scale of the changes, but we -- the British working people - can, instead of being the victims of globalisation, become its beneficiaries. Throughout our history this labour Movement, faced with awesome challenges, huge responsibilities, has succeeded in meeting them to the benefit of working people. Together out of the ruins of war we built the welfare state. Together out of the chaos of private medicine we created the National Health Service. I now want us to work together on a long-term economic reform plan for global success for Britain.
Today I issue an invitation to the TUC, and to trades unions as well as to business, to enter into a discussion with the Treasury and with government in detail on how a more skilled, more adaptable, more enterprising Britain can make the right long-term decisions so that we succeed in the next stage of the global economy and can remain true to our goal of full employment opportunities for all so that, facing these future economic challenges that are greater than in 1945, mastering technological change more dramatic than in any century, we can -- working together in the interests of prosperity for all -- ensure we turn global change from a threat to us into an opportunity and then into a full employment Britain.
Let me tell you, and particularly our manufacturing unions here today, that the global challenge strengthens rather than lessons the case for manufacturing and investment in manufacturing in our regions. As we agreed with you at Warwick, we will give new support to manufacturing, investing in science, technology, transport, infrastructure, new innovations in our regions and in the new manufacturing and advisory service. Our Manufacturing Forum, now up and running with full trade union representation, is today -- at your request -- looking at public procurement so that British companies are no longer unfairly denied contracts and markets across key sectors of the European economy, so that British workers and British industry will secure the fairest deal. We will honour our promise that manufacturing should not be seen as a part of the old economy but that together we will build modern manufacturing strength for the future of Britain.
Friends, if China and India are turning out four million graduates a year and more engineers and more computer scientists and more software engineers, then we in Britain, a small country, cannot afford to waste the talents of any child. We cannot afford to write off the potential of any young person. We cannot afford now to discard the abilities of any adult, and it is because the skills of our workforce are now the commanding heights of the economy, it is because the skills of working people are as they should always have been, the most critical means of production, it is because it is increasingly the skills of working people that give every company value and give nations comparative advantage, that new principles must govern education and training in ensuring good, well paying jobs in the future of our country.
Education should no longer be just from 5 to 16. It should start at three and full time educational opportunity should be available to 18. Every teenager should have the right to further education and every adult the guarantee of training and basic skills. Let us salute in each of our unions today's trade union pioneers of the skills resolution -- 12,000 men and women, one of whom we rewarded today with a certificate, who are trade union learning representatives in the workplace every day bargaining for skills. Let us salute the 100,000 who have come back into learning through the trades union Movement in over 400 learning centres around the country, the two million workers who are engaged in skills for life programmes, the employer training pilots that are moving from the voluntarism that failed in the past and ensuring that for time off workers now have money to obtain the new skills they want and need.
I can also tell you today that to support the new Trades Union Academy, proposed by the TUC, Ruth Kelly and Alan Johnson, we will provide over the next two years £4.5 million, part of a total investment of £8 billion in skills in this country. This shows that we will answer the Asia challenge not by becoming resigned to a Britain of low skills and high unemployment but by creating a Britain of new skills and new jobs. I tell you straight, Britain can win in this global economy. We will win because we will not compete on low pay but on high skills. We will win because we will not respond to globalisation by lowering our standards in the workplace, but by raising them. We will win because we will not adjust to global change by protectionism and neglecting investment but by investing more and for the long term. This is nothing less than the economic battle for Britain's future. Upon winning this battle, by focusing rigorously on priorities that matter, we meet the future financing needs of our public services, we will tackle the war on poverty and ensure that the potential for full employment becomes real in the years to come.
I also tell you straight that in the face of that global challenge, from which there is no hiding place, there is no safe haven other than equipping ourselves by investing in the future. If we are to succeed, there must be no return to fiscal irresponsibility, no return to the economic short termism of the inflationary pay deals, no return to the old conflicts and disorders of the past. There can be no retreat from demanding efficiency and value for money as well as equity as we renew our public services and reform them. There is no future for a global trading nation like ours trying to erect protectionist barriers with the rest of the world. Just as we need stability in inflation and stability in interest rates for businesses and home owners we need stability in our industry policy - stability in industrial relations, stability in our trading relationships with the rest of the world. We will build this stability for a purpose: it is the one sure route to full employment for our generation and to the needs of prosperity not just for some but for all. Every time we will act as a government to tackle the risk to stability and to growth, risks that are already today reducing European growth to one per cent -- much of Europe is now in recession; European unemployment is rising to 20 million -- risks that have now risen from the doubling in oil prices in recent months. But global challenges need global solutions. It is because we understand the problems that are faced by hauliers, by farmers, by motorists, by ordinary consumers right across the country faced d with gas and electricity bills at a time of this doubling of oil prices, and because we will never be complacent about these issues, that the first action we must take is to tackle the cause of this problem, ensuring concerted global action is taken to bring down world oil prices and to stabilise all markets for the long term. In the last few days alone I have discussed our plans with more than 30 Finance Ministers and spoken to representatives of all the world's leading economies because, firstly, this is at root an oil problem of demand outstripping supply. OPEC must respond at its meeting on September 19 by raising production to meet rising demand.
Secondly, lack of transparency about the world's reserves and plans for their development undermine stability and cause speculation. The world must call on OPEC and all the oil producing countries to become more open and more transparent in what they do.
Thirdly, from the additional $300 billion a year in revenue OPEC countries are now enjoying, and the additional $800 billion available to oil producers, there must be additional new investment in production matched by investment in rising refinery capacity.
Fourthly, the search for alternative sources of energy and greater energy efficiency are urgent not least to tackle climate change. The World Bank should set up a new fund to support developing countries investing in alternative resources and greater energy efficiency.
Fifthly, poor countries and poor people should never be left defenceless against oil and commodity price shocks. The IMF should agree, as a matter of urgency, a new facility for countries hit by these shocks and where there are windfall revenues a special trust fund should be created where oil producers help debt ridden poor countries to write down their unpayable debts.
At each point in tackling this problem we must have the strength to take the long-term decisions that will get oil prices down. It is by securing economic prosperity, insisting that the benefits go not just to a few but to everyone, that we will achieve another goal -- finance to build world class public services in Britain.
Let me say that, because of our commitment to public services and their renewal, we are -- as promised at Warwick -- extending the local government agreement right across the public service to bring to an end the two-tier work force. Let me here publicly from this rostrum thank -- as I believe you will do later today -- Britain's public servants who, in those anxious hours, facing a terrorist threat on July 7, and in the days and months beyond, rose to the challenge, worked tirelessly, showed bravery, dedication and commitment to tend the wounded, comfort the bereaved, protect the anxious and serve the public first.
Let me take this opportunity to say publicly what is often left unsaid and taken for granted, and thank all our emergency public services. Workers in our hospitals, from the doctors, nurses and nursing auxiliaries to porters, ambulance men and women, cleaners, and catering staff - men and women who show not only exceptional skill and professionalism but every day also demonstrate extraordinary care, compassion and friendship, which makes us proud of public services in Britain.
Teachers and the teaching assistants, the school dinner ladies and caretakers who at their very best show with their dedication day in and day out that every child and every child's future counts first.
And in our communities, public servants and local government workers pioneering new services from childcare and job help to neighbourhood wardens, carers whose unbelievable compassion and support can transform people's despair into hope, home helps and support staff whose commitment and humanity show that public service can be a calling and not just a career. And proving that with investment and reform, Britain can be a beacon to the world for the highest standard of free universal public services.
For, friends, there is indeed a second reason for winning the challenge here in Britain for universal free public services that are the best in the world, so that not only just British people can benefit from these services but that we can offer hope that public services, universal and free of charge, are the way forward for developing countries, too.
For, as we will tell the world at the Special UN Summit that starts tomorrow on making poverty history, it is only by building universal free schooling and ending charges for pupils, it is only by creating universal healthcare and ending fees and charges for health that the people of Africa and developing countries can even begin to eliminate poverty, disease and ill-health.
In my eight years as Chancellor, I have visited on your behalf some of the poorest parts of Asia and the poorest parts of Africa. I have seen the faces of people crushed by poverty upon whom all the troubles of the world seem to bear down. I have met mothers in Asia who, I knew, that in using every ounce of their own energy to save the lives of their new born infants were about to lose their own lives. I have heard children in Kenya demonstrating and chanting the demand for 'free education' for every pupil instead of charges. I have met women in Mozambique who waved their pay cheques at me demonstrating that no matter how hard they worked they could not afford to pay fees, as they had to, for schooling for their young children. I have met some of the twelve million Aids orphans in Africa who, having lost both of their parents, face exclusion through having no money from both education and the possibility of health even when some of them have Aids themselves. I met only a few weeks ago in Tanzania an Aids victim who could not afford to visit a hospital, who had no money even to visit a doctor, who could not afford to pay for drugs to relieve his pain, and he said to me, 'I know I am despised because of Aids, but are we not all brothers?'
I tell you that for the one hundred and twenty million children who did not go to school today and for the 30,000 children who face avoidable death from disease today, there is not a chance to escape disease, illiteracy and poverty if they are charged for healthcare or if there are fees for education; no hope at all for the poorest communities of the world without free and universal public services that we have championed here from Britain.
Make Poverty History is the theme chosen by your President for this conference this week. Let me thank you, Brendan, for speaking magnificently when we attended the rally in Edinburgh a few months ago to Make Poverty History. Let me thank every trades union in the great traditions of our internationalism for being the driving force in the Make Poverty History coalition, and let me, therefore, congratulate you for your key role in winning for the first time in our history one hundred per cent debt relief for the poorest countries; in exposing agricultural protectionism and in exposing the scandal and waste of the Common Agricultural Policy; in securing a commitment not just to double aid to Africa but that eleven European countries now promise 0.7 per cent of their budgets spent on development aid, and we are demonstrating the truth of the belief on which our Movement was founded that as individuals we are not powerless but, acting together across the nations, we have the power to shape history.
But I say to you today, as we look to the future, and recognise not just what we have done together but what we can do in the coming years starting with the UN Special Summit this week, let the new demand from trades unionists, based on our own experience here, from churches and faith groups, from Make Poverty History campaigners from all over Britain and the world, let the new demand be that to truly make poverty history Africa must win the battle we have had to fight in Britain as well. There must be universal and free schooling for every young pupil and there must be healthcare, universal and free, as the beginning of justice for the poorest citizens of the word.
When people say that finance free universal healthcare and schooling for the world's poor is an impossible dream, let us remind ourselves that two hundred years ago people said that an end to slavery was an impossible dream. One hundred years ago people said that a free National Health Service and free education for children in Britain was an impossible dream. Just 20 years ago people said that the end to apartheid and Nelson Mandela's release was an impossible dream. Just a year ago people said that one hundred per cent debt relief was an impossible dream.
Our ancestors knew how much easier it was to be unambitious rather than to aim high. It was simpler always to be conservative than to seek change. It was less difficult to take your own share than fight for everyone to have a fair share. It was always more comfortable to see progress as moving up on your own instead of all of us moving up together. It was always less demanding to succumb to vested interested than to take them on. But instead our pioneers held fast to the vision that progress is everyone moving forward together.
And as we look at the challenges ahead - building through global change, full employment, modern manufacturing strength, ending child and pensioner poverty, building the best public services and, yes, the elimination of poverty around the world, let us agree, in the finest traditions of our Movement, that we do not settle for second best but that we reach high; that we never lower our sights but that we strive to make once unrealisable dreams come true, and in the spirit of the highest ideas of our Movement, let us acknowledge the great causes worth fighting for today: a society founded on equality, driven forward by a commitment to justice, dedicated to fairness for all, a Britain worthy of our pioneers and a Britain and a world true to our ideals. Friends, we achieve our ideals best when we work to achieve them together. Thank you. (Applause)
The President: Thank you, Gordon, for that moving and challenging speech. You certainly gave us food for thought on the economic challenges we face in today's world and what you yourself called 'The Great Cause of World Poverty'. I am sure that Brendan and the TUC would want to accept your invitation to work with the Treasury on the Movement's response to those challenges. Thank you very much, and thank you for finding the time to come and address us today.
Learning, Skills and TUC Education
Learning and Skills
Barry Lovejoy (NATFHE, The University & College Lecturers' Union) moved Composite Motion 20.
He said: I am moving Composite 20 on lifelong learning. In moving this motion on lifelong learning, I would like, first of all, to remind ourselves of the position of the Labour Government after two years in office, outlined in its publication Learning to Succeed. David Blunkett said: 'Lifelong learning can enable people to play a full part in developing their talents, the potential of their family and the capacity of the community in which they live and work. It can and must nurture a love for learning. It also contributes to sustaining a civilised and cohesive society in which people develop as active citizens in which generational disadvantage can be overcome'.
I would like to put on record my union's belief, and I am sure that of Congress, that we absolutely share this vision for lifelong learning and, indeed, as was outlined by Gordon earlier. We acknowledge the injection of funds into the system during the past three or four years, the support for learning reps and the announcement of the Union Academy.
All affiliates to this body, the TUC, generally have taken up the challenge of lifelong learning. Indeed, we have been at the cutting edge of those developments through our work through learning representatives and the wonderful work of trade union education which is reflected in the nine grade 1 assessments of those centres in the past three or four years. Indeed, all our affiliates have continued to provide basic education for our reps but also more in the form of an extension of educational rights and opportunities for our members because we are committed to that because it is a fundamental move for social justice.
Whilst recognising these advances and applauding our work in this area, we believe, however, that recently the Government have lost their way and, indeed, have actually missed some good opportunities to make some radical reforms around the learning agenda. There remain a large number of barriers to our work and that of other people in producing lifelong learning. Learning reps continue to face the barrier of lack of time and an ambivalent attitude of employers towards providing decent learning opportunities for our members.
So, therefore, this motion calls for statutory rights to negotiate on training to be established, including statutory rights for learning committees and a legal entitlement to paid time off for all our members for education.
We believe that the Government missed a golden opportunity earlier this year to address the pernicious division between academic and technical education. The Government chose to ignore, generally, the view of the Tomlinson Report which advocated one over-arching diploma recognising those distinct pathways for giving equal status and esteem for technical education and academic. The problem is that, in terms of meeting the needs of the minority of people who take A levels, it continues that divide and that divide means that technical education and vocational education is treated as second class.
Ruth Kelly has recently described colleges as 'the engines of social mobility'. We totally agree with that. Further education colleges provide opportunities, mainly to working class people, first and second chance choices and also to black and ethnic minority students. The problem is that those engines need fuel and the major fuel of any public service, and in particular colleges of education, is the people who work in them. My members and members of other trade unions - the support workers - face a situation of continuing low pay and poor working conditions in those colleges. The majority of lectures are still paid up to 10% less than their school teacher equivalents. Support workers still continue to have low, poverty wages in some respects in further education.
Further education is still run by an army of part-time employees who have recently been called an army of Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. That is not an indication of their dress sense but an indication of the fact that they are dedicated professionals but working under outrageous conditions for the 21st Century.
The simple fact is that there is not enough money. We call on the Government to make this matter a priority. My union says that if £5 billion can be paid towards the illegal occupation of Iraq, then that money should be spent on extending life chances rather than ending life chances for our people. I move.
Jack Barnett (Educational Institute of Scotland) in seconding the composite motion, said: President and colleagues, in seconding, I would like to focus on the issues within the composite related to the Union Learning Fund and learning representatives, and present Congress with a number of reasons why these are worthy of your support. First of all, I speak in recognition of the fact that Union Learning Fund initiatives follow in the long and proud trade union tradition of promoting learning, of supporting the learning needs of members and working in partnership with employers and Government, central or devolved, to demonstrate a collective commitment to learning. Secondly, my union commends, as the Chancellor has done this morning, the response of a wide range of affiliates to the opportunities presented by the Union Learning Fund.
In Scotland alone, since the year 2000, at least 23 trade unions, including my own, have accessed the £3.6 million made available through the Scottish Union Learning Fund and have expended their capacity to promote and support learning in the workplace.
Central to all of this has been the development of the role of the union learning reps, more than 1,000 of whom are now active in Scotland, pioneering a diverse range of learning projects. This is not just about helping non-traditional learners access learning, important though that is. This is a life-long learning rights agenda and it applies to all workers.
The message I bring you today is that teachers and lecturers are learners too, and ULR's have an important role to play in supporting their learning, so much so that the EIS aspires to having a union learning rep in every school and FE college in Scotland.
A third reason why Congress should support this motion is because trade union involvement in learning not only allows us to respond to a core need of our members but, in doing so, it can also have a positive impact on the way the union is perceived. It can transform attitudes about what a trade union is and what a trade union does. This gives us an opportunity to reach out to sections of the workforce which traditionally we have found difficult to engage in membership or active participation, like younger workers, women and black and minority ethnic workers.
In my own union, for example, 50 per cent of our learning reps are women, 65 per cent of our learning reps are first-time activists and 60 per cent of our learning reps, who are first time activists, are women.
Finally, colleagues, the composite recognises that there are still barriers to overcome and one of the most significant of these is the negative attitude of some employers.
So in supporting this composite today, let us send out a challenge to these employers to meet their legal obligation but, above all, to work in genuine partnership with the trade unions and government to develop the learning potential of their workforce/our members for the benefit of all. Please support.
Joanna Brown (Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists) speaking in support of the composite motion, said:
Congress, I am speaking on the section calling on the TUC to support unions which wish to develop European common platforms. The concept of the common platform arises from the EU Directive on the recognition of professional qualifications. The directive will permit professions to develop common platforms which will give their members the automatic right to practise in other Member States. Common platforms will promote mobility for professionals within the EU whilst, at the same time, providing an assurance for employers and consumers that these people are able to practise to an acceptable standard. It is important to point out that this concept is not about harmonisation of education and training, which would actually be illegal under European law, but rather about establishing a common set of outcomes and competencies.
In case all of this sounds a little elitist, the definition of a profession is interpreted very widely in the EU and may be applied to occupation beyond the traditional professions. We are talking about workers who have some sort of qualification.
So why are we asking the TUC to provide support? Primarily, it is because the initiative for establishing a common platform must come from the professions themselves. The British trade union or professional organisation must work with its counterparts in other European countries and come up with a proposal to present to the European Parliament. The Parliament will then consult with the national government in deciding whether to adopt the platform. Any of you who have been involved in European matters will realise that this is not very straightforward.
The SPC has just begun to try and establish a platform for podiatry. We have discovered that it is our job to consult with other stakeholders, such employers and service users, otherwise the Commission is unlikely to accept our application. Also the application must be supported by professional bodies in 20 out of the 25 EU Member States. This will be something of a challenge for us as our profession does not even exist in some of the new Member States where podiatry tends to be carried out by doctors. We have not yet worked out how to get over this hurdle and would benefit from some kind of help. So we are asking the TUC, firstly, to facilitate advice and information for unions which are interested in promoting common platforms for their members and, secondly, to provide links to sources of expertise and influence in Europe, such as the ETUC.
For many workers, despite what we are told, mobility in Europe is still just a theoretical concept. By sharing our knowledge and experience, we will be able to make the single market work for our members. Please support.
Jim McAuslan (British Air Line Pilots Association) supported the composite motion.
He said: The British Air Line Pilots Association supports Composite 20 and in particular that part beginning with the need for UK Plc to predict and provide for trained professional aircrew. So it was, Conference, that I was uplifted to see the headline on page 101 of the Annual Report and echoed by the Chancellor: 'Employer Training Pilots'. Not so, my friends. Pilots, as in trials; not pilots as in flight crew.
The bleak reality is that employers have, essentially, opted out in the training of flight crew, preferring to leave it to the vagaries of the market. It is so typical of the vagaries of the market that just as UK aviation enjoys some long-awaited growth and the demand for pilots increases, we find that the supply drives up because potential pilots were scared off following the last economic downturn in UK aviation. It is tempting for a trade union to use the market to our advantage and to our existing members' advantage by treating the labour supply tight, stir up a bit of fear about cheap foreign imports on the back of the Hellios crash in Greece last month and watch salaries go up as employers struggle to recruit and retain flight crew. But in today's global market this will only result in airlines moving off-shore and basing themselves nearer to the labour supply. Yes, we could extract a short-term salary premium but at the expense of long-term growth on these shores.
UK Plc's approach towards training pilots does not help itself. It is assumed that, if you want to become a pilot, you must be a bit of a toff, pursuing glamour and it being nothing more than a gentleman's pastime. The truth is that most of the pilot intake over the past few years has been self-sponsored and it will cost the individual between £70,000 - £100,000 plus VAT. Most will have re-mortgaged their houses or used their redundancy payment or begged or borrowed to raise the money to then go through a lengthy training period to get a job flying, often for nothing as a junior first office, and for a couple of years, until they get a chance of getting a good job, and that does not always get delivered. It is brutal and it is not the way that a highly skilled workforce will develop on these shores. Yes, we would support the Chancellor's and the Treasury's call to engage in discussion about this situation.
It is not just special pleading, colleagues, or elitism, because without trained aircrew fewer airlines will be setting up in the UK, fewer airlines mean fewer aircraft, fewer aircraft mean fewer loaders, fewer cabin crew, fewer air traffic controllers and fewer jobs, which is why, Congress, we are calling for a different headline in next year's Annual Report that employers are training pilots and that UK Plc is supporting the improvement of the UK pilot base. We support the composite.
Tony Burke (Amicus) speaking in support of the composite, said: In supporting the composite, I am referring, specifically, to the need for sector training levies. Each year at Congress we argue the case to improve our members' skills and long-term futures, but the fact is that after years of urging employers to pay for skills, we still have a long way to go to compete with our overseas competitors.
Many UK employers, in their short-sighted approach to business, still look towards cheap, low paid and poorly trained workers. They wonder why we have skill shortages in a number of industries and why productivity is low. Let's just look at three examples. The 2002 Construction Industry Training Board Skills Foresight Report claimed an estimated shortfall of 37,000 electricians until 2006, requiring an annual increase of more than 7,000 apprentices. The same study said that there was a shortfall of 30,000 plumbers for the same period, requiring an annual increase of 6,000 apprentices. In printing, research carried out in 2004 found that more than 40 per cent of employers had done no training at all for the previous 12 months.
President, in the commercial printing industry we have got the employers to agree to a voluntary system, which is that 0.5 per cent of company budgets are to be allocated to training. If that does not work, the Government have warned our industry that they will be prepared to introduce a compulsory sector training levy.
Congress, Amicus believes that unions have done much to improve the skills of our members during the past decade, as the Chancellor referred to this morning. The Union Learning Fund has exceeded expectations and our union learner reps are doing a brilliant job in improving access to skills. From our experience, the learning and skills agenda is a wonderful organising tool. However, President, we are still working within a system which allows employers to choose whether they train or not.
The training needs of workers can never be fulfilled whilst employers are allowed to duck this issue and we need firm measures if we are to reverse this terminal decline. That is why we need to keep the pressure on the Government to introduce statutory training levies where it can be demonstrated that employers have failed their industries. In addition, we need the Government to introduce training within the scope of collective bargaining where union recognitions provide for an obligation to negotiate with workplace reps in relation to training.
We also have to remember that training is not just about improving productivity but it is about our members' future.
Congress, too many employers have been getting away with refusing to train workers for far too long, so I ask you to support the composite. Support investment in our members to win better skills and better learning opportunities, and where employers do not train, let's make them pay. Let us make sure that our members get the opportunities for learning and skills that they deserve.
Peter Pendle (Association for College Management) supported Composite Motion 20.
He said: Colleagues, we are pleased to support NATFHE on this composite and we want to refer, briefly, to two specific issues. Firstly, it remains a scandal that a funding gap of more than 10 per cent exists between schools and college students undertaking the same or similar courses of study. Recent research by the Learning and Skills Development Agency has proved that the gap exists and is damaging students' opportunities. The Government continue to refuse to address the issue. We do not want to have funding for school sixth form students reduced, but we want further education students to get the same.
The result of the funding gap is that pay and conditions of those working in further education suffer, but, perhaps more importantly, the funding gap is discriminatory. Recent research has shown, for instance, that black and minority ethnic 16 - 19 year olds are much more likely to go to further education colleges than to school sixth forms. On average 40 per cent less is spent on their education than their white equivalents. ACM believes that this amounts to both political and institutionalised discrimination, so let us remove the funding gap now.
Secondly, recent funding cuts have been directed at learning support budgets in further education colleges. These funds have, in the past, been used to support the most disadvantaged learners in our society. Especially worrying is the fact that the cuts have included a reduction in the funds for childcare for learners. The Government want to see more people returning to employment but, at the very same time, they encourage the Learning and Skills Council to cut the funds which support them to get the qualifications and skills to do so. Please support the composite for a properly funded further education sector.
Paddy Lillis (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) in supporting Composite Motion 20, said: Colleagues, lifelong learning has inspired and enthused membership more than any other issue in recent years. My union launched its lifelong learning campaign just six years ago. Since then a staggering 12,000 of our members have returned to some kind of learning. People excluded from any formal education before, now benefit from the basic skills, vocational and personal development training. That is not just of enormous value and benefit to them, but it means the ability to learn through the union adds value to membership. It helps to raise our profile and build our organisation. It is good for attracting people to us and holding them there and that is why we have invested further.
We have now trained more than 500 people to become learning reps. They are carrying out vital work with employers and learning providers to promote education and, of course, offering encouragement and support to our members. They do a fantastic job for our people. That is why we need to go on building around them.
That means workplace learning committees. Learning committees are not just about good intentions but about action; a working mechanism, colleagues, where vital decisions are made about everything from learning providers to financial backing. We have already made some progress. Companies like Tesco, Sainsbury's and Shop Direct have already set up workplace learning committees with us, fundamental to creating a learning culture in the workplace. Enlightened as it is, it is still a voluntary approach, colleagues.
So, like the reps themselves, we need committees on a statutory footing to make real progress. We already have a legal framework for reps to establish health and safety committees. It would be simple and effective to do the same for learning reps and their committees. Nearly 200 Westminster MPs backed that point of view earlier this year. They saw the point and they were right. We need to go on building and workplace learning committees by law are an integral part of it. Thank you.
Frances O'Grady (The Deputy General Secretary): Thank you. The General Council has asked me, very briefly, to give an explanation with its support for Comp 20 on learning and skills.
The General Council, in particular, welcomes the recognition given in the composite motion to the contribution of unions to progressing this agenda, and in particular our 12,000 union learning representatives nationwide.
The composite motion also welcomes the commitment of the Government to vocational education and training, but it does, quite rightly, raise concerns about the new skills academies, including the concern that they may be created outside of the FE sector and based on an employer-dominated model. However, many unions will want the opportunity to use their influence on the development of these skills academies, especially through union representation on the boards of sector skills councils and in seeking a seat at the table on the governance of these new skills academies so that we ensure that these academies adopt not just an employer dominated model but, instead, an employment led approach and that they are strongly tied into the FE sector. Thank you.
The President: Congress, I do have other speakers who have indicated a wish to speak in this debate, but I am going to move to the vote because I am conscious that I do not want to lose any more business this morning. We are trying to pick up lost business from yesterday. I am going to move to close this debate.
The President: The General Council supports the composite.
* Composite Motion 20 was CARRIED.
The President: That completes Chapter 6 of the General Council Report.
London bombings - tribute to the emergency workers - GS Statement and debate.
The President: Chair, we now turn to Chapter 4 of the General Council's Report on Economic and Industrial Affairs, which is on page 50 of the Report. At this point on the Agenda, I would like to ask Congress to reflect on the terrorist attacks which took place in London of this year on 7th and 21st July. In a few minutes, I will call the General Secretary to move a statement on behalf of the General Council.
However, before that, I think it is appropriate that we pay our respects to those people who died in the attacks and it is also right that we pay tribute to the many transport and emergency workers who played such a vital role in ensuring the safety of the public during those traumatic events. In recognition of their tremendous work in representing both themselves and their fellow workers, I would like to call on stage the following:
George Psaradakis. George is a member of the Transport and General Workers' Union. On 7th July George was driving the number 30 bus on which 14 people died in the explosion in Tavistock Square.
Fanny Takyi-Michais. Fanny is a police community support officer and a PCS rep. Fanny was one of the first people on the scene after the explosion of the bomb on the bus at Tavistock Square, directing people to safety.
Adam Levy. Adam is a biomedical scientist at Great Ormond Street Hospital and an Amicus member. Adam acted as a runner for a surgical team, looking for trolleys and blankets and making sure that people could get through to the switchboard.
David Moore. David has been a London firefighter and an FBU branch official for more than 20 years. David attended the Edgware Road incident on 7th July and helped to rescue passengers from Underground trains.
Richie Hilier. Richie also attended the Edgware Road incident as the driver of the fire engine from Kensington Fire Station. Richie was responsible for checking in and out the emergency workers who went below ground to rescue passengers.
Mark Maybanks. Mark is a member of the Transport and General Workers' Union and was the driver of the number 26 bus on which a rucksack bomb was planted on 21st July. Fortunately, the bomb failed to explode and there were no casualities.
Olanayi Falayi. Olanayi is a station supervisor and a member of the RMT. Ola was one of the first people on the scene at Aldgate where he spent more than an hour underground, getting the injured out of the damaged carriages and walking them along the track to safety.
Mark Belkin. Mark is a UNISON member and a paramedic team leader at Islington Ambulance Station. Mark was called out to treat the injured at the site of the bus explosion in Tavistock Square.
Catherine Mayes. Catherine is a development planner for London Underground and a TSSA member. Catherine helped to arrange protection for the search and rescue teams at Aldgate and worked to get the District Line running back to normal for the following morning.
Robin Mayes. Robin, Catherine's husband, is a station supervisor on London Underground and a TSSA rep. On7th July, Robin helped to evacuate Liverpool Street Station. He then walked to Aldgate Station where he helped rescue passengers from the exploded train.
Finally, Andrea Shields. Andrea is a paramedic and a UNISON member. On 6th July she was one of the ambulance workers who treated the injured and cared for the dying, first at the site of the bus bombing and then at Russell Square tube station.
Congress, I now ask that you join me in standing for a minute's silent tribute in memory of those who died in the events of 7th and 21st July.
(Congress stood in silent tribute)
Thank you, Congress. (A standing ovation)
Let me say to you, the workers, who were able to join us today. We are incredibly proud of you and I know that your unions are incredibly proud of you. Thank you.
(The emergency workers left the platform to a standing ovation)
General Council's Statement on the consequences of the terrorist attacks on London
The President: I now call the General Secretary to move the General Council's Statement on the consequences of the terrorist attacks on London. May I remind Congress that Motion 52 has been withdrawn in favour of the General Council's Statement.
Brendan Barber (The General Secretary: President and Congress, it was right that we began this section by paying our respects to those who died in the London bombings and by paying tribute to the transport and emergency workers who coped so heroically in the aftermath. Whatever other issues arise as a result of the attacks, and there are many of them, nothing can take away from the fact that whenever we consider about this issue, our most immediate and most deeply felt thoughts are those of respect for the dead and praise for those whose efforts saved lives and reduced suffering.
The other issues that we now need to consider are covered in detail in the General Council's Statement. It is a long statement which reflects the range of issues that we, as trade unionists, need to address. Firstly, there is the need to draw practical lessons from the attacks and to ensure that trade unionists are involved in that process. We have made a positive start and the Government and some employers have been to the fore, but more needs to be done such as training, better communications and better use of technology, but most of all the involvement of staff is essentially an element in raising safety standards and in ensuring that we are as prepared as we can be for any future attacks, whatever their form and whenever they may occur.
These are not just issues for those working in the areas of greatest risk - transport and public buildings. Today everyone in every workplace may be vulnerable to some degree, and it is for us and our workplace reps to ensure that management are taking their responsibilities seriously in involving our representatives in their contingency planning.
It was notable that, in the first few days after the bombings, there was a tremendous sense of solidarity to be seen and felt around London. Some unexpected people were using that trade union term 'solidarity'. Communities came together in a way we have rarely seen before. People became more aware of just what a diverse city our capital is. We are, as Ken Livingstone so aptly put it, the world in one city, and we are proud of that.
Unfortunately, that was not a universal feeling. During the past few weeks I have been out visiting some of the communities which are experiencing an insidious backlash. I have been with General Council member Mohammed Taj to visit Beeston, the part of Leeds that found itself in the media spotlight when it became clear that that was where some of the suicide bombers came from. We also went to east London and to the Midlands. We were told what others have confirmed, that since July 7th the number of racist attacks has risen. Alongside that is the daily sense of hostility, abuse, threats and general intimidation in some parts of the country that makes life insufferable for those whose only crime is to look and sound different from their abusers.
During the summer we published a report which demonstrates the scale of the divide that exists within our country. It showed that some racial groups experienced disadvantage way out of proportion to the rest of the population. For instance, almost 7 out of 10 people from the Pakistani or Bangladeshi communities are officially classed as poor compared with just 1 in 5 of the rest of the population. So this gross inequality demands action, so we look to the Government, to employers and to other authorities.
However, we can do some things ourselves. I know that our solidarity with disadvantaged communities is genuinely appreciated and we need to continue to show that solidarity in the long run and not just when the cameras are there. We can also look to work with others. Our statement mentions three groups, the first of which is the educational institutions, which have a role to play in promoting diversity; the media, which has a duty to avoid stereotyping and, on a different scale, women's groups and women within the disadvantaged communities who, as other examples have shown, can help to bridge divides and counter extremism in whatever form.
The link between the terrorist attacks in London and the situation in the Middle East and Britain's presence in Iraq have been widely debated. Our view is clear; that the threat of terrorism would be reduced if there was genuine progress towards peace in the Middle East and if British forces were not engaged in Iraq.
We are working with our international trade union colleagues towards those goals and will continue to do so, not just because it would reduce the threat of terrorism here, but because it is right to do so.
Finally, with the increased threat from terrorism, it is inevitable that the Government should look at measures to minimise that threat. Again, our view is clear. We recognise the need to counter the threat and we welcome effective measures, but we also value our civil liberties. In the case of any new legislation, we would need to be convinced that the value is truly proportionate to its effect in making society safer. Congress, I commend the General Council's Statement to you. (Applause)
Gerry Doherty (Transport Salaried Staffs' Association) said: :I am pleased to indicate to Congress that we were delighted to withdraw motion 52 and to support the General Council's Statement, indeed, to thank the General Council for its initiative in this respect.
As Brendan said, the length of this statement only serves to indicate the number and the breadth of the issues which this real tragedy has brought to the surface. In the few minutes that I have, I would like to concentrate on one or two of those issues. The 7th July is a date that will be for ever burned in all of our memories, certainly anyone who was around the vicinity of London on that fateful morning. Our headquarters are at Euston Station. I arrived there at about nine o'clock that morning. We had indications that there was something wrong in the Underground. About an hour later we actually heard the bomb explode around the corner in Tavistock Square. At that stage there were uncertain indications that it might be a power surge, or something else, but it was evident quite earlier on that it was a terrorist attack.
Anyone who was around there at that time felt the real surge of sympathy, concern and admiration for the people who were standing on this platform for the way in which they reacted that morning. We have lived in the aftermath of it ever since. Anyone again who travels around London looks twice now when someone is carrying a rucksack in the Underground, and that is an unfortunate side event to this.
However, a week after those events and before the second wave of attacks a fortnight later, we had a meeting with Tessa Jowell, which occurred just before the event in Trafalgar Square. A number of the people who were on the platform this morning were at that meeting. When I listened to the firsthand experience of those individuals, I felt enormous admiration for them in how they carried out their work under those terrible circumstances.
As we all know, the public ethos of public service workers came magnificently to the fore. They were praised in the media on this occasion. As we know, trade union members are vilified. I repeat, they came through magnificently! When I sat down to try to write an effective speech, I found that mere words do not do justification to the admiration that we all feel. However, it was predicted that a terrorist attack was going to happen in London. In fact, it was said that it was inevitable. Despite all that, when it did happen, it was a terrible shock to us all.
Were we prepared for it? Probably not, but I think the services reacted magnificently, as I have already said. However, we have in the future to anticipate that public services and public transport, in particular, is a target for terrorists because it gives them such publicity.
So what do we do? Total security is difficult to achieve in a mass transit industry. Put yourself in a place of a worker in London Transport. If you work in a ward in a hospital, if you are a teacher in a school or if you are in a factory, you know that the terrorists are not after you, but London Transport workers think that they are now. We have to give them all the support we can.
Brendan has mentioned about what we do with the Muslim communities. This organisation, the Labour Movement, has to stand shoulder to shoulder with our sisters and brothers in the Muslim Movement. With a name like "Doherty", I am third generation Irish and I know what happened in the past to the Irish communities. We cannot blame a whole community for the action of a few. Support the General Council Statement and I ask you to do so wholeheartedly.
Ruth Winters (Fire Brigades Union) said: I only wish the balcony in the hall was as full as it was when Gordon Brown addressed us earlier!
I come to the rostrum as a tired woman. Some of you know me and, I can assure you, it was nothing to do with the drink last night! I am tired of listening to some people thank us in the way that they do. Gordon, on behalf of the Government, thanked us today. Maybe he should have stayed and damned well listened to us now. They called us "friends", but friends do not do to each other what this Government are trying at the moment to do to the Fire Service and other public services. (Applause)
It is a bit hypocritical and a bit rich when you hear somebody speaking on behalf of the Government who only a couple of years ago called us "criminally irresponsible" for taking action that it was right to take and, on the other hand, trying to call us "heroes". I think that is an absolute disgrace.
We fully support the General Council's Statement and particularly the fact that it calls for action. It calls for action in that this Government should review the situation in terms of what has happened since the London bombings.
We are workers but we are also members of the public. We recognise what happened that day and we recognise the fact that we were not the first on the scene. Underground workers and the public, ordinary workers going to their workplace, were the first on the scene and we went there, as other emergency services did, to help and assist. We also had people affected by it. The sister of one of our delegates was on the bus and miraculously escaped unhurt. We are thankful for that.
I have to say we often hear that we have a listening government. They asked us in the Election to vote for them because they were willing to listen. Well, listen to the advice we give you in the Fire Service and stop ignoring what we ask you and tell you!
We dealt with Lockerbie before. I was on duty at Lockerbie. In the past we have dealt with the Manchester bombings, the floodings in Boscastle, the Northern Ireland bombings and the London bombings. What we will not deal with is the crap that is put in front of us at the moment: Manchester Square Fire Station in London was closed down a week before the London bombings; five fire appliances are disappearing, or on their way to disappearing, and 180 jobs in London have gone. Only the other night in the West Midlands, 20?odd machines came off the run. They had run out of fire engines because of this Government's policy on standards of fire cover. Approximately 900 jobs in emergency fire control rooms are on their way out and this Government are using the excuse that it is to make us better fighter terrorism.
It is an absolute disgrace and it should be stopped. Government, do not tell us you are going to listen. Act on what we are telling you and stop listening to senior civil servants talking crap! (Applause)
We work in a service where equality is actually dropping off the agenda. It is absolutely right that the Statement mentions racism, but that happens to our workers as well, our black members who are in the minority, our women members and our gay and lesbian members. That has to be stopped. I am glad that this Statement mentions the Middle East and the war in Iraq, because we have to live with the consequences and effects of what this Government do. It is about time Tony Blair got his head out of the sand and stopped trying to defend the indefensible position on the war in Iraq. (Applause)
Finally, our members would happily forego the praise, the heroism and all the compliments we receive to get back the resources and the respect our profession deserves, and we are a profession. The Government should not just listen to us but act on what we say. Do not start off a meeting, which we attended two days after the bombings, by thanking us and then try to justify why you are going to get rid of hundreds of our jobs.
The last thing I will say, Chair ?? I am sorry, but it is very important ?? stop giving us platitudes, Government, and change your attitude. Please support the Statement.
Garry Winder (Public and Commercial Services Union) supported the General Council's Statement.
He said: PCS stands in sympathy and solidarity with those whose lives were tragically touched by the events in July. Our thoughts go out to those who have lost loved ones or who were injured in those horrific attacks. PCS condemns absolutely such violence against innocent people. We pay tribute to the emergency services, transport and public sector workers, some of whom were PCS members, who responded with great courage and professionalism. In particular, I want to mention our police community support officers who were some of the first on the scene, particularly at the bus bombing, tending the injured until the emergency services arrived. They had to make some very difficult decisions in harrowing circumstances.
It is right that the Government address the security issues and reviews how well we respond to major incidents. However, that does not mean that our long?cherished civil liberties should be eroded because of terrorist threats. The TUC must defend civil liberties, making it clear to Government that erosion is not acceptable to trade unions and the general public. We have already seen how a shoot to kill policy went horribly wrong and how continuing intervention in Iraq creates mistrust and indignation in Muslim communities.
There is an alternative: tackle the inequalities in Britain. If you are a young Asian man, you are twice as likely to be unemployed than if you are white. You are far more likely to live in poor housing, rely on State benefits and be subject to racism and prejudice. Is it any wonder that they can feel disconnected from the wider community? It is this sense of disconnectiveness and this estrangement that provides a fertile recruiting ground for those who preach hatred.
The far right play on the worry and fear that followed the bombings, stirring up more hatred and prejudice. Some of the tabloid press pick up on this with negative stories about immigration and asylum. Immigrants ?? "immigrants" means black and Asian ?? are being held responsible for taking our jobs, our welfare, our identity, our corner shops and for the atrocities in July. This view of immigration is a misguided philosophy, a religion peopled by demons rather than saints and martyrs, spurred by fear rather than hope and disintegration rather than integration. The challenge is to break into this cycle of prejudice and hatred. This will not be achieved by ever more Draconian police powers. PCS will be standing shoulder to shoulder with the Muslim Association of Britain on 24th September at the Rally for Peace and Liberty.
The trade union Movement will continue to fight racism and race poverty. It will support the improvement of community relations and our members always stand ready to support and protect the public they serve. Thank you.
Barry White (National Union of Journalists) said: President, Congress, the NUJ welcomes the General Council Statement about the tragic attacks in London and also the General Secretary's introductory remarks. We would particularly highlight the reference in the Report to the role of the media and its powerful role in emphasising solidarity across different communities. The Report also highlights the negative role it can also play in simplifying, stereotyping and characterising groups in ways which play into the hands of those who are determined to undermine the solidarity we need continually to build.
Take, for instance, the Daily Express of 27th July, which told us in the usual measured and objective Express language that the "bombers are all sponging asylum seekers". This showed an amazing foresight, particularly because at the time of writing, the identity of two of the suspected bombers was unknown! Then there was a report in the Evening Standard, which carried an article claiming that a Central London Islamic book shop had been selling pamphlets urging Muslims to wage Holy War. The claim was denied by the son of the owner. "We had constant abuse and threats with people threatening to kill us and fire bomb the shop", he told the September edition of the Mayor of London's paper, The Londoner.
In addition to increasing racially motivated attacks and fear in those communities, which has already been mentioned, much of this type of coverage was designed to create a groundswell of support for the exceptional powers subsequently demanded by the Prime Minister in his "let no one be in any doubt the rules of the game are changing" speech of 5th August, which advocated an authoritarian and anti?civil rights agenda much loved by the Murdoch media, The Express and the Daily Mail. Let us be clear, you do not defend democracy by undermining hard?won democratic rights. It is not only in war reporting that truth is the first casualty.
We know that the press is free from the impartiality regulations which govern broadcasting and this allows them to be as partisan as their owners choose. We need to build our trade union membership within the media industries to give some solidarity and protection to journalists who are prepared to stand by ethical standards of journalism. That is why the TUC campaign for a Trade Union Freedom Bill and the motion on a conscience clause proposed by the NUJ are so important.
The time has come for our Movement to give the issues of media reform a much higher priority. Thank you.
Steve Warwick (UNISON) supported the General Council Statement.
He said: Congress, as someone who was in London on the day of the terrorist attacks, I want to pay tribute to all of my fellow public service workers who did so much in the aftermath of the bombings to help the public who were caught up in those terrible events. I saw firsthand the work they did and was both proud and glad to see nurses working alongside bus drivers and police alongside tube workers. Whatever we think of the policies since the 7th July, we should be grateful for the help and protection they all offered us on that day.
However, speaking on behalf of my union, UNISON, I would like to clarify our position on three particular areas. First, on the day on which the Home Secretary is having to face some questions on the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, I think it is totally wrong to group together his death with the victims of the 7th July bombs. Jean Charles was not killed by a terrorist bomb. (Applause) He was killed as a result of a police shoot to kill policy. That is why we expect the Independent Police Complaints Commission to ensure that justice is done and this appalling policy is properly reviewed.
Secondly, a passing reference to Britain's presence in Iraq is an inadequate reflection of the obvious connection between our actions in the Middle East and the terrorist motivation. We must not forget that the biggest threat to freedom and democracy is the terrorist who places no value on innocent lives, but at the same time it is simply wrong not to acknowledge the part the Iraq invasion has played in stirring up feelings against both our Government and our country.
Thirdly, we must in no way dilute our opposition to attacks on civil liberties. Our civil liberties are at the heart of what we should be fighting to protect. If we are not careful, the knee-jerk reaction to the 7th July will be an attack on the very rights that we want to protect.
Unions have always had a proud tradition of fighting for freedoms because historically and currently in other parts of the world attacks on civil liberties have been used against us. That is why the TUC should be in the front of the queue when it comes to scrutinising, questioning and testing the legal challenges being brought in.
Therefore, with these three qualifications in mind, Congress, I ask you to support the General Council's Statement. Thank you.
Mohammad Taj (Transport and General Workers Union) said: President and conference, I intend to address two issues contained within this excellent General Executive Statement. First, I deal with extremism. There is much that Government, institutions and the wider community can do, yet, as a Muslim, I say the Muslim community must take the lead in dealing with extremism.
It is insufficient to keep repeating that Islam is a religion of peace. It is insulting to say that suicide bombers were criminals and, therefore, they are not Muslims. It is true they were not criminals. A criminal is someone who steals your car; a criminal is someone who nicks your DVD player. These people were psychopaths, but their madness did not come out of nowhere. There are strands of misogyny, obscurantism, homophobia and anti?semitism that run through Muslim communities. There are elements, tiny but significant, that espouse a toxic mixture of self?pity and aggression. These things help to turn ordinary young men into suicide bombers. It is the duty of every decent humane Muslim to help put our own house in order first.
I will turn to another matter: Tony Blair's proposals to ban some Muslim organisations. I have fundamental disagreements with these organisations, but I cannot agree with banning them. You see, it is quite simple. If an organisation does something which is against the law, arrest those involved. If an organisation incites something which is against the law, put them on trial and let a jury decide. Otherwise, let people speak their mind even if what they say is offensive or just plain barking mad.
We are all protected by two great forces. It is not the Army; it is not the police. The two great forces that protect us all are democracy and freedom of speech. It is dangerous to mess with them. Conference, I ask you to support this Statement. Thank you.
Janine Booth (National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers) said: I work as a station supervisor on the Piccadilly Line on London Underground. I would like to thank Congress and the General Council for your acknowledgment of the work of London Underground and other workers on the 7th and 21st July. However, I also have some bad news for Congress. I have to tell you that, despite the bombings, the near certainty of further attacks, the essential role of staff in saving lives and the reassurance and protection that passengers get from visible staff in stations, despite all of these things, London Underground management is planning to cut staffing levels on our stations.
Chief station staff will soon achieve at last our long?awaited, hard?fought?for 35 hour?week, but the company is trying to pay for this by cutting staffing rather than through public funding.
On the stations where I work and am the Union rep, the company plans to cut station supervisors and station assistants. The effect will be reduced safety, worse customer service, increased workload and stress for the remaining staff.
Our message to our employers and to the Government has to be: "Do not praise us only to attack us." If Gordon Brown really respects London Underground workers, as he says, then he will reverse the public private partnership and bring London Underground back into public control; he will fund it properly and he will stop these cuts in our staffing levels. (Applause)
When I told my workmates I was coming to the TUC Congress, they said to me: "Janine, tell them about what the company is doing to staffing levels on our stations. Tell them that they are trying to cut the staffing and ask them to support our fight." So that is why I have come here. We ask all your unions and the TUC to support the Underground union's fight against these station staffing cuts.
If the employer presses ahead with this and forces us to take strike action to defend your safety and our working conditions, we hope that we will see you on our picket lines. If that happens, we hope that the media, the Government and the Mayor of London will remember that Underground workers are heroes instead of treating them as villains, which they have done during previous strikes. Thank you.
The President: Thank you. I will now take the vote on the General Council's Statement on the consequences of the terrorist attacks in London.
(The General Council's Statement was adopted)
The President: We now continue with Chapter 4 of the General Council's Report on economic and industrial affairs.
School Education
Hilary Bills (NUT) moved Composite Motion 13.
She said: I am President of the National Union of Teachers. I am proud of the fact that the National Union of Teachers has been leading the way with others in the fight against the introduction of privatised education through the Government's programme of academies.
This is not a comment upon the individual school communities. The National Union of Teachers wants all schools to succeed. Like Estelle Morris, who has been so critical of academies, we believe in standards, not structures.
Academies are about the introduction of a system which breaks down the local community of schools, undermines local democracy and, quite frankly, is the worst way of tackling the effects of deprivation on achievement.
I was recently in Canada trying to explain to some teachers what the academy programme is about because, unfortunately, the privatisation of education is a global trend. I told the listeners that an academy, according to the Government, was a publicly funded, independent school set up to raise standards in disadvantaged areas. The Government want 200 of these academies by 2010 and that faith schools are permitted to give priority of admission to children on the basis of a religious affiliation.
Then I said: "The funding goes like this. The Government give the sponsors £2 million, no strings attached, and then the sponsor has to match the Government with £20 million." The Canadian teachers were absolutely appalled at this arrangement. It was at this point my husband tugged my sleeve and said: "I hate to tell you, hon, it is the other way round. The sponsor puts up £2 million and the Government matches it with £20 million." In recent months that has even gone up to 35 million in some areas.
It beggars belief that this Government intend to roll out a £5 billion programme which takes schools out of local education authority control and the accountability of the local community and puts them into the hands of private sponsors. The ability to raise the £2 million seems to be the sole criterion for sponsoring an academy.
Who are these private sponsors? Sadly, I have to tell you that the evidence so far shows that these sponsors in the main are rich businessmen and faith groups. Have you ever heard of anything for nothing? Well, of course not. They all have their own private agendas. The Christian fundamentalist, Sir Peter Vardy of Reg Vardy Cars, sponsors the academy in Middlesborough. Children are taught as fact that Darwin's evolution is just one theory and creationism is at least equally valid.
Likewise, the proposed Archbishop Ramsey Academy in Southwark includes in its Sex and Relationship Education Policy: "We need to recognise that some authorities believe that sex education may actually promote sexual experimentation". You have to remember that this is being delivered using money diverted from funds that could be funding locally accountable, democratic communities of schools.
Since 1998, the National Union of Teachers has had a central unit which monitors and advises on the commercialisation and privatisation of education. So what have we found so far? First of all, detrimental changes in staff conditions of service and a huge staff turnover; pupil selection is back; local children cannot attend their local school; parents with cars and who can travel are the ones who are likely to apply for the academy and when disruptive pupils are excluded, other schools have to pick up the cost.
Out of the current 14 academies ?? listen to the figures, folks ?? eight are achieving in line with neighbouring schools, two are performing below and two have been put into special measures. In other words, OFSTED thinks they are failing schools! It sounds like a pretty good scheme, doesn't it! So I hope you have the message.
So what do we want? The National Union of Teachers is calling on the TUC to plan a campaign involving initially a conference this Autumn, after which consideration is to be given to plan a national demonstration opposing academies; a campaign against pupil selection; a fight for schools to be accountable to the community through their local education authorities and, finally, a campaign against the Government's strong arm tactics which force local education authorities into having academies in their areas. We want all children to achieve. We must not let this flawed system get in the way.
Helen Connor (Educational Institute of Scotland) seconded Motion 13.
She said: Nine years ago, one of my colleagues, who happens to be in the room today, stood here as an EIS delegate talking about smaller class sizes. No change there, then! However, there has been an enormous change in the last nine years, not least, the Labour Government elected on a platform very much of education, education, education. So why am I standing here now talking again about the need for smaller classes and why is that so crucial to the future of our children's education? I would like to give you four main reasons for that.
Firstly ?? and the Chancellor touched on this this morning when he was talking about the need for our education system to adapt and change and the need to challenge technological improvements and technological advance in our society - a flexible curriculum is crucial to the future of our youngsters. However, we cannot have a flexible curriculum if we are working in classes of 30 and beyond. Why should education be simply for the academic? In a society that is changing, education must meet those changes.
Secondly, day in and day out we hear of discipline difficulties within our schools. Scotland is no different from anywhere else in that respect. I reiterate, we are not saying that smaller classes would get rid of discipline difficulties, but they very clearly would allow us to focus on the youngsters' needs and, hopefully, remove the blame culture that we live in nowadays when everything is blamed on schools and education. Involving youngsters is crucial and to involve youngsters you must have smaller classes.
Finally, and possibly most importantly, there is the agenda of social inclusion. We are clear that social inclusion does not and should not mean mainstreaming every youngster, but it does mean including many youngsters with special needs. If this concept is to be successful for everybody ?? I stress everybody ?? then this integration must take place in classes small enough for everyone to benefit.
Colleagues, I could continue, but time does not permit. The key to all of this is resources, both human and financial. We are looking for a commitment from the Government to smaller classes throughout education. Falling rolls gives the Government an ideal opportunity to do this. Maintaining the number of teachers despite falling rolls would not be additional cost. Youngsters are our future. They deserve the best. Support this motion.
John Chowcat (National Association of Educational Inspectors, Advisers and Consultants) supported Composite 13.
He said: I am focusing on the practical implications of the Government's introduction of stronger internal market competition within our school system in England and the related New Relationship with Schools Initiative.
Currently, Government ministers' very open encouragement of more academies in our cities and of effectively independent foundation status for secondary and primary schools reflects a much deeper Government push for choice and market?based reforms across the public sector generally. However, the hard evidence from overseas tell us that more competition between local schools can generate very unwelcome consequences.
New Zealand went very heavily for "parent power" and choice and market forces in its school system some years ago. They completely abolished their equivalent of our local education authorities. They let the market reign. The results include very sharply differentiated educational outcomes for children. The poor white and the Maori children attend the "sink" schools. The more articulate and the better resourced middle class parents send their children to upmarket schools elsewhere. We have to make absolutely sure that no version of that experience comes to this country.
We need a genuine and a really open debate about this. Julian Le Grand , Professor at the LSE, who is the intellectual guru of internal market theory and public services, became a key Government adviser at Downing Street last year. He is very honest about this project. In a pamphlet published in 2003 by the Policy Network called "Models of Public Service", he concedes that the evidence for internal markets "has to be treated with some caution" and he concluded at the end of the pamphlet: "It would seem that experimentation in this direction would be desirable". Congress, we are now in that experiment.
The related New Relationship with Schools initiative is all about reducing the role of LEAs in local school improvement. In a Parliamentary answer to an MP's written question on the 6th June, Schools Minister, Jackie Smith, confirmed that the Government is not going to fully fund the introduction of the new school improvement partner roles. So that means that LEA finances, already stretched, are going to be further squeezed. We know from the training and the design of the training of the new school improvement partners now coming through that the role looks increasingly like an inspectorial role, a totally unnecessary OFSTED mark II, when what is needed is a highly professional and developmental role that will actually support local schools.
The answer to this is real government investment in this project and meaningful consultation with all the parties concerned. I hope the DfES will listen to that. These are vital issues for the future of our school system. Please support Composite Motion 13.
Kenneth Bell (UNISON) said: Conference, academies are just one part of the Government's radical agenda for primary and secondary education; an agenda that is promoted under the guise of investment and choice. It is actually about bringing the market into education, about giving the private sector a key role and about privatisation. The Government's Building Schools for the Future programme is key to achieving this agenda. It is a programme aimed at rebuilding and refurbishing every secondary school throughout the country over the next 10 to 15 years. It is a £40 billion?plus programme that is now going to be extended to the primary sector.
Of course, we welcome the investment, but the conditions attached to the Building Schools for the Future programme are totally unacceptable. BSF is being used to deliver the Government's target of 200 academies. Councils are actually being blackmailed. They are being told: "If you do not adopt academies, you do not get the investment." In the north east of England, Durham, Newcastle, Sunderland and Northumberland councils are going to go for a total of nine academies. All this is directly linked to the Building Schools for the Future programme. Three, at least, of those councils were vehemently opposed to the academies in principle but have succumbed.
However, it is not just about academies. Under the Building Schools for the Future programme, the major funding mechanism is PFI. This means cleaning, caretaking and catering are all threatened with privatisation. As a result of this, in Newcastle alone, 1,000 mainly part?time women workers' jobs are under threat during the next year. Conference, is it not a nonsense for Tony Blair to prioritise school meals and for Gordon Brown to praise public sector workers, cleaners and school meals workers, when thousands of them who currently work in schools are going to be threatened with privatisation under the Building Schools for the Future programme? (Applause)
Councils are also expected to establish a local education partnership. This partnership will be 80% owned by the private sector. This local education partnership will deliver the Building Schools for the Future programme, but it is also expected to develop and implement education policy. The local education partnerships are a Trojan Horse, which will reduce the role of education authorities in the short?term and, unfortunately, replace them in the long?term.
Building Schools for the Future means academies, PFI schools, privatising cleaning and school meals and the private sector having a key role in education provision. Councils are being forced down this road. In the north east, Ruth Kelly said recently that was not the case. Either she is mistaken at best or she is lying at worst because our experience is councils are told: "You do not get the investment unless you adopt these policies."
In the northern region, under the auspices of the northern region TUC, we have brought together the ATL, NASUWT, NUT, GMB and UNISON, campaigning against academies, against privatisation of education, publicising the threats of Building Schools for the Future and arguing for an alternative. However, there is an urgency to translate this into a national context. This motion lays the basis. We urge you to support and to move as quickly as we can to defend our children's education. Thank you.
Andy Bellard (Association of Teachers and Lecturers) said: Industrialists and entrepreneurs who have used their financial strength to bully Labour governments into concessions which help entrench their power now seek to influence and control education, which might otherwise be free to educate and empower working class people to achieve finally a fundamental and irreversible shift in power.
The "Academies programme" allows unacceptably high profiles for non?elected capitalists to influence the state education system. A much vaunted purpose of academies is to help the most deprived urban communities, but the enormous sums of money thrown at academies would be better spent improving a much wider group of schools instead of being wasted in 50% higher start up costs. The iniquitous penalty imposed on local authorities that have declined to accommodate academies is a national disgrace.
Congress, who is it who would impose such a system? None other than our Prime Minister and his unelected Minister of Education, Andrew, now Lord, Adonis. (Applause) They ignore the Commons Select Committee which called for a halt in the expansion of the programme because of its profligate use of public funds and failure to deliver significant improvements. They turn a deaf ear to the words of experienced education professionals who urge caution and a halt in expansion until there is proven success. They carry on regardless, for this is part of the Blair legacy.
Adonis makes unsupportable claims about the "academy effect", but his education credentials are limited and when I hear him talk about schools, I am minded to recall The Bard: "... I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow"!
There is no proven academy effect; there is no benefit from private sector involvement; there is no rapid sustained improvement in GCSE results; there is no requirement for academy teachers to be GTC registered and there is no public accountability.
On the other hand, there is PriceWaterhousecooper's spin concocting progress from thin air; there is a reduction in inclusion and a rise in selection; there is a cementing of social division; there is a cynical attempt to portray comprehensive schools as failing despite the best ever results; there is a shift in control of pedagogy, curriculum content and education vision from education professionals to unaccountable businessmen and religious extremists. There is a reduction in democratic control.
Congress, what we face is continued Government hostility to highly successful comprehensive state education derided by ministers in favour of an insidious scheme to hand control of state education to the private sector. (Applause and cheers)
The President: I think you have a few supporters there, Andy!
Hilary Bills (National Union of Teachers) said: In exercising my right of reply, I cannot believe there is anyone in this hall who does not understand the issues in front of us. I did call ?? it is in the motion ?? for a conference very soon on this very issue. Having heard such wonderful contributions from other unions, I really think that should be taken forward. I ask the TUC to do that with urgency.
* Composite Motion 13 was CARRIED.
School education and inclusion
Christine Blower (National Union of Teachers) moved Composite Motion 21.
She said: Before I move this composite motion, which is the work, essentially, of the NUT and the AEP, I want to say just a very few words about the AEP General Secretary, Brian Harrison?Jennings, for whom this is his last Congress in that role. Colleagues will know of the work Brian has done and the extent to which he will be missed by colleagues in the education sector.
However, moving to the composite, the Every Child Matters agenda is about improving the lives of all children. It is an inclusive agenda which aspires to outcomes for every single child, which the NUT has long identified as extremely important. They are these: Every child should be safe, healthy, able to enjoy and able to achieve, able to make a positive contribution and should ultimately be able to achieve economic well?being.
No one could disagree with these. The task which faces us is how to achieve them. The NUT supports the Every Child Matters agenda because we see it as a way of achieving genuinely child?centered services and to do this in conjunction with parents and the community at large. However, multi?agency working is, of course, vital to this. It should be about better co?ordination and effective communication, not about engaging in confusing dialogues or any kind of perception of the interchangeability of professionals. Both education and social services must be protected in terms of financial and organisational distinctions.
Therefore, it is a big agenda with the major challenge of co?ordination between care and education services without undermining the role of teachers in both teaching and learning and, very importantly, in the pastoral aspects of a child's school life or, of course, by fudging the proper and legitimate distinction between education and children's social services.
Extended schools are a key feature of the Government's vision and this programme is progressing apace. By 2006, it is expected that there will be at least one extended school in each LEA. However, many schools already see themselves as extended and many do provide additional services and facilities and are very pleased to do so.
The NUT/DfES research commissioned by the National Foundation for Educational Research in 2003 highlighted the need for a bottom up approach to these developments. School communities should be able to identify their needs for services and then call on financial and organisational support from local educational authorities in order to be able to provide them. This must not and simply cannot be allowed to be about existing staff being expected to do more and more and more.
The NUT believes that extended schools can only be successful if, as the composite says, "schools receive sufficient resources for new and appropriate accommodation". I have heard colleagues from support staff unions, for example ask: "Well, if schools are going to be open from 8.00 to 6.00, when is anybody going to be able to clean them?" These considerations are, of course, quite significant and must not be overlooked.
The Government's vision in the children's workforce strategy looks to retaining staff through training and career development. The NUT supports this. However, success depends on employing and training sufficient teaching and support staff and in paying them properly to support and benefit children's education and to provide high quality services, which we would all want for all of our families. This is not a low cost option.
In the NUT's education statement, Bringing Down The Barriers, we called for specific funding to support collaboration between schools. We call on the TUC to urge the Government and employers to audit and fully cost the reforms. Seed corn funding and some other short?term funding will not deliver these changes and it certainly will not secure them in the long?term.
As the House of Commons Select Committee noted: "The initial set up of Children's Trust arrangements is likely to be costly and yet minimal funding has been directed to them." I do hope the Chancellor has noted that and is about to remedy it.
As the composite makes clear, we support a more inclusive society. We recognise the key role of education establishments in providing for the needs of all learners. The NUT is committed to campaigning to ensure that all local authorities maintain or re?establish a full provision to address issues arising from children and young people's behaviour.
There is much excellent work being done with children who have social and emotional difficulties. However, as the composite says, every learner should be entitled to the provision they need and when they need it. In short, every child really does matter. Please support
Charles Wood (Association of Educational Psychologists) supporting Composite Motion 21 said: Let me first thank the NUT for its kind comments on our retiring General Secretary. The AEP president is pleased to second this motion from the viewpoint of inclusion, the inclusion of parents, the inclusion of children, the inclusion of young people and their families into the hubs of their communities. We welcome the holistic view recommended by the Every Child Matters agen