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date: 3 March 2006

embargo: 10:00 Saturday 4 March 2006

Full text of Unions 21 speech

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Text of speech by TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber to the 2006 Unions 21 conference at 10:00 am March 4 2006 at the NUT headquarters in London.

'Thanks for the invite to speak at what's always a lively and thought provoking day.

I'm glad to be at Unions 21 again at what is an important time.

The trade union movement and the government face huge challenges.

For us, the central challenge is to grow and renew - at a time of sweeping economic change driven by the increasingly powerful forces of globalisation.

For the Government, the challenge is to maintain economic growth and stability; secure full employment and better opportunity for all; and to deliver ever-higher quality public services.

And the question for us both to answer is how can we work together better to reach those goals.

We have a good starting point. Labour's manifesto acknowledged 'modern growing unions as an important part of our society and economy.' and it welcomed 'the positive role unions have played in developing a modern model of social partnership with business.'

The manifesto went on to pledge full implementation of the agenda for the workplace reflected in the Warwick agreement.

There can be no argument that the economy has performed strongly in recent years. We have had growth, near full employment and low inflation - a triple whammy we were once told was impossible. But that doesn't mean that everything is rosy in every workplace and for everyone at work.

As the Prime Minister said the day after delivering Labour's historic third term:

'Life is still a real struggle for many people, families trying to cope with balancing work and family life, many people struggling to make ends meet,many families on low incomes who desperately need help and support to increase their living standards.'

Of course it would be untrue to claim that the majority of people at work face rank exploitation, but some certainly do. One in five full timers takes home less than £280 a week.

We have rightly welcomed migrant workers from the new European states, but we know that some have faced real abuse. And they are not the only ones, talk to any union active in their community, a CAB or local advice centre and you can hear shocking stories.

But you do not need to be crudely exploited to have problems at work. Scratch any workplace and you probably will find worries - perhaps about pensions, repetitive dull work, lack of training and opportunities to get on, long hours, stress or poor work-life balance.

The government deserves praise for tackling unemployment. We should never underestimate or sell short this transformation in the UK. But that should not be the end of the road. We need to raise the quality of work too.

And of course we all have a problem with the UK workplaces that simply do not perform as well as they should.

There are world-beating organisations here to be sure. But as the recent productivity figures showed we have too many that aren't. Poor work organisation, poor skills, poor management, lack of a workplace voice and under-investment work together in a vicious circle of under-achievement.

So let me suggest some things that unions and government should do together.

First we should tackle exploitation - not just through better rights, though they are needed, but by enforcing the ones that we already are meant to enjoy. Perhaps migrant workers should be the initial focus of a new initiative, where union expertise and the power of the enforcement authorities works together to tackle the exploiters. A number of unions have already taken imaginative initiatives. Let's turn that into a movement wide campaign.

The Government's Hampton Review wants to concentrate enforcement and inspection on likely offenders, and free responsible companies from regulatory visits and audits. So let the Government and trade union movement work together to really bear down on the bad employers.

Second we should deal with unfairness and discrimination.

The Women and Work Commission has highlighted the scale of the gender gap. We're disappointed that it could not agree on mandatory equality audits in the private sector, but that should not let government, employers, or unions - for that matter - off the hook of implementing its 40 proposals.

We know that we have a huge job to do in delivering real race equality too. A recent TUC report exposed the scale of social exclusion among the largely Muslim Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities. We followed that up when our most recent General Council met at the East London Muslim Centre for some very constructive discussions with leaders of the Muslim community. The government will not meet its child poverty target without a transformation in the life chances of these groups.

Third we should work together to win a better work/life balance. The government has done much. Already many of the proposals for working parents hammered out at Warwick have passed into law.

We do disagree with government about the future of Europe's 48 hour week working time rules. But that is only one part of the issue. A labour market in which no-one worked more than 48 hours a week, but millions did low paid, low skill, dull jobs for 47 and a half hours a week would not be a great victory for our working time campaign.

It is as much a question of culture, work organisation and the quality of management. These are not all things you can pass a law about, but they are all something that need urgent attention by both unions and government.

Fourth we should work together to improve productivity. One particular contribution that unions can make is our work to improve skills. We first complained about poor skills training at our first ever Congress in 1868.

Now we are doing really something about it, and I'm tremendously excited at our plans to launch a new union learning initiative - with strong government support - in just a few weeks.

The great double win of our skills work is that it's not only good for the economy but it is something that our members - and even more importantly our prospective members - want.

But there is another big contribution that we can make to improving productivity, and that is by providing a voice at work. All the research shows that organisations that consult both individually and collectively perform the best.

Too many UK managers prefer the easy option of command and control, edict and order. But while it may be harder, a consultative approach produces more in the long run.

It requires new capabilities among unions as well. The research shows that many union reps only have the time to sort out individual problems. The new breed of learning reps are changing that role, but I would hope the review of facilities and support for workplace reps promised by the Government can really help us develop the quality and quantity of union reps. I hope that review will now get moving fast.

But we also want to lift the unreasonable restrictions still imposed on unions, including in taking industrial action, and | hope we'll be able to build wide support for the proposed Trade Union Freedom Bill we have been working on.

On all these issues a key ingredient is that union organisation is part of the solution.

We do not say it loudly or often enough:

Union workplaces are safer.

They are more likely to train, more likely to provide a pension and less likely to discriminate unfairly.

They are more likely to provide flexible hours, be family friendly and provide help with child-care.

And this all comes through collective bargaining, partnership and the better management that workplaces with a collective voice encourage.

But these are not just good for the individual employees we represent, they are part of building a good society.

Policy makers anguish for hours trying to think through ways of encouraging these kinds of behaviour. We do it everyday.

And that recognition of our positive and progressive role is what we should expect from politicians.

We know that governments can't listen to the union voice alone - they must govern in the interests of the whole country. And while union votes are still crucial in electing a Labour government, no party can win on union votes alone.

Our relationship with the labour government is complex and multi-layered. There are times when I feel we are genuinely recognised as making an important contribution to national debate. And there are other times when we are simply filed away under party management.

Yet perhaps things are looking up. Let me read some extracts from a letter from one leading front bencher:

'As our economy has matured, the unions have changed too...Far from demonising unions for being beer and sandwich-consuming dinosaurs, I'd rather encourage them...99 per cent of what unions do these days is helpful.'

But here's the rub. The author of this letter?

Alan Duncan, the Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.

Good grief, you can tell it's someone who doesn't know unions that well - I would never put it as high as 99 per cent.

But it's a good example of another change in British politics - Conservatives actually trying to win elections. It looks like they are sensibly trying to learn from Labour's transformation from unelectable losers to three time winners.

But I think they overestimate the importance of presentation. And even more so, underestimate the sheer hard work and difficult - sometimes bloody - battles that took place. Labour did not get from 1983 to 1997 by simply saying they had changed, they did it by changing - perhaps just a tad more than was necessary some of us would say.

But even if the substance of Tory change is still unclear, the new language is significant. Alan Duncan wants trade union members to vote for his party, so will Menzies Campbell.

The last election shows Labour can't take things for granted. They will all want to woo us. I welcome that.

I hope we are going to see a new politics developing where all the major parties are genuinely prepared to acknowledge the positive union role. - no more 'enemy within'. Time will tell whether that is a real prospect or just a cynical electoral ploy by the new Conservative leadership.

Labour's manifesto in 2004, offered some real commitment. But getting to that position was too painful. And setting out a workplace agenda is something that should not happen every four years. There needs to be a constantly evolving joint programme.

But some say that we do not earn this role in national life. Indeed it has been rather fashionable in some quarters recently to be rather downbeat about the state of the unions. I am not remotely complacent about the scale of the challenges facing the trade union movement.

But nor am I remotely convinced by the facile suggestions made by some commentators that a 'Clause 4' moment would somehow miraculously unleash a new period of trade union expansion.

Trade unionism wins members through demonstrating our relevance, day in day out, in workplaces of every sort. It's important for sure that we communicate our ideals and ambitions in exciting and persuasive ways, but in trade unionism - even more than politics I suspect - spin is no substitute for substance.

Labour earns real trust by delivering economic stability, full employment, and sustained investment in public services. In the same way, it is the tangible benefits that trade unionism delivers that will win new members - not gimmicks or superficial symbols.

Membership of all the political parties stands today at a quarter of the level in the 1960s. I'm not sure membership organisations have much to learn from any of the political Parties when it comes to winning new members.

I'm never complacent, but let me say that I think we have had some significant victories in recent months. A fortnight ago we played our part in a major victory for social Europe.

Europe's unions persuaded the European Parliament to make fundamental changes to the proposed Services Directive, making sure that employment rights and standards aren't sacrificed in the cause of developing the European market in services.

Again - only a couple of weeks ago - unions were crucial in winning the argument for a total ban on smoking in workplaces. When the union case was added to the health argument the move became unstoppable. Once it became about protecting people at work from breathing avoidable toxins then it became very hard to oppose.

We should also take real credit for our campaign on pensions. Without our voice I think it's unlikely that we would have had a Pensions Commission set up.

And while we do not agree with every recommendation in the Pensions Commission report, and will continue to press our opposition to the proposed increase in state pension age, there is no doubt that its radical proposals for a new pensions framework closely reflect the case we made.

Let me at this stage pay tribute to Jeannie Drake from the CWU for her quiet work on the Commission. I know that she did not formally represent the TUC, and like all the commissioners judged each argument on its merits. But without her work I suspect the report would be very different. In particular, it may well not have put the position of women at the centre of its proposals.

And this is why not adopting the report's main conclusions will be seen as a failure of a once in a generation historic opportunity to give women a fair pensions deal.

The report not only proposes restoring the link to earnings in the basic state pension, but wants to make it a universal entitlement. This is the key to removing the fundamental unfairness that women face today.

Crucially - and this will particularly benefit low to average paid men and women - there will be a new obligation on every employer to make an extremely modest contribution to their employees' pensions. We know that this is now under huge attack. In particular the CBI are parking their tanks on the Downing Street lawn.

This is supremely cynical and unprincipled special pleading. It shows a desperately depressing lack of any sense of community responsibility. Now it's employers who say there is no such thing as society.

Only one in four workers in the private sector now has an occupational pension and that is falling fast. While still stuffing their own pension pots full of gold, the leaders of corporate Britain are turning their backs on the rest of us. Only a new system of compulsion will turn that around.

To me this is an absolutely crucial test for the Prime Minister and the Government.

We have been disappointed too often in the past when I think that the Government has given in to crude employer lobbying. But on this issue they must see them off.

If they don't, I think that their standing in the trade union movement will be hugely damaged. The crisis in private sector pensions will grow deeper. And any short-lived gratitude from Britain's boardrooms will not make up for the inevitable reaction from voters.

I hope to see determined Government action too to find a solution to the impending dispute in local government. The agreement that we made through the Public Services Forum for the civil service, teachers and the health service established important principles - reform yes, but on an agreed and honourable basis. For heaven's sake, let's resolve the future of local government pensions on the same basis - and fast.

We've got a huge agenda to work on and this audience knows well enough the challenges unions face:

· increasing our membership

· breaking through to build organisation in the growing service sectors

· changing as the world of work changes

· winning ever greater recognition as the authoritative voice of Britain at work

Our destiny is ultimately in our own hands. But if we are able to shape a more positive relationship with Government, then our opportunities will be that much greater.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

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Press release (2,900 words) issued 4 Mar 2006