Toggle high contrast
Delivered Date

Congress, delegates, my name is Mohammed Taj and I'm a bus driver from Bradford in the North of England. I'm originally from Kashmir and I am the first South Asian President of the British TUC.

As you can tell, equality means a lot to me, and to my close colleague, the TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady, who is the first woman General Secretary of the TUC.

Equality is central to the work of trade unions. That's why the TUC is proposing an amendment to the Congress statement on the rights of LGBTI workers.

Our priorities in Britain are better jobs, growth and a fair economy; fair pay and a living wage; a future for young people and quality public services.

These are domestic priorities, but they are shared globally.

We want to build workers' power over their own lives, over their work, over society as a whole, by organising for stronger unions.
Congress, if we really want a better economy, a better society, we need a political strategy to go with our industrial objectives and our organising agenda.

We need to create a political force capable of counteracting multinational companies and global finance.

We need to strengthen institutions like the ILO, ensure global supply chains in textiles and sports deliver respect for working people, establish global labour standards in trade deals, and introduce financial reform like a financial transactions tax to rein in the hedge funds and the banks.

Congress - the political class has so far not found the political courage to stand up for their citizens against rich financiers and over-mighty multinational corporations.

We must help them find that courage.

We must demand that they deliver decent rights at work, including the fundamental human rights to join a union, to organise and to bargain collectively.

We cannot win alone. Our priority must be to forge alliances in the community and in politics so our values of equality democracy and solidarity win for working people world-wide.

We need political allies who will make that happen through national and multilateral structures.

That, comrades, is the challenge of the next four years.

Enable Two-Factor Authentication

To access the admin area, you will need to setup two-factor authentication (TFA).

Setup now