Billy Hayes - the blog

Friday, August 20, 2010

Article for the General Federation of Trade Unions magazine

The severity of the economic policy and budget of the coalition government seems to have taken many in the labour and progressive movement by surprise.  Despite Cameron’s rebranding of the tory party, essentially the coalition government in pursuing an orthodox neo-conservative policy.  Forgotten is the reckless gambling of the banks and financial market.  Instead, the cabinet of millionaires informs the rest of society that they are all in it together as job cuts, benefit cuts and the break up of the welfare state begins.  Far from being a ‘new age of austerity’, we are in a new age of cant and hypocrisy.

This would be easier to deal with had the labour government been more consistent before its election defeat.  But it had given so much ground to business interests that the tories are now claiming, in many areas, only to be better carrying through Labour’s policy.  This claim is a caricature too, but there is a big enough grain of truth to render many activists momentarily silent.

To prepare a counter political narrative to the coalition government, we must draw out the decisive features of the political economy.  It is not enough to oppose the cuts, we must also outline a coherent economic policy.

The starting point is that the recession is above all a collapse of private investment.  It is not a result of excessive state spending, or the feather-bedding of public sector workers.

In the OECD area as a whole, between the first quarter 2008 and the final quarter of 2009, OECD GDP fell by 1.04 trillion dollars.  While personal consumption declined by 0.25 trillion dollars, this was almost entirely compensated for by government stimulus packages, as government consumption rose by 0.23 trillion dollars.

The bulk of the loss was a massive .99 trillion dollars decline in fixed investment.  This is a huge failure of private markets.

In the UK, for example, from the first quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2010, GDP fell by 18.6 billion pounds.  Consumer spending did fall in the UK much more than in any of the other advanced economies.  But, over 10.5 billion pounds of this fall was due to the decline of fixed investments – amounting to 56% of the fall in the UK’s GDP.

It is the private markets that failed society – not the other way round.  The deficit of public spending then is the product of this fall.  There has been a collapse in the tax revenues to the Government, an increase in Government spending due to the stimulus packages and increased unemployment.  As a result of these two processes moving in opposite directions, the deficit in public spending rises.

But it is just pre-Keynes economics to insist that the deficit must be cut during the recession and early recovery. 

If the Government were to continue investing in the economy, then tax revenues would expand, along with GDP leading to a rapid narrowing of the deficit.  The coalition government rejection of such a policy, and insistence upon cuts, may well lead to another round of recession.

Certainly the most recent economic figures demonstrate that the Government investment works when the markets fail.

Thanks to the Government’s stimulus under Gordon Brown, the British economy expanded at its fastest rate since the recession ended, up by 1.1% in quarter two 2010, according to preliminary data.  This bounce is a result of the depreciation of the pound, and the 2009 budget.

But the coalition government’s cuts will threaten to reverse this growth .

This may be apparent to many labour movement activists.  But it is not generally understood in society at large.  The relentless assault from the pro-tory media has taken its toll.  A recent ComRes poll on July 20th, found that 64% of those questioned agreed that “the scale of cuts is essential for the Government to balance its books”.  There is, of course, huge public unease – the same poll shows 56% agreeing that “the scale of the cuts is likely to threaten the economic recovery”. 

But this demonstrates that our tactics have to both include practical steps against the cuts, but also demonstrate a policy which provides a feasible alternative for the movement to organise around.

Some do not see this latter point at all.  David Miliband, in an article in the Financial Times on the 23 July, simply defends the policy pursued by Alistair Darling to “… halve the budget deficit and remove the bulk of the structural deficit in four years”.  This confines the difference with the tories to matters of pace, not principle. 

Ed Balls is much closer to the solution when he writes in the Guardian on the 19 July, “… there is no precedent to believe that with strong growth in our main trading partners and companies de-leveraging, public sector retrenchment will stimulate private sector growth.  The 1930s and 1980s proved the opposite”.

He went on to write that “… the idea that the UK faces a financial crisis if we do not cut the deficit faster is a fiction.  Outside the Euro zone and with low long term interest rates, Britain faces no difficulty in servicing its debts.  The main worry in financial markets is not in bonds but equities as fears of a double dip recession grow”.

It is important that we recognise the coalition government is playing on current prejudices when making extra attacks upon the position of women, disabled and black people.  Yvette Cooper has highlighted that more than 70% of the revenue raised from direct tax and benefit changes in the budget is to come from female tax payers.

In addition, disabled people are seriously disadvantaged by the budget.  Cuts in the Disability Living Allowance alone will result in £1 billion being taken from disabled people.  This is also likely to result in reductions in associated benefits like the Independent Living Fund and Attendance Allowance. 

Black people are likely to suffer disproportionately from the cuts in public sector employment and housing benefits.  The distinct disadvantage that Britain’s black community suffer already are likely to be worsened by the impact of the cuts.  There will inevitably be a rise in racism and Islamaphobia as many communities experience fights over the allocation of scarce resources. 

Though many activists in the unions will want to simply concentrate on dealing with the effects of the coalition government policies.  There is much to commend in this.  For our part, the CWU has launched a new campaign, “The Keep the Post Public Coalition” in order to defeat the coalition government’s proposal to privatise Royal Mail.

Our members expect the union’s leadership to concentrate on this, and secure the widest support from the public.  This we will do.  But even with this limited perspective, we are having to develop a new policy model for how Royal Mail may prosper in the public sector in the future.

So an opposition which confines itself to a simple rejection of coalition policies is insufficient.  Of course, the cuts will lead to many local and individual campaigns opposing particular measures.  This is good, and the labour movement would be fully committed to supporting such actions.

Yet there are very few activists who are capable of showing how the coalition’s fundamental assumptions are wrong, or how the economic crisis can be resolved differently.  There is then a distinct job to be done of debating out our alternative economic strategy and educating a new generation of activists in how to fight for this. 

In this light, I greatly welcome the initiatives undertaken by Jon Trickett MP to pull together a new coalition of politicians, trade unionists, economists, NGOs and others to develop progressive economic alternatives to the coalition’s cuts.  We have a big agenda in front of us, but I believe the labour movement is capable of rising to the challenges it faces.

ENDS

Sunday, August 15, 2010

ARTICLE FOR CLPD JOURNAL

This year’s Annual Labour Party Conference should commence with the important step of restoring the right of CLPs and the affiliated trade unions to submit contemporary resolutions for voting at conference.  This may be modest, but it is significant.

Conference should be the parties’ internal, annual parliament, where we can debate all the key political issues facing the Labour movement and society at large. In recent years, we have submitted to the preoccupation that democratic debate appears divisive to the electorate outside the party.

But this significantly underestimates the maturity of the electorate.  Voters watching us know that the issues are important, and that there are always choices about which policies should be pursued. 

What is truly repulsive to voters is the presentation of politics as a simple issue of efficient administration, where policy issues are of such supposed complexity as to require a stitch up behind closed doors.

The party has lost five million voters since 1997.  Four million of which were in the course of Tony Blair’s premiership.  This contradicts the myth that the politics of ‘the project’ was in tune with the abiding wishes of the electorate.  Whoever wins the election for Labour leader, now is the time for a new engagement with party members and a broader electorate.  This can only be achieved by a clear and compelling debate leading to appropriate decisions.

Live debate on current issues makes for enthralling and engaging viewing.  Politics matters desperately, and it is not difficult to present our conference as an important event in the calendar.

Unfortunately, for the most part, our conference has been turned into a tedious reiteration of ministerial virtues, and a parade of selected activists delivering officially approved rhetoric.  This has been both unwatchable, and damaging to the development of the party.

So we must review our internal structures to meet the needs of the members, including the welcome addition of many new members.  This surely means more serious and considered debates which will actively direct the policy of the party leadership in opposition to the coalition government.

With the introduction of one member one vote for constituency delegates, we can expect a more reliably and critical role from the National Policy Forum.  We must similarly establish a new urgency to the constituency structures of the party.  One clear lesson of the general election result is that it makes a huge difference to have a constituency party that is engaged with its community, and offers party members an active outline for their convictions.  This needs to include the right of CLPs to choose their own candidates, in a timely and effective manner, without insistence on loyalty to a few fashionable prejudices, or a particular leader.

Equally, there needs to be a commitment from the leadership to fight the proposals by the coalition government to break the collective affiliation of trade unionists to the Labour party.  We cannot have the constitution of the Labour party being determined by its enemies.  The trade unions contribution to Labour must be valued.  Yes we can, and should, utilise all the new methods of communication and information technology to get our policies across.  But the alliance between trade unions and constituency activists is the guarantee of the strength and significance of Labour’s message actually being delivered to the electorate.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Justice For Columbia Visit

CWU supports Justice for Columbia (JfC)

The CWU is affiliated to Justice For Columbia(JfC). In recent years NEC member, Steve Jones, has represented the CWU in the campaign, and has visited Columbia. On a separate occasion, Natalie Jacottet, Head of Research, has also represented the CWU in a delegation to Colombia.

I had promised JfC I would one day travel to Columbia to give support to trade unionists there. Many are assassinated for representing their members - 2,754 to date, with 32 of these in 2009.

The JfC delegation is made up of Members of the British and European Parliaments, trade unionists and lawyers, together with JfC staff.

The full details of the background to the visit and participants is going to be reported to the CWU NEC and available upon requests JfC website (http://www.justiceforcolombia.org).

Wednesday July 21st

Met President (Elect) Juan Manuel Santos.

Followed by a meeting with the leaders of the CUT which is the biggest trade union federation. Discussed with them the impact of the neo liberalism on this potentially rich country.

Visited an area call Soacha where we heard of the scandal of people being murdered to satisfy a disturbing incentive scheme to kill so-called terrorists.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

CWU’S POLITICAL STRATEGY & REVITALISING THE UNIONS STRUCTURE

NOTES FOR GENERAL SECRETARY’S INTRODUCTION TO THE SESSION: “CWU’S POLITICAL STRATEGY & REVITALISING THE UNIONS STRUCTURE”

1. The election of the Coalition Government does not mean down-grading the CWU’s political work.  Rather our political work is more difficult, but no less necessary.

2. Our strategy is the return of a majority Labour Government.  But we are not waiting passively for the next five years.

3. We must campaign on key questions facing the Labour movement.  We organise to make the Party’s opposition to the Government effective.  We must be prepared to engage with the Coalition Government at every level to further members’ interests where appropriate.

4. Today’s event is one step towards integrating the role of the political officers in the Union.  We need to meet more often than we have in the past.  You play a key role in driving up Party membership in the Union.  You have a major contribution to make in strengthening our involvement in the regional party structures, and the CLPs.

5. There is a change of roles and responsibilities with the CWU Regional Secretaries acquiring more political responsibilities.  We are discussing the possibility of having Regional Political Officers as Assistant Secretaries to the Regional Secretaries.  The political structure of Regions needs to be more to the fore of the work of regional committees.  What are your views?

6. We will be reviewing our Parliamentary Group and Panels.  This is both a review of our existing CDPs, and looking at our Panel of CWU Candidates for PPC positions.  This is linked to increasing the number of CWU members involved in the Constituencies where we have a CDP or a PPC.  What are your views?

7. We want to re-establish political schools.  These should have the dual function of educating activists in our politics, and in stimulating a new layer of activists to become political leaders in the community and Union.  We have no clear views on this yet, but I am interested in your views?

8. Result of Poll of past voting behaviour:

The Labour Party is most popular amongst CWU Members, however support in casting votes for Labour has declined since 2005.

The table below shows the past vote recalled in 2010 and 2005, excluding those who did not vote, refused to say how they voted, or don’t remember:

Conservative   2010 Election 22%    2005 Election 13%
Labour   2010 Election 48%    2005 Election 67%
Lib Dem   2010 Election 20%    2005 Election 12%
Other   2010 Election 10%    2005 Election 8%

• The Conservatives had more support in the election this year among telecoms workers than postal workers – 26% and 21% respectively.
• 17% of CWU members say that they did not vote in this year’s election and 11% refused to say how they voted.

Monday, June 21, 2010

My latest Voice column

YOU NEVER GIVE YOUR MONEY

To make the rich work harder you pay them more – to make the poor work hard you pay them less – so it seems.

Our members within BT witnessed recently the gall of BT announcing record dividends and pay plus big bonuses.

• Profits of £5.78bn, up by 6%
• Pre-tax profits of £1b, up from a loss of £244m last year
• Annual cost savings of £1.7bn
• Full year dividend up 6% to 6.9p

Then to be told that it is only 2 per cent for you lot.  They then wonder why they are facing strike action for the first time in 23 years.

Now that the posh boys are back in control, no doubt we will be seeing a lot more of this behaviour.

The Government wants to look into high pay in the public sector (though not the private sector nor BT or Royal Mail).

We need to look at high pay across the UK. If we have a Low Pay Commission, why not a High Pay Commission?  How can it be right that Adam Crozier got £2.4 million in 2010 or that Livingston, the CEO BT got £2.05 million

Trade Union General Secretaries are required by law to publish their pay and pension benefits – why not the captains of industry?

4th Time Round

And so the ConDems want to privatise Royal Mail.

As our Conference recently decided - Royal Mail is (still!) not for sale.

It’s Not What You Know

The CWU touches every address in the UK.  Do you know someone who has a CWU link?  If you do -  email me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).  Here is my start:

1. Mal Evans, the Beatles Road Manager was a Post Office Engineer from Liverpool
2. Lord Adonis is the son of Nick Adonis, former CWU rep at Hampstead in London.

___________

Book

WELL RED

The Spirit Level

Why Equality is Better for Everyone
Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett

• Who do we mistrust people more in the UK than the Japanese do? Why do Americans have higher rates of teenage pregnancy than the French?  What makes the Swedish thinner than the Australians?  The answer in each case: inequality.  -  Societies with a bigger gap between rich and poor are bad for everyone in them including the well-off.

Available from Bookmarks http://www.bookmarks.uk.com

QUOTE

” A sad soul can kill you quicker than a germ”

John Steinbeck,Travels With Charley

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

My once-in-a-generation cut? The armed forces. All of them

Interesting read… Simon Jenkin’s article in the Guardian last week.

We are safer than at any time since the Norman conquest. Yet £45bn is spent defending Britain against fantasy enemies

I say cut defence. I don’t mean nibble at it or slice it. I mean cut it, all £45bn of it. George Osborne yesterday asked the nation “for once in a generation” to think the unthinkable, to offer not just percentage cuts but “whether government needs to provide certain public services at all”.

What do we really get from the army, the navy and the air force beyond soldiers dying in distant wars and a tingle when the band marches by? Is the tingle worth £45bn, more than the total spent on schools? Why does Osborne “ringfence” defence when everyone knows its budget is a bankruptcy waiting to happen, when Labour ministers bought the wrong kit for wars that they insisted it fight?

Osborne cannot believe the armed forces are so vital or so efficient as to be excused the star chamber’s “fundamental re-evaluation of their role”. He knows their management and procurement have long been an insult to the taxpayer. The reason for his timidity must be that, like David Cameron, he is a young man scared of old generals.

I was content to be expensively defended against the threat of global communism. With the end of the cold war in the 1990s that threat vanished. In its place was a fantasy proposition, that some unspecified but potent “enemy” lurked in the seas and skies around Britain. Where is it?

Each incoming government since 1990 has held so-called defence reviews “to match capabilities to policy objectives”. I helped with one in 1997, and it was rubbish from start to finish, a cosmetic attempt to justify the colossal procurements then in train, and in such a way that any cut would present Labour as “soft” on defence.

Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and George Robertson, the then defence secretary were terrified into submission. They agreed to a parody of generals fighting the last war but one. They bought new destroyers to defeat the U-boat menace. They bought new carriers to save the British empire. They bought Eurofighters to duel with Russian air aces. Trident submarines with nuclear warheads went on cruising the deep, deterring no one, just so Blair could walk tall at conferences.

Each weekend, the tranquillity of the Welsh countryside is shattered by inane jets screaming through the mountain valleys playing at Lord of the Rings. With modern bombs, no plane need fly that low, and the jets are said to burn more fuel in half an hour than a school in a year. Any other service wasting so much money would be laughed out of court. Yet the Treasury grovels before the exotic virility of it all.

Labour lacked the guts to admit that it was crazy to plan for another Falklands war. It dared not admit that the procurement executive was fit for nothing but appeasing weapons manufacturers. No armies were massing on the continent poised to attack. No navies were plotting to throttle our islands and starve us into submission. No missiles were fizzing in bunkers across Asia with Birmingham or Leeds in their sights. As for the colonies, if it costs £45bn to protect the Falklands, Gibraltar and the Caymans, it must be the most ridiculous empire in history. It would be cheaper to give each colony independence and a billion a year.

Lobbyists reply that all defence expenditure is precautionary. You cannot predict every threat and it takes time to rearm should one emerge. That argument might have held during the cold war and, strictly up to a point, today. But at the present scale it is wholly implausible.

All spending on insurance – be it on health or the police or environmental protection – requires some assessment of risk. Otherwise spending is open-ended. After the cold war there was much talk of a peace dividend and the defence industry went into intellectual overdrive. It conjured up a new “war” jargon, as in the war on drugs, on terror, on piracy, on genocide. The navy was needed to fight drug gangs in the Caribbean, pirates off Somalia and gun-runners in the Persian Gulf. In all such “wars” performance has been dire, because each threat was defined to justify service expenditure rather than the other way round.

Whenever I ask a defence pundit against whom he is defending me, the answer is a wink and a smile: “You never know.” The world is a messy place. Better safe than sorry. It is like demanding crash barriers along every pavement in case cars go out of control, or examining school children for diseases every day. You never know. The truth is, we are now spending £45bn on heebie-jeebies.

For the past 20 years, Britain’s armed forces have encouraged foreign policy into one war after another, none of them remotely to do with the nation’s security. Asked why he was standing in an Afghan desert earlier this year, Brown had to claim absurdly that he was “making London’s streets safer”. Some wars, as in Iraq, have been a sickening waste of money and young lives. Others in Kosovo and Afghanistan honour a Nato commitment that had nothing to do with collective security. Like many armies in history, Nato has become an alliance in search of a purpose. Coalition ministers are citing Canada as a shining example of how to cut. Canada is wasting no more money in Afghanistan.

Despite Blair’s politics of fear, Britain entered the 21st century safer than at any time since the Norman conquest. I am defended already, by the police, the security services and a myriad regulators and inspectors. Defence spending does not add to this. It is like winning the Olympics – a magnificent, extravagant national boast, so embedded in the British psyche that politicians (and newspapers) dare not question it. Yet Osborne asked that every public service should “once in a generation” go back to basics and ask what it really delivers for its money. Why not defence?

There are many evils that threaten the British people at present, but I cannot think of one that absolutely demands £45bn to deter it. Soldiers, sailors and air crews are no protection against terrorists, who anyway are not that much of a threat. No country is an aggressor against the British state. No country would attack us were the government to put its troops into reserve and mothball its ships, tanks and planes. Let us get real.

I am all for being defended, but at the present price I am entitled to ask against whom and how. Of all the public services that should justify themselves from ground zero, defence is the first.

Simon Jenkins
Guardian
09 June 2010

Friday, June 04, 2010

SPEECH: RUTGERS RECEPTION, PORVOO, FINLAND.

Please find following my speech to Rutgers Reception, Porvoo, Finland.

Firstly I want to thank Rutgers for organising this event.

As well as the more formal sessions of the conference, it is good that we can discuss matters in this more informal setting.

I think the conference offers a platform to a wide range of views and pre-occupations about the future of the postal industry.

For our part, the CWU has been greatly encouraged by the contribution of our comrades from the United States and Canadian unions have made to this conference in recent years.

Indeed we have got so much from them, that they have now gifted Moya Greene from the Canadian Postal Service to the CEO position in Royal Mail.

I won’t pretend that all features of conference are important to us.

Those papers delivered with more abstract mathematical calculation than words tend to be overlooked by us.

Not that we are averse to statistics or calculation.  You can’t bargain without them.

But some of the econometric papers can only be comprehensible to handfuls of people on this planet.  Most of whom seem to come to this conference.

For the unions, I think Rutgers offers a sobering and challenging prospect. –

Is our understanding of the industry broad enough?  -

Can we defend our policies at the highest level of debate with specialists who are often unsympathetic to our organisation?

These are the thoughts we pack with our passports to come here.

In truth, we come to these events with some confidence.  Confident about the future of our industry, and the future of our organisations.

We are confident about the future of our industry because it remains essential to the modern economy.

In every developed economy, the postal sector is undergoing restructuring and assimilating ever new generations of technology.

Despite the multiplications of new forms of information technology in communications, there is no evidence that the postal sector will be redundant in the foreseeable future.

Someone may be working on a teleporter machine – so beloved in science fiction.  Lacking that, physical processing, distribution and delivery of mail will remain a thriving sector.

Of course, I am aware of the debate about substitution. 

But mail has a unique physical character. It is not just communications. it is often vendable goods, i.e. saleable commodities.

This economic character means that we will be having conference on the future of mail in many years to come.

There is an important debate about the future ratio of letter traffic in mail.

In some respects I think the world recession is masking this debate. 

Last year, letter traffic in the UK dropped around 8%.

Very bad for the industry, and surely conclusive of the historic decline of the letter. 

Yet considering the whole of the economy in the UK dropped by 5%, I think the letter may still be breathing.

I would guess this pattern exists in most economies.  Letters are registering a decline, but the whole economy is negative too.

How far there is an actual restructuring of mail away from letters, will surely not become clear until the major economies begin an expansionary wave again.

Anybody here offering when that may be?

If governments insist on slicing government spending, it may be further away than many believe. 

A double dip may well be prompted, as in the Great Depression.

This preoccupation with public sector deficit is very short sighted. 

Yesterday we learned that the new cuts proposed by the new Coalition Government in the UK will result in the loss of £3.5 billion to private construction companies.

This is a sector where private investment fell by 29% last year. 

A retreat in public investment will not necessarily be replaced by an increase in private investment.

It may well in fact lead to a higher deficit, as tax revenues fall further.

Things are not entirely clear.  But, in the face of the recession, a number of Governments are actually reassessing the capacity of private markets to provide a postal service.

The Governments in Belgium, France and Japan all seem to be accepting that state ownership of a universal provider service has definite benefits for society as a whole.

The UK Government may be proving to be an exception on this. The new Coalition Government made clear its intention to privatise Royal Mail.  I won’t go into details. Just to say this isn’t the freshest idea in their arsenal.

In 1994/95 the Conservative Government, under John Major, attempted to privatise Royal Mail.  We campaigned against it, and they were forced to drop the Bill.

Between 2004 and 2007, the Labour Government, under Tony Blair, was systematically lobbied by Royal Mail management for privatisation.  We campaigned against it, and the cabinet finally turned down managements’ proposals.

Last year, the Labour Government, under Gordon Brown, brought forward a Bill to privatise Royal Mail.  We campaigned against it, and the Government eventually allowed the Bill to fall.

Now, someone in the Coalition is obviously persuaded of the idea “fourth time lucky”.  We will, of course, campaign against the latest proposals. 

Will we be successful?  Well to quote Terminator 2 – “there is no fate but that we make.”

So we will pull the alliances together that we can to try and persuade the Government otherwise.

We would rather be discussing with Government how best to develop the services and products of the industry at the same time as improving terms and conditions for postal workers.  But that’s not in our gift.

But it does seem symptomatic that the markets find it increasingly difficult – to provide a universal service over a large, demographically diverse geography.

In the CWU, we are preparing some material on the long term future of our union.

One of our aims in this is to get a clearer map of the communications sector, both in terms of telecommunications and in the postal industry.

Some interesting results and material have been obtained so far.

For example, when we merged the two old Unions to form the CWU in 1995, there were 430,000 people working in telecommunications and the post. 

In 2009, after the introduction of a mass of new information technology and innovative machinery, these industries employed 426,000 people.

Over 14 years of widespread change and innovation, yet the workforce total remained as good as stationary.  Obviously there was a massive increase in capital deployed per worker, and in effective productivity.

But what this demonstrates again is that the industry is not in decline.

Instead, if you analyse the variations over years, and over a longer period again, say the past 30 years, you see a very regular pattern.

Turnover increases leading to additional staff being hired.  Demand continues to be high, justifying the investment of further constant capital.

The new constant, or fixed, capital reduces the number of staff hours required for the expanded service.  There is a reduction in staff, but with a consolidated productivity gain.

The broader economy slows down, and turnover diminishes.  There is a retrenchment, until the economy grows again when the cycle is repeated.

So, to speak in a partisan manner, the union must take advantage of our better bargaining position in the expansionary period, in order to sustain our members in the slower periods.

I think we get a positive response from our member in this.

There are around 2½ million unionised postal workers affiliated to Unions Network International.

This doesn’t include some very important sections of the postal workforce, notably in China, but also we only represent a small section of Indian workers.

These latter two economies are growing very fast, and probably saving the world economy from a position comparable to the 1930s.

But insofar as the Unions adapt to changes and secure their members a positive share of the national income, then we can survive and flourish.

I am aware, that in many countries, including the US and UK, we have seen a long term and unfavourable shift in the proportion of national income going to workers.

In the UK, wages as a proportion of national income declined from around 65% in 1975, to 54% in 2008. 

In the United States, wages declined from 56.4% in 1975 to 51.6% in 2006.

Such a decline creates substantial inequality and deprivation.

We would argue that such a shift is only possible because of a weakening of the Trade Unions over this period.

The Trade Union mark-up remains a substantial force, even in times of reduced Union influence.  Recent estimates indicate a mark-up of around 15% for unionised workers in the UK.

We don’t apologise for this.  Why should trade unions, and workers, be expected to be the only agents in the market who do not constantly seek to improve their position?

To put it another way, the trade unions remain a proven vehicle for raising living standards.  This is both through direct bargaining, and though lobbying for protective legislation.

I hope this isn’t causing anyone here indigestion.

I am not aiming to be provocative.  But what is serious talk of economics, sociology and politics without the sauce of controversy?

So for Trade Unions, the future of the postal industry will mean a continuation of the things we traditionally dealt with, but with constant adaptions to changes in the industry and changes in the composition of the workforce.

Perhaps by the time we meet next year, we will have a document in front of you which makes this more explicit.

Thanks for listening.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

SPEECH: CWU CONFERENCE - AFTER THE ELECTION - THE FUTURE FOR LABOUR

Please find following my speech at the CWU conference’s Labour Representation Committee.

After the Election -  The future for Labour

After the election it is immediately clear that Labour is the effective opposition to the Coalition Government.

The 14,000 people who have joined the Party the election is proof of this.

This move back to Labour is likely to continue -  with the impact of the 6 billion cuts, and the emergency budget that Osborne is preparing.

So the first thing for the Party is to welcome this development, and oppose the cuts.

Clearly the negative features of Labour’s period in Government will haunt us for quite some time yet.

It is particularly true of the commitment to halve the deficit in 4 years -  and Darling’s statement about the cuts being worse than under Thatcher.

But, we mustn’t fold under such obvious contradictions   -  fighting the cuts is going to be an essential task for rallying the opposition to the Coalition around Labour.

Of course, the Labour leadership election is a perfect opportunity to settle accounts with the mistakes of past 13 years.

I am glad that Ed Miliband and Ed Balls have raised the issue of the Iraq War.  That reposes the debate on Labour’s foreign policy.

It also does a service to the more consistent opponents of Government policy -  like John and Diane Abbott, along with a majority of the trade union movement.

We want such questioning to be extended across the whole field of Labour’s policy -  domestic and international.

The leadership debate should be an excellent opportunity to discuss what went right, what went wrong, and what we would do differently in future.

Of course, for this to happen the debate has to be extensive and represent all trends of opinion in the Party.

Yesterday, when you carried E5, you gave the leadership of the Union the ability to press for all candidates to be included in the actual election.

As I said in my speech to Conference, this is particularly important in the case of John and Diane – who have been effective critics of the Government policy for a long time.

Obviously, we will need to convey your policy to the Party and MPs in some manner within the next day or two.

I must say that the Union has not just developed this criticism of the restricted rules for nomination.

In 2008, the CWU delegation to Labour Party Conference supported a constituency motion from Calder Valley CLP, and others, calling for the nomination process to be lowered from 12.5%  of MPs to 7.5%.

At that conference we were the only trade union to vote for the motion -  unfortunately.

It could well be that there is a greater preparedness within the trade unions to look at such reforms in future.

For example, last year at annual conference, the Unions swung behind a proposal to allow for one member one vote for constituency representatives to the National Policy Forum.

This was an important development because it removed the control of the NPF delegates from the hands of regional apparatus and gave it back to CLP members.

So, elections will take place to the NPF at the same time and I hope all comrades will take part through their appropriate constituency organisations.

Overall, I do think there will be a renewed attention and interest to membership democracy in the Party.

Certainly we must support efforts to ensure that there is a greater involvement of members and the unions than under the Party Into Power process.

Indeed with the Party in opposition, there is an obvious need to re-examine of these structures.

We will be liaising directly with Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, Grassroots Alliance and all those interested in strengthening involvement of the mass of Party Members, and the trade unions.