General Council Report 2022
4.1 Introduction
The TUC has continued to work to ensure that working people and unions can win in the workplace, with a programme of support for trade union reps. This year we have expanded the work we do to support industrial action, forming a solidarity hub to centralise our resources to support workplace campaigns. We have stepped up our work to counter the influence of the radical and far right in workplaces and in politics. And we have continued to work internationally to build trade union solidarity, and to support workers in the countries where their rights are most under attack.
4.2 Industrial action
This year we saw more evidence of a higher propensity of workers to take industrial action in support of workplace campaigns. In some cases, unions have secured significant pay rises across the private sector, winning double-digit awards in privatised services, in transport (including aviation) and also in the manufacturing and engineering sector.
Unions have led successful industrial campaigns to push back against employer attempts to use ‘fire-and-rehire’ tactics to decimate terms and conditions of employment, including at Clark's, where the TUC in the south-west worked closely to support Community's winning campaign. New Acas guidance published in November 2021 recognised this practice should not generally be used by employers.
With support from the TUC, a number of unions have delivered improved participation in industrial action ballots, including UCU taking action in a range of HE institutions. RMT smashed ballot thresholds in Network Rail and other train operating companies over pay, changes to job roles and job security, taking the first national industrial action for 30 years. ASLEF and TSSA have also successfully beaten ballot thresholds, joining the ongoing dispute.
CWU secured a massive 96 per cent vote for industrial action in BT and Open Reach, with a 76 per cent and 58 per cent turnout respectively. The TUC is in the process of sharing best practice to ensure all unions are able to maximise the chances of meeting ballot thresholds.
Through the development of the Solidarity Hub the TUC has responded to this growth in industrial campaigns. Our communications, including social media, have been deployed to amplify key campaigns across the economy and through the use of Megaphone, peer-to-peer texting and an early pilot of Strike Funder we have been able to provide important and effective practical support.
The TUC Education Service has developed a new micro-site to provide practical guidance to union reps leading industrial action and our research and policy work is flexing to align to industrial campaigns too.
On a sectoral level the TUC has brought unions together to collaborate on industrial campaigns. Teaching unions are consulting on joint messaging, joint campaigning work to maximise ballot participation and coordinating independent approaches to industrial action or action short of strike.
We are currently speaking to more unions about these experiences, with plans to continue developing this effective approach within and across TUC-affiliated unions.
Trade unions continue to be well represented on the Acas council, where key discussions around news guides on flexible and hybrid working and avoiding fire and rehire have been developed. Christina McAnea, Mike Clancy and Roy Rickhuss are all full members of the council. Since Paul Nowak’s term of office came to an end Kevin Rowan has been representing the TUC in an observer capacity.
4.3 Winning more for workers
The TUC has continued to promote rights for reps in line with composite 15 via our stronger unions work, republishing our guide to facility time and bringing cohorts or reps together in webinars and building reps’ networks locally to share experience and develop campaigns.
In response to composite 16, the TUC held 15 town hall events across the country, with a combined attendance of over 1,000 people. National and local speakers focused on key industrial campaigns, supplemented by a media strategy with national coverage from the Daily Mirror and features in 15 regional media outlets. These local events provided a strong opportunity to showcase local industrial campaigns and to amplify national TUC support, which provided motivation to those campaigns, giving workers and reps a major boost.
These town hall events helped to mobilise for a national We Demand Better march and rally on 18 June, with tens of thousands of people marching to Parliament Square to demand better from the government. The demonstration was the first effective post-pandemic mass mobilisation of union members and it successfully delivered a high-profile moment of unity. Many unions’ general secretaries spoke at a fast-paced rally, which also featured several frontline key worker speakers. The feedback from union officers and members, national and regional TUC staff and other activists was that the rally was a well-organised, safe and positive event that helped promote union campaigns and boost the movement at an important political and industrial moment.
This is borne out by the extensive media coverage both in the build-up (including our partnership with the Daily Mirror) and on the day, with headline coverage on both BBC and ITV broadcast news. The demonstration also had traction on social media, with #DemandBetter trending on Twitter in the UK on the day of the march and rally.
Our content reached 14 million people, and received coverage in the Metro and Huffington Post.
This coverage provided a national and regional platform for the TUC and trade unions to set out our demands and to explain more about the industrial action taking place in different sectors from a union perspective. Crucially, we were able to make members’ voices and experiences central to this.
We are currently planning for the next steps in our campaign work, including further town hall rallies and a mass lobby of parliament in October ahead of the 2022 budget.
4.4 Tackling the far right
The TUC continues to build its work to counter the international far right with affiliates and with international unions. We participate in the monthly ETUC working group, set up with TUC involvement as part of the ETUC roadmap to counter the far right.
We have supported the delivery of ETUI workshops on tackling the far right for ETUC affiliates with a number of workshops. We attended a conference alongside sister centres from Germany, France, Italy, Hungary, Poland and Belgium and have built alliances with unions in Europe and Latin America, highlighting how unions are responding to the far right. We continue to develop work with affiliates to build strategies to respond to far-right ideas and narratives in the workplace and are commissioning research. We are developing educational materials on the international far right, in conjunction with Trademark Belfast, and will be piloting them later in the year as well as sharing the existing Winning Workplace Unity course.
4.5 Global solidarity
The TUC affiliates to the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the OECD’s Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC).
The ETUC executive met in October, December, March and June and held its midterm conference in October. TUC members are Frances O’Grady (Steering Committee), General Council spokesperson on Europe Steve Turner, and Mary Bousted. The Pan-European Regional Council executive committee met in October, April and June: Frances O’Grady and Steve Turner are the TUC members. The TUC Executive decided this year to reduce its affiliation fees to the ETUC, while remaining a strong relationship, in the context of the UK’s changed relationship with Europe.
The TUC attended the ITUC Executive Bureau (EB) meeting in May, and the ITUC General Council in November/ December, March and May. ITUC General Council titular members are Frances O’Grady and Kevin Courtney. TUC Senior International Officer Mariela Kohon is Frances’s first alternate and Gloria Mills second alternate. The ICTU’s David Joyce is Kevin’s first alternate and Gail Cartmail second alternate. ITUC EB titular member is Frances O’Grady, with Mariela Kohon as her first alternate and Kevin Courtney second alternate. TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady represents the TUC on TUAC.
The TUC has nominated Luca Visentini as candidate for the ITUC General Secretary election, which will take place at the ITUC World Congress, 17-22 November 2022 in Melbourne, Australia.
The TUC has shown solidarity with workers in Poland, Belarus and Myanmar. In November the TUC expressed its solidarity with the Cuban CTC, condemning the illegal blockade.
The TUC condemned the illegal invasion of Ukraine, outlining support for peace talks and urged governments to reach a negotiated solution through diplomacy to bring about peace, democracy, security and human and trade union rights for all in Europe, Ukraine and Russia.
The TUC organised an event in solidarity with the people of Ukraine and demanded changes to the immigration and asylum system, and to tackle the racism that Black and minority ethnic people at the Ukrainian border have faced. We are working with the ITUC to build on unions’ track record of delivering peace.
The TUC has organised several international events, including one for HeartUnions week with speakers from India, Chile, Spain and the US, and a session for the TUC Women’s Conference with speakers from Poland, Spain, India and Colombia.
Colombia
In support of composite 17 the TUC jointly hosted a reception in March with Justice for Colombia (JFC) to commemorate the Colombian peace agreement. It was attended by the leader of the Labour Party, several shadow cabinet members, TUC General Council members and other leading trade unionists. We participated in several events on Colombia and have continued to advocate for the suspension of the UK-Andean trade deal. We took part in a JFC delegation in June alongside trade unionists and parliamentarians from Britain, Ireland and Spain. The progressive candidate Gustavo Petro won the presidential election.
Brazil
The TUC continues to campaign in solidarity with workers in Brazil and launched a report in November outlining the challenges posed by far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. We have participated in several events and in May hosted the CUT Brazil, organising meetings in parliament, highlighting the need to support the democratic process in October’s presidential election.
Palestine
In line with resolution 72 and the General Council’s explanation, the TUC wrote to the UK government to ask it to demand that the Israeli government upholds international law and Palestinian rights, including the right to self-determination. It called on the UK government to publicly oppose the designation of six Palestinian human rights and civil society organisations as terrorist groups by Israeli authorities. The TUC expressed support for the decision by the International Criminal Court that with regards to the situation in Palestine it will investigate crimes that are alleged to have been committed since 13 June 2014. We commissioned research to support delivering policy to put pressure on companies complicit in the illegal occupation, settlement building and the arms trade, to cease such activities. The TUC has made a submission to the Department for International Trade on the proposed UK-Israel free trade agreement.
Turkey
The TUC has expressed solidarity with trade unionists facing persecution, detention and trials and has carried out advocacy to call for an end to the repression. We have expressed support for a peace process and the release of Ocalan and called on the Turkish government to stop military operations in northern Iraq and north-east Syria.
4.6 ILO
An historic session of the conference of the ILO in June adopted occupational health and safety as one of the fundamental principles and rights at work to become a recognised human right. This binds the government to Convention 155 on Occupational Safety and Health, yet to ratify. The TUC representative on the ILO’s governing body led the workers’ group in the first stage of a new Recommendation on Apprenticeships. There will be further consultations before the process is concluded at the next ILC.
At the Committee on the Application of Standards, there was condemnation of Belarus and Myanmar, and China was asked to accept an ILO mission to investigate the treatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
In March, the government ratified Convention 190 on Violence and Harassment in the World of Work after pressure from the TUC and the NIC-ICTU. The convention will apply to UK law from 7 March 2023.
4.7 G7
The L7 met in Berlin to discuss the G7 agenda. Stephen Russell represented the TUC. The L7’s statement this year noted the importance of digital democracy, reiterated the need for global social protection and supply chain laws, and the pursuit of peace.
4.8 TUC Aid
TUC Aid projects are supporting delivery of the TUC’s strategy. Trustees met in November, March and July. Current projects focus on: building the capacity of East African trade unions to advocate for trade deals that deliver decent work; and supporting Guatemalan banana workers’ union SITRABI to establish new unions. We have recently completed projects building women’s empowerment and tackling gender-based violence in Iraq, and supporting trade union action to tackle gender-based violence in Brazil, Latin America and the Caribbean. Advocacy related to the TUC Aid-funded report into violations of human and labour rights in Eswatini continues.
4.9 Regions and Wales
London, East and South East
With the increase in industrial action and return to in-person picket lines we have been stepping up our work to help publicise actions and to attend picket lines and campaign actions across the region.
We used the mobilisation meetings for 18 June to reach out to reps across the region and are starting to build up work on supporting campaigns to organise outsourced workers. There have been some significant steps forward including the insourcing of 1,500 workers at Barts Hospital NHS Trust, but there are many more campaigns that are ongoing, including the 2,000+ cleaners on London underground whom TfL has failed to bring back in house and wider work on support for rail cleaners, workers on NHS outsourced contracts and others.
We have run a series of webinars for reps and officers in the region including sessions for young workers and women reps and will be looking at a mix of online and in-person events in the year ahead. Alongside out existing regional networks we have set up our new regional health and safety advisory committee and re-established our East of England sub-regional network.
Midlands
The TUC Midlands region has led an innovative organising initiative giving unions access to the supply chains of fast fashion brands following too many instances of worker exploitation in the Leicester garment industry. Over the past year, agreements have been reached with a number of fashion brands, which gives unions the right to enter factories to engage with workers and to ensure a safe working environment. In addition, jointly funded outreach workers, with a job description focused on union membership and recruitment, are employed within the community to organise garment sector workers.
We continue to spearhead the Dying to Work campaign, seeking greater employment protection for terminally ill workers following a case highlighted and brought by the GMB.
A voluntary charter for employers to sign committing to safeguarding terminally ill workers now protects over one and a half million workers across the UK.
Northern
TUC Northern’s industrial agenda is to win increased worker representation by achieving trade union recognition zones; establish a new campaign to achieve worker representation in the Tees Valley, in particular, with the Freeport; and investigate how initiatives such as Good Work Pledges can improve pay and conditions for working people.
Under the banner of Britain Needs a Pay Rise we have been demanding better and will hold more localised and sector- or workplace-specific rallies in support of unions achieving increased worker representation and winning new collective bargaining agreements and pay rises.
Our equalities committee is working with Northumbria University to create a new equalities leadership programme, bringing all our self-organised groups together while protecting safe spaces. The leadership programme is to explore the opportunities of intersectionality and how to continue to bargain for meaningful EDI policies in the workplace.
Our new partnership with the North of Tyne Combined Authority on skills is up and running. Over the next two years we will be providing access to learning initiatives across sectors both within and outside the combined authority. With a goal of reaching over 40 employers during the partnership, the team of four who will be leading this work are going to be identifying new ways to develop learning agreements with employers under the new education funding arrangements.
Our regional Asbestos Campaign and Support Group is expanding our work programme and affiliated unions with a view to increasing our participation and leadership in the national asbestos forum and leveraging schemes such as retrofit to lobby for safe removal of asbestos.
North West
We’ve continued to work with Metro Mayors Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram to develop and grow their employment charters.
We’ve worked on developing good standards and are now looking at how we can link these standards to procurement and commissioning to give them real teeth.
We’ve been working with our affiliates and counterparts in Yorkshire, Humber and Northern to ensure there is a trade union voice in discussions that affect the north. At our recent annual conference, Lisa Nandy MP spoke about how levelling up wasn’t working for many in the north and in discussions with Metro Mayors from across northern England we’ve discussed good jobs, green jobs and rebuilding from the pandemic.
As affiliates have been busy taking industrial action to win for members, we’ve been playing an active role in supporting disputes including on fire and rehire on Greater Manchester buses, supporting RMT picket lines in their recent dispute and highlighting the impact of outsourcing on OCS workers in Blackpool.
South West
The Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival returned to a very sunny Dorset after two years online. Great music, lots of political discussions and entertainment for all the family created a lovely atmosphere. Great speeches from the main stage reinforced the determination of unions to fight for their members and the need for unity. It is a hugely popular event of which the movement can be proud.
Yorkshire and the Humber
This year, the TUC’s Yorkshire and the Humber region has been extremely successful in developing its relationships with the mayoral authorities in South and West Yorkshire. This has led to the reintroduction of dedicated skills development posts committed to rebuilding union learning in the region and increasing the number of union learning representatives. We have agreed finance to have two workers on this project and have been involved with fair work charters in both areas.
Our climate change project worker has just received new funding to be able to continue the work supporting the Yorkshire climate commission and encouraging the training of green reps in workplaces and committing employers to a net zero pledge and to commence bargaining with unions in workplaces.
Our summer patrols are continuing in conjunction with LO Norway, building links with our campaigns in Sheffield, Rotherham, and Leeds to demand pay rises and to organise young workers to demand better. And we are about to deliver a Black workers development course starting in the autumn.
We are currently piloting a Black talent programme to build the network of black reps in the region. Feedback is very positive and we will be sharing this across the TUC to help in our efforts across the movement.
Wales TUC
A new three-year agreement for the Wales Union Learning Fund was reached in spring 2022, securing training, advice and guidance for thousands of workers across Wales. Hundreds of reps and activists are being trained through our trade union education programme, with additional courses now being offered on green skills and negotiating a just transition.
Social partnership working between unions, Welsh Government and employer organisations continues to strengthen. The Social Partnership and Public Procurement Bill was introduced in June. It will give workers a say over public bodies strategic planning in relation to areas like economic well-being, as well as delivering fairer outcomes from procurement spend. The legislation will also result in a more consistent approach to delivering ‘fair work’ being taken across the devolved public sector.
In practice, social partnership is resulting in better relationships between government and transport unions, unions advising on implementing the Real Living Wage in social care and a shared vision for the retail sector being published. It also continued to underpin the emergency response to the coronavirus pandemic, including keeping the covid workplace risk assessment regulations until the end of May because of union pressure.
Unions have also worked with Welsh Government to produce the national race, disability and LGBTQ+ action plans, alongside sector-specific work such as developing a mandatory part of the new national curriculum on Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic histories.
Campaigning work across a range of areas has generated significant media coverage, influenced policymakers and changed workplaces in relation to issues like harmful gambling, the menopause, mental health and autism.
Last autumn, Wales TUC launched its Future of Devolution and Work Commission, led by Professor Jean Jenkins. It is tasked with considering the impact that the current devolution arrangements are having on efforts to properly address issues like insecure work, non-compliance with labour rights and the changing nature of work. Its interim report was published this summer, and its final report will be published later this year.
Stay Updated
Want to hear about our latest news and blogs?
Sign up now to get it straight to your inbox