TIGMOO 2010: “This Great Movement Of Ours”

I’m trying to follow the TUC conference which is taking place this week in Manchester as best as you can from London. I thought the call beforehand by Sally Hunt, General Secretary of UCU for radical reform of the TUC and the wider movement was a breath of fresh air.

Yes, we should have only one union per sector. Easier said than done of course - what sector are private companies in that also run public services? But it is a complete nonsense to have two, three, four or even more recognised trade unions in the same organisation. Good employers are confused and frustrated about who to negotiate with and bad employers openly boast about being able to “divide and conquer”.

I’m not sure about having a directly "elected" TUC General Secretary by all members since essentially Congress is a coalition of independent trade unions who also hold all the TUC purse skins. Sally rather accurately compared the current process of electing a TUC leader with that of the “Pope”. If we did go down the road of direct elections I think you would find if it came to the push, that like the Pope, the TUC Secretary would not have any “divisions” or real power.

Yes, definitely to Sally’s ideas about setting targets and priorities over achieving the holy grail of increasing density and membership. Density and internal organisation (the number of trained local stewards/safety reps backed by effective national union resources) is absolutely the most important issue that should be debated at Congress. Everything else is actually secondly. Without density and organisation we can achieve nothing and resist nothing.

Personally (since I have it on unreliable evidence that I love the sound of my own voice) I wouldn’t get rid totally of the conference “motion based format” but I think we need to change the emphasis to building and organising.

This morning while listening to my Walkman while running (aka jogging very slowly) around my beloved Wanstead Flats I heard TUC Secretary, Brendan Barber, being interviewed on “Today” by a rather over dramatic, John Humphrys, who was on Daily Mail Lite mode trying to provoke Brendan to say something stupid. He didn’t fail into this trap and came over I think very well – as a modern, sensible, thoughtful and constructive trade union leader. He made it very, very clear that TIGMOO will not be bankrupting itself in a series of glorious defeats but can and will, mobilise effective and telling industrial action and political opposition to the cuts.

Some trade unionists (and the Daily Mail) will be disappointed that he did not bang the Radio 4 podium with his shoe and threaten to bury the Condems. But until we build our density and organisation we cannot threaten what we cannot deliver. What the wider Labour Movement and its allies can deliver is widespread, co-ordained and SMART opposition which will include targeted industrial action.

We are ironically facing an opportunity and not only a threat. UNISON General Secretary, Dave Prentis, speaks about the Raison d'être of Unions and that they are there for the bad times not just the good. Surely, now we are all facing this massive threat of cuts that there cannot be anyone in work who cannot say, hand on heart, they do not need to join a trade union? We recruit and organise or die.

(picture is of the first General Secreatry of the TUC - Mr C W Bowerman in a rather modern pose!)

Housing Matters 20 September 09

I’m going to try and post every weekend on the weeks topical Housing issues. This will be usually from a Public (aka Social) Housing perceptive.

My main source will be of course the trade bible “Inside Housing” which is run on behalf of the CIOH - but if anyone has any other news or opinion then please let me know (email via “view my complete profile” and “Email”).

So...

Anchor Trust Boss pockets “£391,000” annual pay – this story is just unbelievable. His increase this year is 20%, his average employee increase is 2% and the average salary of an Anchor Care assistant is just £12,500. Check out this, and that and even this. Labour ministers I have tackled before on this issue had hinted that “something will be done” about such pay increases. Yeah. I don’t think that salary restriction in the private sector will ever happen but in regulated organisations dependant on the public purse (housing benefit and Council tax) we simply expect better. I will continue my whinging at next week’s Labour conference.

“Yvonne Hossack wins disciplinary hearing” – The scourge of the sheltered housing establishment defeats an attempt at the Solicitors Disciplinary tribunal to take action against her. She even had the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, in his capacity as a MP to give evidence in her favour. It appears that Alan rewards good service with large G&T’s in Strangers Bar. What an excellent idea!

Housing News reports that the RBIA want 4 million homes to be retrofitted within the life time of the next Parliament for energy conservation. Another good idea but is this ambitious enough?

UNISON speaker Rose MacGregor at the Housing debate at the TUC conference calls for over a million new homes to be built and for all new developments to include 30% of homes for social rent. The debate also noted that there are 1.7 million households on the housing waiting list and 63,000 registered homeless. So maybe a million is far too low?

Deflation not as bad as feared – Which is good for RSL’s and maybe for their staff. Some Housing associations are trying not to pay their staff any rise since they fear rents will be cut by as much as 2-3%. Tenants may of course see things differently?

Finally, somewhat off message but sort of Housing news - tonight I spoke to my old Mum on the phone. She is a tenant of a Welsh Housing Association in an over 50 block (which use to be her primary school when she was a young girl) and she was really happy because her landlord had agreed to replace her bath with a shower! A pleased and contented tenant.

Stop the Press!

(Picture of East London skyline from the Leopold Estate in Tower Hamlets)

Line up 1,000 loose cannons pointing in half-way the right direction

Excellent post by trade union blogger Johninnit from the TUC congress in Brighton. He makes four predictions about how unions (or at any rate unionists) will be using Web 2.0 by 2010. He addressed a fringe on this subject with Eric Lee who helps edit Labourstart (who I have met). I have never met John even though he once made a banner for me in “Second Life”.

1st - He believes that it will empower the grass roots and points to the 13,000 users of the successful TUC network unionreps.org.uk who share advice and resources. Globalisation could also encourage unions to form connections internationally. There is a General Motors Workers’ blog where GM car plants across the world connect with each other.

2nd - More creative on-line campaigning. Unions and activists can nowadays produce near professional quality campaign material. The Postal Strike YouTube video shown (above) on this post (pardon the pun) is he believes an example of what can be achieved by activists. Quality may be mixed '…they may be loose cannons sure, but if you could line up 1,000 loose cannons pointed in half-way the right direction, I know which side I’d rather be standing.'

3rd - Is an improvement in Union democracy and consultation.

4th - Using the internet will also reach out to young workers who would otherwise never consider joining.

The trade union movement is notoriously conservative (with a small “c”) which personally I feel is a reflection on its membership. Membership has fallen since the peak of the 1970’s but in recent years has stabilised. Sometimes you come across activists who think either its all doom and gloom for the movement or equally bizarrely, we’re just on the verge of “Revolution Now” comrades. It’s refreshing to read something which is both positive and realistic about the future of trade unions for a change.

This is not an alternative “techie only” argument to the traditional values of organising, educating, training, internal discipline and building the union. It should not be either a "free-for-all" by activists regardless of rule or policy. Nor of course, is it a substitute for talking face to face to members when this is possible in the complex modern workplace. The success or otherwise of such traditional values will make or break the movement in the end. Rather, our society and economy has changed radically in recent decades (years?) and trade unions simply have to reflect this.

It’s a Card Vote..Where is the B............y Card?

You had to feel for the Unite union delegate at yesterdays TUC conference at Brighton, who lost his or her voting card. This was during the close vote on whether or not to support national strikes over public pay.

This meant that the motion was lost despite Unite supporting it. Their joint General Secretary, Tony Woodley, admitted to the BBC that this was so but claimed that it matters “not a jot” since many unions were planning action anyway.

It is the stuff of nightmares to most delegates at trade union or political conferences I think. It is even worse than walking into the conference hall in the morning and realising you have left the card at your hotel. Or the bell goes and you find the delegation leader holding the card has popped to the loo.

(BBC Picture of the Day - Alistair Darling at today’s conference)