Tony Woodley’s speech
Unite policy conference - Monday 31 May 2010
- Manchester
This is a moment of great pride for myself – and for all of us.
Our new union at its first policy conference. It is quite an
achievement. There have been moments over the last few years when I
wondered if we’d ever make it. The course of true love never did
run smooth.
But we are here – Unite the union, representing more than one
and a half million working people across Britain and Ireland. The
largest working-class organisation in our country today. And one of
the largest voluntary organisations of any sort. A real force for
good in our country and around the world:
- Embedded in our workplaces
- Entwined in our communities
- An industrial giant
- A political force to be reckoned with
Already spreading our wings internationally – across Europe into
Colombia, Cuba and of course Canada with the Vale Inco strike.
Representing millions, and reaching out to organise millions
more.
Unite – already a household name.
We’re not always popular. When did you ever get a pat on
the back from the bosses or the press for doing the right thing for
our people? But a force to be reckoned with nevertheless – thanks
to you, you the activists in this room and the thousands more like
you who are the foundation of Unite.
Unite’s strength is not in our offices or even our conferences.
It is in the workplaces. We are powerful where our members
work – or we are nothing.
Any trade union that forgets that its roots are in the
factories, offices, depots, building sites and airports where it
organises is a union destined to decline. That is why if my time as
your general secretary is remembered for one thing above all, I
hope it is the emphasis I have placed on organising.
The organising that I champion is not about numbers. I
have never wanted a bigger union just for the bragging rights. It
is about giving a new generation of workers the power over their
working lives that people of my generation secured the hard way in
the 1960s and 1970s – and lost the hard way in the 1980s and 1990s,
the years of the Tory assault.
That control at work is not just about pounds and pennies, or
the length of the working week. All that is vital, of course. But
it is also about dignity. About being treated as human beings by
the gaffer, not just as disposable sources of profit. It is about
giving a new generation of workers the power and strength to fight
back and win in the workplace. Why should an employer listen
to a union representing a minority of employees?
Organising is about our class - people like you and me having
rights as producers, and not just as consumers. We are not going to
get that power back by begging for it. We are only going to get it
back by organising for it. By putting our resources into extending
trade unionism – real trade unionism that is strong at the place of
work.
Of course, it is cheaper to recruit over the internet. If
you just want to pile on the numbers at low cost, then that would
be the way to go. But does that give you the confidence to ask for
a pay rise? Does that make it easier to stand up to a
bullying boss?
No. That is candyfloss trade unionism – looks pretty, but no
substance – and they soon leave anyway, unorganised, disillusioned,
dispirited. Our strength is collective, and that means powerful
workplace organisation, with recognition agreements, elected
representatives like those of you here today and proper collective
bargaining.
So I make no apology for having our commitment to
properly-resourced organising written into our rule book. I know
some may have doubts. Is it working? Is it
cost-effective? I would put the question another way. After
the experiences of the last 20 years or more of decline – can we
afford not to do this?
Of course, we are on a learning curve. But it is the only curve
in town. We have to reflect on our experiences – what’s worked and
what hasn’t. But if this union ever retreats from organising and
goes back into a comfort zone of sweetheart deals – managing
decline, then we will have wasted the vast potential of Unite.
Because Unite’s mission must above all be about reaching out.
Reconnecting trade unionism with today’s – and tomorrow’s –
workforce. It won’t happen spontaneously. It means organisation
above all.
The organisation we have built up in Unite to serve ALL the
workers in Britain and Ireland who need our protection and
support.
Let me also say a word about the British Airways dispute. I will
try to keep my remarks on this to 140 characters, so Derek can
tweet it in its entirety! But seriously - this has been a long and
bitter dispute – and it is not over yet. It has caused
inconvenience to the public, which we can only regret.
But I want to make clear one thing which I do not regret: That
is about standing shoulder to shoulder with decent, brave men and
women fighting for their right to be treated like the loyal
professionals they are. I have done my share of strikes. When
I look back I can’t defend all of them.
Like the time we all took a vote to call a strike at a mass
meeting in the car park, with the factory on fire before our eyes.
But this is a dispute which no self-respecting fighting back trade
union could have avoided.
It is a dispute which can be summed up in a word: Bullying.
- Bullying that imposes radical changes on our members without
agreement
- Bullying that has seen other BA employees incited against cabin
crew with, to their lasting shame, the collusion of BALPA and scab
pilots
- Bullying that has meant more than 50 of our brothers and
sisters suspended or sacked for the crime of sending a text or
posting a remark on Facebook
- Bullying that forbids them from talking about their own dispute
in public
- Bullying that victimises trade unionists by branding them
second-class employees for life through the discriminatory use of
travel concessions
Well there is only one thing to do with bullies – that is stand up
to them until they learn some manners. And we have built a union
that is strong enough and proud enough to do that even to a
business the size of British Airways.
Some opportunists may call that adventurism or phoney
militancy. I call it basic self-respect, and anyone not
prepared to stand up for our members in struggle is not fit to lead
this great union
So let me say two things from this rostrum today.
The first is to Willie Walsh.
Willie, we all know there is a deal to be done at British
Airways. One that recognises the real commercial needs and
problems of your company as well as our members’ legitimate
interests. Unite is ready to do that deal. But we are not, and
never will, be prepared to see our members and our union
humiliated, victimised and reduced to ruins, as you seem to want -
NEVER
My second message is to all our cabin crew members. Your union
is proud of you. You have stood up not just for yourselves
but for our movement as a whole. We have stood firm in the face of
ludicrous anti-union judgements in the courts. in the face of a
torrent of lies and smears in the Tory press, and in the face of
everything a ruthless employer can throw at you.
We will continue to stand alongside you until this company sees
sense and we have an agreement that we can put to you for
endorsement with a clear conscience.
Comrades,
Mention of the anti-union laws which have been so disgracefully
used against us at BA leads me to an urgent political issue for
this union. The Labour leadership race. I am not going to express a
preference for a candidate here. That is for our executive and
ultimately for our members in a ballot.
But I have an opinion on some of the issues, you’ll not be
surprised to hear. First on one dear to my heart, and I know it is
to many of you here. I am glad that some candidates have finally
found their voice on the Iraq war. We must be absolutely clear that
whatever the exact balance between achievement and disappointment
in terms of Labour’s record here at home that war was a crime.
And there is no road back for Labour until it at last grasps the
nettle and apologises to the British people for taking us into this
illegal unjust and unnecessary war. If any candidate is also brave
enough to say it is time to cut our losses and get out of
Afghanistan too, then so much the better, but there is another
issue which I believe all candidates should face up to.
It is the scandal that at the end of 13 years of Labour
government the right to strike is hanging by a thread. At the mercy
of employers who would rather sue than settle, and Tory judges who
appear to think strikes are OK as long as they don’t inconvenience
the bosses in any way at all.
It’s not just BA, where the company has twice tried to use the
law to overturn the overwhelming democratic majority view of our
members. It’s Metrobus and Tesco, as well as many other companies
in other sectors with other trade unions.
If this is allowed to carry on, then the trade union movement
will be trying to defend our members in the teeth of an economic
whirlwind with not just one but both arms tied behind our back.
This position is a lasting mark of shame on the 13 years of New
Labour government, that the party founded to rescue trade unions
from the hands of the judges should pass us on to the Con-Lib
coalition hemmed in by the courts at every turn.
So I want to make one thing clear to all Labour leadership
contenders. Our vote should only go to the candidate who pledges –
unequivocally, no mealy-mouthed phrases, to do what Labour was set
up to do. Create a level playing field at work, and scrap the anti-
union laws.
There is one clear lesson from the last 13 years, we need our
party back. For too long we have been told that we are a drag on
its electoral prospects, that the unions have to be neither seen
nor heard. But the public are wising up, It wasn’t the unions that
wrecked the economy, it was the filthy rich that Peter Mandelson
was intensely relaxed about. It wasn’t the unions who looked the
other way while Corus shut down on Teeside, when Diageo closed up
in Kilmarnock and when the vultures were allowed to get their hands
on Cadbury, breaking its promises not to close factories the moment
it did so.
No, it was the politicians in love with the free market who
stood aside and let communities suffer. So when I say we need to
take the Labour party back, I do not mean take it back for the
trade unions in a narrow sense, I mean take it back for working
people.
For social justice, ffor the poor, the pensioners, the
unemployed and all those with no other party to turn to…
We all know that Clegg and Cameron will offer nothing to these
people (although if they want advice on how to make joint
leadership work, Derek and I will be happy to oblige).
Their cuts’ agenda offers misery for millions – all to pay for
the bankers bail-out, but Labour now has the chance to rediscover
its purpose in life. We would rather it was doing that in
government instead of on the opposition benches. But wherever it
is, Unite will play its full part in working for a Labour victory,
a victory for a Labour party that has rediscovered its socialism,
and is proud of its links with the trade unions as partners in the
struggle for justice and progressive change.
Comrades, this week is a beginning for Unite. But it is
also the end – or the beginning of the end – for Derek and I. As
you know, Derek retires at the end of the year, so this will be his
last Unite conference, and I will be gone before our next policy
conference convenes in 2012.
Before saying a final word about our union, let me say something
about Derek. Most of us are happy to make one historic decision in
our lives, something that really changes the course of events.
Derek has made three. The decision to work with the T&G
to create Unite. The visionary decision to start building
Workers Uniting, the first global trade union in history. And
perhaps the most significant - his first decision, when he had the
guts to stand up and take on Ken Jackson and the most right-wing
machine in the trade union movement.
Without that courage, the other decisions could not have
followed and we would not be here together today. So let me
pay tribute to Derek Simpson.
Our legacy is your future – Unite.
- In this union you have an instrument which can make a
difference to millions.
- Which can make our country a better, happier place for ordinary
people.
- More secure at work.
- More prosperous.
- Equal and unafraid.
In creating Unite, I hope and believe that I have helped open a
door to that better world.
You will decide what to make of it in your debates and decisions
this week, but more importantly in the work you do day in day out
for our members. The small things that make life a bit better on
the shopfloor is the foundation for all our bigger broader visions
about changing the world
Win the confidence of the workers through what we do every day.
Without that confidence, as I said earlier, we are nothing, but
with it, the biggest company and the most reactionary government
can tremble and there is nothing Unite cannot achieve.
So permit me a moment of reflection as I stand here today. You
are looking at a proud general secretary. And, I am looking at the
future, that future is you.
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