NAUTILUS P01 OCTOBER 2010.qxd - Nautilus International

10 | telegraph | nautilusint.org | October 2010
NEWS
Unions agree
to fight cuts
General secretary warns that poor will be hardest hit
Trade union leader Brendan Barber, centre, leads a protest against public spending cuts Picture: Andrew Wiard
PBritain could become a
‘darker, brutish, more
frightening place’ if the
government presses ahead with
plans for massive cuts in public
spending, TUC leader Brendan
Barber warned in his opening
speech to Congress.
The apparent determination
of ministers to impose the cuts
‘will not only devastate the services
we rely on, but do untold
damage to our economic
prospects,’ he said.
Mr Barber said nobody could
deny the depth of the recession,
but there was a viable alternative
to the measures being drawn up
by the government to reduce the
deficit.
‘Let’s be clear about this: cuts
always hit the poorest, most vulnerable,
most disadvantaged people,’
he pointed out.
Mr Barber said ministers must
be aware that what they take
apart now could take generations
to rebuild. ‘Decent public services
are the glue that holds a civilised
society together, and we diminish
them at our peril.
‘Cut services, put jobs in peril,
and increase inequality — that is
the way to make Britain a darker,
brutish, more frightening place.’
The TUC leader rejected claims
that unions are simply set on confrontation
and are just pursuing
narrow self-interest. ‘No one takes
industrial action lightly,’ he
stressed. ‘We are at the heart of
our communities, passionately
concerned to defend the integrity
and the quality of the services we
provide.’
Unions need to win the intellectual
battle by showing that
there is a better way to reduce the
deficit, Mr Barber argued. ‘One
that not only avoids savage cuts,
but is more likely to work as it
avoids the risk of the double dip.’
The TUC wants to see a realistic
timetable — rather than expect
the damage done by a bubble that
grew for decades to be put right in
just four years.
‘Ministers must make clear
that if the economy goes into
reverse, then they will stop the
medicine whose side-effects are
killing the patient,’ Mr Barber
added.
He urged union members to
enter ‘the great debate’ about the
economy and build ‘a diverse,
dynamic and progressive alliance’
to demonstrate that there is a
genuine alternative to cuts and
austerity.
The first day of the conference
was marked by a series of
speeches condemning the government’s
plans to make spending
cuts totalling more than
£80bn over the next four years.
Delegates voted in favour of a
motion calling for a coordinated
campaign to oppose the cuts and
to defend jobs, pay, pensions and
public services.
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Election win
for Dickinson
Nautilus general secretary
DMark Dickinson, above, has
been re-elected to serve for a further
year on the TUC’s ruling body, the
general council.
He secured 481,000 votes in the
ballot for the 11 seats on the general
council that are reserved for smaller
unions. His share of the vote was the
third highest of the 16 union officials
standing for election.
‘I am delighted by the result and
will continue to take advantage of
this opportunity to ensure that the
voice of seafarers is heard loud and
clear at the highest levels of the
union movement,’ Mr Dickinson said.
‘Over the past year, the TUC has
given us invaluable support in
progressing our campaigns on
maritime skills, training and
employment,’ he added. ‘It has
helped us to lobby government on
other issues, including pay and
conditions and piracy, and to make
sure that political attention is
focussed on maritime matters.’
Survey shows what
the workforce thinks
ANautilus assistant general
secretary Paul Moloney
chaired a fringe meeting
that saw the launch of a new report
that seeks to shape the debate about
the future of trade unions.
Published by the Unions21
organisation, the report is based on
the results of a YouGov survey of more
than 2,220 workers, detailing their
attitudes towards their jobs,
management and trade unions.
The survey showed that despite an
increasingly difficult work
environment, there remains a strong
positive commitment to work. Twothirds
of respondents said that their
job is interesting and enjoyable, while
six out of 10 feel loyal to their
organisation.
However, 70% said their job
requires them to work very hard and
more than 40% said they never seem
to have enough time to get their work
done.
Just over 60% described relations
between management and staff as
excellent or good, although only 13%
of respondents overall were very
satisfied with the influence they have
over organisational decisions that
affect their job or working life.
The survey showed that unions are
rated most highly for protecting
workers against unfair treatment and
for knowledge and understanding of
the employer’s business.
Contrary to the impression often
conveyed in the media, the majority
of respondents across all sectors said
management and unions usually
Bankers ‘let it
slip’, governor
tells Congress
Trade unionists are right to be
Fangry at the financial sector’s
responsibility for creating the
economic crisis, Bank of England
governor Mervyn King told Congress.
‘We let it slip — we, that is, in the
financial sector and as policy-makers
— not your members nor the many
businesses and organisations around
the country which employ them,’ he
admitted.
‘But it was the real economy that
suffered and the banks that were
bailed out. Your members, and
indeed the businesses which employ
them, are entitled to be angry.’
Warning that the consequences of
the financial crisis will continue ‘for
years to come’, Mr King said lessons
will have to be learned.
‘We cannot just carry on as we
are,’ he told delegates. ‘Unless we
reform our economy — rebalance
demand, restructure banking, and
restore the sustainability of our public
finances — we shall not only
jeopardise recovery, but also fail the
next generation.’
The governor told the conference
that a range of measures are required
to avert a similar crisis in future,
including reducing imbalances in the
world economy and radical reform of
the financial sector, with stricter
regulation of banking.
‘The costs of this crisis will be with
work together, and that there is a
strong preference for this type of
approach.
Mr Moloney told the meeting that
the findings were very supportive of
the work undertaken by trade unions
in many different workplaces, and
that there was considerable support
for some of the things unions do —
even from non-members.
‘The survey should give comfort to
unions and shows that we remain as
necessary today as at any time in the
past,’ he added. ‘There is a role for
unions to work with the good
employers, so they are not undercut
by the bad ones. This is very much
Nautilus International’s approach and
we have done a lot of work in the ferry
sector to identify and target bad
employers as a way of protecting
better companies.’
Mervyn King was only the second
Bank of England governor ever to
address the TUC
Picture: Andrew Wiard
us for a generation,’ he concluded,
‘and we owe it to the next generation
to seize this opportunity to put in
place the reforms that will make
another crisis much less likely and
much less damaging.’
He warned that the government
risked plunging Britain back into
recession if it did not make cuts to
reduce the national deficit.
Paul Moloney speaks at the TUC
Picture: Andrew Wiard
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