RMT AT THE TUC

TUC BACKS TRADE UNION FREEDOM Congress overwhelmingly backed RMT calls to organise a national demonstration and lobby of Parliament in support of the campaign for a Trade Union Freedom Bill. The proposed Bill would abolish the hated Tory-era anti- union laws and restore workers' legal right to take effective industrial action. It has won the support of 180 MPs but has not, so far, been included within the government's legislative programme. The resolution called for the next national demonstration to be organised separately from Mayday and for a specific date to be fixed for a Westminster lobby. RMT general secretary Bob Crow asked delegates to back the proposal "with no reservations”. "Under the Thatcher government, nine Acts of Parliament were brought in to try to stop unions fighting back," he recalled, adding: "Before then, you represented 13 million members - now it's less than seven million". Bob attacked the Labour Party for refusing to scrap anti- worker laws, reminding Congress: "Every four years, they come running to ask for your money". Seconding the motion, FBU leader Matt Wrack highlighted the difficulties faced by his members on Merseyside – in dispute over job and service cuts – accusing fire chiefs of "disgraceful" attempts to intimidate firefighters. John McDonnell MP, who is one of the main organisers of the campaign in Parliament, spoke at a packed fringe meeting on the issue. As a candidate for the Labour leadership, he pledged to place this issue at the top of his agenda. END DISCRIMINATION ON BRITISH SHIPS Super-exploitation of overseas seafarers and the ‘shameful’ exclusion of seafarers from the protection of the Race Relations Act must be ended. Delegates endorsed an RMT call to demand that the minimum wage be applied to UK ships and that the 30-year- long exemption of the shipping industry from the Race Relations Act be ended. “It remains a national scandal that seafarers on UK- flagged vessels can be paid as little as £2 an hour, even in UK territorial waters, and that shipowners are still free to ignore the Race Relations Act,” RMT delegate Malcolm Dunning said. Recalling the bitter struggle of Irish Ferries workers earlier this year, Malcolm noted that the solidarity action by Irish workers would have been illegal in Britain. “Tony Blair lectures delegates about the impotence of passing motions in opposition yet ten years into a labour government and it is still perfectly legal for shipowners to discriminate openly against overseas ratings. “Social dumping is a massive problem in the ferry industry throughout Europe, and we need Europe-wide campaign to ensure that governments impose decent minimum employment standards on shipowners,” Malcolm said. END ASSAULTS London region RMT delegate Janine Booth addressed conference in support of a motion calling for action on assaults against staff at work. She pointed out that employers were cutting staffing levels, exposing people working alone in remote locations to violence. “The government underfunds, fragments and privatises public services, leaving those services over-stretched and service users angry and frustrated and that can spill over into violence,” she said. NO TO TRIDENT REPLACEMENT TUC overwhelmingly backed an RMT motion against the replacement of Britain's nuclear weapons system Trident, calling on the government to accomplish the total elimination of its nuclear arsenal. The text of the resolution said: "Congress believes that Britain's nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction, capable of killing millions of people and are tied into US military and foreign policy and that far from deterring nuclear threats, replacing Trident may increase the risk of nuclear conflict". Bob Crow told Congress: "I want to see no nuclear weapons in any country, and the best way to make that happen is to not replace Trident in this country". Backing the motion, T&GWU general secretary Tony Woodley said "replacing Trident would be a scandalous waste of money as well as a dangerous escalation of nuclear armaments at a time when we should be looking to disarm". This new TUC position is in line with public opinion, 59 per cent of whom oppose Trident replacement, according to a recent poll. RMTnews :: october 2006 :: www.rmt.org.uk 8 RMT AT THE TUC Malcolm Dunning Janine Booth