7pm Tuesday: July 4th Topic: all trades councils discussion zoom meeting – Birmingham, Coventry, Walsall, Wolverhampton and Worcester trades union councils were all represented. (Dudley was having a meeting at the same time.) It was felt to be a useful meeting and worth repeating after September and every couple of months or so, to discuss campaigning amongst officers of all the Midlands (West) TUCs. Anti-racist strategy was suggested for discussion.
—————————————————
[16-17 June 2023 @ Congress House] by Nick Kelleher [non-voting TUCJCC rep]
Around 70 delegates, visitors and TUCJCC reps attended. Only delegates from W.Mids were from Walsall TUC and Coventry TUC.
New TUCJCC reps elected to June 2024:
Midlands (West) – Nick Kelleher
Midlands (East) – Cecile Wright
North West – Kevin Allsop
Yorkshire & the Humber – Martin Mayer
Northern – Martin Levy
East of England – Andrew Coburn
South East – Pamela Fitzpatick
South West – Dave Chapple
Wales – Katrine Williams
plus current TUC General Council members :
Steve Gillen (POA), Jo Grady (UCU), Dave Allan (UNITE), Simon Weller (ASLEF), Carl Roper (TUC)
Important Motions passed:
M16 National trades unions support for trades councils’ solidarity work
this won the ballot to be the Trades Councils Conference Motion to Trades Union Congress in September (Trades Council Delegate to Congress elected was Liz Payne-Ahmadi from Somerset):
Conference believes that solidarity with workers taking strike action is a fundamental principle of the trade union movement. Therefore, Conference applauds all local trades councils who have been working so hard during 2022 and 2023 to deliver picket line solidarity with strikers from across the spectrum of trade unions – both TUC affiliated and non-affiliated.
However, despite the best efforts of trades councils to reach out to unions, at local level and through regional TUC structures, seeking information on local disputes, their capacity to show solidarity and offer picket line support has in some cases been limited by less than ideal communications between unions and trades councils. Often trades councils are the last to know about disputes, strikes and picket lines in their areas, including when and where the picket lines will be. This makes coordinating public support and inter-union solidarity more difficult and less effective than it should be.
Conference further believes that provision of accurate and timely information is crucial to every aspect of relationship building between trades councils, unions, and their branches. However, many trades councils lack vital information about union branches in their localities.
Conference therefore urges the TUC General Council to encourage all affiliated trade unions to:
- Ensure that all their media and communications officers and/or general secretaries have up to date contact details for all UK (and as appropriate Republic of Ireland) trades councils.
- Ensure, as a matter of routine, that relevant information, including media releases, are sent to all trades’ councils
- Ensure that in the run up to and during disputes (whether local, regional, or national) trades councils are sent up to date information on strike dates and times; picket lines; how negotiations, if any, are proceeding; and the outcomes of these disputes.
Conference also asks the general council to write to all affiliated unions, requesting them to ensure that their regional officers are provided with the contact details of trades council secretaries in their region, and that these officers send the names of the relevant branches of their union to each trades’ council.
M19 County Associations and Trades Councils
The TUC Trades Councils Conference acknowledges the contribution made to the work of Trades Councils by County Associations. Where they are active, they play a valuable role in coordinating Trades Council campaigns and other activities across wider geographical areas.
As part of the process of registering with the TUC, Trades Councils are required to affiliate to their local County Association. Furthermore, Trades Councils wishing to submit motions to the Trades Councils Conference must do so via their County Association.
This presents Trades Councils, particularly those in areas where there is no active County Association with a bureaucratic barrier that in the first instance can frustrate the creation and development of new trades councils and secondly, restrict the opportunities for existing Trades Councils to play a full part in the democracy of the TUC Trades Councils Conference. This has led to the establishment of ‘county trades councils’, which represents a two-tier system for trades councils across the TUC.
The TUCJCC seeks to increase participation of all trades councils in the democratic structures of the TUC, whilst recognising the important campaigning role that County Associations can continue to play.
To address this Conference agrees to.
- Remove the requirement for Trades Councils to affiliate to County Associations in order to register with the TUC.
- From the 2024 TUC Trades Councils Conference, allow all registered Trades Councils to submit a motion to the TUC Trades Councils Conference.
- Support the TUCJCC to consult with County Associations and Trades Councils on a revised set of model rules and standing orders for Trades Councils and County Associations and to bring these to the 2024 TUC Trades Councils Conference for approval.
- Instruct the TUCJCC to write to TUC Regional Councils with a request that they ensure that their constitution / rules are updated to take account of these changes to the governance of Trades Councils. This should be by consultation with Trades Councils, County Associations and Trade Unions in the region to bring about a revised constitution allowing direct access by Trades Councils wherever possible.
M12 Defeat the far right
outcome: “Meetings should be organised under the banner of trades councils if a threat is raised to show the organised working class are opposed and have answers to the struggles faced by ordinary people. “
M13 For peace in Ukraine
Conference notes the massive recent protests for peace in Ukraine, in many cities in Germany, Italy, Spain, France and in other countries. In London a first protest march, organised by the Stop the War Coalition, took place on 25 February.
While we condemn the illegal Russian invasion, we note that the fighting in the east of Ukraine actually began in 2014. As the TUC Congress observed at that time (Emergency Motion 1), quoting the UN Refugee Agency, the fighting “has displaced more than a million people” and “If the crisis is not quickly stopped, it will have not only devastating humanitarian consequences, but it also has the potential to destabilise the whole region … after the lessons of the Balkans, it is hard to believe a conflict of these proportions could unfold in the European continent.”
Congress was also concerned then that “the crisis has also witnessed attacks on trade unionists and the empowering of fascist groups,” including the massacre at the Odessa trade union centre, and called for “an immediate, permanent ceasefire in Ukraine and a peaceful, negotiated settlement”, and “opposition to the use of British forces in the Ukrainian conflict.”
Over the past year it has become clear that this is a proxy war between NATO and Russia, in which the lives and livelihoods of the Ukrainian people are being sacrificed. It has been reported that in April 2022 Boris Johnson scuttled peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Now, Western aid to Ukraine is equivalent to what the US spent on average annually in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2020, and, factored into today’s prices, what it was on average spending annually on pursuing the Vietnam War.
Our government can find £billions for the Ukraine war, but not for public services and workers’ pay at home. But furthermore: the longer the war continues, the greater the danger of forces from NATO countries being drawn in directly, with the potential for escalation to a nuclear conflict. Conference therefore supports the Stop the War Coalition and CND’s calls for “Peace Talks Now – Stop the War in Ukraine” and “No to the Russia Invasion – No to NATO – No to Nuclear War”, and calls on Trades Union Councils to affiliate to the Stop the War Coalition and to get involved with such campaigns locally.
M14 Peace is union business
call on the TUC to
- Support peace organisations calling for peace and an end to arm sales, war and nuclear weapons.
- Campaign for higher spending on all public services, using measures such as the closing of tax loopholes to ameliorate cost of living rises and improve the living standards of all workers, as opposed to increasing military spending.
- Urge the TUC to back the diversification of military jobs and continue to develop and implement a greener jobs agenda.
- Support protests against the siting of all US nuclear weapons at USAF bases, including Lakenheath and the replacement of trident nuclear submarines.
- Call on the TUC to back peace as the business of unions, protecting workers’ lives, jobs and a liveable environment in the UK and internationally; moving away from weapon manufacture and arms sales that can result in dire consequences for workers in other countries.
Rest of motions – the text is available on request, they will appear in the annual Programme of Work, little action from trades councils required.
M1 NHS Privatisation
M2 Housing motion
M3 Card only transactions and access to cash
M4 Trades Councils campaigning on bus services
M5 Wealth Tax
M6 Climate tipping points
M7 Campaign for the abolition of standing charges on utility bills
M8 The fight against anti-TU laws
M9 Legal requirements covering job advertisements
M10 Workers’ personal needs
M11 Fighting Racism
M15 Using IT to increase participation locally and build our movement for the future
M17 Support striking workers, oppose the bill, build trades union councils
M18 Review of CATUCs and TCs
Guest speakers:
Garfield Hylton, GMB Amazon Campaign,
Mike Arnott, current Scottish TUC President. Trades councils in Scotland have direct representation at the Scottish TUC, indeed Mike is delegate from Dundee Trades Council
Eileen Turnbull of the Shrewsbury 24 Campaign [arranged by myself]
Panel Workshops:
- Fighting back against the government’s immigration policy
- Fighting the Anti Trade Union and Anti Strike legislation
- Building Stronger Trades Councils [chaired by myself] bullet points compiled by Bridgwater TUC which has increased from 12 to 48 branch affiliations in a small town and now one of the country’s most active TUCs:
- Compile an exhaustive list of ALL TUC-affiliated unions with at least some members in your council area. Make sure you consider the membership of unions not usually represented on local TUC’s, such as RCM, NAHT, NAPO, BALPA, CSP, SOR; Writer’s Guild, Nautilus, PFA. Use your regional office to obtain national and regional contacts.
- Compile a second list of all the paid trade union officials and organisers responsible for the members of all the unions in (1).. These might operate on a large branch, district, city, county or regional basis. Many young organisers, as opposed to union officials, do not know about trades councils.
3 Compile a third list of all trade union branches that either hold meetings in your council areas, or, if the branch meets outside your council’s area, is a branch that has members who either live or work in your area. GDPR may prevent you getting names but you should be able to get branch names, how many workplaces in that branch and where they meet.
- Compile a chart of all union and/or branch affiliations to your council for the last few years: divide this list into branches that
a. affiliate and send at least one delegate;
b. affiliate but without delegates;
c. used to affiliate;
d. branches that have never affiliated.
Use the new trades’ councils’ information leaflet with your own council’s details on. - If you haven’t one already, get a suitable street stall banner and hold regular street stalls – you will meet union reps you did not previously know and they may become TUC delegates.
- Use the information gathered in (1) to (4), to begin the on-line trade union workplace mapping of your town city/area. This may take a year or two to realise, but the very process of gaining all the relevant information REQUIRES your TUC mapping team to fully engage with all your local union branches and full-time officers.
Ask ALL delegates to help gather the mapping information: in effect turn your TUC into a local union mapping working party
The map should contain and identify all local workplaces above a certain size. They can then be divided into employment sectors, e.g.: NHS; Care homes; local government; warehouses/distribution; factories; public transport; communications/call centres; Ex-Civil Service; hotels; construction; etc.
Identify unionised workplaces, non-union workplaces, partly unionised but non-recognised workplaces.
Other info: % of unionised staff; % full-time; % agency/temporary; % migrant workers, % female. Are office staff or supervisors and managers in-the union? The information potential is almost endless.
Ideally the initial result should be an on-line map where you can click on a workplace site and the tabulated info comes up.
Consider this as a major part of your trades’ council work. Consider setting up a workplace mapping team to report back to every meeting. Even a frustratingly incomplete map will have increased your workplace and trade union knowledge of your area. - Draw up a programme to invite branch officers from the chart in (4), to come and have a 15 or 30-minute speaking slot at a TUC meeting, maybe in the sequence (b), (c), (d). It should be possible, with discipline and. tight chairing, to invite two new branches/unions per meeting, taking up to an hour, and still expedite important other business.
- When branch officers attend, ask them to send trades council information to all their workplace reps, asking them to volunteer to be TUC delegates. Ask them also to send you a list of all the unionised workplaces in your council area: no rep’s names. (GDPR), just names and addresses of the workplaces.
- If branch officers ignore you or delay, ask the local full-time officer to come and take the speaking slot, and ask them to bring along as many branch officers and/or workplace reps as they can. If they are respected officials, they should bring other activists along to the meeting.
- If the full-time officer or organiser ignores you, ask the TUCJCC Rep or the TUC Regional Secretary to invite the REGIONAL union secretary down as guest speaker, asking them to invite all their branches along to hear them.
- Write to all branches on your list, asking if a trades’ council officer can come and speak for 5/10 minutes at their next Branch members’ or branch committee meeting. Take copies of the national trades’ councils’ leaflet. Chances are in many cases, most committee members and reps will not have heard of a trades’ council or what they stand for. Train as many council officers as possible to make that effective 10-minute case for affiliation.
- When you have a speaker from a new branch or union attend and the meeting is a success, take a good quality photo of you all at the end, perhaps all showing a union campaign leaflet. Use that photo as the basis, not only for a media release, but to send to national, regional and local full-time officers, to show them how a trades council can support unions in their campaigns.
- Encourage and value visitors and allow them to have their say if not a vote. Some may take steps to become delegates.
- Try and find a good TUC chair who can help to make your meetings as informal, open, friendly and welcoming as possible. Could have a 15-minute break half-way through meetings so we can get a drink and get to know each other, particularly new delegates and visitors. Always ask newcomers if they would like to say a few words.
- Try and free-up your meetings to maximise real discussion. For example, ask delegates to send the secretary a couple of sentences or 200 words max workplace or branch report, and circulate this and other reports before the meeting. This can mean that delegates respond to each union’s reports having read them, without talking up valuable-time LISTENING at the meeting to those reports ; OR, if they haven’t bothered or had time to read them, the meeting can move onto other business.
- Hold occasional but well-planned meetings in other towns, this can’ be the start of a new trades’ council, or increase the reach of your own council
- Minimise motions; motions at trades’ council meetings are often unnecessary
(An information leaflet to every delegate will suffice), divisive, giving delegates the chance to fall out over matters they have no control over, they encourage one-upmanship, competitiveness and superiority, and the council can only become LESS effective as a result.
Trades’ Councils should be working-class solidarity workshops based on trust and mutual respect. Bridgwater TUC has done its good work despite only 2 motions being submitted in the last 5 years! For Wolverhampton TUC, there was even less. - Work out the best way to work with the Labour Party. Trades councils,.often spend much time trying to influence Labour Parties, which is NOT our role, instead of concentrating on organising local working-class solidarity, however difficult this is.
- Better to have trades council meeting rooms full of workplace reps, whatever their politics, than a room one third full of fully-accredited left-wingers, without a single workplace between them, unanimously passing motions that go nowhere and achieve zilch.