Much of the time, Trades Union Congress\u2019 annual get-together is reminiscent of a revivalist meeting \u2013 true believers gathered in the certainty of salvation.\u00a0 Nearly every motion is endorsed by unanimous acclaim, the General Council\u2019s opinion on each proposition is received with earnest appreciation, and every speaker is generously applauded.<\/p>\n
It would be missing the real picture, however, to imagine that naturally disputations trades union officials take their annual sojourn by the sea as an opportunity to rest their argumentative reflexes.\u00a0 Congress\u2019 public sessions are but the tip of the iceberg that is the TUC\u2019s decision-making process.<\/p>\n
Wrangling behind closed doors is intense, with protracted disputes over the wording of composites and the judgements to be expressed on behalf of the General Council.\u00a0 Only occasionally do these spill over into actual debate.\u00a0 Last year, for example, RMT delegates became inflamed over attempts to redact a call for \u2018generalised strike action\u2019 from one of their motions.\u00a0 The railway workers got their way, on that occasion, to their raucously expressed satisfaction.<\/p>\n
One might have imagined that Brexit would have sparked impassioned debate?\u00a0 Most British trades unions campaigned for a remain vote and TUC General Secretary Frances O\u2019Grady batted impressively for the EU in one of the pre-referendum televised debates.\u00a0 A handful of unions, however, took a diametrically opposed view \u2013 although they were a curious appendage to the right wingers and Tory opportunists beside whom they rallied.<\/p>\n
When it came, the TUC\u2019s debate on two Brexit-related motions appeared no more controversial than those on the sustainability of the NHS or issues of food poverty.<\/p>\n
More surprising still, Congress adopted, without opposition, a Unite motion calling for a Universal Basic Income<\/a>. \u00a0The essence of this idea is that all existing benefits are abolished and every adult is provided with a flat monthly payment by the state.\u00a0 Taxes would rise, of course, and many basic-income schemes envisage abolishing the entire mechanism of administering benefits.\u00a0 It is an idea that has been doing the rounds for decades<\/a>, and has won some significant adherents in recent years.\u00a0 For the biggest voluntary movement in the UK to lend its weight to such a proposal might well signal its move into the mainstream?<\/p>\n The only debate to really divide the hall concerned climate change.\u00a0 Some unions \u2013 the NUJ among them \u2013 have taken up the agenda of a campaign group that styles itself One Million Climate Jobs<\/a>.\u00a0 According to the motion, Jeremy Corbyn has already committed to its principles.<\/p>\n Its vision is as radical as to some it is challenging.\u00a0 To make Britain a green\u00a0exemplar it proposes shutting down all UK\u2019s carbon-intensive industries \u2013 among them mining, oil extraction, power stations and car manufacturer.\u00a0 The government would then plough money into creating a million \u2018climate jobs\u2019 to employ those whose industries are gone.\u00a0 It was clear from the outset that its proposers, the Transport and Salaries Staffs\u2019 Association<\/a> and the Communications Workers Union<\/a> were facing an uphill struggle with a motion that called for, among other things, an end to airport expansion.<\/p>\n Unite<\/a> and the GMB<\/a> rolled out their big guns and the pounding began.\u00a0 \u201cWorker would be set against worker, industry against industry\u201d, one warned.\u00a0 \u201cTens of thousands of jobs in west London would be lost\u201d, said the next.\u00a0 Tony Kearns, the CWU\u2019s deputy general secretary responded with a stark warning: \u201cthere will be no jobs on a dead planet\u201d, but it was not enough.\u00a0 The motion was emphatically voted down.<\/p>\n The lesson from these two debates, might be this: it is the details that derail. One Million Climate Jobs has made an impressive attempt to imagine how a profoundly greener Britain might be achieved.\u00a0 It is hardly surprising, however, that the prospect of closing down entire industries at a stroke alarms those unions whose members they employ.<\/p>\n Universal Basic income in no less radical, but its proposers provided scant detail.\u00a0 Had there been more, it might have been less rapturously received. \u00a0Surely someone would have fretted about the extra tax required to fund such a scheme or how ‘equality’ be weighed against the complexities of ‘fairness’?\u00a0 That Unite\u2019s motion avoided negative attention possibly shows that where TUC decision making is concerned, it is as well to keep two thirds of your proposal unseen \u2013 call it, the iceberg principle.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n The NUJ\u2019s two motions \u2013 on surveillance and blacklisting, and on the rights of freelances and atypical workers, were passed.\u00a0 Every member of the delegation took a stand at the rostrum and all were persuasive in their eloquence.<\/p>\n The benefits to members of passing these motions will take time to manifest, but the advantages of having the rest of the movement backing our causes will provide dividends in time.\u00a0 The Surveillance Bill, for example, will soon be on the statue books, sadly, but the constituency reigned against it will be growing in size and significance.\u00a0 Likewise the campaign for freelance rights \u2013 being able to count the UK\u2019s 6m trades unionists as allies will always be an asset.<\/p>\n Photo \u00a9 Tim Dawson, Unite executive member Mohammed Taj addresses Congress \u2013 the photographer pictured is Mark Thomas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Much of the time, Trades Union Congress\u2019 annual get-together is reminiscent of a revivalist meeting \u2013 true believers gathered in the certainty of salvation.\u00a0 Nearly every motion is endorsed by unanimous acclaim, the General Council\u2019s opinion on each proposition is …<\/p>\n