REPORT OF NSSN NATIONAL CONFERENCE

National Shop Stewards Network – 28th June 2008

A report by Dave Osborne, who is a Senior Amicus rep at Augusta Westland at Yeovil

Speakers
Dave Chapple opened the meeting by stating that the Shop Stewards Network (SSN) aims to be a politically independent movement open to anyone with a mandate from union members. This can be any form of workplace, or an elected officer of a Branch or Trades Council. I don’t consider myself a militant but I think it is important to support any organisation that could offer support to the members I represent (whether in the workplace, at Branch, or at Trades Council) when they are in dispute with their employers. On that basis I felt obliged to attend the meeting and report back.

Full time union officers attend the SSN by invitation and have no vote. Some are supportive, some less so, and some oppose the group’s existence. Bob Crowe (RMT) is head of the union that sparked the idea of the SSN. He told the meeting that we need a vibrant reps network to combat the excesses of employers and to support workers in the workplace, that is why he called on all unions to support the RMT’s efforts to give English Trades Councils voting rights a the Trades Union Congress.

Onay ‘Kas’ Kasab (Unison) talked about the importance of democracy within the union movement. Kas is one of four reps accused by Unison of campaigning against the leadership because they distributed a leaflet highlighting the number of motions submitted to their policy conference that were ruled out of order (50% this year).

Karen Resissmann (Unison) was a shop steward sacked because of her union activity who wanted to thank the union members who went on strike for 42 days trying to get her reinstated, and to thank those trade unionists from around the country who had sent messages of support that were much appreciated by thos involved in the dispute.

Brian Caton (POA) said he would make no apology for the work his members do and they play an important role in protecting all of us from dangerous criminals. Not everything is rosy in the prison service but they have made headway and their members tell the officers what to do. Brian called for the TUC to campaign harder for trade union freedoms; he will ask the TUC to call for a national strike and urged us all to choose freedom and to be prepared to break bad laws.

The meeting was then opened up for delegates to give their own experiences:

A member from USDAW said that all labour governments that have called for wage restraint go on to lose the next election. Union leaders must realise that ‘partnership’ with employers usually means low wages for members.
A member from the CWU said he’d been sacked allegedly for an article he wrote for the socialist Worker but in reality because he’d been successful in getting a 15% rise for workers in his call entre.
A Unite worker from the voluntary sector spoke about how many members have to bid for workers against the private sector, which results in a direct attack on pay and conditions.
Another Unite member told us how the Chief Executive of Argos got a 58% pay rise and expected workers to accept rises that are less than inflation.
A UCU member from Cardiff said that university lecturers had only achieved parity with teachers as a result of industrial action. If you try you may win, if you don’t try you definitely won’t win.

Workshop – the crisis in political representation

Given that we are in a Lib Dem stronghold and Unite continues to support the Labour Party this seemed the obvious workshop to attend. Speakers said that the policies of the three main parties are as close as were the Tories and the Liberals when Labour was founded, it may therefore be the time to found a new party to represent working people. New Labour is not radical, they are too soft on the rich and the few policies that help working people are designed to deflect our anger rather than deal with real issues:

Immigration and the inadequate facilities for handling it will feed the flames of racism and hand votes to the BNP unless we have a proper political organisation to help working people.
Climate change cannot be fought if we concentrate on appeasing business, capitalism depends on oil and the focus on biofuels is triggering a world wide food crisis.

John Rogers from the Labour Representation Committee said that there are people in the Labour Party that are on our side and we need to use them but even he could not defend the Party’s recent record.

said pointed out that over 90% of pay awards are below RPI but the government still blames pay rises for inflation. Respect was pushed forward as the answer to the problem of political representation but it was built on a compromise. We need the union leaders who have broken with the labour party to form a new party now. (A rally to discuss this issue was due to take place the next day.)

Final plenary

Linda Taafe said that there had been over 200 delegates at the conference and 75 visitors, similar numbers to last year. During the year regional conferences had been held in most areas and have supported most major events in the union movement. It is up to delegates what happens to the movement but it urgently needs finance.

The meeting was opened once again for members to have their voice. The main message coming out was a call to campaign with union leaders if possible or without if necessary.

A speaker from the American Longshoreman’s union then talked about a strike that closed every port on the West Coast in protest at American involvement in the wars in Iraq. As a result they are now under attack from their own government.

Janice Godritch from the PCA then stepped in to replace General Secretary Mark Serowatka who was speaking in the Left field at Glastonbury. Janice started by saying that while much has been said about the situation of public service workers she wanted to stress the importance of the private sector, and especially the fate of agency workers who are increasingly hired as casual labour on a daily basis; individuals often incur significant expenses in getting to sites that may offer work for the day that they cannot get back if they are not chosen on the day.

Unfortunately, so many people had overrun their allotted time during the day that I had to leave before Janice finished. It proved to be a long and tiring day but I’m glad to have made the effort to attend and report back on what I think are some important issues.

Dave Osborne

30 June 2008