TUC President Mark Dickinson's speech to Congress 2025
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Congress,
As many of you will know, I started my working life as a Seafarer.
Seafarers know all-too well the need for strong and supportive trade unions and in an increasingly inter-connected world, their struggles have significance for workers all over the world.
Nautilus International, the Union I have had the privilege to lead these past 16 years, has a long and rich history, spanning nearly 170 years.
I’m particularly proud to have served as the first seafarer president of the TUC since Tom Yates of the National Union of Seamen back in 1958.
It is a huge honour to have held this post, and I would like to thank all those who have helped me over the past year.
Both my own family – particularly my wife Keiko but also our Mimi and our Kai and not forgetting our Billy – they keep my feet on the ground.
And my trade union family:
In Nautilus.
On the General Council.
And of course, Paul, Kate, and everyone at the TUC.
Thanks to all of them, I have had a brilliant year as President.
And one of the highlights was just last month, when Paul and I travelled to Japan.
There, we took part in the RENGO peace rallies and ceremonies to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
We met the survivors of those horrific bombings, the hibakusha, and we met young peace ambassadors from schools across Japan who continue to tell the survivors stories, calling for peace and an end to nuclear weapons.
A truly humbling, deeply moving, experience and a reminder:
That in this uncertain world, we must continue to fight for peace and an end to all wars. "No more Hiroshima’s, no more Nagasaki’s!"
Congress, our values of equality, fairness, justice, dignity, respect, solidarity, and internationalism have never mattered more.
Where others seek to divide, we bring working people together.
Trades unionism is first and foremost about friendship between workers.
And as someone who works in one of our most globalised industries, let me say this:
That friendship crosses borders, crosses continents and crosses oceans.
I am incredibly proud to come from a Labour and trade union family.
Like Paul, I hail from Wirral on Merseyside.
When I left school, I decided to follow my dad, an uncle and five other classmates into the Merchant Navy.
I joined the Bank Line and went to nautical school in Hull. I served a four-year cadetship learning the job of navigating officer.
And the first thing I did was join a trade union – then it was the MNAOA, one of the predecessors of NUMAST and Nautilus.
One of the best decisions I ever made.
Because this 16-year-old, away from home for the first time, tearfully waving goodbye to his mum and dad on the platform at Lime Street station, knew he would never be alone.
After a two-week induction in Hull, I flew to Houston, Texas, to join my first ship, a brand-new general cargo ship called MV Crestbank. So began a career that spanned the globe.
Out through the Panama Canal, crossing the Equator, and home via the Suez Canal.
I can tell you now, this was a huge shock to the system – as the furthest I had sailed before was from Liverpool to the Isle of Man for the TT races!
But if seafaring has been my career, then trades unionism has been my calling.
Forced ashore by redundancy in the 1980’s, I applied to study at the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology (UWIST), and not long after graduating I found my way to the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF). During my 12 years working there we did some amazing things.
One particular highlight I would like to mention - I led a trade union funded expedition to locate the wreck of the British bulk carrier MV Derbyshire, which sank on 9th September 1980 with the loss of its entire crew.
This Tuesday marks the 45th anniversary of the sinking of that ship - a disaster that the authorities refused to investigate without further evidence.
NUMAST and RMT, with the families, campaigned tirelessly to get answers as to why the Derbyshire was lost. They were repeatedly fobbed off by the Conservative government.
So, we found the ship 4.2 km down on the floor of the Pacific Ocean.
And we secured a reopened formal inquiry from the deputy PM John Prescott.
But we also discovered the truth.
Because that investigation revealed design flaws which led not just to the loss of those lives, but also many more on similar ships.
We highlighted the unacceptable loss of life at sea and forced the International Maritime Organization to rethink bulk carrier design and operational rules.
I am also incredibly proud to have been involved in the ITF’s campaign against flag of convenience shipping.
Deregulation at its worst.
We campaigned hard in those years and notably secured support for a Seafarers’ Bill of Rights.
In 2006 the ILO’s Maritime Labour Convention was adopted – now ratified by 110 countries covering 97% of the world fleet.
Delivering international minimum standards for 1.5 million seafarers across the world.
A unique convention that is kept under regular review and is readily updateable.
And believe me, the fight for decent work and continuous improvement in those minimum standards for our seafarers must never stop.
During COVID, my members, like all seafarers, worked tirelessly to keep global trade moving.
Everything from medical supplies to food and fuel was carried by sea with crews who in many instances had been stranded onboard way beyond their contracts – unable to get home owing to global travel restrictions.
We campaigned long to get seafarers recognised as “key workers” and at the ILO in April this year we succeeded in amending the Maritime Labour Convention. The first and only example of an ILO Convention that includes a reference to Key Workers.
Colleagues, three years ago, P&O Ferries cynically fired 786 seafarers in this country.
Key workers who kept us going through Brexit and through the pandemic.
Yet management replaced them with cheap exploited agency labour working 12-hour shifts, for 17 weeks in a row – and paid just £4.87 an hour.
Congress, this shamed our country.
But what P&O Ferries graphically represented to me was the true value of solidarity.
I was truly humbled by the way the whole of the labour movement, led by the TUC, rallied around us:
Not just to highlight the worst industrial relations scandal in a generation.
Not just to fight for justice for those seafarers.
But to campaign for change.
And I want to pay tribute to Mick Lynch, and his colleagues in the RMT, who played such a pivotal role in our joint campaign for that change.
In that campaign I saw for myself why we are all part of the TUC.
Because when unions stick together, and fight together, we win together.
The Labour government is now delivering a mandatory Seafarers’ Charter.
It is a key plank of the Employment Rights Bill.
It is not perfect.
There is still work to do.
But it is a generational leap forward.
Never again will the likes of P&O Ferries, or indeed any ship operator, be able to exploit agency workers, slashing wages and working conditions to international minimum levels in UK waters.
The best employers show it is possible to compete on higher standards, rather than fuelling a race to the bottom, and to invest in good jobs in our coastal communities.
Colleagues, despite many knocks I remain a firm advocate for partnership with decent employers.
And why I believe in a strong union voice and collective bargaining.
And I am proud of the difference we make in our movement.
Colleagues, I will be stepping down from the General Council at the close of this Congress and as general secretary of my Union next May, after 17 years at the helm.
We have come a long way in that time, building on the strong foundations laid by my predecessors to:
Become the world’s first international union – organising across borders in a global industry.
Not only pull off the first merger between two unions in different countries, but in 2011, bringing in a third branch – Switzerland.
Commit to international solidarity through our own multi-lateral relations but also significantly enhancing our engagement with ITF and ETF.
Be focused on continuously improving the services and benefits we provide to our members.
Be stronger in organising and defending our members interests and taking a firm stand for a fair deal for maritime professionals.
Be a more diverse union, promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion.
And to continue to expand our seafarer welfare services at Mariners’ Park in Wallasey and opening a new Head Office there – taking us back home to where it all began in 1857.
And it was great that Paul was able to attend the official opening of Nautilus House back in April.
But Paul was not our only special guest.
Because our “comrade sister” Princess Anne was also in attendance. We made her an Honorary Member of the Union for her lifelong dedication to the support of seafarers’ welfare.
Congress, trade unionism is the greatest force for social and economic justice, and I know.
From my time at sea to my work at the ITF, NUMAST and Nautilus International, I know that collective action is the best way to raise wages, raise standards and raise horizons.
With Labour in power, with new employment rights coming soon, we have a unique opportunity to rebuild.
We must seize that chance.
Use those rights.
And go for growth.
But whatever happens, and whoever happens to be in government, never forget:
We remain powerful agents of change in our own right.
Britain’s largest democratic mass movement of, and for, working people.
Our unity is strength. Our diversity is strength. Our work is strength.
And it does not matter whether it is shipping or any other industry.
Or the schools, hospitals, councils, and services we all depend on.
Workers will always be stronger together, in a union.
So, let us get ourselves organised.
Show the world who we are and what we stand for.
And win the change workers need.
Solidarity!