Newham Trades Council relaunch: What was Good, Bad and at times Ugly

Last night I went to the relaunch of Newham Trades Council which took place inside the Town Hall Council Chamber. I was late due to another meeting and missed the opening speeches by NUT General secretary Christine Blower;  PCS assistant General secretary Chris Baugh and
Steve Hedley from the RMT. Steve had left by the time I arrived.

I must admit to being impressed with the turn out, which pretty much filled the Council Chamber. People were  making contributions as I took my seat.  Most of which were very good and constructive.  Pointing out that we must build unity to defeat this Tory led coalition. I was surprised though that quite a few of the speakers admited that they did not live or work in the borough.

However, there were some extremely silly and sectarian grandstanding going on.  Repeating almost word for word in some instances, the Tory lies that Labour Council cuts are all unnecessary and are only being carried out to embarrass the government.  I could imagine the Evil one himself in the corner chuckling to himself at some of the comments made.  How anyone thinks they can build opposition by splitting and wreaking is beyond me?  I'm more than happy to have a row with such people but I would rather be fighting Tories.  Honest!

Overall there were many good points made and of course it is entirely legitimate to constructively criticise the Party and hold elected representatives to account.  However one contributor ended his thoughts by calling for people to stop voting Labour.  There was some clapping to this. My response is yes, if you do not agree with Labour, then don't vote Labour.  It is a free vote. No one is forcing you to vote Labour in the borough with the biggest Labour vote in the entire country.

Chris and Christine made excellent closing speeches.  Chris reminded everyone that the anti poll tax campaign was successful because everyone was under attack and everyone was united in opposition.  While Christine pointed out the ludicrous situation that there is no legal requirement for a school to have a library but there is for a prison to have one. Both of them urge support for the likely Pension's strike on June 30th and look forward to possible further strikes over Pensions involving all the public sector unions later on in the year.

I thought this was on the whole a successful meeting and well done to Newham Trades Council Secretary, Peter Smith (left of picture) for a well organised and well chaired event.  This could be the basis of a successful relaunch of the trades council.  But not if some just want to use it to bash Labour.  We must agree on what we can agree and leave the rest to be fought over elsewhere and another day. I didn't stand up and say my piece last night out of respect for the speakers present.  Because a good meeting would have just descended into a shouting match (both ways).  But I doubt I would hold my tongue again.  It also desperately needs the centre left to participate and not stay away because they cannot be bothered to go to a meeting and be lectured by those they consider (rightly or wrongly) to be weirdo la la fantasists. 

We should also recognise that the majority of workers in Newham are not in the public sector and many desperately need our help to organise.  Our fight over the Tory cuts affects everyone, but we must also support and campaign on bread and butter trade union issues in Newham such as Living wage plus, trade union recognition and health & safety in small businesses.  As the UNISON General Secretary, Dave Prentis said, Trade unions were not created for the good times, we were created for the bad times.  That bad time has come under this Government.  We need to organise centrally and locally in the Labour movement. Newham Trades Council has a proud history and I hope a bright future.   

“Building Stronger Unions – Organising the Future”

I will admit that I am not always over impressed with Labour movement conferences. While they are mostly pretty important, some are worthy but boring, educative but dull and insular.

On the bright side, I normally feel much rejuvenated while I queue up at such events to register alongside other delegates. Looking around me I suddenly feel comparatively younger, slimmer and that my hair isn’t really that grey after all.

This conference was to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the TUC Organising Academy as well as debating the development of organising in UK trade unions.

However, yesterday at Congress House, as soon as I walked down the stairs into the lower hall area I could see something was different, as the place was absolutely packed with predominantly young trade union organisers. Maybe with its Organising Academy, the TUC has finally found a solution to the age old argument in trade unions about the role of organising and servicing, and there again maybe they haven’t. But this conference surely pointed a way forward at long last.

As well as being predominately young there were also many women delegates. Not so many black delegates but a great start.

There was definitely a modern US rally “feel” with activist speakers on the main platform telling “my organising story” as well as loud stirring music and on screen video clips.

I’ve taken notes about speakers and hopefully I will post further on what I thought was useful or topical. Below is a short snapshot of stuff I found interesting from some of the main speakers.

TUC Deputy General Secretary Frances O’Grady – there are 3 million employees in workplaces which are covered by collective agreements who are not trade union members, 2/3 report that they have never been asked to join. Organising makes the difference between “Begging and Bargaining” “Winning or Losing”.

Christine Blower, NUT Acting General Secretary on a very similar theme “United we Bargain, Divided we Beg”.

Jack Dromey, UNITE general Secretary believes in “Strong, self confident, self sustaining workplace power”. With regard to unions fighting each other over recruitment he did not want UNITE to “Out UNISON, UNISON in care homes” (interesting). In relationships with employers he wanted unions to be “Partners not Pussycats”.

More to follow about this conference in future posts.

An excellent conference. It has given me a number of good ideas about organising within my employer. Let’s get busy, lets organise!