Frances O’Grady speech to STUC Congress 2014
117th Scottish Trades Union Congress. Dundee, 15 April 2014
It’s a pleasure: to bring greetings and solidarity on behalf of our TUC President, Mohamed Taj, and the TUC General Council. To reaffirm friendship between working people on both sides of the border. And to be in a country where, I'm told, there are more giant pandas than Tory MPs (despite their mating habits).
I want to begin by paying tribute to your campaign – “There is a Better Way”.
From resisting the bedroom tax to fighting for a Living Wage, trades unionism is a powerful force for good. And it’s thanks to the work of Grahame, the STUC General Council and all of you that, whatever the Scottish people decide in September, the interests of workers are right at the heart of the debate about Scotland’s future.
Delegates, while the referendum on independence is a matter for the Scottish people, the outcome will effect the lives of working people right across the UK. And whatever the result, all of us need to remember the need for unity: among workers, across unions, between trade union centres. Any disagreements we may have among ourselves should be kept to ourselves – and resolved collectively through dialogue and discussion. Unity matters, not least because, hot on the heels of the referendum, is a general election that could be critical for the people we represent, for generations to come.
I believe that come next May, Britain will have a Labour government. But if the Tories win, or even lead another coalition, then - make no mistake - we will see a massive escalation in the war on working people. Five more years of cruel austerity and cuts. More energy price rip offs and public sector sell-offs - including the East Coast mainline. And more attacks on union freedoms - because they aim to finish the job Margaret Thatcher began.
Conference, while that unholy trinity of Cameron, Osborne and Clegg must take their share of responsibility; The problems we face started long before this Westminster government, and they transcend national borders. Real wage cuts, deregulation, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer – they all started three decades ago, with the rise of free-market fundamentalism across Europe and much of the western world.
Tony Blair once famously proclaimed that we are all middle class now. But he was wrong.
Today, we are all casualised now.
Once it was just the working poor who never knew where their next job was coming from, who were pushed around by the boss, who worried about the bills and worked until they dropped for a pittance. But the spread of Zero hours contracts, agency work and job insecurity have changed all that.
Casualisation no longer respects the colour of your collar. From care assistants to airline pilots, lorry drivers to lecturers, and unemployed school leavers to graduate interns, workers from all walks of life feel insecure. It's the same old story of divide and rule - break up collective bargaining, keep unemployment high, and pit worker against worker in a ruthless race to the bottom.
Meanwhile, capital is increasingly concentrated and globalised. Over half of all shares in the UK are now foreign owned. And those shares can change hands at the flick of a switch. Increasingly, decisions that effect our lives are not taken in Westminster or Holyrood, but in Berlin and Bejing. We live in a world where too much wealth and power lies in the hands of too few.
We saw that last year during the Ineos dispute at Grangemouth. Where the company not only threatened to sack an entire workforce, but held a whole country to ransom. As we know, Ineos led Number Ten to set up the Carr Review into so-called trade union leverage tactics. Or, as most of us call it, the right to protest. A review that, thanks to our efforts, has been delayed and diluted. But a review that remains, as everyone knows, nothing more than a Conservative party political stunt, with the taxpayer expected to foot the bill.
It's ironic that a QC should be chairing an inquiry into so-called intimidatory tactics that amounted to trade unionists carrying a giant blow-up rodent. When just a few weeks ago his colleagues - barristers and solicitors - walked out against cuts to legal aid carrying a giant blow-up effigy of the justice minister, Chris Grayling. Which I would have thought looked much more offensive.
So to David Cameron I simply say this – the big challenge facing modern industrial relations isn’t trade unionists who protest with plastic rodents. The real challenge is those bosses who bully, black-list and behave like real rats.
But the fragmentation of labour on the one hand, and concentration of capital on the other, presents profound challenges for us all. With trade union membership down to around 15 per cent in the private sector, perhaps it's no wonder that people are searching for a sense of security, a sense of identity and belonging, beyond the workplace.
But we cannot escape one universal truth. Multinational companies do not respect national borders. The only loyalty they know is to shareholders and their own fat salaries. And the only flag they fly is the company logo.
Inequality within countries, between the one per cent and the rest of us, is growing - including here in Scotland. As working people, our fortunes - our destiny - will always depend on each other. It is a mirage to believe that we can win in one country, when working people, our neighbours, are losing in another.
Conference, our movement's mission is, and will always be, to win a better, fairer, more equal future for all.
As the general election approaches, we need to turn up the pressure on all politicians and remind them that while a captain of industry may have power and money, he still only gets one vote.
And as the late, great Tony Benn once said: the problem is not that we expect too much but that we demand too little. So instead of an economy that works for big business and the super rich, let's demand one that works for ordinary people. That gets our wages and living standards rising again. That funds the world-class public services we need - not just the NHS but nurseries and a proper system of adult social care too so the old, the sick and disabled get the dignity they deserve. An economy that is greener, cleaner and safer, where workers have a real voice, up to and including the Boardroom.
Let’s deliver fair pay for all with a living wage, new wages councils, and action to tackle greed at the top, including by giving workers a seat on company remuneration committees.
Let’s deliver real reform of our financial system. End the investment strike with a new State Bank. Crack down on City spivs and speculators with a Robin Hood Tax. And get tough on tax avoidance so, just like the rest of us, wealthy corporations start paying their fair share.
Let's create more decent jobs with an intelligent industrial strategy to start rebuilding our manufacturing base. And what better way to pull the rug from beneath greedy landlords and cut the housing benefit bill than by a mass programme to build affordable council homes?
Conference, the point is this. We are not powerless to act. We can turn the tide.
But there are no short cuts. We have to rebuild union organisation and organise. We have to find the courage to stand up to powerful elites and the banks. And we have to raise our sights and ambition for our class.
Working people deserve better than this. And our job in the trade union movement is to show them it can be done.
To rebuild workers’ collective confidence. To turn anger into hope, and hope into action. And whatever the people of Scotland decide in September – whatever happens in the general election next May – we must work together.
It doesn’t matter whether we’re men or women, black or white, blue collar or white collar, Scottish or English, our trade union values – solidarity, equality and unity – have never been so important.
So let’s stand up for what we believe in. Let’s take the fight to the Tories and to the bosses. And together let’s win a fair future for all.