Workers: Sweating for the Olympics

Playfair 2012 National Speaker Tour
11 June 2010

The Olympics is a multi-million dollar industry, yet most workers producing sportswear and Olympic souvenirs for sale on our high streets continue to be paid poverty wages and work in degrading conditions. Playfair found 12-year-old child workers, adults earning 14p an hour, and employees made to work up to 15 hours a day, seven days a week, producing Olympic merchandise.

But it shouldn’t be this way. The Playfair 2012 campaign believes that it’s time for the organisers of the 2012 Olympic Games, the sportswear industry and the International Olympic Committee to take responsibility for the working conditions in the global supply chains producing these goods. As workers, trade unionists, students and consumers, we are linked to the millions of workers employed in these supply chains. Acting together, we have the power to bring about change and demand that London 2012 is the first ethical Olympics – providing Decent Work and dignity for all.

Find out more about the issues facing workers employed in supply chains producing sportswear and Olympic merchandise. Discover how you can get involved in the Playfair 2012 campaign and make a real difference to the lives of millions of mainly female workers, who help to make the Olympics possible.

Keynote speaker:
Lilis Mahmudah, Textile and Garment Trade Union, Indonesia

Date: 11 June 2010 Time: 12.30-14.00
Venue: STUC, 333 Woodlands Road, Glasgow, G3 6NG
Free admission/Light lunch provided

To come along to this event contact Sandra Walker at SWalker@stuc.org.uk
Or for more information see: http://www.stuc.org.uk/events/750/playfair-2012-11-june-2010 

Iain Duncan Smith missing the point on welfare reform

Yesterday, STUC hosted a Scottish Living Wage Conference which – coincidentally - took place on the same day that Iain Duncan Smith made a major speech on welfare reform.  As many will be aware, IDS has been somewhat reinvented as a “caring Tory” since the inception of the Social Justice Commission and his attendant tours of the housing schemes of Britain, including Easterhouse in Glasgow. The response to his speech has been mixed reflecting the fact that, in principle, some of his suggestions – such as simplifying the benefit system and removing financial barriers to work – could help a proportion of those who currently find that the inflexible benefit system and ‘other costs’ such as child care make working a negative option.

What was concerning, and I would suggest, more significant was the lack of any reference whatsoever to the prevalence of low pay and its relationship to the often mentioned aim of ‘making work pay’.

Despite this week’s announcement of a slight improvement in child poverty statistics – a Labour Government achievement which IDS seems intent on ignoring – in-work poverty is a major problem and a signal cause of child poverty. In this context even positive changes to the benefit system (are there’s no guarantee of that) are nowhere near enough.

Any government worth its salt and concerned about public spending would be up in arms at the extent to which the benefit system subsidises low paid employment.  Equally any business which does pay decent wages should be concerned at the extent to which its low pay competitors are being supported by the public purse.

At our conference yesterday we announced the annual uplift of the Living Wage to £7.15 per hour and pledged to continue to press for its implementation by Scottish business and public sector employers.  It is a modest sum, calculated to support individuals only to a very basic level.  It is a wage that is some 25% higher than the completely inadequate minimum wage, but even on this rate of pay, many many families will be forced to use benefits to supplement their income.

Research from Kendra Strauss launched at our conference showed that 10% of men and 15% of women earned less than £7 per hour in Scotland, and the figure for those earning less than £7.15 will be considerably higher.

If Iain Duncan Smith has any ambition to ‘make work pay’, he will have to come up with a way to tackle low pay and his speech this week fell painfully short in that department.


Dave Moxham
Deputy General Secretary STUC

Cheapside Street Fifty Years On

Exactly one month before the first International International Workers Memorial Day to be recognised by the United Kingdom Government hundreds gathered in George Square to remember the 14 fire fighters from Glasgow Fire Brigade and 5 members of the Glasgow Salvage Corp who perished in the Cheapside Street fire on 28 March 1960.

At that time Glasgow was known as the “tinderbox city” a label that has vanished thanks to improved fire safety and building regulations.

One comparison that remains to this day is that fire fighters are a disciplined and committed team who face danger day in and day out trying to save lives in fires, tragedies such as the ICL tragedy not that far from Cheapside Street and in road traffic accidents throughout Scotland. This dedication can come at a tragic as happened at Cheapside Street and only last year Lothian and Borders Firefighter Ewan Williamson lost his life while on active while filling in for colleague.

Read the FBU report on Firefighter deaths on their website http://www.fbu.org.uk/campaigns/fatalities/fbu_fatalities_report.pdf

We now have of the most modern fire and rescue service on Europe and perhaps the world but cuts in public service are threatening levels of fire cover in communities such as Broughty Ferry safe.

Balmossie Fire Station, opened in 1982 to serve a growing residential area in the north east of Dundee and provide stand by cover to surrounding stations is heading towards being towards being downgraded on evidence a local campaign group is challenging.

The decision will be taken by Tayside Fire Board today and it is hoped that the board will do  exactly what they did the last time,  kick this proposal out.

The representatives who serve on the board could also have a word with the Chief Officer in Tayside and maybe suggest that continuing to crusade against provision of fire and rescue cover is not helpful and perhaps he should listen to the people in the communities likely to be affected by his decisions.

For further information on the Balmossie campaign see the their website http://www.savebalmossiefireengine.co.uk/

Ian Tasker STUC

British Airways

Let’s recap, the fire-fighters were fascists, the Royal mail workers wreckers and now the BA cabin crew are deplorable. Why do our elected members of Parliament (with a few honourable exceptions) denigrate working people so glibly? Particular venom is reserved for those workers who have the temerity to stand up for their jobs and conditions. Perhaps some workforce’s would have glibly accepted all the changes imposed on them by BA and gave up their conditions and jobs, under the great all encompassing word of the day, flexibility.

Instead the gutsy BA cabin crew have other ideas. Against a press campaign based on lies and distortion in a legal environment that is little more than an employers strike breaking charter and a political elite competing with each other to condemn them , they have overwhelmingly voted in a democratic ballot to defend their jobs and conditions and prevent a race to the bottom in the aviation industry. Not that Lord Adonis the Transport Minister would know much about democratic ballots!!

The BA cabin crew face overwhelming odds. Dozens of union stewards have been suspended or face and disciplinary action, staff travel facilities have been threatened all the while the employer has ruthlessly undertaken secondary action including hiring aircraft and crews to beat the strike . In contrast cabin crew and their union UNITE have had to stand alone constricted by a hostile legal environment that deems even the most cursory support from other workers as secondary action and hence illegal.

Still they stand firm and join a rich tradition of workers who were prepared to defend their jobs conditions and industry. Every trade unionist should support them , contrast the dignity and loyalty they have displayed to each other with our elected politicians who, when not too busy briefing against each other, are prepared to condemn decent working people for the price of a cheap newspaper headline.

John Slaven

Michael Foot 1913- 2010

It is said that you should never meet your heroes; as they always disappoint. Well I met Michael Foot on the stairwell of my union headquarters. Unbeknown to me at the time ASLEF allowed the Tribune newspaper to share its Hampstead offices. Michael Foot lived just around the corner and as a former editor frequently visited Tribune to write and catch up with old colleagues. . Well he did not disappoint: He was charming, generous with his time and very funny.

With the death of Michael Foot the union movement lost a friend. A man of great intellect who counted George Orwell and HG Wells as his friends, He was part of a generation of brilliant left wing politicians including Nye Bevan the founder of the NHS, Barbara Castle who introduced the Equal Pay Act and Jennie Lee founder of the Open University The perception of Michael Foot as a rambling old radical was a travesty of the truth .In an era of robotic sound bite politicians Michael Foot was a political superstar. A brilliant orator, journalist and author who published twenty books in his lifetime including the seminal biography of Aneurin Bevan. A co founder of CND and a man who as Employment Secretary 1974-76 did more for workers rights than anyone politician since the war. Michael Foot was a man of action who understood that principles were not enough. The great challenge was to apply principles and in doing so change the world bit by bit.

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In today's era where every piece of employment legislation appears to be written by the CBI Michael Foot was fearless in advancing workers rights. He introduced the 1974 Healthy and Safety Act which created the H&S Executive and established workplace Health and Safety representatives. .This legislation undoubtedly saved thousand of workers from death and injury. Michael Foot also introduced the mighty 1974 labour and Industrial Acts this was probably the most pro worker piece of legislation ever passed by the UK Parliament , For the first time it compelled employers to collectively bargain with trade unions including giving unions the information they required to negiotate. It legislated to allow unions meetings during work time. It established unfair tribunals and ACAS as well granting women workers guarantees of maternity leave and reinstainment. The Act was so radical it was dubbed the Shop Stewards Charter by Jack Jones the legendary General Secretary of the TGWU.



His last action as Employment Secretary was to pilot the 1976 Sex Discrimination Act which tackled the discrimination of women within the workplace and society. All of this legislation was introduced despite economic recession, employer opposition and the Labour Government having a tiny majority. In his two years as Employment Secretary he did more for workers rights than our current politicians have achieved in the past thirty. A salutary lesson of what can be achieved if the political courage and will is there.


If this was not enough Michael Foot must be one of the few people who have brought a Government down by writing a pamphlet!! Even more remarkable the pamphlet was written over a weekend and the three authors had to remain anonymous. The pamphlet was entitled “The Guilty Men” and was written in July 1940 lat the time when British troops were being rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk after a series of military disasters. The pamphlet simple message was that the Chamberlain Tory Government was too incompetent, class ridden and defeatist to overcome Hitler and the Nazis. Instead it called for a people’s war where the defeat of Nazi Germany was linked to building a new post Britain where the poverty, slums and unemployment of the thirties were banished. In modern day parlance the pamphlet was a massive underground hit; despite the major publishers refusing to stock it sold over 200, 000 copies in a month and was hot property in the armament factories, barracks and offices of wartime Britain. It caused a massive controversy and was credited with creating the vote of no confidence that deposed the Chamberlain Government heralding in a Government of National Unity that included the Labour and Trade Union movement, that ultimately defeated fascist Germany.

After his death last week the common theme to the tributes that have appeared from friends and opponents alike highlighted his courtesy, decency and generously of spirit. But his manner and personal conduct were grounded in the strong and deeply held political convictions he held. Many political theorists suggest that in times when parties and politicians have few ideological differences, personal animosity does not reduce but becomes worse. Witness today the spectacle of politicians from the same party briefing and spinning against each other despite hardly a smidgeon of political difference between them. Michael Foot did not need to have personal feuds because his deep convictions understood it was issues that counted not personalities. Perhaps he was not cut out to be a leader in the media age. He was not someone who you could tell how to dress and how to speak, he did not do makeovers, but he was real and authentic and hence respected.

Some have argued that for all his talents Michael Foots political views were utopian and unrealistic and not cut out for the modern world. No doubt this view is uttered by politicians in all parties who called for less red tape and regulation, more privatisation and whose messianic belief in unfettered financial markets has brought our economy to verge of collapse while creating the biggest gap between rich and poor since the industrial revolution.

Now is the time to look revisit the views of Michael Foot He was a passionate supporter of Keynesian economics and believed that at times of economic recession it was the role of governments to maintain social spending in order to sustain employment and to prevent the economy spiralling into depression... He advocated a publically owned National Investment Bank because he believed in the need for long term investment in industry and manufacturing rather than short speculation and spivery. He believed in strong trade unions and progressive taxation in part because of his belief in social justice but also because he understood that in order to maintain a stable economy all sections of society had to collectively prosper. If workers were to poor and wages to low , they could not afford to buy goods and services that the economy produced and this would create a permanent cycle of economic stagnation .This is exactly what happened in nineteen thirties when the mass unemployment and searing poverty he witnessed turned the young Michael Foot into a lifelong socialist. Finally as a Minister he promoted an interventionist industrial strategy that understood that economic development required investment, nourishment and support. In short Michael Foot believed in policies that are advocated today by many of the worlds leading economists such as Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman. Far from being a utopian, history has proved Michael Foot to be right on every major social and economic question. Indeed if we adopted the policies he advocated we would not be in the mess we are in today.

Yes but what about his unrealistic bohemian social views. Such as his belief in equal pay, abortion rights, and racial and sexual equality .Michael Foot passionately argued for these beliefs at a time when they were seen as marginal in the Labour Movement Michael Foot freely admitted his views were influenced by his feminist wife the film maker Jill Craiggie. Finally he was an early advocate for a Scottish and Welsh parliament and of course as a committed member of CND he argued that Trident was an expensive useless but dangerous folly. Far from being a utopian Michael Foot proved to years ahead of his time.

On leaving Parliament in 1992 without ceremony or ego he quietly refused a peerage considering the House of Lords as an undemocratic farce. Unlike today’s politicians he did not spend his retirement in consultancies and directorships in sectors he privatised. In any case Michael Foot privatised nothing. Instead he completed four more books, wrote for Tribune and quietly campaigned for the causes he believed in. Despite being in his nineties he attended the march against the war in Iraq. The last march of the many he attended in his life.

A man of passion and compassion, of principles and of action his legacy will be in the lives his Health and Legislation saved and in the more humane workplaces he helped create. His friend Spike Milligan once commented he has a saintly quality.. He was no saint but in the era of spin and expenses scandals, perhaps he was the nearest thing to it the post war Labour movement produced. I hope the Trade Union Movement honour his memory in some way. Perhaps a good time would be the May Day Bank Holiday. Not only is it International Workers Day it was also Michael Foot who gave us all the day off by making it a Bank Holiday in 1978.

John Slaven

Anti-Fascism March- 12 noon 20 February, Edinburgh

The STUC as part of Scotland United are having a counter demonstration against the Scottish Defence League (SDL) which intends to organise in Edinburgh on 20 Feb. This event follows a previous attempt by the SDL to march in Glasgow in November. Here, Scotland United successfully organised a peaceful counter-demonstration which prevented the SDL from taking over our streets.

Scotland United is a coming together of trade unionists, political parties, anti-racist organisations, and faith groups to celebrate multicultural Scotland and to prevent fascist organisations like the SDL from dividing Scotland’s people.

The demonstration on the 20 Feb will begin at 12 noon at the Ross Bandstand, Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh. A range of speakers will be heard, including the deputy general secretary of the STUC, Dave Moxham. The march will then take place at 1pm and will disperse at the meadows.

As far as the STUC are aware, the SDL has not yet submitted an application to march.


Please come along to our march and rally.

NO TO FASCISM
NO TO RACISM
YES TO A SCOTLAND UNITED

Helen McGuigan
Assistant Secretary

Workers Memorial Day Recognition, better late than never

The Government announced that the United Kingdom would formally recognise International Workers Memorial Day beginning with this year’s commemoration on the 28 April.

This long awaited move came within hours of the deaths of two construction workers after suffering, what appears to be falls from height. In the first incident on the Forth Bridge a painter was killed after falling 150 feet on Wednesday, 27 April around 9pm. Hours later on the morning of the 28 January, another painter was killed on the Tay Rail Bridge following a fall of about 6 feet.

Trade unions, families of workers, hazards and asbestos groups have secured recognition after a long campaign and the Government has listed to our views and ensured that the day remains a commemoration organised workers for workers.

There will be no single focus for workers memorial day and the current practice of local TUC’s and campaign groups organising their own memorials will remain, and hopefully grow, following this announcement.

For further information on International Workers Memorial Day please see the TUC pages www.tuc.org.uk/h_and_s/index.cfm?mins=293 or Hazards Magazine www.hazards.org/wmd/ .


Ian Tasker
Assistant Secretary

Literacy Commission Report Demonstrates Need for Workplace Literacies Funding

The Literacy Commission established by the Labour Party in 2008 recently reported that up to 1 million adults in Scotland have difficulty with reading. Trade unions have proven to be highly successful in meeting the demand for workplace learning with the support of the current Scottish and European funding structures. We also have a powerful influence in determining the level of training amongst employers. In a recent study by the STUC, 52% of learners cited the encouragement of a union voice as the motivation for returning to learning. However, there is currently no Government strategy for workplace literacy and the ability to access appropriate everyday skills workplace provision varies greatly across the country.

Futureskills Scotland research discovered that unions have a positive impact in ensuring that employers adopt high skills strategies and therefore, raise the demand for skills. Scottish Union Learning is actively involved in Everyday Skills activity.

The term ‘Everyday Skills’ defines the language, literacy, numeracy and basic IT skills required both in the workplace and at home. Examples include understanding written and verbal job instructions, reading and understanding health and safety information, writing letters and reports, completing time-sheets and rotas, working out a family budget, understanding mortgage interest rates, and helping children with their homework. In addition, Scottish Union Learning can arrange support for learners who may have dyslexia and/or other learning differences and disabilities.

Workers employed in lower skilled employment are less likely to engage in learning outside of the workplace. Low pay, unpredictable and long hours make it more difficult for these workers to access learning. As a result, levels of participation in lifelong learning among lower social groups is only about half that of higher professional groups.

Research indicates that 39% of men and 36% of women (more than 1,500,000 adults) have literacy skills at a level likely to negatively impact employment prospects. 71% of adults (almost 2,900,000) have numeracy skills that have negative impacts on their lives. Both of these issues are affected by social inequality. Funding for workplace literacies support is a long-term investment, but current funding for providers and practitioners is short-term. The temporary basis of funding limits any long-term development of workplace literacies. Short-term funding is not effective for unions, employers, providers or learners.

Anne Douglas, Scottish Union Learning Board Chair, said:

"There is a strong need for a central funding stream that can be accessed throughout the country and the Government has a responsibility to ensure there are consistent funding arrangements in place that are responsive to unique workplaces and the particular needs of every learner. To create a fair and equitable learning society in the future, Scottish Union Learning urges all political parties to commit to provide dedicated funding for workplace literacies."

The Scottish Union Learning Everyday Skills Event will take place on Thursday, 25 February 2010 at the Teacher Building in Glasgow. This annual event enables Union Learning Reps, SULF Project Workers, Trade Union Education Officers and Tutors to explore methods of supporting those with everyday skills needs and raise the profile of everyday skills issues in the workplace. The theme of the event is ‘Improving Everyday Skills in the Current Economic Climate’, and it will focus on employability, literacy, numeracy and ESOL for the workplace. To register, visit www.scottishunionlearning.com.

Jennifer Payne
Marketing Officer
Scottish Union Learning

St Andrew’s Day March and Rally

Over 1000 trade unionists, anti fascist campaigners and members of ethnic minority groups participated in the STUC St Andrew’s Day March and Rally.

With support from Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and First Minister, Alex Salmond, the marchers set off from St Andrew’s Square, Glasgow, to a rally in Glasgow Film Theatre with a message for the whole of Scotland that Scotland should be proud of our multi cultural society, but we have to continue to fight to ensure that we have a “Future Free from Racism”.




St Andrew's Day March in Glasgow




In keeping with the theme, the first two speakers addressed the rally from the perspective of young people. Helema Moghul from GARA spoke on racial crime and discrimination in the workplace and Georgina Wardrop from the STUC Youth Committee expressed the concerns of the Youth Committee on the growth of the far right and their policies to repatriate migrants and their descendants.

Cathy Pound from Hope not Hate spoke of her own experience in growing up in a multi cultural environment in South London and the treatment white families and their children received for mixing with families from ethnic minorities. The final speaker was Vaughan Gething, the first Black President of the Wales TUC, who spoke of his own experiences of racism in the United Kingdom; of being accused of a Black man that wants to be Welsh and how this compared to his father’s experiences as an economic migrant to Zambia, where the racist hatred that he has suffered was not part of their society thirty years ago.

This year’s rally was, once again, extremely successful, with an excellent number of trade union banners, and we look forward to continuing to campaign to end racism and fascism in our society.

Ian Tasker
Assistant Secretary

Scottish Union Learning Conference

How does union learning contribute to Scotland’s economic future? That is the theme Union Learning Reps from all over Scotland will consider at the annual Scottish Union Learning Conference this Thursday, 19th November.

Without a legal entitlement to paid time off for learning and without legal rights to negotiate on training and learning, Union Learning Reps are working within the dwindling economic climate against many barriers. However, the evidence suggests that trade unions have a powerful influence in determining the level of training amongst employers. Trade unions are effective in arguing for training and learning within the workplace. Within unionised firms, 78% of employers provide training for staff.




Davy Moody is the CWU’s Lead Union Learning Rep at the Edinburgh Royal Mail Centre and is just one of 1,500 Union Learning Reps who have been trained in Scotland.


If we take a closer look there is evidence that at the lower end of the labour market, UK employers aim to compete on low cost rather than high skills and quality. There is no legal obligation for employers to negotiate on training and learning. In the UK, only 3% of employers negotiate and 13% consult with their staff on training and learning.

In this economic climate, everyone seems to be looking for the bottom line. Employee morale is down and costs are up. We are already seeing companies cutting back on training budgets and reducing facility time for union reps. However, lifelong learning should be viewed as part of the solution instead of part of the problem. For employers, union-led workplace learning delivers ‘soft’ performance benefits as well as improved employee relations. Union-led learning also contributes positively to employability and social inclusion.

Grahame Smith, STUC General Secretary, will be speaking at the Learning Conference this Thursday where the STUC will renew its call on the Scottish Government to set up a campaign aimed specifically at employers to encourage continued investment in training during the recession. In his speech, he will say, “The evidence shows that employers who invest in training emerge stronger from recession. However, we are seeing increasingly worrying signs that employers are reluctant to continue training the workforce.”

Our experience shows that it is those who lack skills and qualifications who predominantly lose their jobs in an economic downturn and are then unable to find new employment. During the Conference on Thursday, Union Learning Reps will explore how to tackle problems in the workplace, including providing support to workers in vulnerable employment. They will take part in workshops on funding, including the ESF Scottish Fund for Union Learning, engage with Sector Skills Councils and explore how the Green movement will affect the skills of tomorrow’s workers.

The current economic situation has definitely impacted on our agenda for learning and skills within the workplace. Through Union Learning Reps, trade unions are uniquely positioned to help address gaps in skills provision and develop the full potential of individual workers. After all, Union Learning Reps provide learning support in their workplaces to many of the 644,000 trade unionists in Scotland who are affiliated to the STUC. It is a good idea to give these highly motivated lay activists as much support as possible in doing so, especially now.

Jennifer Payne
Marketing Officer
Scottish Union Learning

On the march with the STUC

It’s been a march a minute for STUC and its affiliated unions this year.

Last week a highly successful event was held in St Andrews’ during the G20 Finance Minister’s Summit as part of the Put People First campaign. In a fortnight we will take to the streets to celebrate the STUC’s annual St Andrew’s Day march against racism and fascism and the week after that thousands of people will take to the street in support of the “The Wave” – a coming together of environmental, trade union and anti-poverty campaigners calling on those at the United Nations Climate change Conference in Copenhagen to break the log jam and deliver real climate justice for the next generation.

On top of all this there are two major demonstrations tomorrow (Saturday 14th). Coinciding with the visit of NATO to Scotland, STUC is supporting the Stop the War Demonstration ‘No to NATO, Scrap Trident, Troops out of Afghanistan’ and in Glasgow we have played a major role in bringing together Scotland’s civic, faith and political organisations to support the Scotland United initiative which is organising an event to counter the attempts of the fascist Scottish Defence League to spread their particular brand of racism and islamaphobia.

Whist the historical lack of support for the BNP up here is a cause for some satisfaction, most sensible commentators recognise that the failure of the British National Party and their other fascist cousins to gain a foothold in Scotland should not imply that there is no racism here and no future threat. STUC’s St Andrew’s Day March and Rally was founded precisely because the far right were attempting to subvert genuine the national day of celebration. As our General Secretary Grahame Smith will say tomorrow “Wrapping yourself in the Saltire or wearing a t-shirt with William Wallace on it, or waving a union jack and singing Rule Britannia doesn’t make you a patriot - particularly when it’s accompanied by a Nazi salute.”

Saturday’s demonstration will be a broad based, multi-cultural celebration of Scotland’s diversity. We will avoid direct confrontation with the jack booted fascists. But a more significant confrontation will take place – between the decent values we espouse and their politics of hate. We will have the numbers and we will have the people of Scotland on our side.

Dave Moxham
Deputy General Secretary

Marching for a Gude Cause?

One of the 1909 suffrage banners proclaimed, 'A Gude Cause Maks A Strong Arm', and the October 2009 planning group took the ‘Gude Cause’ name.


100 years on and we have the right to vote for all aged 18 and over, but we still have some way to go in achieving equality, respect and a life free from violence for all women.


Over 5,000 marched on Saturday 10th October, and it was one of the most uplifting, optimistic, proud demonstrations in which I have ever participated.


Unusually many different bits of my life came together in the one procession, and it was obviously the same for many women. Schools, workplaces, universities, local communities, trade unions, political parties, women’s groups, all reflecting on the tremendous contribution that women’s struggles have made to society.


I met up with parents, students and teachers from my son’s school - James Gillespie’s High School; I walked with the STUC banner and trade union comrades from numerous other unions, including EIS, PCS, CWU, and UNITE – the STUC Women’s Committee had done well in spreading the word; I loved seeing friends from the Edinburgh University School of Social Science and Political Studies, with their banner bearing the name of the new Chrystal MacMillan Building; the Scottish Labour Party’s new banner, for Equality and Social Justice, gathered members together; and wonderful women, so many I recognized, from numerous women’s organizations from across Scotland, waved flags, sang, and celebrated their own strengths. And at the front of the march, women dressed in the style of the suffragettes, including one of my neighbours, as a member of the Edinburgh Costume Society. Wonderful hats, long coats and sashes, purple green and white, walking with pride down the North Bridge in the sunshine.


And it all began with two women, Helen Kay and Janet Fenton, putting their heads together after the 2007 election, and thinking about how to revitalize the women’s movement, and to re-connect the electoral process as a voice for women. The Gude Cause project grew and grew - costumes, history lessons, films, banner making workshops, a songbook – and we found our voices again – fantastic!


Check the website for more information and photograph www.gudecause.org.uk

Ann Henderson
Assistant Secretary

Are we ‘really in this together’?

George Osborne’s speech to the Conservative Party Conference has received near universal acclaim, even from Guardian commentators.

The obsequious media response is hardly surprising given the near universal acceptance that cutting the deficit is the UK’s most immediate economic challenge. Yep, never mind rising unemployment, plummeting business investment, lack of affordable credit and the yawning output gap – the deficit must be plugged; and quickly. As some admirably independent commentators have noted, this is tantamount to economic masochism.

So, whilst others are better placed to comment on the direct impact of Tory commitments on public service pay and pensions here are some views on the political economy of Mr Osborne’s speech:

“Labour created this mess”

Labour’s role in creating the mess is clear for all to see. Brown, Blair et al completely bought the myth that the financial sector would continue to drive sustainable GDP and employment growth. They actually believed that financial innovation had changed the game. Their complacency in the face of industry abuses and the rise of systematic fragility is shocking.

However, the STUC has argued and will continue to argue, that the financial crisis that began with the fall of Northern Rock in 2007 reflects a general failure of politics. Can Mr Osborne point to a track record in querying the size and power of the financial sector relative to the wider economy? Did the Tories challenge the bonus culture? Or question the sustainability of the rapid growth in credit derivatives and the shadow banking sector? I think not.

Likewise the SNP who sought competitive advantage for Scotland in a super-light regulatory framework for financial services modelled on Ireland. Or the Lib Dems who have singularly failed to build on Vince Cable’s admirable stance on the banks to create anything approaching a coherent vision for the economy.

Labour has to accept the lion’s share of blame for the current crisis but it is the failure of politics that has undermined our collective prosperity.

“It is a terrible mistake to claim that, as Gordon Brown does, that there is a choice between getting to grips with the debt and having an economic recovery’

It isn’t actually; particularly if the recovery is to be robust and demand-led.

Writing recently in the Sunday Telegraph, Robert Skidelsky ridiculed the Osborne approach:

“We couldn’t afford not to have a stimulus in the past year and we can’t afford not to continue it now…The reason is quite straightforward. If output is falling, the Government’s revenues fall automatically and its social spending rises automatically. If the Government tries to reduce the deficit by cutting its spending, it reduces total spending in the economy still further. This causes the recession to deepen and makes the deficit even larger. It is like a cat chasing its own tail”.

Brown’s approach as described by Osborne is entirely mainstream; supported amongst others by Paul Krugman the current Nobel economics laureate. All of which makes Labour’s commitment to enshrine in legislation their commitment to halve the debt within four years utterly bizarre.

‘The world is watching Britain at the moment…It is casting doubt on our country’s credit worthiness’

It would be more accurate to say that the world is watching the world at the moment.

Yes, falling tax revenues, rising social spending and the cost of recapitalising the banks (the upfront costs of which were proportionately higher in the UK than any other developed nation) has meant that Britain’s deficit is, for the current year, the largest in the world. But is does not logically follow, as the deficit obsessed shadow chancellor appears to believe, that the UK is an emerging basket-case.

UK public debt is average by international standards. Investors continue to enthusiastically fund that debt. The spreads on credit default swaps on UK sovereign debt are heading down not up. It appears that these ‘doubts’ amount to little more than one credit rating agency suggesting that it might, in the future, review the UK’s triple A rating.

‘…Or the judgement last November to oppose the VAT cut. That wasn’t the easy thing to do. You try being the Shadow Chancellor who tells the Conservative Parliamentary Party that we are going to vote against a tax cut’

The STUC argued that the 2008 PBR stimulus should have been focused on temporary tax cuts for low paid workers and/or benefit increases for the unemployed – those guaranteed to spend the proceeds. We did not believe then, and we do not now, that a VAT cut was the most effective stimulus measure.

But the shadow chancellor (deliberately?) misses the point. His party opposed the introduction of a stimulus; any stimulus whether one focused on a VAT cut or not. They would not have supported better targeted measures. They would have left the economy to sink deeper into the mire; leaving the UK the only country in the developed world in which the Government did not seek to boost output and save jobs at a time when the private sector was rapidly contracting.

“We are in this together”

I don’t think so George.

On the one hand we have:

· A pay freeze for public sector workers including those earning well below the median wage but above £18k;
· Raising the retiral age to 66 a full decade before Lord Turner’s recommendation.
· Immediate spending cuts with related impact on demand which will almost certainly embed recessionary pressures;
· Yet another drive on incapacity benefit; and,
· Cutting tax credits (for households earning over £50k – the reality is a mother and father earning average wages and paying full-time childcare costs).

On the other hand the commitment to cut inheritance tax thresholds remains as does the promise, as soon as is feasible, to abandon the 50p tax rate. Bankers are merely ticked off and there is an entirely non-specific threat over tax havens. His earlier commitment to abolish NIC payments for new businesses is, as he well understands, an open invitation to dissolve current arrangements, start afresh and claim no NIC.

Osborne’s agenda is wrong-headed and dangerous. Masquerading as a sober, responsible response to an immediate budget crisis, his policy agenda risks plunging the UK economy into prolonged stagnation. A Japanese lost decade is entirely possible and it will be low and middle paid workers and the unemployed who suffer most.