Brendan Barber Congress Main Speech
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President, Congress
I rise to report another year of solid progress for our movement.
A year when the TUC had its third consecutive woman President - and what a tremendous job Alison has done all year.
A year when, once again, we led the battle against the Far Right, so that on the 3rd of May, the vast majority of our communities remained free from the poison of the BNP.
And let us salute ASLEF for the courageous legal action it took in the European Court of Human Rights, with the support of 17 other unions, that at long last means we have the basic right to expel racists and fascists from our ranks.
A year when two great unions, came together to form our newest and our largest affiliate Unite - and I pay tribute to Derek and Tony's determined leadership in shaping this breakthrough.
Unite have an absolutely crucial part to play in leading the resurgence of the whole trade union Movement. We should all wish the new union well.
This year, I'm proud that the TUC has been able to support unions locked in difficult disputes.
Proud that we are working with the CWU in its battle to deliver justice for postal workers, and today let us offer them our solidarity.
Proud that we are working with the POA in its fight to secure fair pay for prison officers and the respect that they are so long overdue.
Above all, I'm proud that we are working with GMB, Unite and Community to defend their members whose jobs are at risk at Remploy.
To those 6,000 disabled workers who are battling to save their livelihoods from a savage programme of cuts let us say:
Your struggle is our struggle.
And none of us will rest until justice is done.
Congress, our movement has been right at the forefront of debates of national importance in the past year.
This time last year next to no-one had heard of private equity.
Today, thanks to trade union campaigning led by the GMB, it is now at the top of the political and economic agenda.
This time last year NHS reform meant privatisation and contestability.
Today, thanks to unions speaking with one voice through NHS Together, the government is at long last showing signs of rethinking its plans for health service modernisation.
And this time last year housing barely registered as a political issue.
Today, thanks to the hard work of trade unionists up and down the country, social housing is once again a priority for this Labour government.
So, Congress, never under-estimate our voice - never sell short our campaigns.
We've set the agenda on pensions in both private and public sectors.
Led the way on skills, with over 150,000 workers now accessing learning through their union each year.
Shown that the battle against climate change can only be won if ordinary people are engaged at home and at work.
By advancing progressive causes, we have shown that it is only by working together that Britain can rise to the great challenges it faces.
And pause for a moment to think about the victories for union campaigning that rarely make the headlines.
In the past year alone:
The only drug proven to ease the suffering of asbestos victims now available to those who need it thanks to work by UCATT and the other construction unions.
The loophole that allows scrooge employers to count bank holidays towards the 20-day statutory minimum now slammed shut.
The discrimination against gay men and lesbians in the provision of goods and services now outlawed.
So, just for once, just for a moment, let us celebrate what together we have achieved.
And to those people who say trade unions are a relic of a bygone age, stuck in the past, somehow irrelevant to the concerns and aspirations of the twenty-first century workforce, let us say:
You are wrong; wrong on every count.
Try telling that to workers at Vodafone who have just voted for union recognition for Connect.
Proof that trade unionism cannot only survive, but thrive in the private sector service economy.
But to celebrate our achievements is not to rest on our laurels.
I stand before you not just at a critical time for British workers, but at a crucial point in the political cycle.
Later this morning we will welcome Gordon Brown - our new Prime Minister.
Of course he is an old friend and a good friend, but this will be his first speech here as Prime Minister.
It's not easy being a Labour Prime Minister addressing the TUC - down the years it's not only Tony Blair who has discovered that.
Some in the media have their stories already written.
When we disagree it's 'unions on collision course with Labour'.
And when we agree it's 'Labour caves in to unions'.
There's not much room for subtlety there.
No recognition that running the country and speaking for people at work are two different jobs.
That even though we share many values it is right that we need to make our case, to campaign for wide support and to persuade.
The Ministers we welcome this week will do the same. That's what democracy is all about.
So to the Prime Minister, I say that we welcome you warmly today and welcome much of what you and your new government have done since June.
Indeed, we welcome so much of what Labour has achieved in the past decade.
None of us should ever take for granted the economic stability, the millions of new jobs and the better employment rights that this government has delivered.
Nor should we forget just how difficult it was under the Tories. You know I had almost forgotten about John Redwood. And then he surfaced just the other week to give us a grim reminder of what we've been missing.
I'm told the BBC are looking for a new Doctor Who. With such an effortless ability to time travel from the 1980s and commute from Vulcan, perhaps John Redwood should be top of their list.
But the gains that have been made do not mean that we will ever stop arguing for a fairer Britain or speaking up for people at work.
So let me set out the challenges facing the nation on which I hope we can work together.
Let's begin with our public services.
What a paradox we face there.
No-one can deny the massive investment in public services under Labour.
No sensible observer can deny that genuine improvements have resulted from this extra money.
And no reasonable person can deny that public services must always be ready to change, to be in tune with changing times, and use resources as efficiently as possible.
But equally nobody can deny that many public servants have come to feel battered, bruised and simply unappreciated.
Too much top down change, too many targets, too much faith that the private sector has all the answers.
Compounded by the mystery of why fighting inflation requires pay cuts for hard working public servants while greed in the boardroom is allowed to flourish.
Let's be clear that this year's centralised attempt to railroad through below inflation public sector pay has been plain wrong - and must never be repeated.
To deliver the real improvements across our public services we all want to see we need to work together on the way forward.
Not a retreat to the policies of the past, but a new way of doing things that delivers for service users, taxpayers and workers alike.
Where the unique public service ethos once again takes centre stage.
That's how best to nail the lies that the investment has been wasted.
And that's how best to secure further improvements in services.
So to the Prime Minister I simply say:
Listen to us, consult us, and involve us in shaping the world-class service our country needs.
But public services are just one dimension of the challenge we face together.
Because the wider task we face is to get to grips with globalisation.
The biggest driver of change for a generation.
We know that you cannot stop the world and get off.
We know globalisation is here to stay.
But not everyone's a winner - as those damaged by our shrinking manufacturing base can testify.
Trade unions and progressive political parties came into being to campaign for a fairer distribution of the wealth generated by the first industrial revolution.
Our forbears were told that you could not have both growth and fairness. We are told the same today. But we proved them wrong then - and we'll do so again today.
Because we have the same fundamental choice to make today as the world has faced with each wave of growth and economic change.
Take the recovery after the Second World War.
Western Europe - ironically with American help through the Marshall Plan - went a very different way from the US, balancing the undoubted gains of post war growth with strong welfare states, social protection and redistribution of wealth.
Once again we have to choose.
That's why, yesterday, I launched a campaign to put the fight against inequality right at the top of our political agenda.
Congress, we may have enjoyed 50 consecutive quarters of growth.
Broken the damaging cycle of boom and bust.
Slain the spectre of mass unemployment -
But not everybody has shared in this new prosperity.
Today, just one per cent of the population owns one fifth of all the wealth.
The children of the poor are more likely to face poverty in later life than thirty years ago - a terrible mark of the damage done by Thatcherism.
It goes without saying that we welcome everything Labour has done for the worst off.
Child and pensioner poverty have fallen, thanks to the tax credits and benefits most associated with our new Prime Minister.
Investment in SureStart and childcare is making a real difference to families most in need.
And the pledge to first halve, then eliminate child poverty is the most radical policy in progressive politics for a generation.
But the fact is that much more needs to be done to meet that pledge.
So what action is needed?
These are problems that are not easy - nor can they be solved overnight.
It's not simply a matter of reeling off some simple policy demands.
It's going to take a generation long commitment. It is going to take a new national consensus.
There are few areas of public policy that will not have to be reshaped. From the ways schools, health and other public services tackle inequality to new housing policies.
That is why I think we need a new Commission to look at the distribution of wealth and income.
We must deal with the immediate policy challenges.
To meet those child poverty targets we will need to spend more on tax credits and benefits. We spell this out in the report I launched yesterday.
We know that this will have to be paid for.
And in the past, this is where these policies fell down. Hard working families - neither rich nor poor, but still running hard to stand still - feared that they would have to foot the bill.
But the truth today is that middle, low and no-income Britain are all paying a heavy price too for the growing wealth gap.
House prices that follow top pay, not that of first time buyers.
Mortgage rates that go up to quell the impact of city bonuses on housing.
The higher crime, greater health care costs and economic underperformance caused by enduring poverty.
The threat to social cohesion through the growing group of super-rich who float free from the rest of society.
And what else is new is this.
If the new super rich pay their fair share - not by raising tax rates, but by closing loopholes - we can pay the bill for halving child poverty by 2010.
They simply have to learn that tax is not just for the little people.
They are not the new untouchables.
And we have to give them the same message that our forebears have done with each wave of economic growth.
That we can combine social justice and economic success, fair shares and productive workplaces.
And this is why I say that we have a historic opportunity to play a part in building a new progressive consensus.
Not the politics of envy, but the politics of equity.
Building a stronger society - and more productive economy - through fairness.
And building that consensus is just as much a challenge to us, to charities, to pressure groups as it is to government.
Governments deliver radical policies when voters want them - indeed when they no longer seem radical but plain common sense.
Yes we need our politicians to be brave, but we have to make sure that they get the support they need to take the courageous steps we urge today.
But more equal societies do not get that way simply through more generous benefits. What really guarantees limits to inequality is a fair labour market. Not just jobs - but quality jobs for all.
Congress, since we launched the Commission on Vulnerable Employment I've met so many victims of the unfair, systematic exploitation that disfigures the world of work.
Anita - a homeworker, expected to work on demand at only hours notice - once on the day of a family funeral.
Has no right to sick leave, holiday pay or redundancy protection. Paid 60 pence for every pair of trousers she sews - and with the nimblest of fingers it's impossible to do more than four an hour.
Gregor from Poland, working in a pizza shop - paid as little as £2 an hour for a 70 hour week and not allowed breaks.
After asking for holiday he had been denied for almost 2 years he was sacked on the spot.
Teresa - a domestic worker kept prisoner in her house where she worked - her passport confiscated, threatened with the vilest sexual abuse.
There are so many issues to tackle in this dark underbelly of British life. But two have stood out so sharply.
Right at the heart of so many of these abuses are disreputable employment agencies.
There's nothing wrong with matching employers with short- term needs, with workers with short-term availability. There will always be a role for that.
But the good agencies are being brought down by the bad - giving the whole sector a shady reputation.
I am disappointed to see the CBI opposing any idea of proper European regulation of employment agencies.
The CBI used to oppose the minimum wage too. But after a while they realised that this was just standing up for Britain's worst employers - the ones who paid poverty pay.
I would say this in all seriousness. Now is the time to think again about employment agencies. It's time for another minimum wage moment. Time to stop standing up for the bad agencies who undercut the good, and threaten the reputation of all.
And I urge the government as strongly as I possibly can - let's see action to deliver the promised European Directive - to give agency workers justice and dignity, and if that can't be achieved quickly then let's get on with the necessary measures here in the UK.
Secondly, whatever rights we win on the statute book they are utterly useless if bad employers and dodgy agencies ignore them with impunity.
We need stronger unions built through new organising efforts - the best guarantee of justice in the workplace.
But also a new joined-up approach to enforcement in place of the current hotch-potch.
It's ridiculous that an agency that loses its gangmaster's license when it's caught out abusing staff, can simply switch to a sector like construction.
It's absurd that a minimum wage inspector can't tell the Health and Safety Executive when they visit a dangerous workplace.
And it's time to send a strong message that at a time when we are seeing more vulnerable workers we cannot cut HSE inspectors.
Congress - fair workplaces, ending child poverty, building stronger unions, defeating global warming, making globalisation work for all - these are huge challenges.
We know we can't solve them alone.
We know too that they can't be solved without us.
Because it's unions that make the difference.
Press release (2,800 words) issued 10 Sep 2007
