TUC BACKS STRIKE ACTION

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: october 2012 :: RMTnews 12 The 2012 Trade Union Congress kicked off in Brighton with a lively march and rally on a blistering hot Sunday afternoon to demand action against the Con Dem cuts. Up to a thousand trade unionists, including a sizable RMT contingent, had travelled from all over the country to rally in support of the Prison Officers Association motion calling for consideration of the practicalities of organising a general strike to unite the millions of trade unionists facing attacks on jobs, pay and pensions. At the packed rally in the Metropole Hotel, RMT general secretary Bob Crow set out the importance of united and co- ordinated action in the words of the immortal 1930’s Unemployed Workers leader Wal Hannington: “If you spit on your own they will ignore you – but if we all spit together we can drown the bastards,” he said to applause. An overexcited Daily Mail hack, standing out like a sore thumb in the front row amongst the ranks of workers, scribbled the words down and next day they were wheeled out in an apoplectic Mail leader column, spluttering about the nerve of trade unionists having the effrontery to stand up for their members jobs and working conditions. As Congress got underway it was becoming clear that support for the POA’s motion was growing as a raft of key union delegations fell in behind the call to begin examining the route map to co-ordinated action. RMT speakers were to the fore in a wide range of the congress debates. EC member Daren Ireland spoke on the main composite motion on austerity, pointing out that the cuts affect both public and private sectors which was why RMT members working for ISS Cleaning on the East Coast were taking strike action on the Monday of conference. Daren told Congress that RMT believed we needed a political party to take a principled stand against austerity, which is why our union supported some anti-cuts candidates in the local elections in May. Shipping EC member Darren Proctor waded in to support a Nautilus motion on the UK maritime industry. Although RMT’s emergency motion on the scandal of social dumping and exploitation by the company Condor Ferries operating out the south coast had been ruled out of order, Darren used the opportunity of the general shipping debate to make the point. To rapturous applause, he highlighted the success of the RMT campaign turning the spotlight on Condor and their ilk getting away with paying little more than two pounds an hour amidst shocking and insecure working conditions. Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls didn’t escape RMT interrogation either. After a speech in which he appeared to be sending out the message that workers should be grateful to have any kind of job at all, and where he intimated that a future Labour government would continue the public sector pay freeze, he agreed to take some questions from the floor. Delegates spoke for the trade union movement and the travelling public by demanding the renationalisation of the railways and asked if the Labour Party would now come out and back us. Ed Balls came up with some of the worst politician-speak TUC BACKS STRIKE ACTION RMT press officer Geoff Martin reviews RMT’s week at the TUC Congress in Brighton last month