The Post Office, young workers and housing Day 2 at the TUC
September 12 2016Congress unanimously backed Post Office workers’ fight to defend their jobs and pensions and secure the future of the network, after a passionate speech by deputy general secretary (postal) Terry Pullinger this morning.
With thousands of CWU members set to strike on Thursday, along with hundreds of Unite grades also joining them, Terry said it was “do-or-die time” for workers within the company and added: “Politicians talk, but trade unions act and that’s what we’re doing.”
Reminding delegates that the Government remains the owner of the Post Office, following its separation from Royal Mail, he said: “The Government is the employer here, and we need the Government to intervene, meet with all stakeholders and work out a positive way forward,” he said, and went on to explain the effects of the franchising’ process on workers and on communities.
Calling for solidarity and support from the whole movement, Terry sharply criticised the attitude taken by senior Post Office management in response to the union having given notice of Thursday’s strike.
“They’re using public money to bribe people to scab in this dispute,” he said, adding: “They will not be successful. We will stand up and defend our members and defend the Great British Post Office.”
Unite delegate Ivan Monkton seconded the CWU motion, reaffirming Terry’s arguments against franchising’, which both the CWU and Unite have described as backdoor privatisation’.
Mr Monkton spelled out again the key points of the dispute, accused Post Office senior management of adopting a policy of “ill-managed decline” and urged Congress to “support a vibrant, public Post Office.”
After the unanimous vote for the motion, Congress chair Liz Snape pledged: “Full support and solidarity from the TUC for your day of action on Thursday,” to further applause from the audience.
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TUC Congress Motion 56
The crisis in the Post Office
As a result of funding cuts from the government, and gross mismanagement on the part of the board of the company, Congress believes that the Post Office is now at crisis point.
Staff are facing 2,000 job losses this year alone, the closure of the defined benefit pension scheme with over 3,500 active members and the threat of compulsory redundancy.
Communities across the country – many in the poorest urban areas – face the closure of branches, the loss of vital services and the privatisation of a valued public institution by the backdoor.
The announcements from the Post Office this year are part of a long trend of managed decline. When the government split the Post Office from Royal Mail it promised it would become a front office for government’ and grow its revenues from financial services. It has failed on both counts.
Millions of pounds of public money have also been misspent in paying off long-serving experienced and unionised staff to leave, to allow companies like WH Smith to bring in part-time employees on the minimum wage.
Congress gives its full support to the CWU in its dispute with the Post Office and now calls on the board of the company to resign.
Congress also believes there must be a new political settlement for the Post Office, which rests with the government as its owner, and calls on it to intervene, pause the cuts and develop a strategy that will protect and grow the Post Office as a matter of urgency.
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Fair pay for young workers – a real living wage for all
CWU delegate Becca Hufton seconded a motion on fair pay for young workers at the TUC this morning.
“As a young worker, I’m lucky my job pays more than the Living Wage and that I have a trade union-negotiated job and because my job enabled me to become a CWU industrial workplace rep,” said Becca, who has served as a sub-shift rep at Medway Mail Centre for two years.
But for too many young workers today, she continued, secure and fairly paid employment is not a part of their lives and unions like the CWU and others are prioritising recruitment and organisation of young workers.
“CWU is fighting for members and to organise and mobilise workers. When you meet someone in casual employment, ask them to join a trade union. Organise and mobilise them to join with us and fight for fair pay, terms and conditions.”
Becca was speaking after GMB activist Craig Dawson, who had moved the proposition to Congress, which had originated from the TUC Young Workers’ conference.
Currently, National Minimum Wage legislation applies lower rates to younger workers and this motion called on the TUC to back campaigning to end these age-related exemptions and apply a principle of equal pay rates for equal work.
Following the debate, the motion was formally carried by Congress and Becca, Craig and others later joined Frances O’Grady on the front stage for a special focus on young trade union activists, during which speakers from other sectors including catering, entertainment and retail gave their accounts of how trade union organisation had improved their rights at work.
“Building a movement for young workers and winning a fair deal – that’s what this is all about,” said Ms O’Grady, as she stood with the group holding up their campaign placard: “We will be the movement of young workers”.
Low pay and the ongoing fight for a real living wage for all was the theme of the first proposition of the day, which was moved by shopworkers’ union (USDAW) leader John Hannett.
The Government’s introduction of a new National Living Wage’ was not a genuine living wage, insisted Mr Hannett, who explained that the Government’s proposed rates fall short of the Living Wage Foundation’s figure, which is calculated on a specific basis related to the actual cost of living, and urged Congress to keep up the push for a real Living Wage for all.
This debate, which was also joined by Ronnie Draper of the bakers’ union (BFAWU), and speakers from UNISON and PCS, heard other concerns about unscrupulous employers finding ways to offset’ the extra costs of minimum wage levels by removing overtime and shift premia or by cutting workers’ hours and calling for legislation to be tightened up to address this.
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Senior deputy general secretary Tony Kearns highlighted the dangers of the new “Pay to stay” clauses within the Government’s new Housing and Planning Act during a detailed debate on housing.
Speaking on a composite motion which was also supported by the TSSA, UCATT, NUT, NASUWT and GMB, Tony said that the UK’s chronic housing crisis had been “mostly caused by failure to build council houses.”
The controversial pay to stay’ clauses would mean that households outside London, with a combined income of over £31,000 and those within London over £40,000 would be obliged to pay an extra 15p in the pound, a payment that he called “a tax on working-class communities.
“Councils will have to bear the cost of this, but the revenues will go to central government,” he explained, adding that this amounted to a transfer of wealth from working-class people to those at the top of the wealth table, who would benefit from tax cuts.
Urging support for the composite, Tony told Congress: “This is an opportunity for the TUC to say we stand with working-class communities and we’ll take this fight all the way until we’re successful.”
Other speakers in the debate focussed on different aspects of the Housing and Planning Act, such as the changes to secure tenancy rights and tenancy inherita
nce, and UCATT speaker Julie Phipps summed up the feelings of many when she called on everyone to back the Axe the Act’ campaign and “defeat this despicable Act.”
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On a busy opening morning, several other policy areas were debated and discussed, including benefits policies, the idea of a universal income, and work capability assessments, the last of which came from the TUC Disabled Workers Conference.
CWU delegate Jonathan Bellshaw spoke during the work capability assessments debate and told Congress that he was “very proud” that the CWU had been the original proposer of this motion at the Disabled Workers’ Conference.
In a powerful contribution, Jonathan pointed out that these assessments had been associated with 590 suicides and around a quarter of a million anti-depressant prescriptions. Back in 2013, he continued, a coroner at a suicide inquest had formally indicated a causal link between the policies of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), but that the Government had failed to take those comments on board.
“This is an attack on the working class and a violation of disabled people’s human rights,” he said, adding that the TUC must “send a message” to the Government by approving this motion to “stop your attack on the most vulnerable in society.”
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Delegates voted against a motion committing the TUC to reverse its support for aviation expansion, following a lively debate featuring strongly held points of view on both sides.
Senior deputy general secretary Tony Kearns supported the proposition on behalf of the CWU, seconding the motion that had been moved by clerical rail union TSSA.
In his speech, Tony made an impassioned appeal to Congress not to exempt the UK’s aviation industry from the reductions in carbon production that would be needed in order for the UK to meet our internationally agreed targets.
“If we don’t halt the expansion of aviation, then other industries will bear the brunt of the reductions – such as steel, automotive, rail and other manufacturing,” he explained, and described this as unfair on, and potentially damaging to, those other sectors of the economy.
Supporters of aviation expansion base many of their arguments on the need to protect jobs within the industry, Tony noted, but pointed out that campaigners against climate change have put together a plan – entitled Just Transition – to ensure that carbon-producing jobs are replaced by new jobs.
Unless agreed carbon reduction targets are met, the future of our planet could be at risk, he continued, and ended with the stark warning: “There are no jobs on a dead planet.”
In a closely contested debate, the delegations from UNISON, PCS, and the FBU also backed the motion alongside CWU and TSSA, while Unite, GMB, Prospect and BALPA (the airline pilots union) came out in opposition – largely citing its potential effect on jobs.
And TUC spokeswoman Sue Fearn also spoke against the proposition, arguing that it could put jobs of TUC-affiliated members at risk andalso opposing the support contained within the motion for the campaign group Break Free From Fossil Fuels.
Replying to the debate, TSSA delegate Fliss Premru insisted that “we’re not proposing to close airports – just not to expand them further” and highlighted some of the ideas contained within the Just Transition plans in an attempt to reassure opposing delegates.
“It’s not a choice of jobs or a clean planet – we can have both,” she insisted.
The motion was then put to the vote and lost on a show of hands.
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The afternoon session had opened with an impassioned debate on the need for an industrial strategy for the UK, and a determined call for government intervention to save our steel industry.
Steelworkers won a rousing standing ovation from Congress, which voted unanimously to redouble efforts to defend this vitally important part of our nation’s economic infrastructure.
Moving the motion, Roy Rickhuss, for the steel union Community, called the closure of the Redcar plant on Teesside as “an act of industrial vandalism” and the blast furnace at the centre of the site a “national strategic asset.”
We must keep fighting to save our steel, he insisted, saying: “We will not let the sun set on our industry.”
Steelworkers Mark Turner and Ian Kemp also came to the speaker’s rostrum – winning enthusiastic applause for their determined contributions, pointing out that the steel crisis was not caused by lack of demand, but by government refusal to act.
After the motion had been adopted, Congress delegates all held up the steelworkers’ campaign placards and a large group of them stood on the main stage alongside Frances O’Grady.
As well as a serious industrial strategy, the UK is also in need of new ideas in the economy to raise productivity and address the challenges presented by automation, and these were the subjects of other debates during a busy the afternoon session, which also debated pension contribution tax relief, food poverty, and an interesting speech from Labour Party fraternal delegate Paddy Lillis.