Paul Nowak's speech to special Congress 2023
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Over the last year I have stood on dozens of picket lines, with thousands of workers.
Decent people.
Hardworking people.
People like you, like me, like millions of other working people out there up and down the country.
Forced to take strike action to get a decent pay rise.
To pay the bills.
To make ends meet.
And I want to start this special Congress with a message to each and every one of those workers.
To the physios at St Thomas’s.
The paramedics in Liverpool, Newcastle and Lewisham.
The rail workers at Kings Cross, Lime Street and Piccadilly
The university lecturers
Civil servants
Teachers.
Today, this movement resolves:
We will fight to defend your right to strike.
Delegates, welcome to Congress House
The home of the trade union movement
A place where generations of trade unionists have gathered.
Not just to pass resolutions.
Or debate points of law.
But to set out, in concrete terms, what we can do to stand for working people.
And here we are, once again
Facing yet another set of laws
Designed to silence the voices of workers
The Strikes Act – could - put simply – take away the right to strike from five and a half million people.
1 in 5 British workers.
It’s Unfair.
It’s Undemocratic.
Congress, it’s unfit to be on the statute book.
The right to strike
To withdraw your labour
Is a cornerstone of our democracy,
of any democracy.
No-one wants to go on strike
It’s something you’re forced to do
When your boss threatens your job
Or your safety at work
Or won’t give you a decent pay rise.
Going on strike is a protection working people have relied on for generations.
But today, we have a Tory government that feels threatened by that basic protection.
Threatened by the organised working class.
Threatened by workers having the temerity to stand up.
And their response?
To reach for the old Thatcherite playbook
To slap more restrictions on unions
To bully working people into keeping quiet.
Congress, let us be clear:
We won’t be quiet
We won’t be bullied
And we won’t be intimidated by this government.
We are here today
Because successive Conservative governments
Made our public services pick up the bill for the bankers’ crash
We are here today
Because they promised to build back better after the pandemic
And then stood by while millions suffered through a cost of living crisis
And we are here today
Because just last year,
this Tory government crashed our economy
And then told us it was the fault of workers wanting a pay rise.
Congress.
No more lies.
No more excuses.
No more scapegoats.
Time for the Prime Minister to take responsibility
Time for him to stand down
And time to call a general election.
~~~
In this movement
Everything we do is built on solidarity
Standing together is the only way we win
So let me be clear
I expect, you expect,
an incoming Labour government to repeal this spiteful legislation.
That is what the leader and the deputy leader have both said
In private – and in public
But we can’t just wait for an election.
We have to decide what we are doing
As a movement
Right now, to fight this legislation.
Now you wouldn’t expect me to talk tactics
Here, in public, where ministers and employers
(And their lawyers)
Can hear.
So I won’t.
But I will tell you this
If they come for one worker
If they come for one union
They will face us all.
Let me say this today.
As a young trade union activist, one of the first lessons I learnt
Was that you don’t cross a picket line
And no matter what laws they pass
Or how they threaten us
This movement is not in the business of telling any worker to cross a picket line.
~~~
As I said earlier.
This year I have had the privilege of standing alongside thousands of workers, all over the UK.
In fact, I even found myself standing on a picket line at my old secondary school
With my former history teacher, and proud NEU member, Mr McKibbin!
Not one of the workers
I talked to, was glib about taking strike action.
Not least the clinical support workers I met on the Wirral.
700 of them – mainly women
Clinical support workers
They take your blood
Monitor your heart rate
Test your urine
Crucial work
NHS band 3 work
But for years paid as band 2
They went on strike to end years of underpayment.
And they won
But something happened, one of those days on the picket line
Nearby, on the M53, there was a fatal coach crash
Two people tragically died
And as one, those clinical support workers decided to leave the picket line
Because they knew they might be needed.
Their first over-riding concern was keeping people safe.
None of those workers need a lesson in public safety from Conservative ministers.
Firefighters, ambulance crew, nurses, rail staff
Clinical support workers
On the Wirral – and all over the country
They’re the ones who know about public safety
They’re the ones who care about public safety
And they’re the ones who keep the public safe!
That’s their job.
Their vocation.
And when they are needed
It is trade union members, not ministers in Whitehall, who run to help.
So I say to this Tory government
If you don’t want strikes
You know what to do.
Pay us fairly.
Treat us fairly.
Invest in our public services.
Fix the mess you’ve created.
So Congress, here today, we resolve:
We will defy their ban on strikes
We will overturn this unjust law
And we will win for workers!
Solidarity Congress!
