General Council Report - Introduction

introduction by the general secretary

The most significant day in the past Congress year was the one when little changed.

Labour’s return to office in the general election of June 7, with the Government’s majority virtually intact, marked the achievement of a goal which Labour had set itself four years earlier in the wake of the 1997 election victory.

As well as being an historic achievement for the Party, Labour’s win had significant implications for the TUC. Had the result of the 2001 general election been anything other than a Labour victory, trade unions would have faced a bleak future: the gains in terms of employment legislation over the past four years would, almost certainly, have been reversed in the drive against ‘red tape’; the future funding of the union learning services would have been put at risk; and trade union participation in a number of projects at national and regional level would have been in jeopardy.

The election campaign was also significant because it put the spotlight on public services. If economic competence was the test by which Labour sought to be judged in its first term, it became clear during the campaign that the quality of public services was to be the test of choice for the second.

For more than twenty years unions have campaigned in defence of public services - opposing cuts in jobs and services and seeking to argue the benefits of quality services in preference to tax cuts. Labour’s clear commitment to boost public services was therefore welcome. But alongside the pledge to put schools and hospitals first, came a warning that reform would come at a price and that price would be further involvement of the private sector in service provision.

This raised concerns within the trade union movement on two counts. Firstly, there is growing evidence that, all too often, increased private sector involvement in public services, far from solving the problems of poor quality service delivery, actually compounds them. Railtrack has been the most high profile case, but there are many other examples of private sector failure - in the health service, in transport and, especially, in local government. Secondly, despite the limited protection offered by the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) r egulations (TUPE), private sector service providers tend to offer poorer pay and conditions and a more aggressive management style than that usually found in public services.

The TUC and individual unions have spent much time and energy over the past few months debating how to respond to this challenge. The Executive Committee and General Council considered the matter at length in both June and July and the resulting statement on the issue is set out in Chapter 6 of the Report. Further consideration will, no doubt, be given to the matter at Congress and throughout the next Congress Year.

Though differences with Government will inevitably attract media attention, the TUC’s over arching objective will be to do all we can to promote high quality services provided by workers doing high quality jobs.

The quality of a nation’s public services depends not just on political will, but also on the strength of the economy. Labour’s great achievement during its first term was to avoid the sort of economic crises that dogged every previous Labour Government. However, the slowdown in the world economy over the past two years is having an impact in this country and, despite record levels of employment, job losses in parts of manufacturing industry have been a worrying feature of the past year, with textiles particularly hard hit alongside steel and motor manufacturing. The so-called ‘new economy’ has suffered too, as has the finance sector, as mergers have led to job losses. The foot and mouth crisis has also had a serious impact on jobs in farming, food production and the tourist industries.

In many instances the loss of jobs has been compounded by the fact that the first notification that workers received that their jobs were to go was when they heard reports on the local radio breakfast news - the so called ‘cereal redundancies’. The contrast between British practice and that in Europe was highlighted by the furore created across Europe and especially in Paris, not just by workers and their unions, but by the French Government too, when Marks and Spencer sought to close their continental stores with the same lack of consultation that they and other employers practise in the UK.

The subsequent agreement of the European Social Affairs Ministers to introduce EU-wide regulations on information and consultation was particularly welcome, especially as the requirement is to introduce permanent consultation machinery rather than measures that would apply solely in the case of redundancies.

This development has major implications for UK industrial relations and the spread of consultation into areas where, at present, there is no trade union representation. This will be a major area of work for the TUC and unions over the next twelve months and beyond, giving a new dimension to our work on employment law. This story demonstrates again how important the work we do within the European Union and its institutions is to British workers and their families.

Other changes in employment legislation, either already implemented or promised, have occupied TUC attention over the past year. The full impact of the 1999 Employment Relations Act is now beginning to be felt. Some new recognition cases have gone through the Central Arbitration Committee, but, significantly, the number of voluntary cases continues to exceed those achieved through the statutory process.

The TUC achieved a major victory for working parents during the course of the year when the Government backed down under the threat of appearing before the European Court over the limited way in which it had implemented the Parental Leave Directive. As a result, millions of parents of young children now enjoy rights to time off that would otherwise have been denied them - again the European dimension was in evidence.

One of the highlights of last year’s Congress was a presentation in drama and music of the work of the Stephen Lawrence Task Group on institutional racism. The Task Group has now completed its work programme and among its recommendations is a proposal, before this Congress, that the TUC should incorporate, into its rules, a commitment to promote equality. Unions are also being urged to adopt a model clause making a similar pledge backed up by a new equality auditing system to ensure that the commitment to equality is one that applies in practice as well as on paper.

The damage which racism can do within society was demonstrated again this spring with disturbances in a number of Northern towns. The TUC is working closely with the National Assembly Against Racism and with trade unionists in the regions to determine the most appropriate response to a complex situation, likely to become more so around the time of next spring’s local elections when the far right can be expected to try and build on the votes their candidates achieved in these localities in the general election.

On a more positive note, this year saw the establishment of the Partnership Institute, building on the work of the past few years and putting in place a mechanism by which we hope to be able to spread best practice, within both the public and private sectors, through a structured programme of work based around specific enterprises.

Our work on learning services also continues to grow a pace; with more than a third of the TUC’s staff employed on this work, thanks largely to government funding. As is reported in Chapter 8, 3,000 learning reps have now been trained - virtually double the number at the time the General Council reported to last year’s Congress.

Trade union representation in the workplace now, effectively, has three strands: representation through the traditional role of the shop steward - dealing with grievances, pay and conditions; the safety rep - concerned to see that work does not damage people’s health or safety; and the learning rep - whose job is to open up new learning opportunities boosting the skills of the individual and the enterprise.

Trade unionists are also making a major contribution to the work of the Learning and Skills Councils in the localities and my own role as the national Chair of the Adult Learning Committee is a serious and major commitment.

Trade unions have been conscious of the role that they can play in boosting productivity through raising skill levels from our earliest days. This year, at the request of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, we have been working with the CBI, looking at ways in which we can, together, help improve the nation’s productivity. Progress in some areas has been good, but in others there is much that still needs to be done. Pressing forward with this work will be a priority for the next Congress year.

The TUC continues to represent people at work on a variety of bodies at regional, national and international level.

Our influence and strength comes from the fact that we represent millions of people at work. Our strength is our membership and ensuring that we build and certainly do not lose members is an essential part of our work. In addition to the New Unionism Project and the Organising Academy, now in its fourth year, this year we established a Promoting Trade Unionism Task Group. The Group have examined some new and imaginative ways of reaching out to workers currently outside the trade union movement and a separate report on their work will be presented to Congress.

Both the Partnership Institute and the Organising Academy are based at the National Education Centre in North London, which is also providing courses and support for unions in areas including preparation for the achievement of the Investor in People standard.

Alongside these developments at the NEC, the growth of our work on learning services and the increasing importance of regional initiatives means that more of the work of the TUC now takes place away from Congress House.

Personally, I have also continued to ensure that I spend time away from the office visiting trade unionists both in the workplace and within their own unions.

I am grateful for the opportunities that I had this year to visit LG Electronics and BorgWarner in South Wales, Glaxo Wellcome, Birds Eye, Rolls Royce, Jaguar, Zeneca and BAe and also for the opportunity to address the conferences of UNISON, the T&G, AEEU, Aslef, and the Musicians Union, among others.

During the course of the year I have also had the opportunity to see some of the work of the international trade union movement, with visits to the United States and China as well as a number of places within Europe.

Our international work is aimed at promoting the concept of core labour standards, eradicating the worst forms of child labour and promoting ethical trading. The British contribution to international trade unionism is much appreciated and we will continue to do all that we can in this field.

A number of General Council members are retiring at this year’s Congress. They are: Dennis Scard, who joined the General Council in 1990; Mohan Dhamrait who was first elected in 1995; and Mark Tami who joined the General Council in 1999. Mark, together with GPC member Anne Picking, who was first elected to that post in 1995, is now a Member of Parliament following this year’s general election - congratulations to them both.

Former Congress President Rodney Bickerstaffe also formally retires from the General Council at this year’s Congress, though we marked his departure last year in anticipation of his retirement from the post of UNISON general secretary at the turn of the year.

On behalf of the General Council, I would like to wish all our former colleagues well in their retirement and their new posts.

General Secretary