In moving the General Council’s Statement Brendan Barber made the point that unemployment continues to rise with over 200,000 more jobs lost in the last two months. To respond to the crisis and its devastating impact on ordinary working people we need a new long term vision and economic approach. It is clear we have experienced the biggest market failure in history, and it is now time for fundamental change.
We need a new vision which breaks free from the old neo-liberal ideas, breaks from the over dependence on the City, and focuses on investing in manufacturing, creating green jobs, and investing in public services.
Speakers also reminded Congress that at this time of economic crisis we must make sure that we defend equalities, not allow them to be dismantled under the guise of responding to the crisis. Women’s unemployment is the highest since 1994, Black and Ethnic Minorities are 16% more likely to be unemployed than white people. This shows that equality is not a luxury but a necessity. As a movement we must make sure that those already suffering discrimination are not further attacked in this time of economic crisis.
Jane Carolan speaking for UNISON highlighted how important it is to protect and invest in public services as part of the response to getting out of recession. In responding to Gordon Brown’s commitment not to cut frontline services, Jane asked what is frontline in the NHS, in Schools, in Policing, in essential Local Government Services? Are cleaners not frontline in the NHS?
We saw what happened when they were privatised and hospital infection rates rose significantly. There is no hierarchy of public service workers – you cannot cut without impacting on the delivery of frontline services.
The Congress made the case for a programme to deliver for working class communities, including protecting and investing in public services, growing manufacturing and investing in new industries, and fighting to defend hard won equalities in the workplace.
We are living in a new world, a new economic approach is needed, we have the ideas to get us out of recession, to promote a new fairer, greener society. Let us take our campaign from this Conference to Government, to workplaces and our communities.