The annual conference of Trades Union Councils met in Blackpool from May 21-23, with about 80 delegates present. Pete Firmin, chair, Brent Trades Union Council reports.
The main problem with the Trades Councils national structure is that it is unable to take decisions which go beyond those of the Trades Union Congress itself. The national Conference is only consultative. The TUC keeps Trades Councils over a barrel, with the threat of withdrawal of support and funding if this relationship is challenged.
Because of this, many of the resolutioris to conference, while worthy, do not make serious proposals for campaigning.
Thus the resolution on the new employment rights made many good criticisms of the legislation, but could not propose affiliation to the Reclaim Our Rights campaign because this had been ruled out of order by the TUC nominee on the Joint Consultative Committee. Resolutions were passed on many important issues, such as opposition to the sale of Council Housing, PFI, arms sales to Indonesia, student tuition fees and much else, most of them unanimously.
Despite the restraints, conference did discuss an emergency resolution on the war and passed opposition to NATO's bombing overwhelmingly.
Socialist Outlook and the Socialist Party also held a joint fringe meeting on the theme "NATO out of the Balkans, self-determination for Kosova" which about a dozen delegates attended.
The most contentious item was a proposal from Tyne and Wear that next years conference, instead of discussing resolutions, should discuss 6 areas of campaigning as decided in advance by consultation. This produced a lively debate with several delegates arguing this would take the conference down the road of Labour Party conference, where resolutions are marginalised or excluded in favour of policy presentations' and workshops.
The movers attempted to argue that the reason many Trades Councils do not send delegates to conference was because it is resolution-based (where have we heard that before?), although it was pointed out that there are many other potential reasons -such as cost, ability to get a day off work, the fact that each council cannot automatically submit a resolution etc.
The resolution was defeated, but the discussion on how to make the conference more attractive will obviously continue. Not least, trades councils must consider ways of escaping the straitjacket imposed by the TUC. While tube staff fight privatisation, RMT right wingers are fighting the left NDS OFP 7 AL A