TUC 2025: Tuesday Roundup

Union Matters September 10 2025

The CWU called for trade unions to collectively adopt a “new model” of organising that’s interested in recruiting “millions, not hundreds”, as well as reject a militaristic “rush to kill workers across the planet”.

Members of the union were crucial in two major debates which took place amongst delegates in Brighton today. The first was to do with the changing world of work, with robust discussions over new methods of making unions relevant to the future.

Getting serious about organising

Central to this discussion was a motion carried by deputy general secretary Karen Rose, which called for “concrete steps” forwards sectoral collective bargaining and a “significant organising drive” across unions.

“Our movement is facing crisis point”, she said, telling delegates that “we have never been more vulnerable than we are now.”

While welcoming the Employment Rights Bill’s broader aspects, she said that it hasn’t gone far enough, and that it’s “time now for all unions to come together and get serious about organising at a sectoral level and to transform the world of work.

“A new model of trade unionism is the only real solution – let’s take steps to organise across industries, not individual employers – let’s recruit millions, not just hundreds.”

Discussing the need to organise younger workers, delegate Moira Cahill said that “from what I’ve seen in the trade union movement, we’re still set in our ways.

“Our employers are embracing technology,” she said, “but our strategy of trade unionists has barely changed.

“We need our movement to be more visible in peoples’ daily lives.”

Discussing the increasing impact of AI, delegate Patricia described in depth the extent to which there is an “across-the-board” replacement of “trained experts” for AI companies frought with “teething issues”, describing the CWU’s new campaign to back reps and members over AI issues.

“We recognise we are going to have job losses, we know this.

“But we can work together to empower our members, rather than lose them.”

Rejecting the permanent war economy

But the most discussed motion of Tuesday was the UCU’s Wages Not Weapons motion, which passed by 1,800,000 to 1,200,000 votes to reverse pro-defence spending policy at the TUC, to prioritise funding for public services over an arms economy, and criticises British assistance to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Speaking on behalf of the motion, CWU Senior Deputy General Secretary Tony Kearns criticised Keir Starmer’s priorities about national defence spending being the “cornerstone to growth.

“The biggest problem of everyone on this earth is climate change”, Tony said, “yet the government spends £11.3 billion on it, while the government is spending on defence £58 billion per year.”

“The idea that economic growth is going to come from military spending just isn’t true.

“End this rush to kill workers across the planet and support workers in this country”, he finished, ending with “freedom for Palestine”.