'ORGANISING for fairness" is this rears siogan for the TUC. But if the last year is anything to go by, the TUC can barely organise its way out of a paper bag. As a result, it has been treated with little respect or fairness by the government. union and LIVERPOOL dockers and the Central to the Congress are the issues of "Fairness at Work" and the national minimum wage.
On both issues the TUC's desperate attempts to build a consensus with the CBI has disarmed them in negotiations and allowed the government to present pathetic policies as if they were major steps forward.
The "Fairness at Work" White Paper will do little or nothing to aid the fight for recognition, if and when it becomes law. Riddled through and through with escape clauses for ruthless employers, as Tony Blair points out it will still leave Britain the most lightly regulated of all leading economies -that is to say the most unfair.
In the discussions prior to publication John Monks was hopelessly out-manoeuvred by the CBI which stood firm on its central demands. TUC compromise after compromise was rejected, giving the govat a lower rate than generaily estimated by using unfavourable assumptions about overtime (they argued for f4 rather than the accepted figure of around £4.50).
Now even the low level of minimum wage put forward by the Low Pay Commission is to be hedged around with qualifications. and opt-outs for young workers by the time it gets applied. Both UNISON and the TGWU have argued for the TUC to now fight for its actual policy - of a standard level for all without exception of at least £4.6l per hour.
Congress is to be feted by the government with a series of Ministers coming to make speeches -Prescott, Blunkett, Brown and Mandelson will speak - along with another well-known friend of the trade union movement, Eddie George boss of the Bank of England. The only positive speaker is likely to be Neville Lawrence. TUC leader "Maastricht" Monks - keen advocate of European Monetary Union defend members' interests. Standing behind all this is the spectre of Europe. Over the last year the only policy over which lohn Monks was prepared to criticise the government was on European Monetary Union - arguing that the government was not enthusiastic enough! A resolution from the AEEU seeks to further endorse this TUC policy. But a critical resolution from the Community & Youth Workers Union puts this in its proper context.
Demanding an open debate on the whole issue of EMU they point out the effects it would have -increased privatisation, public expenditure cuts, and increased unemployment.
All the old themes of TUC "new unionism" and "partnership" are once again to be pushed to the fore. Under the Tories these were a joke, but under Labour the TUC can still not point to any significant advances brought about by their strategy.
On the contrary, all their attempts to cosy up to British business have just undermined their arguments. The trade union movement has now to recognise that polite words over tea and biscuits at number ten will not solve our problems.
Only a vigorously organised campaign of mass action will make the • government recognise the seriousness of our demands.
The TUC as presently constituted and orientated is completely incapable of leading such a fight.
But for union leaders like UNISON's Bickerstaffe who wish to sound radical at conference time but do nothing that might actually mobilise their members or challenge the government, this is just the type of TUC they want.
Leaders of those unions which have opposed EMU have also been quite happy to defer to John Monks and to leave TUC policy intact.
If a shake-up is to come, it will have to start within the activist layer of the TUC's member unions. The sooner, the better.