Monday morning Dundee: the STUC gathers for its Annual Congress, the Parliament for Scottish workers. This time Congress is taking place as the General election rages on around us.
But the atmosphere in the hall is curiously muted. The sense of excitement and anticipation is lacking. As the Provost opens the meeting and speaks of the vibrancy of the trade union movement, a look round the hall would more likely reinforce the view that delegates would rather be anywhere else than here today.
He’s followed by Mike Argot, of Dundee Trades Council. Even Mike’s usual firebrand style seems quieter than usual, but he uses his five minutes to speak about Dundee protests against cuts in the public sector and against education cuts on colleges.
Mike calls on the STUC to use the three days to formulate a programme for Scotland’s workers, and issued a warning to ‘whoever is elected’- “ As trade unionists we have not worked for all these years to see our efforts reduced to rubble”.
Martin Keenan of the CWU is this year’s president. Presidential addresses follow one of two routes - either a wander down the lane of “what I did in my trade union years” or a more overtly political route. Martin chose the latter, emphasising the state of the Scottish economy and the role of the UK government is stabilising a fragile it.
While welcoming this, Martin drew attention to the fact that there has still been no meaningful reform of the banking sector, noting the short memory shown by David Cameron who now seems to believe that too much, rather than too little regulation contributed to the crisis. As Martin said” Workers picked up the bill for bankers. You caused the problem and continue to reward yourself as if nothing had happened” Martin went on to outline the STUC’s views on “Rebuilding Collective Prosperity”.
A particular emphasis was placed on the topic of income inequality and the need for measures to tackle it. Martin dew attention to the fact that emphasis on tax and benefits while vital, often ignores the problems of those in work on poverty pay, and of the need to directly tackle employers through “Living Wage “ campaigns.
He drew attention to the problems of youth unemployment in Scotland and used a large part of his speech to make a plea that yet another generation of young people should NOT be consigned to the scrap heap. His obviously heart felt view that this should not be allowed to happened again was well illustrated by frightening statistics on the extent to which young Scots are yet again condemned to a jobless future.
In a departure from the usual political introduction however, Martin drew particular attention to the problems of mental health in the workplace, often caused by employer’s practices. It is obviously a subject in which he has taken a great interest and it was a challenge to Congress to take such matters more seriously.
He summed up the challenges that he saw the labour movement facing, the stark reality as he called it. “We face an enemy that is anti trade union, anti working class, and can only be called a more subtle shade of true blue. Labour may have let us down, by the alternative is unthinkable”
Even this could only provide a muted cheer. The trade union movement knows who its enemies are, but is still not sure of its friends.
See updates of UNISON contributions at the STUC at http://www.unison-scotland.org.uk/stuc2010/index.html
