LTB 442/20 – TUC Online Congress – 14th and 15th September
No: 442/20
8th September 2020
TO: ALL BRANCHES
Dear Colleague
TUC Online Congress – 14th and 15th September
The purpose of this LTB is to remind branches of the online Congress being held by the TUC next week. As branches will be aware, because of the coronavirus pandemic and social distancing guidelines, this year’s TUC Congress is taking place virtually with debates being broadcast online on the morning of 14th and 15th September.
The online Congress is a slimmed down event that is being structured around five statements from the TUC’s General Council and there will be keynote speeches from Frances O’Grady (General Secretary of the TUC) and Keir Starmer (Leader of the Labour Party). The schedule is available at the following link: https://www.tuc.org.uk/congress-programme.
The CWU will have speakers during these debates over the course of the two mornings and it will be broadcast on the TUC website. Members can sign up for further information at the following link: https://www.tuc.org.uk/CongressSignUp.
Motions this year are being dealt with offline by the General Council so debates on these will not be broadcast. The CWU has submitted two motions on our key campaigns. Our first motion is on Campaigning for a New Deal for Workers and sets out a plan to mobilise trade union members, bring about greater co-operation on recruitment and tackle insecure employment through common bargaining agendas.
Our second motion focuses on the political demands we need to make in the wake of coronavirus and calls for unions to campaign for a new democratic economy, highlighting our key policies for public ownership of Royal Mail expanding the role of postal workers; the rollout of fibre broadband through a publicly owned BT securing good jobs in the telecoms industry; and for the establishment of a Post Bank through the Post Office. Copies of these motions are attached to this LTB.
Alongside these motions we have submitted amendments calling firstly for the TUC to campaign for the government to provide free broadband and computer equipment to all children living in poverty, tackling the digital divide that has been highlighted by coronavirus. And secondly calling for the TUC to campaign for the continuation of emergency measures that were taken by the government at the start of lockdown to end homelessness.
Again, copies of these are attached to this LTB and the full list of motions is available at the following link:
https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/2020-08/Congress_2020_Final_Agenda_AW_Digital.pdf
We will be communicating further to branches on how we will take the above policies forward in due course and any queries on the contents of this LTB should be addressed to jdunn@cwu.org.
Yours sincerely,
Dave Ward
General Secretary