Cuba and Unions - speech by Brendan Barber

Speaking note for BRENDAN BARBER

Saturday 25 February 2006

Cuba Solidarity Campaign/TUC conference

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Colleagues, I am pleased to be here today to speak to this conference - the first of its kind, I think - and to bring you the greetings of the Trades Union Congress.

Can I start by giving a warm welcome to our honoured guests - guests from Latin America, and guests from across Europe, too. And my especial welcome to Pedro Ross from the Cuban CTC, my opposite number, who we last entertained when he made a historic speech at our annual Congress in Brighton in 2004.

And of course can I thank the Cuba Solidarity Campaign and the conference sponsors for their magnificent work in getting this conference off the ground, and to Ken Livingstone, London's mayor, for lending us this magnificent building for the day.

Colleagues, today is an important opportunity to reflect on the ways in which we in Europe can strengthen and deepen our solidarity with the peoples of Latin America and Cuba.

And that solidarity needs to be both political and practical.

For the TUC's part we have worked within the international trade union movement to secure an ICFTU position clearly opposing the shameful and utterly unjustified blockade of Cuba at their world Congress just over a year ago.

Here at home we have pressed our Government repeatedly and strongly to press the US Government to lift the blockade.

And we have pressed the Government to work positively too within the European Union to build a more positive European approach to Cuba, not only in opposing the blockade but also on building a stronger and more positive diplomatic and trading relationship.

But we also need to see the huge challenges facing Cuba in the context of a fast changing scene across Latin America.

The TUC Congress last September called, for example, for solidarity with the trade union movement in Venezuela, also under threat of US aggression, and we were particularly pleased to see the election of Michelle Bachelet as President of Chile, and her decision last month to appoint a Cabinet equally split between men and women.

Social justice is now on the agenda in South America as it probably never has been before, and I think anyone committed to fairness and equality will welcome the shift to the left that has delivered a Workers' Party-led Government in Brazil, the recent election result in Bolivia and the Argentinian government, too.

As trade unionists, we are strongly supportive of the new determination to deliver social justice, improved education and healthcare - areas in which Cuba has done so much to lead the way.

We want to see the riches of the economy and the land spread more equitably, and pro-poor economics replacing the trickle-down neo-liberal policies that held sway in Latin America for so long.

We want to see developments like Mercosur, the Latin American trading bloc, develop a social face in partnership with a stronger social model in the European Union, and we are actively engaged in discussions with our counterparts in Brazil about a social dimension to world trade and with our Colombian colleagues on asserting basic trade union rights and freedoms in their troubled country.

And we need to see free and strong trade unions also, because electing progressive governments is not, as we know all too well in Europe, a guarantee that workers will be properly recognised, respected or rewarded.

Trade unions have a long and proud tradition in Latin America, and the TUC is determined to deepen our relations with them.

But we are concerned, just as we are in every country, that those unions must be free to pursue the policies that their members decide, free to act in the interests of their members as well as of the wider community, and free of government and political interference.

In Britain, we are beginning a campaign for a trade union freedom bill that would set unions free to act, and we would expect nothing less for our colleagues anywhere else in the world.

Colombia, for instance, is a cause very dear to the heart of the British trade union movement.

The compelling evidence of flagrant attacks on trade unionists - even assassinations - has been horrifying. The courage shown by our fellow trade unionists faced with those dangers is equally inspiring. The Colombian Government has to be brought to account by the international community.

I am glad that we have played a leading part in now achieving ILO action on Colombia. I know that our Cuban friends have been playing an incredibly productive role too behind the scenes on that issue.

But there are other forms of restrictions on trade unions, and we will be constantly wary of those, whatever the nature of the governments that practice them.

This can raise difficult and sensitive issues, but it is important that we explore them in a spirit of friendship.

We need to discuss with our friends in Cuba our different traditions of trade unionism, how trade unionism can develop in the face of globalisation, and how trade unions relate to political parties and with governments.

I would like to see, for example, the Cuban government line up completely behind the international trade union movement's campaigns against repression in Burma, and for international lesbian and gay rights - matters we have discussed privately with our friends in the CTC over the last few days.

To take forward our work on all these vital issues I hope that later this year a new global international trade union organisation will be founded, bringing together the ICFTU, the WCL, and other national centres like our good friends in the CGT France for example, and the CUT in Colombia that have not previously been internationally affiliated.

Although the CTC has a different affiliation that should not and will not prevent us deepening our dialogue to build closer understandings wherever we can on the issues facing working people.

Meanwhile - as I said at the outset - our solidarity has to be practical as well as political.

British unions have a long history of solidarity with the Cuban people, and often that solidarity has been expressed in material assistance - like the buses that the Transport and General Workers Union has sent to Cuba, and the educational equipment that the National Union of Teachers has sent to help train Cuban doctors in languages so that they themselves could provide much needed assistance in Southern Africa.

Our building workers union, UCATT, has organised collections of work clothes and tools to send to Cuba, and our mineworkers union has helped support Cuba's copper workers similarly.

And Dave [Prentis] is going to speak in a moment, so I won't mention the work his own union, Unison, has been doing.

Many unions have hosted delegations from their opposite numbers in Cuba, and many more have been to Cuba to see for themselves what the situation is.

The last TUC-Cuba Solidarity Campaign conference stressed the need for closer links at union, branch and workplace level.

The TUC believes that the stronger we can make those links at local and sectoral level, the more we will be able to develop the friendship and solidarity that the people of Cuba need.

The TUC has been in discussions with the CTC over the last couple of days, and we are keen to develop that relationship further with a serious programme of seminars on subjects like health and safety, dealing with foreign investment, the role of education and health in the fight against global poverty.

These are areas where we have much to discuss, and we can both learn from each other. The TUC and CTC will be discussing the arrangements for those links over the next few weeks, and I hope to visit Cuba later this year, at the invitation of the CTC, to finalise those plans.

Today's conference marks an important milestone in our deepening understanding here in Europe with the people of Cuba, and our growing excitement at the fast changing political possibilities across Latin America.

I am sure we will all go from here fired up with a renewed commitment - and with great optimism too that things are changing for the better.