Right-wing unions help regime kill motion
With the help of right-run unions, the Labour party’s right-wing regime has defeated a motion brought in support of striking workers, fair treatment for working people, support for the poor and vulnerable and to repeal the Tories’ new anti-worker law.
The motion read:
Strikes (Composited Motion)
Leyton & Wanstead, Tottenham, Unite
Conference notes:
We already have some of the toughest anti-trade union laws in Europe and now the Tories have announced new anti-strike legislation and want to bring in a minimum service level bill which will mean unions could be sued and workers such as nurses, bus and train drivers could be sacked if they go on strike.
We welcome the Labour Party’s response that any new anti-strike legislation introduced would be repealed and the proposals set out in Labour’s ‘New Deal for Working People’ where Labour commits within 100 days of taking office to:
• Repealing anti-trade union legislation, including the Trade Union Act 2016.
• Use public procurement to support good work.
• Oversee the biggest wave of insourcing of public services for a generation.
• Fair Pay Agreements will be negotiated through sectoral collective bargaining.
• Ban zero hours contracts.
• Outlaw fire and rehire.
• Close gender, ethnicity, disability pay gaps.However, our members find themselves in the middle of a cost of living and energy crisis. Inflation is running at more than 10 per cent which disproportionately affects the most deprived. This follows more than a decade of real-terms pay cuts for many workers and severe cuts in the provision of public services. At the same time
concentrations of wealth in London’s financial centres and wealthier areas are increasing.Strong trade unions are vital to advance the interests of the working class. In London, one of the most expensive cities to live in, workers are taking industrial action to protect their pay, terms, and conditions and public services. Workers cannot wait until the next General Election for a Labour government, they need to act now.
We applaud organised Labour fighting back and wining across London. Unite bus drivers, security guards, airport workers, charity workers, and bin workers have taken industrial action winning substantial pay rises.
Workers across London are fighting to protect jobs, pay, conditions and services including nurses, ambulance drivers, postal workers, rail, tube and bus workers, college and university teachers, and civil servants. Their example demonstrates working people can be active agents of social change. Growing impoverishment and
rising inequality can be challenged.Conference recognises that strikes are a symptom of the crisis – not the cause. We
welcome:• Union campaigns to address falling living standards, (including the TUC‘s proposals to increase the minimum wage to £15.00ph).
• Raise Universal Credit and legacy benefits to 80% of the national Living Wage.
• The Mayor’s calls for free school meals for primary school children; for private rents to be frozen; and introducing a windfall tax.Conference reaffirms:
• Support for Labour’s response to repeal any new anti-strike laws and the New Employment Rights Green Paper and welcomes the commitment from the Labour leadership to its full implementation within 100 days of taking office.
Conference calls on:
• All wings of the London Labour Party including representatives in London – councillors, members of the Greater London Assembly and MPs – to openly support the industrial action taken by trade unionists, to join picket lines of striking workers
The motion fell by 50.60% to 49.40%, largely because Unison – run by right-wing management that has defied and sabotaged the union’s democratically-elected left-wing executive – opposed it. Skwawkbox understands that the similarly right-wing USDAW also voted against.
Unison NEC candidate Andrew Berry posted his opinion to Facebook:
Time for real change indeed – and not just in Unison. The party currently masquerading as Labour is unfit for purpose.
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