|
<<back to articles
The trade union movement has always been the driver of social progress in this country – the collective expression of working people seeking a better life for themselves and for their children.
But that struggle for a better life is wider than the workplace. A decision by the House of Lords to make trade unions liable for the acts of their members in 1900 finally convinced the trade union movement that they need to create a political party to secure the better representation of working people in parliament.
Through a motion of the Trade Union Congress, the Labour Party was founded by the trade union movement on the 27th of February 1900 to secure the better representation of working people in Parliament – some 64 trade unions attended its birth.
Over a hundred years and many great steps forward for working people, from the foundation of the NHS to the National Minimum Wage, the relationship between the Labour Party and its affiliated trade unions remains as strong as ever.
Since becoming the Chair of the National Trade Union & Labour Party Liaison Committee (TULO) in 2003 I have sought to ensure that the Party remains in contact with the concerns of ordinary trade unionists, and that the trade union movement supports the Labour Party in government. Achieving these goals is not always easy, as any trade union branch meeting will tell you.
But we should consider what TULO has achieved over the last three years. As a liaison body TULO has worked to co-ordinate the trade unions affiliated to the Labour Party and ensure that when we speak, we speak with one voice. No longer can our opponents say that the trade unions are divided or do not know what they want. This unity of purpose enabled us to go into the Party’s policy processes with an agenda for the future, and to argue for a manifesto that would deliver that agenda. We were successful, and it is now known as the Warwick Agreement.
The Warwick Agreement committed the Party to introducing changes in policy and law that many in the union movement feel are urgent or overdue. A commitment to the protection of agency and temporary workers. Reform of unethical labour agencies that prey on the most vunerable. A single equalities age to protect workers from discrimination in all its forms. Increased protection for striking workers. A review of facility time to allow union representatives to carry out their duties effectively. An uprating of redundancy pay to restore its real value. Bank holidays to be additional to the statutory four weeks holiday, rather than part of the statutory entitlement. Training and pensions to become part of the bargaining agenda. Legislation to prevent employers from dismantling a factory whilst redundancy consultations are still ongoing. These are just a few of the 110 commitments made at Warwick. These are achievements that demonstrate the meaning and value of the link to ordinary trade union members.
But this is not the only activity of TULO. We are certain that it is our role to defend the Labour Government. The only alternative is a Tory Government - we know what they are thinking and we don’t like it. Through the co-ordination of TULO, the affiliated trade unions have invested heavily in building our own electoral organisation. No longer do we expect the Labour Party to fight elections whilst we stand quietly by on the sidelines; now we seek to mobilise trade union members ourselves. At the General Election there were nearly 600,000 trade unionists living in the 100 most marginal Labour seats. Over the course of that campaign, over 1.8 million direct mail letters were sent by unions to their members in order to seek their support for Labour. Research suggests that sixteen of the seats that Labour managed to win were held through our mobilisation of trade unionists.
We are already repeating this in the London elections – by May 4th we will have sent out 200,000 direct mail to trade union members, recruited over 200 trade unionists to the Party, and had over 500 attend trade union mobilisation events.
This is not blind loyalty to the Party, but a recognition that we are a collective movement. The trade unions have a vital role in supporting the Government in the way we would support anyone in the workplace – whatever our concerns or anger at what they may have done, we know we have to be united when our opponents face us. This is not the hazy relationship between a political party and a private individual or profit seeking company; the Labour Party is the democratic representation of working people, and TULO works to ensure that they always remembers this.
PS: If you are a branch officer; please pass this article around to your members so that we can have as many trade unionists signed up to the www.unionstogether.org.uk website as possible.
<<back to articles
|
