ADDRESSING THE PARLIAMENT OF THE UNION

RMT helpline 0800 3763706 :: july/august 2009 :: RMTnews 27 ADDRESSING THE PARLIAMENT OF THE UNION President’s column My duties as national president include addressing the union’s annual general meeting each year and it was an honour to do so for the third time as your president and as the fourth in the chair. Experience has taught me a lot of things since I was a first-time delegate in 1995 in Swansea as part of the delegation from London Transport. And I remember the advice and encouragement I was given from other delegates and officials. AGM is essentially about making the union work. This conference is the RMT’s ‘supreme government’ where the delegates give orders to the leadership for the next twelve months. It is a pleasure to report that, for the first time ever, our union had more female delegates per head than we have in the union as well as over 20 members attending AGM on the young members’ course. The current economic and political crisis clearly dominated the AGM. Industrially, we have had over 50 ballots so far this year and taken strike action where appropriate against job losses, casualisation and attacks on our members’ health and safety. This is because every employer seems to be using this economic crisis as an opportunity to attack not only terms and conditions but very important issues to do with staffing levels, lone working and safe systems of work. We also need to work with other unions where we can, including supporting the magnificent action that has taken place across Britain over the Lindsey oil refinery dispute. We need to also state that those elements around those disputes who seek to exploit the crisis and promote the anti- working class message of the BNP which have no place in our movement. As a result our union has been behind a number of political projects in the last twelve months. We took part in the Hope Not Hate campaign to combat the BNP and we were an integral part of the No2EU: Yes to Democracy electoral initiative to give workers something decent to vote for. There is also the People’s Charter outlining basic political demands designed to give people a different vision of the future. We also need to salute the work of John McDonnell MP and the Parliamentary Group for the work they do dealing with practical politics on a day-to-day basis. I salute them for what they do. It is clear from all this work that action is required as well as words because without action words are meaningless. We have learnt these lessons throughout our history and one of the key lessons has been that organisation is the key to what we do as a union. We can be positive about what we are doing organisationally because the proof is that we are growing. My core message is that despite the relentless attacks on the union we will prevail, using our democracy, solidarity and fighting principals. RMT stays on course. John Leach enough to cause a problem’. “This of course ignores the fact that pallet loads are being shipped around all the time,” he said. Trade union facility time Delegates called on the union to negotiate facilities for trade union reps working in all companies covered by the grades conference. Peter Daniels said that it was a general and ongoing problem which needed to be dealt with. “Any rep that has decent facilities like an office, a phone, a cabinet etc should hold on to them as they are very difficult to win back,” he said. PAID BREAKS Conference called on the union to enter into negotiations with Freightliner in order for drivers to be paid for meal breaks. Mark Williams, Leeds Goods and Cartage said that heavy goods vehicle drivers were the only Freightliner employees that did not receive paid meal breaks and can only take a break from driving during tipping and loading periods. “Drivers should be entitled to breaks like everyone else,” he said. Jim Rafferty, Exeter Rail said that these vehicles were worth over £100,000 each and drivers were the custodians of them even during loading and tipping. “You are still expected to protect them while not driving, how can that be a break?,” he asked. Bill Drackley said that drivers were moving goods around sometimes worth millions of pounds yet were not paid for meal breaks. “While not driving you are still responsible for that vehicle and the goods inside yet you are not being paid,” he said. Conference also called for a scale of increasing holiday entitlement to reflect length of service. “Such increases in holiday entitlement would be beneficial to the employer as well as staff and encourage staff to remain at the company” he said.