This Congress is an opportunity for the trade union movement to place itself at the heart of opposition and begin a process of creating a real coalition of working people through their trade unions and community organisations that can mount an effective challenge.
On paper at least the agenda acknowledges the scale of the problems and the challenges that working people face. Probably the key debate will be on Economic Strategy, where the General Council Statement analyses the state of the British Economy and comes to very different conclusions from those being pursued by the party of government - the Tories.
http://www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-18456-f0.cfm
This statement emphasises the fragile nature of the economic recovery that has been seen, and the extent to which the measures that are favoured by the government are likely to lead, not to recovery but depression.
The favoured remedies are those that are being touted by any sane economists and have been expounded by UNISON in its alternative budget, including increases in public expenditure rather than cuts, increasing the tax take through various measures, opposing privatisation of services, and strengthening the manufacturing base of the country.
This will neatly be complimented by the debate on Public Services. This composite details the extent to which the much touted end of the “big State” will mean that communities and community cohesion will be devastated. In addition individuals and families will be affected, as services and benefits upon which they rely are withdrawn, causing both personal and financial hardship. Tory plans really do mean an end to the post war consensus with its basis on education, health and housing for all, around a foundation of full employment.
In addition, the effects on public sector workers cannot be understated. We know them well. Job losses will be on a horrendous scale, and the losses in the public sector will be replicated in the private sector this has two causes.
Public sector contracts with the private sector will be withdrawn as the money for them cannot be found and businesses themselves will fail, due to a drop in demand, caused by a fall in take home pay income. Unemployed public sector workers will not have money to spend.
This analysis is backed by specific motions on subjects such as the current plans for the NHS, the expanded academies and free schools programme, and the devastation in local government. While the detailed plans may vary, the general prescription is that universal, publicly provided accountable services will be replaced by services, privatised and specific, undermining the universal principle that has characterised them till now.
The other major showpiece debate will be that on pensions, where the attack is not simply on the public sector but on all those who reach retirement age (at an older age than at present) and on the decreasing value of the level of pension enjoyed. The Tories will rob us from the cradle to the grave.
So the right words are in the right order on the all important agenda. No doubt Brendan Barber will do his Mr Angry routine, with all the gusto of an irate teddy bear, and the luminary leadership of the trade union movement will follow in his path, with impassioned rhetoric written by the usual hidden army of speech writers. The hall will be in agreement that bad, bad things are happening and that the trade union movement does not like them. Hallelujah, three cheers and the caravan move on. See you all next year in London folks!
Words and composites however mean very little. An explosion of hot air in a hall in Manchester matters not a jot to Cameron and his minions, as they proceed with an assault on the working classes of this country. The only measure of whether the trade union movement is serious in its opposition is not passing the right motion, but moving from criticism to action. That action cannot simply be the gesture politics of marching in the back streets of London and pretending that the trade union movement is achieving something, other than sales of assorted badly printed news sheets.
Action means organising in our workplaces and in our communities, arguing for our alternative and persuading all our workmates and our neighbours not only that current government policy is harmful to health, but that with unity we can build better. The trade union movement can be the fulcrum of a real coalition of the working people of this country.
http://www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-18424-f0.cfm
Will that challenge be taken up?