FOURTH DAY: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16



FOURTH DAY: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16

MORNING SESSION

Congress re-assembled at 9.30 a.m.

The President: Delegates, I call Congress to order. Good morning. Before I begin the proceedings, can I again thank the NKS Jazz Quartet for playing us into this final morning of Congress. (Applause)

Delegates, we have been joined on the platform this morning by Baroness Jay, Leader of the House of Lords and Minister for Women. Baroness Jay will be addressing us shortly. I want you to give her a very warm welcome. (Applause)

I now want to explain how I intend to take the business today, but before doing so I want to ask the Chair of the General Purposes Committee to report to you.

General Purposes Committee Report

Mr John Cogger (Chair, General Purposes Committee): Comrades - thank you. Somebody said they will speak to me. I am hoping people will speak to me after what I have had to say. Unfortunately it is not good news.

Last night the President asked the General Purposes Committee to advise on speaking times, given the considerable volume of business that has not been taken from the scheduled programme. There is no doubt that a significant problem has arisen with many speakers not observing the limits set. The GPC has looked carefully at the outstanding business. There is a full programme already scheduled for this morning, including important equality debates. We also, however, have hanging over us from earlier in the week five motions and three composites. These include very important debates on the National Health Service, Transport and Energy.

To enable all the business to be completed, we have accordingly advised the President that an immediate cut in speaking time is necessary if Congress is to give equal treatment to all these debates that remain to be taken. We are accordingly recommending, President, that the speaking times for movers of motions should be cut from five to three minutes, and for seconders and other speakers from three to two minutes.

In addition, we recommend that union co-operation should be sought with the formal seconding of motions wherever possible and to request unions with supporting speaking rights on composites to consider waiving those. The GPC will also be advising the President to consider shortening the lunch break today and you will be kept informed after 11.30, after we have seen how the speaking times are going this morning.

I will also give you this assurance from the General Purposes Committee that we will be looking next year - and thank you very much for electing us again - at the time given to guest speakers because one of the problems that has arisen is, apart from certain general secretaries going very much over their time, most of the guest speakers have taken up more time than was allocated to them. Thank you Congress.

The President: Thank you John, and I want to thank the General Purposes Committee for that report. In the light of their recommendations to me, I am sorry about this but there is no alternative than that I propose to you that the Standing Orders should be suspended and that speaking times be cut as has been recommended to me by the General Purposes Committee. Is that agreed?

* The General Purposes Committee Report was ADOPTED.

The President: Thank you very much and you will also, I hope, manage to take note of the recommendation that, where at all possible, motions be formally seconded and that, if there is no contention in the debate, speaking rights be waived, and I am looking forward very much to your co-operation on that this morning.

We will begin the business scheduled in the programme for this morning with two exceptions. First, I intend holding over until this afternoon the debate on Composite Motion 5. The General Council has agreed a statement on the issues raised in that composite and that statement will be circulated to delegates later this morning and I will then take the debate as the first item of business this afternoon.

Secondly, I intend to take Clare Short's contribution at around 12.20 p.m. at whatever point in the business we have reached by then. After we have completed this morning's scheduled business, I will then move to take the outstanding business, first that from Monday, then Tuesday, then Wednesday, in the order in which the business appeared in the programme. So I hope that is clear to delegations.

Youth Check

The President: Colleagues, we begin this morning's proceedings with our final Youth Check, with three of our young visitors or delegates, and can we again give a warm welcome to Tony Robinson who is going to facilitate this session with the young people. Thank you very much, Tony. (Applause)

Mr Tony Robinson (British Actors Equity Association): We will keep our contribution this morning short as well, President. We have got Paul Dickens from UNISON, Adam Knight from Equity, Jamie Kerfoot from CWU and Andy Charlwood from MSF.

Adam, you have never been to a Conference before, have you?

Mr Adam Knight (British Actors Equity Association): No.

Mr Robinson: You were not a trade union activist or organiser before. What did you like best about Conference?

Mr Knight: I think what was most exciting about Conference was to see unions that are not necessarily affiliated to each other backing up each other's motions, particularly Colin Tarrant's motion about lobbying the Government to keep drama a key component of the national curriculum, and it was exciting to see a union like the NUT stand up and fight passionately about that and to see other unions doing the same for each other was really exciting.

Mr Robinson: Paul, what was your best moment?

Mr Paul Dickens (UNISON): I think it was probably the organising activity that we actually did on Sunday when we actually went out onto Brighton beach. A lot of young people went out there and it was just to get people interested and let them know that trade unions do exist, what they are there for and that they have got new employment rights.

Mr Robinson: Did you get any stick?

Mr Dickens: We got a bit of stick but then that is to be expected.

Mr Robinson: Jamie, what was your best moment?

Ms Jamie Kerfoot (Communication Workers Union): It had to be when my General Secretary spoke about the Post Office. It is very important to me. I am a counter clerk and obviously our Crown offices are under threat. It was great because it was carried unanimously and we need the support from all the unions here and the TUC to help us to fight for our jobs.

Mr Robinson: The best moment, Andy?

Mr Charlwood (Manufacturing Science Finance): I will keep it short. It is probably all the free drinks at the receptions. (Laughter)

Mr Robinson: What was your worst moment?

Mr Charnwood: Probably the hangovers which followed but, seriously, I was quite disappointed when we were out doing the organising and recruitment work in Brighton: we invited everybody who was a delegate at Congress to come out with the other young people and it was only the young people who went out and did it, and I was quite disappointed by that.

Mr Robinson: What was your worst moment, Paul?

Mr Dickens: I think it was probably going to some of the meetings with a lot of grey-haired, grey-suited old men who have done a lot of lip-service with young people's issues. (Applause)

Mr Robinson: How do you feel about that Adam, you were clapping?

Mr Knight: I agree. I think one of the most demoralising things I saw was to see the hall and the gallery packed out for Tony Blair's speech and the minute he left the hall emptied again, people went back to their papers and ignored the speaker who was speaking afterwards. I thought that was a real shame. (Applause)

Mr Robinson: Jamie, how can we make Conference more interesting for young people?

Ms Kerfoot: I think we need to be able to get up on the rostrum and say what we think, not just be visitors. I think this is great what we are doing now, but we need to actually say what we think and for people to vote on what we want as well.

(Applause)

Mr Robinson: Andy, people have been banging on at this Conference all week about youth. I think the word "youth" has been used even more than the word "partnership", and probably with as little conviction. Andy, what do you think we can do to make sure that more young people attend Conference?

Mr Charlwood: I think the whole way we do Conference needs to be re-thought. I was quite surprised, basically everything seemed to have been decided by Sunday night. The composites and everything had been put together, everybody had decided that they were going to support everybody else's motions, apart from the Bakers and the Miners. (Laughter) We had all decided that was the way we were going to vote in our delegation meetings. Everybody has been standing up making speeches all week, but we had already decided we were going to vote for them, so we were talking at each other, we were not really talking to each other and it just seemed like a real wasted opportunity. Given that we had all these people from different unions who must have a lot of the same experiences and we could share and learn from that, that was not what we were doing at all, we were just talking at each other and I thought that was quite sad. (Applause)

Mr Robinson: Paul, do you think that the trade union Movement will change fast enough to be able to attract young people?

Mr Dickens: I think the trade union Movement has got to move fast enough to actually catch up. We had a conference last night for young people and it was interesting to see that of the people who are sat on the platform who are telling us that young people's issues are actually important, there was only one of them actually took the time to turn up to it.

Mr Robinson: How many youth delegates and observers were here this year?

Mr Dickens: Out of the whole Congress there were only about 25 people.

Mr Robinson: How many unions were invited to send youth observers or youth delegates?

Mr Dickens: Every single union was entitled to send young people but unfortunately they feel it is not that important.

Mr Robinson: Jamie, would you come again next year?

Ms Kerfoot: Yes, but I want to be up on the rostrum saying what I think, and not just sitting here being looked at. (Applause)

Mr Robinson: I think that is a pretty good note to end on. Thank you very much everybody. (Applause)

The President: Thank you very much, delegates. I think you will agree that the Youth Check has added a fresh dimension to Congress and I just want to repeat something I said in one of the Youth Checks earlier this week, what the old English teacher had said to me, and that was "Listen, mark and inwardly digest", and I think if we ignore what the young people are saying, we do so at our peril.

So thanks again to Tony, thanks to Paul, Adam, Jamie and Andy, and to all the other young visitors and delegates who have participated over the week. Thank you very much indeed. (Applause)

Address by Rt Hon Baroness Jay, Leader of the House of Lords and Minister for Women

The President: Congress, it now gives me great pleasure to introduce you to the Rt Hon Baroness Jay of Paddington. In her role as Leader of the House of Lords, Margaret Jay has been one of the great successes of the Blair Government. In particular, she has gained the respect of all sides of the chamber for her expert handling of the constitutional reform process and, as Minister for Women, Margaret has made a real impact, steadily advocating the interests of women with her Ministerial colleagues across all Government Departments. I know that she places great emphasis on maintaining a constructive relationship with the women's structures of the trade union Movement and with trade unionists generally. So, Margaret, we are extremely pleased to have you with us here today and may I now invite you to address Congress. (Applause)

Rt Hon Baroness Jay (Leader of the House of Lords and Minister for Women): Thank you very much indeed for that warm welcome and to Congress for inviting me here to speak this morning. I am very conscious of the fact that I am the first Minister for Women to have been invited to speak from this honoured platform. Of course, being the Minister for Women is in itself a new appointment, part of the New Labour Government's modernisation of government and, as Hector said in his introduction, I am also the first Leader of the House of Lords to address you and so those are two 'firsts'.

I have to say that I would not describe the House of Lords as a centre of modernisation, although that itself is changing and it is changing not least because we are being joined by new colleagues, and I am particularly glad at this point to acknowledge the fact that David Lea and Hector himself are joining us and I am sure they will make a very substantial contribution to the new second chamber that this Government is determined to change for the better in Parliament.

It is a very important overdue reform that the Labour Government will be carrying out to get rid of the hereditary Peers, to get them out of Parliament, to make sure that, even by Christmas, the automatic right of a person who inherits a seat in Parliament by virtue of the fact that his father, grandfather, or more likely someone back in the mediaeval mists of time was a Peer, ceases to have a say in the policies which affect all of us in our everyday life.

I think the other thing we must remember is it is not only getting rid of that privilege, of that birthright, but it is also getting rid of a very solid, energetic, and particularly energetic, group of Tory voters because, make no mistake about it, the hereditary Lords are and always have been Tories. They are 99% white and out of a total of 750 of them, there are only 17 women. I think it is time that we said "Goodbye" to them, and we certainly intend to do so, but the fact that there are only 17 out of 750 of the House of Lords hereditary peerage who are women certainly gives me more energy to take on the tasks that I do as Minister for Women. It makes it even more important and gives me even more enthusiasm for making sure that life is better for all the women of this country.

This morning, mindful of what has been said about the time limits, I do want to set out for you what it is that I and Tessa Jowell, who is the other Minister for Women as well as being the Minister for Public Health, have been trying to do in the last year. Of course, it goes without saying that women do benefit from every improvement that the Government is making, whether it is economic stability, enhanced rights at work, improved public services - all of those bring a benefit to women. But there is always more that we can do as Ministers who are specially committed to women's issues and women's rights and Tessa and I are very conscious of that responsibility.

We have just carried out the first ever Government organised 'Listening to Women' campaign. Tens of thousands of women have participated in that from all over the UK. We have held road shows in every region of England as well as Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland. 28,000 women took advantage of a follow-up postcard campaign to communicate directly with us by sending in their ideas. We have also, as many of you will know because we have talked with you, spoken directly with women's union groups and we hope to follow that up and I have been discussing that this morning with the Women's Committee with a special 'Listening to Women' forum meeting the trades unions together.

It has been the biggest ever consultation with women. We have had a genuine dialogue but now there is an opportunity which we want to focus on and build on this autumn to shape policies and action together coming out of that listening exercise. So next month, at the beginning of October, we will publish our report Listening to Women but it is not going to be just an account of what we have heard; it is going to be a programme of action for Government Departments right across Whitehall to take on board right across the whole field of their activity.

It will come, I am sure, as no surprise to you that time after time the issue that has come out top of women's concerns is balancing work with home life. Women do want to work but they also want to know that their kids are safe. They want to have independence but they want to be there for and with their families. I think it is true to say, certainly the research shows it, that most of the women who work today go to work not just because they have to but because they probably want to. At the same time, they remain the prime carers in the overwhelming majority of families. It remains true that women still do most of the domestic work. I have to say I was quite surprised to find that they do five times as much as men!

So women have to balance working in the home with working outside the home and that is our challenge. It is a challenge to take actions that allow women to choose to do both and to make that balancing act more easy for them to manage. Most of all, we are told by all these women that we have spoken with that they want personal choice. They do not want to be told by anyone how they should organise their lives and they recognise that everybody who is in a position of authority, whether it is the Government, the unions, or employers, cannot sort out all the issues of choice that face them. But it is our responsibility, our collective responsibility I think, to make sure that the choices which are made are supported. That is the reality for the women who talk to us, to be able to have a job but also to be a good mum, a grandma, a carer or a home-maker.

The Government, as you know, has already done quite a lot that will impact directly on women's lives and on their choices in these kinds of fields and I do not want to repeat to you some of the things which have already been said earlier in the week by Tony Blair and by Steve Byers, but just to point out some of those which have special impact on these women's choices - improved rights at work, leadership on family friendly employment, a national minimum wage, massive investment in child care which is going to produce an expected million new places, training and education support for returners to work, record increases in child benefit, as well of course as the working families tax credit. All of these support real choice.

As Ministers for Women, Tessa and I have initiated a special gender-oriented family friendly project and could I just take a minute to say that I think we need to find a new way of describing what we are talking about when we talk about "family friendly" because it has a slightly different interpretation, I think, for many people. For some people family friendly working practice has almost a threatening tone to it. Maybe "work/home balance" is a better phrase but I think all of us need to think about the language that we use in this area and work/home balance may more accurately cover more situations.

But I think all of us, however we describe it, agree that what we are looking for in this area are practical solutions to practical problems and concrete ideas. So that is why, in our special women's project, we have brought together the Health Service and the retail sector, both of them employers of large numbers of women with caring responsibilities, both of them operating in a 24-hour economy. Together they are sharing expertise and experience and that is providing a helpful model for changing work practices. We are soon going to produce a practical guide involving model contracts on things like roster setting, for example, which could be applied to many types of occupation and job.

Of course, I realise that this is an area which you all have prioritised for collective action and I am very well aware of the great advances that have already been made in extending policies through the trade union Movement on work/home balance which have already benefited thousands of women and, of course, men too. But I think there are opportunities for further practical working together in this field.

The most important area of work, the most significant burden of the work that the Women's Unit is doing at the moment, is an extensive new investigation of women's incomes over their lifetime. We want to pinpoint the vulnerable moments in women's lives, when they are most likely to suffer a drop in income and the times when they may need additional support.

Already the early research in this area has shown that lower pay just goes with the territory, it goes with being a woman. It does not matter how skilled the woman is or what her family circumstances are, women in this country still earn only about 80% as much as their male counterparts. So that means there is a cost to being female. It is not just, as has often been suggested in the past, the cost of being a mother, but job segregation and discrimination still combine to provide what we call a "female forfeit", and I do not need to tell this audience that that pay gap continues through life. But most shocking really, I think, is the fact that when you consider how well many girls are doing at school and what their theoretical opportunities are now when they leave school, the pay gap opens up by the time they are 20.

We need to take action to ensure that the Equal Pay Act is an effective tool to fight discrimination. Again I am aware that unions have been at the forefront of every landmark case that has been taken under the Equal Pay Act and you have constantly pushed at the boundaries of interpretation and many thousands of women have got their just desserts because of the activities of their union. But the complexity of the Equal Pay Act and the cumbersome nature of the mechanisms for tribunals has often defeated the object of one part of the exercise - to enable an individual, a lay person, to successfully prosecute a case - and too often cases have taken far too long to settle. Perhaps the most notorious that I had personal experience of was the speech therapist, Professor Pam Enderby, which took 12 years to settle and I was very pleased that one of my first tasks as Health Minister, when I was appointed in 1997, was to sit down with MSF and try to get that sorted out.

The Government does not think that this is a time totally to re-write that law and this may be an area where we will agree to disagree on the extent of the revision, but we are keen to make changes in the legislation that will assist both equal pay and equal value cases. We want to alter the system so that cases are easier to assess and, in doing so, that will speed up the system itself. I know David Blunkett intends to start a consultation on these changes and to make them when Parliamentary time becomes available.

But, as you are all very well aware, equal pay can be obtained without legal action and your victories with employers, particularly in the public sector, are a very clear demonstration of that. From the Government's viewpoint, we think it is important now to work more energetically with the Equal Opportunities Commission and with private and public sector employers, as well as with all of you, to make sure that the EOC 1997 Code of Practice is more vigorously implemented. This code needs to be given a new life and a new profile so that employers recognise that there is a business case for equal pay which falls in with their concerns about competitiveness and productivity.

I, of course, think that the Government's whole economic and training agenda should in itself reduce pay inequality. Measures such as the minimum wage and working families tax credit must boost women's incomes but we need to take it further, and we intend to promote self-employment opportunities, to work with the finance sector to ensure there is plenty of female friendly financial advice, to make sure that young women receive better careers advice before they leave school and that later on retraining is available as a practical possibility, and of course we need to tackle head on the issue of job segregation and start to build recognition and rewards for those parts of the labour market which are female dominated.

Another very significant issue which we need to tackle head on and which we are doing at the moment is the issue of violence against women, and here, in the Government, the Women's Ministers and the Women's Unit have taken a lead. In June we published Living Without Fear, which was the first ever Government document on this very difficult subject. It set out strategies to tackle violent crimes against women wherever they occur. It is simply unacceptable that in our country today women are at risk of violence, not only on the streets but also in their own homes and at work. I think one of the many shocking statistics in this area is that 1-in-5 women workers is subject to physical or verbal attack at work and that that rises to 1-in-3 when you are talking about the nursing profession. Here we have an occupation, nursing, which is held in extremely high public esteem and yet the people who work there are subject to daily abuse. This cannot go on being accepted, brushed under the carpet, ignored. Again I know this is an issue that you have campaigned on and that is good work which we must continue and build on together.

Can I just emphasise that listening to, and addressing, the needs of women, whether it is about pay, violence, the work/home balance, isn't an add-on for Government policy. It isn't an area for special pleading, for ghetto politics. We do not have two Women's Ministers and a Women's Unit so that we can pay lip- service to 51% of the population. We don't have 26 women Ministers working in all Government Departments right across all the policy issues for the sake of symbolic tokenism.

There are many clear economic benefits to supporting women in the labour market. Women have a great deal to offer: they bring diversity, they bring loyalty, they bring energy to their workplaces and these can only add to our general competitiveness and productivity. Society loses out and the economy loses out if women are denied the opportunity to reach their full potential. It is a challenge for Government to support that potential but it is also a challenge for all of you because change needs to happen right across the economy.

I am very well aware that the trade union Movement has a very proud record in extending the rights of women and, therefore, their choice. Workplaces that have union recognition are already, on the whole, those with better rates of pay and better policies that mean choosing to work does not mean losing out financially or abandoning your family. But that good practice needs to change, it needs to be extended as the knowledge-led economy, which Tony Blair spoke about on Tuesday, spreads, because that will spread new methods of working, new types of jobs which will need the same kind of protection and energy to sustain the developments that women need.

Unions have long recognised and campaigned for things that benefit women and I am glad that we can face this continuing and expanding challenge together. I believe that it remains as true today as it always has done, that a good place for a woman to be is in her union. Fairness, opportunity, prosperity for all - those are joint aims that we share and I look forward very much to continuing to listen, to hearing and working with you on all of these issues in the future. Thank you very much. (Applause)

The President: Thank you very much indeed, Margaret, for that address and for all the very important work you are doing in a very important area. We obviously look forward to continuing to work with you in that. So thank you again.

Equal Rights

Ms Rita Donaghy (General Council) leading in on Chapter 4 of the General Council's Report said: President, in your address on Monday you highlighted the TUC's work on equal rights and I would like to join all those who paid tribute to your role in pushing equal rights up the TUC agenda. Congress, equality is, indeed, firmly on the TUC's A list of priority issues. You only have to look at the way the equality structures have blossomed, the range of work carried out, the achievements that we can be proud of. I think we can start by acknowledging how far we have come but, as our agenda suggests, we cannot stand still. There is still a long way to go within our own unions and in our workplaces.

The Government can help us. We have a Government that believes in equality and I think we need to recognise what they have achieved in a short space of time and applaud them. We have the Women's Unit in the Cabinet Office, we have two Women's Ministers including one in the Cabinet and I am delighted, Margaret, that you are with us this morning and want to thank you very much indeed for your address.

We have the national childcare strategy and the childcare tax credit - more support for families, higher child benefit. We have the Government's commitment to act on the Stephen Lawrence report. There is the New Deal for disabled people and the new Disability Rights Commission will soon be up and running. The DfEE is going to produce guidance for employers on family friendly employment and a code on lesbian and gay rights. The TUC welcomes these moves, but we are also clear about the next steps. The motion before you on sex equality neatly illustrates the point.

The General Council supports all the motions on sex equality, equality legislation and parental rights. These motions have something in common: they each recognise the progressive steps the Government has taken. But the motions also set out other steps the Government could take and they point out where the Government has not quite got it right. For instance, the Government has not gone far enough on the equality legislation. They responded positively to bits of the recommendations from the EOC and the CRE. Those proposals, which the TUC supported, arose out of more than 20 years' experience of using discrimination law. That law is creaking and it needs more thorough reform than the Government intends. We in the trade union Movement know what we are talking about here. We use these laws every day on behalf of our members, whether we are taking cases or using the legislation as background to negotiation. We know the problems with the law and we have suggested solutions. It is no good just tinkering around at the edge; we need up-to-date laws that promote equal treatment and help us to wipe out discrimination.

While I am on the subject of equality legislation, let me draw your attention, Congress, to the new TUC campaign for legislation to protect lesbians and gay men against discrimination. It is scandalous that at the end of the 20th century it is still lawful to discriminate against someone, to dismiss someone, simply on the basis of their sexuality. (Applause) A TUC survey this year of lesbian and gay trade unionists showed that 43% had suffered problems at work because of their sexuality. That is appalling and it is totally and completely unacceptable. As I have said, we welcome the Government's intention to produce a code of practice, it is better than nothing, but we know from experience that voluntary codes are useless in changing the behaviour of bad employers.

Let me now turn to parental leave. Trade unionists warmly welcome the new rights in the Employment Relations Act - better maternity leave, time off to deal with emergencies involving dependants, in particular three months' parental leave, but we have got to get the detail right. There is a danger that we could end up with a parental leave scheme that few parents can use. This is not what the Government wants, but an unpaid, inflexible scheme will be useless. There must be flexibility built into parental leave and let me say this: restricting parental leave to children born after 15 December this year is not the right interpretation of the Parental Leave Directive. It is not too late for the Government to change its mind on this and again our agenda this morning spells it out.

Congress, the theme of the week is "Partners at work". Equal opportunities at work is a fertile area for the partnership approach. The best employers know this. Across the country they are reaching agreements with unions that promote equal opportunities and improve on basic legal rights. We have got union/employer partnerships, for example, completely revising equal opportunities policies in the National Health Service. In local government, our pilot project in Bristol shows that by working together employers and unions can achieve flexible working that benefits everyone: the council can deliver services when consumers want them, the workers can get more control over their work patterns. This is what we have to build on in the coming year - a solid floor of basic employment rights, the foundation that partnerships can build on. That is the challenge for all of us.

President, it gives me pleasure to introduce the Equal Rights Section of the Congress agenda. Thank you.

Mr Brian Hibdige (Engineers and Managers Association): Point of order. Mr Chairman, when delegates are having their times restricted, I think it would also be appropriate if those restrictions were placed on members of the General Council making statements.

The President: Thank you delegate. The speaker for the General Council was actually two and a half minutes inside her time.

Equality legislation

The President: Can I take paragraph 4.3 and move to Motion 26 on Equality legislation which the General Council is supporting.

Ms Anne Picking (UNISON) moved Motion 26 as amended:

She said: Equality for all is hardly a new campaign slogan, yet as we approach the millennium it remains a vision rather than a reality. No one doubts this Government's commitment to building a fair and just society, free from discrimination. Setting up the MacPherson Inquiry and accepting the bulk of its recommendations are actions that would have been inconceivable under the previous Government.

Where the Government needs to think again, however, is over the belief that no new legislation is needed to strengthen existing laws, yet we have domestic legislation on race and sex which needs substantial revision and much more teeth. We have legislation on disability which is deeply flawed and there is no legislation at all protecting lesbians and gay men, and that is atrocious.

The Government believes that we can achieve equality of opportunity through voluntary codes, yet all the evidence is that voluntary codes do not work. Only one-third of employers have even heard of the new code on age discrimination, let alone done anything about implementing it. Many public sector employers have some form of equal opportunities policy and a recent TUC survey revealed that no less than 43% of gay and lesbian trade union members had experienced discrimination at work, including victimisation, blocking of promotion, bullying and even threats of death. Legislation should put a clear responsibility on public bodies not only to tackle discrimination but also to actively promote equality of opportunity.

Public services, as employers and providers of services, should be leading the way in setting standards. They should use their influence through the tendering process to ensure that all suppliers and contractors abide by minimum standards of equal opportunities, and that is true 'best value'.

The resolution also calls for the strengthening of the European Convention of Human Rights, so that freedom from discrimination becomes a separate right under the Convention. But the Government does not need to wait for Europe. The excellent work being developed in the National Health Service to combat racism at work and to smash the glass ceiling shows that this will be there.

There is a public discussion about these equalities issues in a way that we have not seen since the 1970s and we need to capitalise on this new sense of determination and urgency. One of our key tasks is to develop a national consensus around the detail of the new legislation we so urgently need, and this is an issue in which each individual union needs to play an active role. We need legislation to protect members from discrimination, we need modern legislation for a modern society and I want our Labour Government to lead the world in setting out the new legal framework which will ensure real equality, real social justice, in the millennium to come. I take pleasure in moving. Thank you.

The President: Seconded by NATFHE. Does NATFHE wish to second? .... Formally seconded?

A delegate formally seconded the motion.

* Motion 26 was CARRIED .

Mr Paul Mackney (NATFHE - The University & College Lecturers' Union): I think you may have missed the amendment in thinking we were seconding the motion, Chair. There is an amendment to Motion 26.

I am not moving the amendment, Chair, but there was an amendment to Motion 26.

The President: I think the position is that UNISON accepted that amendment, so it would have been you seconding. NATFHE would have been seconding it.

Mr Paul Mackney: Thank you, we weren't informed of that. Thank you very much.

Sex equality and employment rights

The President: If we could move now to Composite Motion 6, Sex equality and employment rights. The General Council are supporting it.

Ms Janet Reid (Society of Radiographers) moved Composite Motion 6:

She said: In the words of Hector MacKenzie, “equality is not an add-on, it is an essential to all we do”. It is now two decades since the Equal Opportunities and Sex Discrimination Act became law. In that time there have been many cases brought and many cases won. As a result these laws have become complex, difficult to understand and apply, and these are laws which need to be clearly understood. Their success is not to be measured by the number of prosecutions that have been brought, but the extent to which their existence changes hearts and minds. This is particularly true in areas such as victimisation and sexual harassment.

This motion endorses the proposal of the Equal Opportunities Commission that the Sex Discrimination, Equal Pay and other relevant Acts should be replaced by a single Sex Equality Act. This should incorporate relevant European Community law. It should also be binding on the full range of Government activities, as well as employment, training and provision of goods and services. It should be based on the principle of equal treatment which guarantees freedom from discrimination on the grounds of sex, pregnancy, marital status and family status, and any future laws proposed should be checked before enactment for compliance with the Sex Equality Act.

Government and public bodies should provide leadership in eliminating discrimination and promoting equal opportunities. They should operate policies and practices designed to ensure equal treatment of men and women. Women on average still earn less than men. The principle of equal pay for work of equal value, incorporated in the Equal Pay Act of 1984, has led to cases which can take years to resolve. Worse still, each ruling only applies to an individual. There is no provision legally for groups or representative action. The EOC, therefore, recommends that in equal pay and collective bargaining cases tribunals should have the power to make general rulings. Employers should be required to monitor annually the composition of their workforce, in terms of gender, job title or grade, and rates of pay, with a view to identifying actual or possible inequalities, and to make the results available. Further, any contractor seeking a contract or financial aid from central or local Government should show that they monitor their workforce as just described.

Surprisingly, there is no specific protection in current legislation, no clear definition of what sexual harassment is. The EOC recommends the adoption of the definition created by the European Commission which says: "Sexual harassment means unwanted conduct of a sexual nature, or other conduct based on sex, affecting the dignity of men and women at work. This can include unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct."

With regard to pensions, actuarial factors based on general assumptions about men and women usually result in women having to pay higher contributions for the same or sometimes lower pensions than the equivalent man. The Society of Pension Consultants sees no insurmountable technical difficulty in introducing new sex actuarial factors. When done in America, this did not produce any major problems. This makes the plight of male nurses who wish to retire at 55 receiving a lower pension than their female colleagues all the more surprising and clearly an injustice. There is much to be done. Back the TUC campaign. I move.

A delegate formally seconded the motion

* Composite Motion 6 was CARRIED.

Higher education: systematic institutional discrimination

The President: The General Council support Motion 29.

Ms Natalie Fenton (Association of University Teachers) moved Motion 29:

She said: Systematic institutional discrimination is not something you may automatically associate with higher education, but just scratch the surface of our great British institutions in higher education and that is exactly what you will find: posts that are not advertised; secret deals that are struck behind closed doors; a system that clearly favours those in power who pull the strings and that favours those who resemble those in power -- white and male.

There is plenty of evidence to prove institutional discrimination. The latest evidence comes from the Bett Report which tells us that women in every grade, in every academic and related post, are paid less than men. Women are on lower salaries in lower grades and, more frequently than not, on fixed-term contracts. 88% of directors of finance, directors of personnel, directors of student services are not women. 92% of vice-chancellors and principals are not women. That is what we are faced with.

The Bett Report added that universities seem to have put off addressing this problem. That is the understatement of the year, Congress: they have persistently refused to deal with the issue.

The situation of discrimination on grounds of ethnicity is equally sickening: 6% of academic staff are non-white and 3% of those are non-British. Again ethnic minority staff are on lower grades so they are paid less and they are, more frequently than not -- surprise, surprise -- on fixed-term contracts. One in five of minority ethnic staff report racial discrimination in terms of promotion, in terms of job application and in terms of racial harassment. Universities are dens of discrimination and it is shameful.

Higher education is not the only part of the public sector to be blighted by in-built discrimination. There are many of you who will recognise a similar situation in your sector. We need a full, comprehensive approach. We have to do something and we have to do it quickly. Let us make sure that we take this opportunity. Just what the hell is going on out there? We need a full commission to tell us what is happening and then we must make sure that they cannot get away with it again. We have to get tough on discrimination; we have to make sure that the employers have to pay for it; we have got to make sure that it hurts to get caught as a discriminator. Congress, let us get tough.

Mr Frank Duffy (UNISON), seconding Motion 29, said: The motion calls for a national commission on pay discrimination in the public sector. I would like to refer to the university area that I represent.

On Tuesday, Congress fully supported all the motions from the higher education unions. The message for the Government is to listen and act. Pay in all areas of higher education is riddled with inequality and unfairness. Men and women tend to be concentrated in separate job groups with big pay differences. Discriminatory effects are often hidden within the grading decisions. This leads to lower status and lower paid jobs being done by women.

In higher education we have nine different bargaining groups. I believe this to be one of the barriers. We have a situation in universities where staff doing the same job in one university can be paid pounds less than their colleagues in a different university down the road. This cannot be right.

Bett, in his report, has identified that half the workforce in higher education are women and most are concentrated in low-paid jobs. UNISON has fought for, and won many cases of, equal pay for work of equal value. The Bett report says that most higher education institutions have not yet become model employers as regards equal opportunities. This is a tame admission of a scandalous situation. UNISON supports, with our colleagues in the AUT, the concept of a national commission on pay. We believe that qualitative monitoring should be compulsory for all employers.

To bring about a system of career opportunities in higher education which removes all areas of discrimination, more money is needed. UNISON supports a revision of anti-discrimination legislation. We want to see a single statute to replace the Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act.

In conclusion I would like to mention a group of workers that I refer to as the "grannies and mammies": these are the people who clean our buildings; these are the people who leave their homes at five and six o'clock in the morning. These are our special people. Who said they should receive the lowest rates of pay? Who said they should be treated like second class citizens? I did not, Congress, and I know you did not.

* Motion 29 was CARRIED

Women's equality

Ms Judy Moorhouse (National Union of Teachers), speaking to paragraph 4.4 of the General Council Report, said: Yesterday's publication of the opinion of the Advocate-General to the European Court will, if approved by the Court, provide many thousands of part-time workers, mostly women, the opportunity to recover pension rights denied them in the past by their discriminatory exclusion from occupational pension schemes.

A consortium of trade unions has supported members in pursuing their claims to the European Court. We welcome the main part of the Advocate-General's opinion and look forward to its endorsement by the Court. We hope too that the Court will reconsider other aspects of the Advocate-General's opinion which failed to remedy an injustice suffered by some of the claimants.

Ms D Holland (Transport and General Workers Union), speaking to paragraph 4.4 of the General Council Report, said: I would like to draw your attention to the work of the Equal Rights Department and the TUC Women’s Committee in the TUC The Time of Our Lives project.

The Government's introduction of the European Directives on Parental Leave, Working Time and Part-time Work provide us with a unique opportunity. If you take the three Directives together, they require a new and positive approach to the balance between work and the rest of our lives. The TUC project The Time of Our Lives has demonstrated that more choice and control over our working hours not only benefits working parents and carers, supports disabled workers and people who want to combine work and study, but it can also improve job satisfaction, productivity, service delivery and community support for the employer and the union. If you treat people like human beings rather than numbers or parts of a machine, there can be gains for everyone.

The new rights and the new bargaining climate around family-friendly employment and working time choice mean that we have a positive response to the negative exploitative flexibility agenda that exists in too many work places. This positive response means a better start in life for our children, more security in caring arrangements in old age and a less stressful working life with more control over when and how you work. Paragraph 4.4 shows the vital work of the TUC in taking forward this very positive agenda.

Parental rights

The President: The General Council support Composite Motion 7.

Ms Peggy Blyth (GMB) moved Composite Motions 7:

She said: Much has been made of Labour's New Deal, but does the training include circus skills? That is what today's parents need, the skills to juggle work and family life, the skills to walk the tightrope between leaving work too early and getting home too late, the skill to walk into the lion's den and say "I am sorry, boss, I need time off because my child is sick and she needs me". The Parental Leave Directive promised to make it that bit easier for parents, but we have been misled again.

Imagine if you are one of the thousands of women and men who are trying for a millennium baby but your baby is born a few weeks early or the doctors recommend that your baby is induced. You will not get parental leave if your baby is born before 15th December; you do you not qualify. If you are lucky and your millennium baby is born on time and your partner wants to take a week off around the time of the birth, to play it safe he could take the option that the law allows of being a bit vague about the exact date -- he only has to give three months' notice to safeguard his leave. You can return to work safe in the knowledge that you can take time off if your millennium baby needs you. That time may come when your child falls ill. You then would take time off for your dependents and you thank the Labour Government. After a couple of days the crisis may be over but your child cannot go back to the child minder because of the risk of infection. You could arrange alternative care but you want her to recuperate at home with her mother or father, so you can ask your boss for the rest of the week off on parental leave but if you have not given the required four weeks' notice and he could say he cannot spare you at the moment but six months' time would be more convenient. All the time you are asking yourself: "Can I afford the time off without pay? I want to put my child first, but we need to eat, we need to pay the bills, we need to pay the mortgage", and you think, "I love my child to spend time with her dad. He works such long hours but we cannot do without his wage". This legislation in its present form is misnamed. It only assists the well off and discriminates against the low paid. Parental leave should make a difference; the current proposal will not.

Earlier, I referred to circus skills. Now we need advanced mathematics and powers of prediction to work out the birth dates and notice periods plus higher level magic to conjure up the finances.

The GMB has complained to Europe. These proposals fall into the same category as the recent working time amendments. The GMB calls upon the TUC to make a formal complaint if the Government goes ahead.

Ms Christine Robinson (Independent Union of Halifax Staff), seconding Composite 7, said: I speak specifically on financial support for parental or domestic incident leave.

Starting perhaps on a churlish note -- but that is the way I feel -- in my perfect world every delegate would have the time to properly represent here his or her members, and all the poetry would rhyme.

The true beauty of the official TUC poem, its sentiment, was not lost on me despite the lack of rhyme. Just as the author valued his freedom to walk the Thames path, so I am sure would every parent value the opportunity to take advantage of the parental leave regulations, the opportunity to take precious time away from their employment to ensure the welfare and well being of their child, if they could afford it. In their proposed form, diluted from the EU standard, the regulations are not going to provide financial support. Statistics vary dependent on their source, but all make it clear that far too few parents will be in a position financially to take advantage of the provisions. It would appear that the principle of providing firm foundations for the future through the children is good as long as it does not cost anything. The Prime Minister told us that it is our job to ask for more. We have until 4 October to do that.

The Social Security Select Committee on parental leave could recommend some form of payment when its report is published in October. They should be under pressure to do that.

Whatever the initial outcome, this campaign has to be vigorous and it has to remain so until every child has the privilege of a parent able, and indeed encouraged, to take parental and domestic incident leave without financial constraint. Let us not forget how this motion unites us across a very diverse membership.

Ms Lynne Edmunds (National Union of Knitwear, Footwear and Apparel Trades), supporting Composite 7, said: Parenting is the most important job that anyone can do and it does not come with any instructions or handbook, so any help given to parents has to be effective and accessible. The arguments on pay have already been made, but there are other barriers which could prevent take-up of these new rights and which we believe the Government must reconsider. The main issue is the proposed cut-off date which excludes any parent whose children are born or adopted before 15th December. What this proposal does is to exclude in one fell swoop all current parents from rights to parental leave, yet we find nothing in the Parental Leave Directive which requires such a cut-off date. Indeed, it is our belief that the Directive and Associated Framework Agreement were intended to apply to any working parent rather than simply new or expectant parents. This simple but unnecessary clause in the consultative document must be removed and I urge every affiliate to let the DTI know how you feel on this matter. I would like to know if such a clause is even lawful given the terms of the actual Directive and the framework agreement.

Two areas of the parental leave proposals could also restrict take-up by parents. First, we believe that the one year's qualifying period is not consistent with the current basic maternity rights where there is no qualifying period. Men, for example, without the one year's service would be denied the opportunity to share in the full-time parental responsibilities following the birth of their child. Secondly, and perhaps more worrying, is the requirement to give notice equivalent to double the length of leave taken. This seems unnecessarily complicated. Indeed, we would have the somewhat ridiculous situation where a person might have to give eight weeks' notice to take four weeks of parental leave, but that same person would have to give just one week's notice to terminate his or her employment completely. Surely, a simple and more easily understood single notice period for any length of leave would be more practical, better for workers, better for employers. The right to parental leave is something the trade union Movement has been seeking for some time, but it has taken a Labour Government to deliver and for that we are grateful.

Ms M Carey (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers), speaking in support of Composite 7, said: Two minutes is not a long time, so I have decided to resort to rhyme -- some of it does.

On Tuesday when Tony came to speak,

There were no surprises in his speech;

The Press, as ever, had let it leak.

He made it clear sometimes he would say no --

In other words, tell us where to go --

If we, as partners in the TUC,

Pressed him for policies he did not wish to see.

However, Tony, we will not go away

If parental leave you refuse to pay.

The leave is fine and a welcome shift,

But with their pay the parents need a lift.

So, come on, Tony, let us be fair,

Make it possible for parents everywhere,

To claim their right to parental leave.

With pay and flexibility we can perceive,

A better chance for parents to be

With their children from breakfast to tea.

Flexibility is the name of the game,

So that all parents, all parents, can be treated the same

Whether on the board or on the till,

After all, they are parents still.

So, delegates, when you go away today,

Think about the ways you can sway

The Labour Government in our fight,

To pay parental leave as a right,

And please support the composite.

Mr Dean Rogers (Managerial and Professional Officers), supporting the Composite, said: I begin by declaring a vested interest. When I came to Brighton, leaving my wife and eight-week old son Daniel for the first time, it was with the express intention of catching up on some sleep. The TUC has not been the best place to do this, but I have probably been a lot more successful in my aim than unpaid parental leave will be in the Government's aim.

We have established a principle, but the battle has not yet been won. All research from Europe shows that if parental leave is unpaid, it is simply not a right that can be exercised by most of the working population. Moreover, the same research shows that the type of payment also plays a crucial role in whether parental leave is taken. Every family should be allowed the right to take parental leave. No family should be deemed to be more important than another because of financial circumstances. Payment will have to adequately compensate the family for the potential loss of earnings. The principle must be universal but with the level of payment varying according to circumstance. While the current regime of non-payment only allows for the very richest to exercise their right, some ideas for parental leave would only help the very poorest in society. Of course, this would be better than nothing, but every family needs this support. This principle must apply to everyone.

We must set our sights high from the outset. By linking payment to the established maternity model, we would have the necessary flexibility. Business would know how it should operate, the new administrative and bureaucratic burden would be minimal and, for employees, the link between maternity and paternity would be formally established.

The Government may argue that this principle would be too expensive, but the social cost of limiting access is far greater. Broken homes and poorer parenting have their own long-term costs. The Government cannot say they are truly committed to seeing families have access to parental leave without accepting that the right should apply to everyone.

Ms Ruth Jones (Chartered Society of Physiotherapy): As a working mum, I welcome the introduction of parental leave policy. It is good to know that time off will be allowed to deal with problems of child-care or the crises that do crop up at home from time to time. Unfortunately, there are a few gaping holes in the proposed legislation.

The biggest problem is the fact that parental leave will only apply to parents of children born or adopted after 15th December this year. I already have two children under five who will not be covered by this Directive. It is the most blatant discrimination I have come across personally in a long time. The fact that parental leave will be unpaid has already been well highlighted, so I will just endorse the calls on the Government to reconsider this damaging decision.

Another problem facing parents trying to take parental leave is that the 13 weeks' unpaid leave may only be taken up to the child's fifth birthday, which is not very useful if your child requires a month's hospital stay just after his sixth birthday.

Another area of the proposed legislation that is problematic is its so-called flexibility. This means that if you want and can afford to take two weeks' unpaid leave, then you must give a minimum of four weeks' notice. Your employer can then take up to two weeks to decide whether you can have the time off or may even decide to postpone your leave for up to six months if your workplace is going through a busy period, by which time whatever problem you needed time off for is sorted out.

The Labour Government have committed themselves to developing family-friendly policies. The Parental Leave Directive is a start but it needs strengthening and, most importantly, it needs adequate funding. We call on the TUC to fully support the parental leave campaign and continue to press the Government to improve the present recommendations.

* Composite Motion 7 was CARRIED

Lesbian and Gay Rights

Ms Cathy Williams (Chartered Society of Physiotherapy), speaking to paragraph 4.6, said: We congratulate the new Lesbian and Gay TUC Committee for its work, in conjunction with Stonewall and the Labour Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Rights, in initiating a major campaign and conference calling for anti-discrimination legislation for lesbians and gay men.

It is shocking that there is still no legislative protection for lesbians and gay men at work and I was disappointed that on Tuesday Tony Blair made no mention of equality issues within his speech about modern government.

Do the General Council feel that the campaign for anti-discrimination legislation for lesbians and gay men and the repeal of section 28 are a priority for the forthcoming year?

Mr Ed Sweeney (General Council): Answer: yes.

Disability rights

The President: We now take Motion 33 on disability rights, which the General Council supports.

Mr Joe Mann (National League of the Blind and Disabled) moved Motion 33 as amended:

He said: I call on the unanimous support of Congress in an area which is crucial to the future of employment for disabled people. The National League has long organised in local authority and voluntary factories for disabled people and has painstakingly built the terms and conditions up over decades to the extent where, although not paid enough, our members are in 37-hour-a-week jobs being paid a nationally negotiated wage way above the minimum wage -- and in some cases with bonuses giving £250 a week and more - with full equality and consideration to their wide range of disabilities.

The supportive employment programme also includes the Remploy factories organised by a consortium of unions (all here today) who have vigorously defended their disabled members. In all, there are around 22,000 places on the programme split between factory provision and placements in open industry, placements where there is very little trade union organisation, where people's jobs are much less secure and where up to 30% were paid below the minimum wage. Our concern is that factories are closing now and proper jobs, with real terms and conditions negotiated by trades unions are disappearing for ever. The Government are conducting a review of supported employment at this time; a consultation paper has been issued and we have until 15 November to respond.

I urge the TUC, the General Federation of Trade Unions and all unions with disabled members to respond and demonstrate how much we care about the future of employment of disabled people.

The Government are shifting the balance of the programme away from factory-based employment to jobs in open industry which, in our experience, only last a few months, are menial, badly paid and the individual ends up back on benefits and out of work. The Government call this progression. We have no objection to progression if it means moving into a job that is better paid, more secure, has better terms and conditions, has full training and understanding of disability, but that is not what is happening.

The Government announced in October 1997 that £195 million would be available to develop best practice in employment for disabled people. It has never been spent. Three months ago, the minister reported that the £195 million was still there. I asked where was the interest on it because if they could not sort out a few more pounds after two years, then perhaps we should call in trade union fund managers to help. I note that since then it has gone up to £205 million but it still has not been used. Best practice is currently factory-based provision and we want that money spent to expand the provision. The Government say that full civil rights for disabled people means full integration and that means a move away from factory provision. That is a fine concept, but, quite apart from the removal of the element of choice, where are these thousands of wonderful employers just begging to take on severely disabled people on decent pay, negotiated by trade unions? They are simply not there. (Applause)

Our members have to live in the real world, a very difficult world for disabled people. There are too many academics, pseudo-intellectuals and do-gooders when civil rights is an argument about the difference between a social model and a medical model of disability. That is OK, but if Phil Davies, Tony Burke or I went into one of our factories and started talking to our members about that we would be told bluntly that their civil rights mean keeping a proper job with proper pay like everyone else and they would be 100% right. This resolution must be supported not because we are disabled but because we are trade unionists appealing for solidarity and our cause is just and right.

Mr Tony Burke (Graphical, Paper and Media Union), seconding Motion 33, said: The announcement that the Government have approved Remploy's corporate plan proposing to cut 1,000 jobs over the next three years is the most dispiriting that the trade unions have ever had to face. There has been considerable publicity in the press over the past few weeks. We have met with the Secretary of State and she has reaffirmed that there will be no compulsory redundancies in Remploy. However, we still face factory closures and mergers. We have told the Government they are dealing with some of the most vulnerable people in the UK workforce. To cast our members to the vagaries of the market and place them on what are called ‘interwork’ jobs could be catastrophic. These are often dubious jobs with low pay and no trade union organisation. Many of our members need to work in sheltered and specialised environments and we believe that the Government are being fed a corporate plan from the board of Remploy that will not work and is designed to fail. It gives the impression of creating jobs for disabled workers whilst gradually eliminating factory-based employment in what they refer to as rebalancing.

Motion 33 calls upon the Government to scrap that corporate plan and we have asked them to do it. We have asked them to meet the commitments to restore Remploy funding and to expand into and develop modern and decent factories. Remploy was set up after the war to provide decent jobs and fair employment for disabled workers -- jobs fit for heroes. They must continue to do that.

The Remploy unions ask you to support us. We want you to turn that support into action by joining our members in a campaign to reverse this disastrous and disgraceful decision. Our union members in Remploy are a credit to the Movement, so we ask you to stand side by side with our disabled members in their fight for justice, decent jobs and to stop this corporate plan in its tracks.

Mr Phil Davies (GMB), supporting Motion 33 said: Yesterday here in Brighton the trade unions met with the Remploy directors. We are pleased to be able to report to Congress today that the proposals to close nine Remploy factories has now been put on hold. (Applause)

The campaign is far from over. We intend to take our fight to save Remploy factories out of the boardroom and into the front room of Tony Blair. Remploy workers demand the same support from the Labour Government that they gave to the Labour Party in May 1997. The Government argue that all disabled people should be integrated into mainstream employment. For some people, that will be the right choice; but what has happened to the choice of disabled people who want to work in a Remploy factory? Those people who advocate a single choice for disabled people do so without any reference to the workers in supported employment factories. Why stop at integration at the workplace? Disabled people join organisations for the blind, organisations for the deaf; there are organisations for disabled athletes. Are we going to integrate them? Disabled people not only want to work together, but to be together. The most important part of our campaign is giving disabled people that choice to work together. Our members in Remploy are skilled workers. They are on reasonable rates of pay negotiated by the trade unions. We want to see the funding of Remploy increased to give disabled people that choice. We intend to carry our campaign right into the heart of the Labour Party.

Every single person in this hall today can become disabled. We owe it to those people who have gone before and we owe it to those disabled people who have yet to come to secure that choice for disabled people. We support the motion and the amendment.

If we cannot fight for disabled people, we might as well pack our bags and go home.

Ms Sylvia Simmonds (UNISON), speaking to Motion 33, said: (Interpretation from British Sign Language) There are several vital points that UNISON would like to make. We are pleased to see the opportunity for Congress to reiterate its commitment to the introduction of full and comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation for disabled people, and we look forward to the introduction of a comprehensive civil rights bill during the first year of the second term of this Government.

UNISON also agrees that benefits for disabled people are a civil rights issue. They should be universal, tax-free and cover the extra costs of living that are associated with disability. Employment is a fundamental civil rights issue. Work provides us with an income on which to live and it provides us with opportunities to socialise. We are opposed in principle to any segregation of disabled people. A society that segregates people because of disability is one that devalues people on the basis of their impairment.

However, segregation is alive and thriving in Britain in the way we provide housing, transport, education, the built environment, health and social services and employment. Employment is often the key to equality: pay provides us with some opportunities to make our choices and to take our own decisions. Segregation is a denial of disabled people's right to be treated equally. It reinforces the view that it is disabled people's impairments that are the problem. We believe that it is the way that society organises, and the double standards set, that lay the foundation for disability discrimination in employment. The level of unemployment of disabled people in this country is a scandal. We support open employment for disabled people. We want an accessible workplace environment, access to information, the provision of sign language interpreters, disability leave and reasonable adjustments. In short, we want facilities that can open up job opportunities in the mainstream market so that we can compete alongside non-disabled workers on the same terms and conditions. We urge the General Council and all affiliates to do everything in their power to ensure that any action taken by the Government in this matter ensures that all concerned do not experience any detriment. Proper action must be taken to enable disabled people to have access to quality jobs in mainstream workplaces that enhance their opportunities and status. We should use these recent events to open up a genuine debate to start the move towards proper jobs in mainstream employment for all workers.

Mr L McCluskey (Transport and General Workers Union), speaking to Motion 33, said: As chair of the joint unions in Remploy I thank conference and the unions that have given support to the campaign prior to conference which, as Phil Davies has just announced, has resulted in a breakthrough yesterday where we have been able to secure a freeze on the closures.

I want to share with conference a particular experience that I had quite recently. One of the factories due for closure is in Barnsley. Barnsley has the highest percentage of registered disabled workers within the UK and yet Remploy and this Government were proposing to close that factory. I visited Remploy in Barnsley and addressed a mass meeting. At the end of that meeting one of our members approached the platform, his name is Robin Cropper. Robin is without speech and without hearing. He had with him his eight year old daughter Becky and, through the services of a signer, he explained to me his fears for the future. Robin had worked for Remploy for 17 years. He is a skilled worker producing some of the finest furniture that would you wish to buy and he has tried on many occasions to secure work in so-called mainstream employment. The reality is that the altruistic employers, on which this Government is basing its strategy of integration, simply do not exist. Robin's concern was for his family and his future and, as he drew his daughter close to him and squeezed my hand and pleaded with me to try to stop the closure of Barnsley, I realised that this Movement is about people like Robin Cropper. It is quite easy sometimes in the dizzy heights of a Trades Union Congress or the General Council or of being the general secretary or a national secretary to lose sight of what our members are all about. Our members, like trade unions, are about dignity at work, defending workers in struggle, opposing injustice and about solidarity. We need that type of solidarity because the campaign has still not been won. We need to get our listening Prime Minister to listen to the workers in Remploy.

* Motion 33, as amended was CARRIED

Globalisation and the World Trade Organisation

The President: I call paragraph 7.5 and with that Motion 43 Globalisation and the World Trade Organisation. The General Council support Motion 43.

Mr Barry Morris (National Union of Knitwear, footwear and Apparel Trades) moved Motion 43:

He said: Globalisation of manufactured goods, particularly clothing, textiles and footwear has led to a colossal influx of cheap imports into our country. Now, before it is too late for our industries, we need rigid and constructive rules to govern world trade and assist workers in the third world. The World Trade Organisation and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development must address the issues that threaten to strangle our industries. Transnationals who exploit labour around the globe, must be governed by stringent regulations if trade unions are to support globalisation.

Over three billion people in the world are living in abject poverty. There are some 250 million child labourers in the world, some of them as young as four, and many of them will die before they reach the age of 12. It is quite feasible that clothing and footwear produced by children or adults in the most appalling and horrifying conditions are being worn in this hall today -- not out of choice of course, but because we just do not know in what circumstances they were made.

KFAT welcomes the new Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention adopted by the International Labour Organisation. Workers will depend on significant progress at the WTO Ministerial Meeting in Seattle where the inclusion of a social clause and the protection of key human rights are essential not only to safeguard workers' lives but to safeguard jobs against unfair competition.

Famous brand names who exploit workers around the world must be named and shamed. KFAT have learnt that Nike pay basketball star Michael Jordan more to advertise their trainers than they pay their entire Indonesian workforce to produce them. We need to raise public awareness of the widespread exploitation that exists. The UK Government must recognise that the WTO is the most suitable forum in which to raise the question of international labour standards. Supporting measures linking respect for human rights with international trade is imperative.

Core labour standards would help people to focus on productivity and innovation rather than keeping wages down and gaol workers, many of whom are union activists who dare to challenge the system.

Our Government have still not ratified Convention 138 on Child Labour. Products made by children, or sweated out of adults, in the most horrific conditions consistently end up in our High Street stores.

China is the biggest producer of clothing and footwear. It exports into the UK alone some 40 million pairs of footwear. Much of this is produced in modern factories with the latest machinery. However, the workforce does not in any way match up to that investment in the rights that they have. Disney have their childrenswear made in a factory in China where earlier this year KFAT discovered that 200, mostly women, workers toil for 16 hours a day earning £45 a month. The scale and scope of the Chinese clothing industry is far from that of a developing country. That is why we are calling for their entry into the WTO to be none other than as developed status nations.

Ms Veronica Dunn (UNISON) speaking in support of the amended motion, said: Congress, if the Asian financial crisis taught us something, it is that there is a link between economic prosperity and good governance. Some would have you believe that they are mutually exclusive, but they are not. If an unfettered, unregulated, labour market is the solution, as we are told by the Tories, then why has it failed millions of people so dismally? An international trading system which sets workers against workers puts into motion a downward spiral of devaluation and shrinking markets in a dog-eat-dog world.

Last year we welcomed the ILO's Declaration of Fundamental Rights at Work, and this year we are delighted by the adoption of a new Convention to eliminate the worst forms of child labour, but the ILO has no teeth. Monitoring procedures are in place and governments can and must be held to account, but the ILO cannot guarantee enforcement if a government does not want to cooperate. We want these basic rights at work to be in the WTO. There are governments which accuse us of protectionism. They say we really want to raise wages to make them less competitive in developing countries. They say that we are concerned about protecting European jobs. This is not true. Thirty dollars an hour in Dusseldorf against $30 a month in Indonesia. No amount of core labour standards will close that gap. This is not about protecting jobs but it is about decency and basic human rights. A workers' rights clause would help defend workers and children against exploitation. It is not about undermining competition but about removing unfair advantages. It would bring more people within the global economy by giving workers the means to negotiate improvements in wages and working conditions. We must be involved. This is why UNISON has joined the campaign led by the ICFTU and NGOs like Solidar to make sure that the rights of workers are not forgotten when world leaders meet.

John Smith said that the market should exist for the people and not people for the market. UNISON calls for joined-up thinking for the benefit of the many, not the few. Support the amended motion, Congress.

Ms Christine Howell (GMB) speaking in support of the motion, said: I am here before you to call upon trade unionists to place global issues firmly on the domestic agenda. This is not just about the WTO and the OECD and other international bodies with long lists of initials. It is about you, me, our children and our grandchildren. International issues must be part of the domestic agenda. They must be part of our everyday lives. That is why the GMB campaigns vigorously on four issues. Codes of conduct should be adopted by manufacturers. In 1997 the European Social Partners agreed a European Charter in Clothing & Textiles. This calls on European clothing companies and unions to abide by ILO conventions to ban child labour, ban forced labour, allow workers to join unions, to negotiate freely and to end discrimination in employment. We need agreed codes and a clear process of independent monitoring. We need country of origin labelling of products. Seventy per cent of consumers want country of origin labelling of clothing. Customers should be given better information and should know the country of origin of the products that they buy and that the clothes and textiles they purchase are made by trades unionists.

If legislation is impossible at present, then manufacturers should work to a voluntary code on labelling. Social labelling is also of extreme importance. GMB backs the Department for International Development's Ethical Trading Initiative. This was developed by companies, unions and non-governmental organisations. It promotes a basic code of conduct based on ILO Standards, and it is an extremely positive step in attempting to create a more level playing field in international trade. Congress, I commend Motion 43 to you. Thank you.

The President: Motion 43 is being supported by the General Council.

* Motion 43 was CARRIED

Radio drama

Mr Russell Lewis: (The Writers' Guild of Great Britain) moved Motion 62:

He said: This motion is about the BBC's attitude to radio drama. We have chosen to focus on radio drama because it illustrates the basic shift in the ethos of the BBC from a public service to a corporation driven by the values of the free market.

I want to begin with some reasons why this Conference should take a few minutes to think about radio drama. First, because after 75 years radio drama is a significant cultural medium in its own right. Secondly, because it is relatively cheap and has, therefore, been the first outlet for many young writers and, thirdly, radio drama requires imagination. It engages the mind and emotions of the listener in ways unlike any other medium. Because there are no visual props, the language and words have a special power. Finally, radio drama is something we all pay for. Trade unions have a right to be concerned at the slow death of radio drama because our members are contributing £500 million a year to the BBC in licence fees. That money is given on trust, and that trust is being betrayed.

Radio drama is being starved to death just as the single television play was starved to death 20 years ago, and there is a very clear reason for this - money.

For almost 70 years the BBC was able to resist the pressure of the marketplace. The licence fee and the over-arching framework of public service meant that the people who made programmes did not always have to think of the audience size, the spin-offs and the overseas sales. Because they were not subject to the grinding values of capitalism, they could think in terms of quality, of imagination, of style and variety, and all the other things which enrich the social and cultural life of this country.

Today it is clear that the senior management of the BBC have shrugged off the responsibilities of public service. In its place they have introduced the values and morays of the market. They call it producer choice, a fine Orwellian phrase, because, of course, the choices are illusory. Instead of an ethos of cooperation and service, we have the internal market. Instead of aesthetic standards, we have to target an audience of a certain size. Instead of imagination, we have to reach the 24-50 year old group. Instead of quality, we have to think of the merchandising. It is bad luck on the children, on the old and the other minorities, but that is the way of the market.

In the past few years, radio drama has suffered from a pernicious combination of centralised decision-making and a growing reliance on audience research. The result has been to lower sights. Think about it for a moment. If you rely on audience research to tell you what programmes to make, by definition, what you make depends upon the past. You cease to take risks. That means you do not experiment, you do not show enterprise and you do not take chances. While in real terms radio drama has more air time, the plays are shorter and there are fewer original works. Too much of radio drama has been reduced in length - what is called "easy listening". The mandarins have decided that listeners want passive entertainment, not dramatic engagement. By starving radio drama of money, the BBC ensures that what gets made is not a matter of artistic merit, something which may help people see the world with new eyes, but it has become a matter of merchandising.

The BBC is the oldest, largest, richest and most famous public broadcasting service in the world and it is in decay. The BBC is now pouring money into digital transmission almost as if the means of transmission is more important than what is transmitted. The all pervading values of the market bring decay to what was once a great public service. That is why I ask Congress to send this message to the new Director-General, Greg Dyke: Radio drama matters. Look after it.

Ms Mirian Karlin (British Actors Equity Association) in seconding the motion said: President and Comrades, it is with deep personal passion that I second this motion, but I seem to be standing here every year carrying on about maintaining quality in the media, and what is the result of all my railings? Absolutely nothing! Things seem to get worse.

Everyone here must remember listening to radio plays and being transported into a different world. Then, at the end, we heard the cast list of brilliant actors, most of whom were in the renowned BBC Radio Drama Repertory Company. Do you remember the names - Vivian Chatterton, Marjorie Westbury, Norman Shelley, Gladys Young and Griselda Harvey? These were all household names. They were part of our lives. They represented the unique and world renowned phenomenon that was BBC Radio Drama providing quality, diversity, giving us a shared experience and stretching our imaginations. These are the things public service broadcasting should be about. Where are the Vivian Chattertons, the Gladys Youngs and the Norman Shelleys of today? What has happened to all that kind of excellence which is only gained from continuous experience?

The BBC Radio Drama Repertory Company is now a shadow of its former self. Once 40 strong it has been reduced to a core of six students. Without wishing to denigrate students, because, God knows, I spend most of my time trying to give them grants and then recruiting them to become members of our union, and two of them are here today, God bless them, as our delegates, but, really, this does show the value that the present execs now place on this key art form.

I loathe the phrase "dumbing down", but in this case it could not be more apposite. Sure, the head of Radio Drama tries to reassure us that she is committed to radio drama. She cites a list of brilliant playwrights who have been commissioned but, we ask, will their plays actually be produced, will they be given sufficient rehearsal time and will they have full artistic freedom to write what they want? Writers are now being instructed to write lighter material for Radio 4. How appalling! The BBC's decision to leave difficult, foreign and longer plays to Radio 3 is patronising in the extreme. Quite apart from anything else, the BBC's own figures show that there has been a 5% drop in the amount of radio drama broadcast in the past couple of years.

We know Greg Dyke of old, and we know him to be a man more committed to content than his predecessor. So come on, Greg. Now that you have got the top job, put your money where your mouth is and let us see a real renaissance in radio drama. Please support the motion.

The President: The General Council is supporting the motion.

* Motion 62 was CARRIED.

National Health Service

Ms Shirley Rainey (Chartered Society of Physiotherapy) moved Composite Motion 12:

She said: Congress, British society is now more unequal than it has been at any time since the 1940s. Health inequality, in particular, is widespread. Infant mortality in unskilled families is twice that for professional ones. Life expectancy in poor inner city areas is eight years less than in more prosperous areas. This is the reality of an unequal Britain. The most disadvantaged suffer most from poor health.

The Labour Government are to be congratulated for acknowledging the link between health, social, economic and environmental factors. The White Paper Saving Lives sets itself an ambitious target to reduce premature deaths and to allow more people to lead longer and healthier lives. The CSP supports this crusade.

However, we have concerns. If unequal Britain is really to become a thing of the past more needs to be done. More targets need to be set. Amazingly, there is no national target in Saving Lives for reducing inequalities. This is a major omission. The CSP would also like to see targets set for occupational health. Twenty million working days are lost each year through work-related illnesses. We believe that the Government working with the TUC and employers should aim to cut work-related illnesses by 20 per cent by the year 2010. More resources need to be found to support public health. Just £96 million has been put aside during the next three years in the Public Health Development

Fund to support local schemes to improve public health. Quite simply, this is not enough. More staff need to be recruited and retained by the NHS. At present almost one out of every ten posts for staff, such as physiotherapists and dieticians, are vacant. Professional staff are crucial to ensuring that patients receive adequate care, advice and support. More effort needs to be made to involve staff and their representatives in setting targets and determining priorities.

The NHS is currently awash with reforms and initiatives and performance targets. Most are welcome and are improving health care, but staff must have a central role in developing meaningful operational targets, priorities and services along with patient representatives and the voluntary groups. Far too often staff are excluded. This must stop. More overall funding needs to be found for the NHS. Years of under-funding, coupled with rising demand, results in waiting lists and rationing and, in some cases, discrimination.

As the NHS moves into the new millennium, it has a major role to play in ending unequal Britain. To do this, the Health Service needs to be properly funded and staff adequately supported. Health workers and the NHS unions want to play a full part in developing the Government's public health agenda.

Mr Peter Walker (Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists) in supporting the composite motion, said: President and Congress, the Patients' Charter was brought in by the last Government to bring market forces into the NHS, converting patients into clients and staff into providers. It was designed to see the NHS as providing commercial production. However, it was never sufficiently funded to provide the quality. Now that the market has gone, it is time for an urgent review of the Patients' Charter, to incorporate a staff charter to protect staff from incidents, such as verbal and physical harassment.

The amended Charter should state strongly that the patient has no right to abuse a member of staff and that failure to comply with this edict could result in treatment being refused to be followed by an independent investigation.

When patients complain, evidence shows that it often turns into a disciplinary case, whether justified or not. Patients receive an apology, often without the staff being interviewed, and then the staff are disciplined without adequate investigation. This is why positive rights are required for staff at all stages, such as trade union representation and independent investigation.

It has been stated frequently that violence at work, both physical and verbal, is a serious contributor to workplace stress and trauma. Staff often encounter verbal abuse and do not report it because it is seen as being part of the job. Workplace stress lowers morale, affects performance and leads to an increase in sickness absence. This, in turn, results in decreased activity, cancelled appointments and longer waiting times at a time when we are all committed to improving performance. As well as written amendments to the Patients' Charter, there should be increased funding for preventative measures. An increase in staffing levels would help alleviate the harassment directed at staff. Regular training in how to deal with aggressive patients should be mandatory. The employment of staff counsellors to whom staff could have immediate access to help them cope with the aftermath of an incident is essential.

We are often told that the staff are the NHS's most valuable asset. To support this belief, extra funding is required, and I call upon Congress to support this composite.

Ms Jenni Borg (Association of First Division Civil Servants) speaking in support of the composite, said: Congress, if we are to see real gains in the health of people, links across whole swathes of services are crucial. In the Government's White Paper, Saving Lives, it is recognised that the NHS alone cannot deliver health. Extremes of poverty, poor housing, poor educational opportunities, poor employment prospects and a poor environment can all conspire to badly damage people's health. The FDA welcomes this recognition and a number of initiatives, such as the Working Families Tax Credit, Sure Start and better support for vulnerable people with child care costs. These initiatives are aimed widely at those on the lowest incomes and they will make a difference to people's lives.

This motion calls on the Government to ensure that this prioritisation continues.

In the area of health, FDA members in the NHS and Civil Service realise that joined-up government is crucial to delivering some pretty demanding policy aspirations which set as their aim changing patterns of morbidity and mortality in the UK's population. We are urging the Government to ensure that robust monitoring is in place for the longer term and that the Minister for Public Health is supported in leading such action. It will take time to deliver the ideas in Saving Lives, and good long-term monitoring will help us all to retain a commitment to this policy and help us to track how well we are actually doing.

Mr Andy Goodall (UNISON): This motion makes it quite clear that there are real and fundamental causes behind many instances of violence in the NHS. Let us be clear - violence manifests itself in many forms, not only physical but also verbal attacks. This includes the increasing instances of racial abuse in the NHS. This racial abuse has now got so bad in some areas that, for the first time in the history of the Health Service, the percentage of black people in the NHS is lower than the percentage of black people in society. Only two per cent of newly recruited student nurses are black. This fact should be seen as an indictment in any society which claims to be civilised.

UNISON offers no excuses for individuals who attack NHS staff. There are no excuses. So when Frank Dobson says, it will be, "Hello, gaoler" for people who are found guilty of abuse to staff, UNISON supports that. The Government should also support the withholding of treatment where violence occurs. However, UNISON also says that we need to make sure that we are not only tough on violence but also tough on the causes of violence.

There are many factors which lead to a build-up of frustration and outbursts of anger - short staffing and lack of support during violent incidents. This is a disgrace. Short staffing leads people to make errors in A&E areas and tension rises. That is a disgrace.

In my hospital, security staff were made redundant and their pay was cut. That is a disgrace. In my hospital and others, I know of a lack of training. Night shift workers have had to go on courses during the day following their night shift because they could not get study leave because there was no staff or money to replace them on the wards. That is a disgrace.

We call on the Government to launch a charter for staff with as much fanfare and publicity as the Patients' Charter was launched. We also call on the NHS management to apply any charges vigorously as the perceived policies which they like.

The NHS is the jewel in the Crown. It is one of the greatest medicines this society has developed. However, the staff suffer acts of violence and racism. It does not tend out to be a medicine but a placebo, and that is a disgrace.

The President: The General Council is supporting the Composite Motion.

* Composite Motion 12 was CARRIED

Equality in cancer treatment

Ms Julie Good (Community and District Nursing Association) moved Motion 58:

She said: Last year the Community and District Nursing Association stood before Congress and called for equality in cancer care and treatment by sweeping away the pernicious system of post code prescribing that had evolved. This year, we at the CDNA wish to follow-up this success with another campaign to improve the efficacy of the UK's cancer care provision. We believe that raising public and professional awareness of cancer issues and disspelling myths is the best way to bring about valuable change in the treatment of cancer. One of these myths is that the UK spends enough on its cancer care drug budgets, particular on cytotoxic drugs, which are used in chemopherapy.

You may believe, as I did, that compared with the rest of Europe and in similar developed nations, that the UK could hold its own in the provision of adequate cancer care and drugs. Unfortunately, the facts tell a very different story. A recent study by CERT - the Campaign for Effective and Rational Treatment - found that, in a sample group of ten developed countries, the UK survival rates for breast and colon cancer were the lowest. It is estimated that the UK's cytotoxic drug expenditure is £58 million. That is half the sum spent in Germany and a third of that of France. In the UK in 1996 it is estimated that the NHS spent four times as much on medication to relieve constipation as it did on cytotoxic drugs. In February this year, a report by the International Congress on Anti-Cancer Treatment made a direct link between the UK's poor performance and its inadequate funding of cancer drugs.

If I, as a health care professional, am surprised and angered by these statistics, I am sure that you are, too. The Government have identified this failure and are doing much to address it. Frank Dobson writes, and I quote: "Some types of cancer are almost completely preventable, but they are not all being prevented."

Some types of cancer, if caught early enough, can be cured but not all are being cured. People can be helped to live much longer with some serious forms of cancer but many are not living as long as they could, especially among the more deprived in our society.

I believe that it is our duty to help spread this message to the public at large. It is only if we, the public, and policy makers work together that change will come and change is possible. CERT estimate that the provision of an extra £170 million on cytotoxic drugs would give us the level of cancer care that we expect, need and deserve. An additional £70 million would ensure the continued development and use of new treatments.

The CDNA calls on the General Council and Congress to support a campaign to raise awareness of the problem among the general public and the Government in particular by tackling the under-funding of licensed drug treatment and future clinical trials, we, as trade unionists, can and will make a difference. Please support this motion.

Mr Fred Jepson (Communication Workers Union) in seconding the motion, said: The word "cancer" was once seen as taboo and not a subject to be openly discussed. It carried with it a stigma which automatically meant the death sentence. Thankfully, we have moved a long way from that situation. Diagnosed cancer suffers, families, carers and friends now talk about cancer and even share the experiences. These shared positive experiences have educated us. These experiences have shown that a person diagnosed as having cancer does not necessarily mean that they have the Last Rites read to them.

Because I only have two minutes, I can only now briefly mention three types of cancer that if diagnosed within the early stages have a very high survival rate. They are breast, cervical and testicular cancer. Breast cancer is becoming increasingly common among women under the age of 50 and diagnosis and treatment in the early stages is crucial for recovery. That is why it is necessary for both men and women, but especially women, to be breast aware. As a result, as you know, October has been designated "Breast Awareness Month". We are not here to frighten, Congress, or to send wrong messages. Rather, we are here to encourage people to be aware of an illness that can be treated successfully if detected in the early stages.

Cervical cancer is another cancer which affects many women and it kills more people in the European Union than Aids or hepititis. It is important to note that the death rate from cancer of the cervix has fallen in the United States and is now falling in the United Kingdom since cervical screening was established. Cancer is not an issue just for women only. It is an issue for all people. In the UK testicular cancer is the most common cancer amongst men aged between 20 and 35, with cases doubling over the past two decades. In 1996, 1,400 men developed the disease, which means that there is a risk of one in every 400 men getting this illness. Many men are unaware of the seriousness of this illness. A MORI poll recently showed that more than two in every three young men know little or nothing about testicular cancer. Regular checks are crucial. Ninety to 96 per cent of men with testicular cancer make a complete recovery if the disease is detected in the early stages. Clearly, cancer is an issue for all workers.

That is why my union has placed the amendment to the motion because we believe that affiliates to the TUC should, wherever possible and practical, negotiate the introduction of mobile screening units to visit all workplaces on a regular basis. I will end on that, President. I urge you to support.

Ms Janet Reid (Society of Radiographers): President and Congress, cancer patients in Britain fare worst than those in almost all other countries in Europe. Why? Because, in some respects, our cancer service verges on emerging nation status. What an indictment to Britain as we come to the end of the 20th Century. What an indictment of our society and the priorities we set. This is a society which spends millions and millions of pounds on a plastic Dome whilst its citizens have unequal access to health and where there is still poverty. A wealthy nation can also be a healthy nation. In truth, surely, to be a wealthy nation we need a healthy, well-educated and well-housed workforce.

That should be the goal which we set as a society as we enter the 21st Century. Health is too big an issue to be confined to the Health Service. It is an issue for us all. Money spent on preventative medicine now will mean less money required for treatment in the future. Money spent on treatment now means less money spent on supporting the dependants of those who die because they could not get the treatment they needed. We welcome the action of the Government in setting up the

National Institute of Clinical Excellence and its intention to prevent differential access to health depending on where you live. A start has been made as far as cancer treatment is concerned. In 1995 a comprehensive framework dealing with cancer was published. In the interim, guidance is published for breast, lung and other cancers. Standards are now in place for the commissioning process. We now need to ensure that sufficient staff are trained to provide the highest possible care, treatment using sophisticated technologies and effective drugs. This is about patients and their care. Ultimately, it is about your mother, my brother and our colleagues. It is about you and me.

Those of us who work in the NHS make every attempt to deliver professional, high quality, clinical services. We believe that all patients should have equal access to the best and most effective form of treatment available. Investment must be made in cancer and in all areas of health, including preventative medicine. We need investment in education and housing. As a society, we must get our priorities right if we are to achieve our goal of a wealthy, healthy, well educated and well housed nation. At the end of this century, that goal should reflect our society, not a plastic pleasure dome.

The President: The General Council is supporting the motion.

* The Motion 58, as amended, was CARRIED

The President: Conference, I have been advised by the General Purposes Committee that they recommend that we should cut the lunch break to one hour, from 1 o'clock to 2 o'clock, so that we can get through the remaining business in reasonable time. Do you agree? (Agreed)

Osteoporosis

The President: The General Council is leaving this motion to Congress.

Ms Pamela Viney (Educational Institute of Scotland) moved Motion 59:

She said: President and Congress, my union represents over 50,000 Scottish teachers of whom 70 per cent are women, which comes to 35,000 women. Twelve thousand of them will develop osteoporosis. Eighteen thousand of them are at serious risk of developing it. All of them will have an increased risk unless preventative measures are taken. A loss of eostrogen during the menopause makes women particularly vulnerable. One in 12 men are also likely to develop osteoporosis. Without eostrogen bone loses calcium, but there are other factors which can contribute to the loss of calcium thereby increasing the risk of osteoporosis. Smoking and a regular high alcohol intake both speed up the rate at which we lose bone. A diet low in dairy produce and fresh vegetables leads to low levels of calcium and the association between this and poverty is clear.

Pensioners struggling on an inadequate basic pension are especially vulnerable. So, too, are single parents and unemployed families who are unable to afford calcium-rich food for themselves and their children. The links between poverty and access to information make it less likely that they will be made aware of the risks. Women whose mothers and/or grandmothers suffered from osteoporosis are also at greatly increased risk. This is made more serious because many women who suffer from it are not formally diagnosed with it and the daughters and granddaughters will be unaware of the risks.

As osteoporosis is preventable, preventative measures need to start early in life. A diet rich in calcium gives children stronger bones and helps to maintain bone mass as we age. Regular load bearing exercise strengthens bones and helps to prevent bone loss. Hormone replacement therapy can protect women from sudden bone loss after the menopause. Health education has a part to play in reducing the incidence of osteoporosis, but this is not enough. Osteoporosis is a silent disease. There are no warning signs. By the time you find out you have it, it is too late to do anything about it and sufferers have to live with the consequences. All women are at increased risk after the menopause. The risk of developing osteoporosis is much higher than that of developing breast or cervical cancer, yet mass screening is currently available to women over 40.

The EIS wants to see the instances of osteoporosis reduced to a minimum, and the suffering and pain that it causes prevented by early intervention. That will only happen when bone scans are freely available to all women through the National Health Service. I ask you to support the motion.

A delegate formally seconded the motion.

Ms Vi Carr (Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union) speaking in support of the motion, said: Approximately five years ago the people in Sunderland made an appeal through the local newspaper. They wanted to raise funds to buy a bone density machine for the Sunderland Royal Infirmary. The response was overwhelming. A machine was bought. However, through lack of funding and trained staff, the machine was not used very much and people were being transferred to Newcastle to use the equipment there. There is no cure for osteoporosis, but if diagnosed and you have the treatment in time we could stop further erosion of the bones and stop people being crippled for life. The machine in Sunderland is now used more regularly, but it has not been utilised because of a lack of funding and trained staff. We should have access to free bone scan examinations before we are crippled for life. I ask Congress, please, to support.

* Motion 59 was CARRIED

Provision of dietary advice

Ms Jane Rowntree (British Dietetic Association) moved Motion 60:

She said: Congress, as many of you are aware, the NHS is often portrayed as consisting simply of doctors and nurses working in hospitals. The reality is much more complex than this. Fact 1. Over 80 per cent of the public who use the NHS go nowhere near a hospital. Fact 2. There are over 60,000 state-registered staff who work in professions alongside nurses, hospital doctors and GPs.

Why am I telling you this? When the previous Government introduced the internal market and GP fundholding some nine years ago, one of the clauses in the legislation allowed GPs to employ dieticians and chiropodists who were not required to be state registered. The GPs were only required to employ "suitably" qualified staff. Congress, that could mean anything. There are many people who set themselves up as nutritionists and are no doubt very conscientious and well-meaning, but they are not subject to a regulatory body which can strike them off the register or subject them to the high standards and safeguards required by my own professional organisation.

Congress, I am a state-registered dietician who, along with my 3,000 colleagues, has spent a minimum of four years training at degree level to qualify. If you were a patient in my hospital, which is St. Mary's, and you were referred to a dietician for specialist advice, then you could be certain that that person would be fully state registered. No such certainty exists if you were seeing a dietician in a GP's surgery.

The NHS is now experiencing further reorganisation. GP fundholding has ended. Primary Care Trusts will be with us next April.

The British Dietetic Association, along with our other professional organisations in the Alliance for Health Professionals, are lobbying hard to ensure that anyone who uses the Health Service only receives advice from qualified State registered practitioners, and that includes dieticians. This is irrespective of whether they are in hospital or visiting their GP.

We call on Congress and the General Council to support and reinforce our submission on this fundamental issue. Thank you.

A delegate formally seconded the motion.

Ms Liz Panton (Manufacturing Science Finance): I am a speech and language therapist. MSF can only support Motion 60 if due recognition is given to other NHS professionals who are also qualified and competent to give dietary and nutritional advice. The Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association, the CPHVA, is an autonomous sector of MSF. CPHVA members are recognised as competent sources of dietary and nutritional advice. Health visitors advise and support new mothers about breast versus bottle feeding and weaning. In inner city areas up to 60 per cent of a health visitor's work is advising families whose children have feeding problems and are failing to thrive.

Health visitors contribute to the Government's Healthier Nation targets by giving lifestyle dietary information to prevent coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer. The White Paper, Saving Lives, recognises this important work by community nurses and health visitors. The mainstream MSF membership includes speech and language therapists like myself. Speech and language therapists have led to significant improvements in the care and treatment of people with swallowing problems, people of all ages, from new born babies, such as those born with a cleft lip or pallet, through to older people with swallowing problems due to head and neck cancer, stroke, cerebral palsy, motor neurone disease and many other conditions.

The best services are provided when nurses, dieticians and speech and language therapists work in close partnership with patients and families. MSF fully supports the BDA's call for dietary and nutritional advice to be provided by state-registered dietitians. This will improve public protection and ensure higher quality health services. However, MSF seeks an assurance from the BDA and Congress that it would be inappropriate and unhelpful to try to restrict this one to one health profession when others not only contribute so much but have a duty to meet their professional and contractual responsibilities.

Ms Pauline Betteridge (Chartered Society of Physiotherapy) speaking in support of the motion, said: It has long been the aim of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and the other PAM (Professions Allied to Medicine) professions to protect the public by limiting the profession to those who have a recognised form of training. Hopefully, this development will come about this autumn as part of the Health Bill.

Primary care groups were set up in such a way that the Professions Allied to Medicine have no active voice and, therefore, this leaves the door open to staff who are not state registered and who have not gone through what is understood to be a recognised form of screening to work in these areas. These people are not monitored by a professional body and do not have professional standards. Therefore, to make sure that the public is protected in all the care that the Professions Allied to Medicine provide, we ask you to support this motion.

The President: The General Council is leaving the motion to Congress.

* Motion 60 was CARRIED

National Education Centre

Ms Megan Dobney (Graphical, Paper and Media Union) speaking to Chapter 14 of the General Council's Report, said: This is about an omission in Chapter 14. Chapter 14 discusses a new marketing strategy being implemented at the National Education Centre in Hornsey. I wonder what it is - a denial of our history, the desecration of our culture? Shall we call it the New Philistine Strategy? We had a mural in Hornsey. It celebrated our forebears struggles from the Luddites, through the match girls, printers, dockers and miners, celebrating their fight for a perfect world. We had a mural in Hornsey. We have not got a mural now. We have been whitewashed. We have been tidied up. We have been modernised and painted over.

The TUC spokesperson said: "It was getting a bit grubby round the edges". Excuse me, but the last supper by Leonardo di Vinci was getting grubby round the edges. What did we do? We restored it. St. Paul's Cathedral was looking a bit grubby, but we did not knock it down. We cleaned it. There are stained glass windows in Hornsey, stained with the names of our history - SOGAT, NATSOPA, SLADE - which have all gone but living on in the GPMU. Shall we all go down and fling bricks through them because they are a bit grubby? I cannot imagine how the artists, Paul Butler and Desmond Rochford, must feel. Let us spare a thought for them.

This act of cultural vandalism has got to be challenged, and we, delegates, must say that it must never happen again. There is a contradiction in celebrating Andrew Motions poem this week, we having destroyed this painting five months ago. This is not modernising but vandalising. If you cannot take care of our heritage, you cannot be trusted with our future. I want a commitment to this Congress that the General Council and the TUC will be more careful of our assets, more protective of our history, and that they will do what they can to undo the vandalism and see what can be done about restoring this mural.

On a final note, do you know that the staff at the National Education Centre suggested that instead of painting it over, we might board it up. No, we could not do that because it might damage the walls.

Mr Geoff Ellis (Fire Brigades Union) speaking to Chapter 14, said: I have been a student at the National Education Centre on many occasions. I have been into the room where the mural used to be, as has Megan. I have seen the mural as have many of you. It represented a hundred years of labour history. As Megan said, and as many of you are aware, the mural was painted over - whitewashed and destroyed from our building - from our National Education Centre. It is an absolute disgrace. I would call it corporate graffiti. What was the reason given for painting out our history? It might offend some of the corporate business people who now use the building.

President, I want to know who agreed to this act of vandalism. I want to know what is going to be done to this person because I would say that this person should be dismissed, sacked or removed from office. Thank you. (Applause)

Mr John Monks (General Secretary): I want to nail that last remark, that this was done as a commercial venture to make the place a neutral venue. It certainly has not been done for that.

Let me just explain something that has not been discussed here so far this week. During the course of the year, the TUC has gone through a ten per cent reduction in staff, which is the third cut we have had to put through in recent years. We have been struggling to make ends meet, to use all our assets in Congress House and at the NEC as much as possible, so that we can continue to provide the services that unions need and workers deserve. That has meant quite a major recasting at the NEC with new syndicate rooms, new creche facilities, new leisure facilities, and a new centre with the latest technology.

The original room where that particular mural is -- and there is another one which has not been mentioned in the contributions, which is downstairs as many of you will know -- was a common room and a dining room. It was a backdrop to that, and a pleasant and inspiring backdrop it could be too. Now the usage of that room has changed and technology is being put in. We needed to brighten it up and change the whole thing. It is a matter of taste in the end, I guess, but we are conscious of our heritage as much as anyone who has spoken from this rostrum this morning.

To those who are saying "protect our heritage", let me direct your attention to the museum at Tolpuddle, where we are putting a major effort into its restoration, to get something that the Movement as a whole can be proud of; and the National Museum for Labour History in Manchester of which I am a trustee. I must say it is doing its best to collect our heritage together. We have to move with the times. We have to raise some money. It eases the pressure on your affiliation fees. This was an essential step in the right direction.

I have to say that I am the person responsible.

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs)

The President: I now call Composite Motion 24, Genetically modified organisms, GMOs. The General Council are supporting the composite and I will call Anne Gibson of the General Council to explain the position after it has been moved and seconded.

Ms Valerie Ellis (Institution of Professionals, Managers and Specialists) moved composite motion 24:

She said: Congress, genetic manipulation has been around since the 1970s and a wide range of applications in agriculture, medicine, the environment, manufacturing industry and research have been developed. So why the current high levels of concern? A major factor, particularly in the UK, is the BSE experience, which has severely damaged public trust and confidence in both government and science.

The purpose of this composite is to set out the framework in which public confidence and trust can be re-established and in which the claims about the potential benefits and risks of GMOs can be resolved on the basis of the best scientific evidence available. The process of assessing and reporting scientific advice should be fully transparent and involve a full and open dialogue with both politicians and the public. The assumptions, interests and questions lying behind the evidence must be exposed to full view and potential conflicts of interest should be openly declared and properly regulated. The new regulatory framework set out by the Government after extensive consultation meets many of these requirements, but additional measures are required to support it. There must be research and testing which is independent and seen to be so.

Cuts in public funding for research in the public interest, in both this and other areas of concern to the health and safety of the nation, must be reversed. The long-term monitoring of the cumulative effects of GMOs in humans and the environment called for in the composite also need to be fully resourced. For long-term monitoring to be effective there must also be separation and labelling of GM ingredients. This will also maximise choice for both consumers and for farmers.

Finally, a purely UK solution is not enough. Multinationals producing and researching GMOs must be effectively regulated to ensure that they do not monopolise techniques and eliminate choice. The principles set out in this composite need to be adopted world-wide and the TUC's campaign should extend through the international arms of the trade union Movement to ensure that they are.

Please support the composite.

Mr Alan Milne (Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union) seconding the composite motion said: I am here supporting this composite. GMOs are not new to the world. They may be a dirty word at present, and even in The Guardian today it states that one company wants to come away from it. But they will creep back in. Do not forget about that. The food chain is one of the most important points of the problems we have within our community. It is something that everyone is affected by. It is our food chain.

Let us look back at the historical concerns and the lack of safeguards we have had over the last 20 years. First Edwina Curry, sacked for going public on salmonella poisoning in eggs. She was classed by her own government as irresponsible. The British Government at the time was more concerned with the cost of the economy than the vulnerable people in our society, the young and the old. Then came BSE. Sacked, the scientist working for the public going public on his finding on BSE. His concerns were that they could be transferred to humans. At around that time we had John Gummer, British Minister, feeding his child a beefburger, publicly saying that British beef is safe.

Congress, support this motion, do not leave the decisions to any one party. We are responsible for our children and the future of generations of people to come in this country. Please support.

Mr B Revell (Transport and General Workers Union) supporting the composite motion said: While supporting Composite Motion 24, the Transport and General Workers Union has reservations and our policy calls for a moratorium on the introduction of GMOs. In yesterday's Independent it said: “Dayglow potato will use genes from jelly fish.”

Transgenic experiments like this demonstrate the potential for tampering with natural food in the interests of profit. The T&G is not opposed to research but, as the IPMS has said, it must be independent of commercial interests.

Also, open field trials may lead to GM material escaping into the environment.

The composite recognises the need for long-term monitoring. We support this. We have all learned from the tragic experience of BSE. Biotech companies like Monsanto have introduced GMOs into our food supply without our knowledge or consent. Only consumer pressure has forced the big supermarkets to shift to a policy of avoiding GM food.

Last June, the USA filed a complaint to the WTO that labelling of GMOs should be seen as an act in restraint of trade. This is a serious threat. We call upon the General Council to adopt a precautionary approach to respect the public concern, to resist the powerful forces which promote GMOs, and to recognise that natural food is the best option for human health and the environment.

Ms Anne Gibson (General Council) replying to the debate on behalf of the General Council said: Congress, unions are in a unique position to enter into the GMO debate. Our members work in research and development, food processing and production, food distribution and sale. Unions support the retention and continued expansion of a British biotechnology industry, but not at the expense of human or environmental health.

Congress, there is a general contentment about the use of GMOs in medical pharmaceutical products but there is public concern, as the T&G speaker said, and a consumer resistance to their use in food. Unions in food production, distribution and processing have been involved in successful campaigns to withdraw foods containing GMOs from supermarket shelves.

This composite covers two distinct positions relating to GMOs: it draws on the IPMS's argument in favour of further research to fill in the gaps in current knowledge; and the Bakers Union's concerns which are that, until this research has convinced the public that GMOs in food are safe, then the commercial exploitation of the technology in the food industry should be stopped. They believe that full and independent testing should be conducted, first, to ensure the safety of workers, consumers and the environment.

With that explanation, Congress, I would ask you to support the composite.

* Composite 24 was CARRIED.

Address by the Rt Hon. Clare Short MP, Secretary of State for International Development.

The President: I have particular pleasure now in welcoming Clare Short to the platform. You are very welcome here, Clare. I will call on Clare to speak in a moment or two.

Clare is, as you know, the Secretary of State for International Development. She has devoted her boundless energy to promoting the policies of sustainable development and the elimination of poverty throughout the world. Her Department manages Britain's very sizeable programme of assistance to developing countries, and she has been involved in helping refugees, not least in Kosovo.

We at the TUC are very, very keen to co-operate with the Department in advancing our common objectives and, as Ken Jackson said yesterday, the trade union Movement is taking a range of initiatives to give international development issues a much higher profile.

Clare, you are one of those rare politicians whose personality always shines through, and we very much look forward to hearing what you will say to us this afternoon.

The Rt Hon Clare Short MP (Secretary of State for International Development); Congress, I am very pleased to be here today among so many old friends.

Labour and the trade unions have come a long way together, united by our shared commitment to social justice, both at home and internationally. I am proud to be here today as part of a Labour Government, for which we waited so long, which has -- whatever our impatience -- those values of social justice at its very core. Social justice at home, to undo the years of growing inequality and poverty created by the previous government; and social justice abroad, working systematically to reduce the poverty of the world's poorest people.

My job -- I think the best job in the Cabinet myself, but don't tell the others! -- which is heading up our government's efforts to reduce global poverty, takes me to countries with large numbers of malnourished and illiterate people. These visits have caused me to reflect a great deal on the days when equally bad conditions were common in the UK and whether we could apply the lessons of how we made progress across the world.

I recently read a new book about the history of council housing and urban renewal in Birmingham between 1849 and 1999, written if anyone wants to look for it by a local historian called Carl Chinn. He outlines how Britain was transformed from the early 1800s by the process of industrialisation. It was a period, as you know, of great change. Young people moved in droves from the countryside to the towns. The era of deference to the land-owning class ended. Both the middle class and working class established a new sense of identity and a new politics. Both were creating wealth and wanted to benefit from it.

But at that time working people lived in very squalid conditions. A report commissioned on Birmingham in 1849 recorded that people lived in tiny, cockroach infested, badly built houses made of dirt. Water came from polluted wells, streets were uncleaned, cesspits overflowed. Women struggled to keep their families clean, but disease was rife and life was short. Birmingham was of course not alone. In 1847, average life expectancy in Surrey was 45, in London 37 and in Liverpool a shocking 26. The point of saying all this to you today is, of course, that these are the levels of life expectancy now in the poorest countries of the world. That is the parallel with our own history.

The history of the British trade union Movement and of the Labour Party is the history of Britain's struggle, first for democracy and then for social justice: a struggle to ensure that the wealth created by industrialisation was fairly shared by all people and that education, healthcare, decent housing and a decent income was available to all. Clearly that job is not complete. Our government is working to reduce child poverty and increase opportunity in our country, and we are working on that together.

However, many people in the world today exist in poverty and squalor as bad as it was in Britain in the 1850s. I have, for example, just recently visited Sierra Leone where average life expectancy is 35. So if we were living there most of the people in this room would no longer be alive; Bolivia, where 70 per cent of people are malnourished; and India, where one-third of the population of nearly one billion people lives in extreme poverty. The parallel, I believe, between the 1850s and now is very striking.

Today, globalisation is causing massive economic and social change. Huge wealth is being created, but we are also seeing an enormous growth in inequality between countries and within countries. The challenge of our times, in my view, is to ensure that the wealth and opportunity generated by globalisation is distributed equitably; and that we seize the opportunity that is available for a rapid period of advance and a reduction in the suffering caused by poverty worldwide.

It is my view that this is both the biggest moral challenge our generation faces and also a growing challenge to our own self interest. If we do not reduce poverty, the conflict, disease and environmental degradation to which it leads will damage the prospects of the next generation wherever they live.

The challenge, as you know, Congress, is huge. One in four -- shamefully, one in four -- of the people who share this planet with us, 1.3 billion people in the world, live on less than 60 pence a day, without adequate food, without clean water, basic education or basic healthcare. It is easy, of course, to feel overwhelmed in the face of such massive amounts of poverty, but that would be the wrong response.

In recent decades there has been great progress. Life expectancy and literacy are increasing across the world: infant and child mortality is declining. We now better understand what works in development and how to speed it up. But, because the world's population has grown so fast, there are more people alive today than has ever been the case in the world before. Faster progress is now possible, but it also necessary to prevent the constant growth of extreme poverty and everything that grows from that.

At the heart of this government's development policy is a commitment to the international development targets -- targets for poverty reductions agreed by the world's governments at the major UN conferences of the past decade. The main goal, agreed by all, is to halve the proportion of the world's population living in abject poverty by 2015. That is one billion people who have to make the journey out of extreme poverty within twenty years. There are associated agreed targets including universal primary education, basic healthcare and reproductive healthcare for all, and sustainable development plans in every country, all by 2015.

These are not just aspirational targets that have been plucked from the air. They build on progress that has already been made. The governments of the world are all committed to them. The Development Committee of the OECD, which represents, as you know, the most developed industrialised nations, believes they are both achievable and affordable. But to achieve them we need to generate the necessary political will and adopt the appropriate policies, nationally and internationally. If we are to do that, we need the active support of the international trade union Movement.

Congress, this is a wonderful opportunity for the world. Within twenty years we could have every child in the world in education for the first time ever in human history -- fundamental illiteracy removed from the human condition. We could have every human being with access to basic health care, and every woman with a chance to control her own fertility and see her children grow and live.

The Government is committed to using Britain's influence to mobilise the international system behind these targets, and the policies necessary to deliver them. After years of Tory cuts to the aid budget, I am proud to say that Labour has kept its promise and we have reversed this trend. We have committed an extra £1.6 billion for development over three years, and we are improving the quality and poverty focus of our aid, working in partnership with developing country governments that are serious about reducing poverty, upholding human rights and tackling corruption.

But the new development agenda goes way beyond simply providing aid. We must also ensure that the interests of the world's poor are fully integrated into all areas of policy, otherwise aid is simply a charitable sop to make up for the disadvantages flowing from unfair trade or unfair investment policies.

Take debt relief: Britain has led the efforts to get international agreement on faster and deeper debt relief for many of the world's poorest, most indebted countries who will never escape, will never be able to pay and never escape from the level of debt that they are now carrying. Progress was made at the Cologne G8 Summit and I hope it will be finalised at the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings later this month which Gordon Brown and I will attend.

We are also working for a comprehensive trade round that advances the interests of developing countries. This is in the interests of British workers too. We all benefit from the higher levels of growth and investment that result from reduced trade barriers. We will all lose if the world retreats into protectionism. We cannot reduce poverty without economic growth, which must also be sustainable and environmentally responsible. The poorest countries need improved trading opportunities to reduce poverty. We must stand up for those first principles in the next trade round.

We have also been very closely involved in reforming the global financial architecture, as it is called. The Asian financial crisis taught us a lot of lessons that we should take seriously and showed that major reform was necessary to deal with the problems of short-term capital flows, and to reduce the risks of financial and economic instability spreading from a crisis in Asia across the world and threatening jobs in the north-east of Britain, as we saw. A lesson of that crisis was that the high levels of growth achieved in East Asia were not sustainable in an Indonesia that did not respect human rights or allow trades unions to organise; or in Korea and Thailand, where the relationship between banks and industry was unregulated and corrupt. Human rights are not just an add-on. If they are not there the economic growth will fumble and we will see the kind of crisis we have seen in Indonesia.

Congress, this is a very large agenda and much of it overlaps with many of your concerns. We are all operating in a new, very different world. This is the reality of globalisation.

I said before that it is my view that globalisation is as big an historical shift as was the change from feudalism to industrialisation. That earlier shift remade the whole political and economic landscape of the world. It brought economic growth but unequal benefits, and it gave birth to the trade union Movement. It was the trades unions which realised earlier on that industrialisation was here to stay, but that it must be managed.

And so it is today. Global economic integration and interdependence is a reality. We cannot turn back the clock. Our common challenge is to manage the globalisation process equitably and sustainably. That is why my Department and I have been talking with the TUC and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions to strengthen our ability to work together on these issues, particularly on core labour standards worldwide. We plan to publish a joint statement on how we can take this forward in the next few months. That will obviously be distributed throughout the trade union Movement.

Today, I want to highlight three areas where I think future dialogue and cooperation between us is essential to forge a real partnership for social justice and development. First, core labour standards. There are, as you know, an estimated 250 million working children in developing countries. Most are trapped by the need to provide income for their desperately poor families. Most working children come from women-headed households, very poor households. It is not that their parents do not care; it is that their families are desperately poor. But many children are, as you will all know, engaged in forced, exploitative or dangerous employment which threatens their health and mental development, and indeed perhaps the whole of the future of their life.

My Department is supporting a range of initiatives in this area, such as the programme to remove children from the football stitching industry in Sialkot in Pakistan. We are also working with Juan Somavia to strengthen the role of the ILO in promoting core labour standards across the world.

Your efforts, and those of trades unionists worldwide, helped to secure the unanimous adoption in June of a new ILO Convention to immediately outlaw the worst forms of child labour. Also, of course, the change in government in Britain from a hostile government to a strongly supportive government helped to get that through.

We have much to do now to implement this important advance We must establish programmes worldwide. Adopting Conventions is important but we have to implement them too. We must establish programmes to allow children to move out of work and into school, and create conditions in which parents are no longer dependent on their children's income but instead earn a decent income to support their family. There is much here to learn from our own historical experience of eliminating child labour in Britain.

Secondly, the link with business. Here in Britain, trades unions are increasingly working in partnership with employers to bring real benefits to the workforce, the business and the health of the economy. But dialogue with employers can also help strengthen the rights of workers in developing countries. Take, for example, the Ethical Trading Initiative which is supported by my Department. It brings together trades unions, business -- most of all, major British retailers -- and non-governmental organisations to examine supply chains in poorer countries against an agreed Code of Conduct, which includes key commitments on labour standards. That is a very important example of working together to try and make sure that the goods we buy in our supermarkets are not produced by child labourers or by exploiting the environment.

You have a crucial role here. Your members are the bedrock of knowledge about employee and employer relationships. You have vital links with trades unions in other countries, and you have a mutual interest in protecting the poorest and ensuring that globalisation does not lead to a decline in labour standards that threaten the conditions of workers in industrialised countries. This is not just applicable to your own self interest. You have to protect labour standards of the poorest people to make sure that they are not used against the labour standards of workers in industrialised countries.

A third key area is what I call "reaching out to the poorest". The world's very poorest people -- that is one in four of us -- are very rarely in the organised workforce. Of course, trades unions have an interest in organising the unorganised, but, like us, you also have an interest in supporting pro-poor economic development for those who are not in a position to join trades unions. The best of international trade unionism is about speaking up for the poor and the oppressed, whether they are unionised or not.

The evidence is clear that high levels of economic growth in very unequal societies have a limited effect on reducing poverty because the poor only gain in proportion to their original share. Where societies are less unequal, economic growth has a much greater impact on reducing poverty. This is familiar territory to the trade union Movement and needs to be taken forward strongly in the poorest countries which tend to be the most unequal.

We also know that development proceeds fastest where there is an active civil society, where people hold their governments to account, demand that they do better, speak out against corruption, urge faster progress. Just as you are instrumental in pushing for social reform in this country, so must trade unions increasingly be advocates of economic and social reform in developing countries.

We are rightly proud of the trade unions' role at the forefront of the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa. In Zimbabwe today trades unions are the only effective opposition to the excesses of the government. Trades unions worldwide can be proud of these examples, but there is much more to do and much more that we could do together.

Throughout this century trade unions have been at the forefront of advancing social justice in Britain and in many countries across the world. The challenge for the new millennium is to advance these principles of social justice in a new, more interdependent world to bring real advances in human welfare for millions of working people and their families. Trade unions are central to this, strengthening the voices of the poor and the exploited across the world, championing the reforms that will improve their conditions and life chances.

I very much hope that in the next year we will forge a strengthened alliance to take forward this urgent and profoundly important agenda. (Applause)

The President: Thank you very much for that, Clare; what you had to say to us concentrates the minds and illustrates how, if we are going to have a better world for everyone, we have to lift our eyes outside of these shores because sustainable development and the elimination of poverty are absolutely essential. We certainly will want to continue to support Clare and work with her Department and moving towards these objectives. Thank you again very much indeed, Clare.

Energy Policy

The President: I call Motion 66 on energy policy. This is outstanding business from Wednesday morning. The General Council support the motion and oppose the amendment. I will call on Roger Lyons on behalf of the General Council to explain the General Council's policy after the amendment has been moved and seconded.

Mr Patrick Carragher (British Association of Colliery Management -Technical, Energy and Administrative Management) moved Motion 66.

He said: Two years ago at this rostrum, along with colleagues from the electricity sector, we put forward a composite motion seeking Congress support to make a number of changes in the energy sector, designed to remove some anomalies which we felt at the time were particularly adverse to the position of the coal industry. In large part the Government have taken measures to address our concerns. They have done that through the revised trading arrangements for electricity and by introducing a stricter policy about building gas fired power stations.

You might ask why am I here now. The reason is because we have concerns, particularly in the gas consents policy, that it is going a bit flaky at the edges. Recently we have had a proposal to build a station, which has been approved, in South Wales. I find the arguments which say that that decision was consistent with a stricter policy very hard to accept.

The second reason why we are here is because the position has altered in relation to the issue of coal imports and the coal price. It is very difficult in the current circumstance with coal to see that it is going to retain its market into the future. I know that the Government will say that obviously coal is traded in a free market globally, and I obviously would accept that but I would make a number of points.

There is an issue of dumping of coal. We have coal being dumped into the steel market, into the domestic market, both from within the European Union and from countries which are seeking to access the European Union such as Poland. We have just heard Clare Short talk about the need to ensure we have standards globally, and I would say that it is not right that we should be importing coal from countries like Colombia where in 1997 over 150 trades unionists were killed. There are children working in the coal mines. Surely that cannot be ethically correct.

Another area where we think that we need to make further representations to government is on the issue of the inter-connector with France. This currently ties the market of up to 15million tons of coal. We do not think that that is operated in the way it was meant to. We do not think it is a fair system, and when we made these representations last time with government the point was made that these arrangements stemmed from a treaty which was not easily renegotiable. That treaty is up for renegotiation in the year 2000. So we would seek Congress support for that.

I would also like to seek further support in making recommendations and progress with the European Commission, because if we do not make progress here what, in practice, will happen is that we will end up closing the most efficient coal production capacity in Europe, and that cannot be right.

My final point is that whilst we agree with the Government's stated policy of secure, diverse and sustainable, I have to say that in the longer term I -- and I believe many other colleagues in energy -- have great doubts about how that will be met in ten or 15 years' time, given the relative costs of commissioning gas stations as against other alternative forms of producing electricity.

I believe the motion is sensible, it is consistent with a balanced policy and I would ask Congress to support. I will try and get my attack in first. I do not believe that the amendment is in line with a balanced energy policy. I would ask Congress to support the motion and reject the amendment. Thank you.

A delegate formally seconded the motion.

Mr Frank Cave (National Union of Mineworkers) moved the amendment to Motion 66.

He said: For many years the National Union of Mineworkers have been in favour of an integrated energy policy based on indigenous deep mined coal. We have spoken at previous TUC and Labour Party conferences asking both the Labour Government and the previous Tory Government to stop importing millions of tons of coal into Britain every year, coal that has been subsidised and in some cases produced by child labour. It is crazy that governments allow millions of tons of coal per year to be imported into Britain when at the same time British mineworkers are being put out of work.

We have also been at the forefront arguing for money to be made available to guarantee a programme of new clean coal technology in our power stations, but if we are serious about improving the environment then not only must we have a programme for new clean coal technology but we must also close down the dangerous nuclear power stations. If we are serious about improving the environment, then we must stop raping the countryside with open cast coal mining.

Comrades, it is essential that the United Kingdom retains a viable coal mining industry. We have argued this for years; we have presented evidence to select committees and we have proved beyond doubt that electricity produced by British coal was the cheapest way of generating electricity in Britain. The Tories spent billions of pounds of taxpayers' money trying to destroy us. They eventually privatised what was left of the British mining industry. We are asking the New Labour Government to carry out Labour Party Conference policy and take back into public ownership the electricity supply industry and the coal mining industry. They should be owned by the people on behalf of the people, and not left to the free market philosophy.

I am asking Congress to support the energy policy motion as amended by the National Union of Mineworkers. I move.

A Delegate formally seconded the amendment.

Ms A Phillips (UNISON): Asking Conference to support the motion and oppose the amendment. The motion itself tackles a difficult and complex issue and it puts forward a practical and achievable strategy. It is the kind of motion that should get serious consideration in government circles. The amendment: the issue of public ownership must be taken seriously and at UNISON we want to see the return of public ownership for essential utility services like electricity, coal and gas. UNISON believes in it so strongly that we published an excellent book called "The Case For Public Ownership" by Professor Malcolm Sawyer and Dr Cathy O'Donnell and it is available at your local UNISON store. The book explains why there is no technical, legal or economic reasons why we cannot return industries like electricity, gas and coal to public energy, so why are we opposing the amendment?

Renationalisation is a bit like going out on the pull and trying to score. You need to have a lot of flirting and foreplay first or you have no chance. The gas, electricity and coal workers have all been shafted enough already. We need to win the political argument first. This will be a long task. Public ownership of the energy industries is as relevant today as it was 50 years ago when the great post-war nationalisation programme was achieved, but it is not a popular view. The world has moved on. Achieving our aims will depend on gaining political support and winning political argument. Re-nationalisation is far too serious an issue for soundbite politics.

The motion itself provides a fair, substantial and secure energy policy. The motion provides a future for the coal industry, but the amendment is a distraction from the key issues addressed in the motion and the amendment will also ruin the case for public ownership.

Support the motion and oppose the amendment.

Mr Andy Bye (Institution of Professionals, Managers and Specialists) speaking in support of Motion 66 but asking Congress to oppose the NUM amendment.

My union welcomes Motion 66 as it complements the well-established TUC line in favour of a balanced energy policy and the continued use of a basket of different fuels and resources in energy production. In supporting that balanced approach my union has criticised the dash for gas and we are clear in our policy that there is a role for coal, renewable and nuclear resources in energy production.

If Congress accepts the amendment's call for the phasing out of nuclear power stations, we will destroy our commitment to a balanced approach and such a move cannot be justified at a time when the legally binding targets on greenhouse gases adopted at Kyoto strengthen the case for nuclear energy.

The role of nuclear energy in generating electricity has been recently studied by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering. Their joint report, published in June, concluded that it is vital to keep the new nuclear option open and that we cannot be confident that the combination of efficiency, conservation and renewables will be enough to meet the needs of environmental protection while providing the secure supply of energy at an acceptable cost. The UK has 35 operating reactors. They currently provide 20 per cent of our electricity, and that figures is 50 per cent in Scotland.

In 1998 the House of Commons Trade and Industry Committee recommended that a formal presumption be made now for the purposes of long-term planning that new nuclear plant may be required in the course of the next two decades. Of course, everything humanly possible must be done to deal with public concerns over nuclear safety, but having a secure supply of energy capable of meeting our ever growing demand that is affordable and sustainable is fundamental to any civilised society. Nuclear power has an important role to play in UK energy production, and accordingly I would ask Congress to reject the amendment and support Motion 66. Will you continue to support a balanced approach to the TUC's energy policy.

Mr Roger Lyons (General Council) replying to the debate on behalf of the General Council said: We call on Congress to support the motion and oppose the NUM amendment. I want to emphasise the importance of the balanced energy policy that this Congress has tried to support and develop. We need to make sure that we have a good, constant energy supply that is efficiently produced and that is supplied to the consumer at a reasonable and affordable cost. For the short-term and for the long-term security of the country, we need a strong coal industry.

We welcome the Government's decision to tighten up on the granting of permission for new gas stations and to reform the market.

To help maintain coal's long-term viability the environmental issues must also be addressed. Investment in clean coal technologies is essential. The face of the electricity production sector has changed enormously over the 1990s. Unfortunately, what has not changed has been the arguments from the NUM. Membership of the European Union and the World Trade Organisation means that we just cannot impose an overnight import ban on coal. Stopping dumping, yes; a complete ban, though, is pie in the sky.

Whilst we appreciate the NUM's concern for the environment, which we are sure is behind the appeal to ban open cast mining, we need to think seriously about the many, many jobs that will be lost, and also about the employment dimensions of the nuclear industry.

In contrast, the motion puts forward practical policy objectives for ensuring that we have a balanced energy policy that will support our industry and the jobs in the sectors.

I wish on behalf of the General Council to emphasise that the amendment is an impractical and impossible solution to today's problems and will not solve any of the problems facing the energy supply industry or the problems facing those working in it. Therefore, Congress, the General Council asks you to support the motion and oppose the amendment.

* The amendment to motion 66 was LOST

* Motion 66 was CARRIED

Congress adjourned until 2 p.m.

THURSDAY AFTERNOON SESSION

Congress reassembled at 2.00 p.m.

The President: Congress, can you please come back to order, and can I say thanks again to the NKS Jazz Quartet for their last piece of music for this Congress. Thank you very much indeed. (Applause) It has been very much appreciated.

Equal Rights

The President: Delegates, I am now moving to Chapter 4 of the General Council's Report, which you will find on page 34, to take the debate on the TUC's Equality Structures. I will take paragraphs 4.1 and 4.2 and then I am going to ask the General Secretary to introduce the debate and the General Council's statement on TUC Equality Structures. I will then call the mover, the seconder and supporters of Composite Motion 5. After the debate I will give the right of reply to the mover of Composite 5 and to the General Secretary and then we will move to the vote on the motion and then the statement in that order.

TUC Equality Structures

Mr John Monks (General Secretary) moved the General Council's statement on Equality Structures:

He said: President, Congress, the General Council is asking you to vote in favour of their statement and to oppose the composite. Now the statement makes clear why we are taking this course of action. There is tremendous sympathy with the matters raised in the composite. We are aware of the dissatisfaction in the Movement about the profile of equality issues in TUC affairs. We undertake to look at all the issues that the composite raises, but there are problems with the composite: it is too prescriptive; it proposes solutions that undoubtedly will bring other problems, for example, on the disability structures that are proposed. We are prepared to change them but we want to do so in a way that commands widespread support. Many unions are anxious to make the TUC disability structures more, not less, inclusive and the issue is going to need some serious consideration and consultation.

I mentioned earlier that the TUC has had to make some painful cuts in the past year. We simply cannot do everything, and there will be some choices to be made in this particular area, though the particular option which is chosen by unions and by the General Council will be fine, but we cannot do everything, we cannot keep adding on new bits.

Similarly - and I can give an encouraging response here too - we are looking at the structure of the General Council. There are a number of issues already in train about the representation of smaller unions, about the issues of devolution and what they mean for the British TUC. As part of the Millennial Challenge we are committed to look at TUC structures starting with a meeting to which all affiliated unions are being invited in October to be held at the NUT college up in Stoke Rochford. So we will certainly take on board these issues and look at them in the context of the General Council as a whole.

Finally, I come to the issues about the Congress agenda. This is a very difficult issue. This is a Congress of affiliated trade unions. Only affiliated trade unions have got the right to put motions to this Congress, along with the General Council who put statements, and unions, I know, have got very different views about the practicalities of importing resolutions of other conferences, aside from the principle of whether we decide that we are simply going to keep this Congress as a Parliament for trade unions to put resolutions to. We are certainly prepared to look very closely at how we do the equality debate at Congress and we are aware, too, of the strength of feeling on it. We will look at the options, including the one proposed in the composite, but I know behind the particular conferences that are mentioned in the composite, there is quite a long list of other TUC conferences and other TUC bodies who would almost certainly be looking for equity and equality of treatment. I do not have to list their names, but it is a very long list indeed, and the implications for changing the nature of Congress are considerable.

So I am asking you to back the statement, to oppose the motion and not to tie our hands on a particular formula which can certainly get in the way of this broader consideration that we are committed to deal with. Look carefully at the General Council's statement and the pledges - because that is what they are - that it makes. So support the statement and oppose the composite.

TUC Black Workers', Women's, and Lesbian and Gay Conferences

The President: I now call Composite Motion 5, TUC Black Workers', Women's, and Lesbian and Gay Conferences, and the General Council opposes the composite motion.

Mr Pav Alam (Communication Workers Union) moved Composite Motion 5:

He said: In moving the composite I will concentrate on the issue of the motions to the TUC from the equality conferences, allowing the MSF to comment on their specific concerns.

Conference, it is no accident that this motion is in front of you today. Allowing the equality conferences the right to submit motions is not just supported by the unions in the composite, but is the policy of the TUC Black Workers', Women's, and Lesbian and Gay Conferences. It reflects the aspirations of our members, those members who are the most exploited section of workers in Britain, those whom the trade union Movement has failed to represent adequately.

What trade unionists are saying via these conferences is that they want access to power, the power to influence policy at the heart of the TUC. It is not enough to pass motions at the TUC Women's Conference, or Black Workers' Conference, only to have them ignored or side-lined. Ultimately this is an issue of democracy and accountability.

Submitting motions would strengthen the trade union Movement by giving a voice to those who face, on a daily basis, racism homophobia, harassment, discrimination. It would help unite the TUC rather than serve those who prefer to divide the society in which we live.

Conference, you will have repeatedly heard speakers talking about equality being near the top of our agenda, but we want action not lip-service. The Stephen Lawrence report says that all institutions need to examine and change their structures to ensure that black people are properly represented. Well, that is why we are asking the TUC to take this step. Opposition purely on the basis of the practical difficulties, or the fact that it changes the nature of how Congress exists, is simply not good enough and is not acceptable, and I would say the statement is actually misleading when it says that the sovereignty of unions determining policy is under threat. It is not. It is the unions here, the affiliates, who will determine the policy of Congress.

But it is not an academic debate; it is about real issues. What have we talked about this week? We have talked about stress at work, harassment, bullying, and who are the members who are in the firing line? - Primarily, in the main, women, black people, gays and lesbians, those with disabilities. Who bears the burden of low pay, rotten housing and pitiful benefits? Who is at the sharp end? That is what you need to think about. If you think about the disputes that we have had in the recent period - Burnsalls, the Hillingdon workers, Critchley, Skychef - who are the workers who are bearing the brunt of that? - Asian workers, women workers, all low paid. That is what we are talking about. (Applause)

I am appealing to you, Congress. The current policy of the TUC supports what we are saying. It is in the Millennial Challenge which was passed earlier this week, in the Action Plan on Race. To oppose our motion sends the worst signal back to the most vulnerable and oppressed sections in society. It is contradictory to oppose this and say that equality is near the top of our agenda. I ask you, please support the motion and reject the statement and send a clear message to the General Council. As Rita Donaghy said this morning, we cannot stand still, it is time to move forward.

Mr Dave Cooke (Manufacturing Science Finance) seconding the composite motion said: MSF supports the demand of the motion for equality groups within the TUC to have the right of direct access to Congress by the submission of two motions. MSF's contribution to this composite is based on bringing the TUC disabled members' organisation in to line with the facilities and input currently afforded to the women, black and lesbian and gay members. It is not acceptable for the TUC to provide one level of access and participation to other equality groups and not to disabled members.

Congress, my colleague has just said that to reject this motion would put on record your unwillingness to provide equity for all oppressed groups within the TUC and give them that direct voice. Disabled members should have the same access and participation that the other groups have. That is a fundamental part of this motion. Don't cast it aside.

The General Council's statement talks about considering that issue. Make the decision today. Let the discussion, in the time that the General Council want to talk about whether we do it, talk about implementing it. If we pass Composite 5 today and we reject the General Council's statement, we can use the time in the next year to ensure that the procedures are, in fact, sorted out. I know there are reservations from some affiliates in respect of this move on disability, but that needs to be accommodated. We do not want the discussion on the principle; we need the discussion to be about inclusiveness and that is the key issue.

So please support the composite. Don't fail disabled members' aspirations now and, despite the General Council's opposition, concede the demand now, let the details be worked out later. That is a progressive way to make change, not just, "Well, let's have a look at it for another year". That is not good enough. Support the composite, reject the General Council's statement.

Mr Nick Roe (Independent Union of Halifax Staff) supporting the composite motion said: It is good news indeed to know that after two decades of decline the trade union Movement is moving up and moving on. As we continue to organise, we must ensure that we are seen as positive, appropriate and, most importantly, relevant to all people in the workplace, and that suitable forums are there and available to represent issues specific to those who are consistently discriminated against. One size most definitely does not fit all!

The successful establishment of the TUC Black Workers', TUC Women's and TUC Lesbian and Gay Conferences are recognised as vehicles to campaign on issues that affect and reflect the oppression, prejudice and discrimination suffered by our members. The establishment of a motion-based conference for disabled workers is a natural progression for the management of disability issues, allowing supported involvement where policy can be formulated by those who have direct experience and expertise.

The work that evolves from these events should be shared, debated and developed in the wider trade union Movement, not in splendid isolation. We are an organisation of solidarity and support and this is an opportunity to further this solidarity by bringing together Conference motions at the 2000 Congress profiling consistently the issues that arise out of racism, sexism, homophobia and disability, issues not the exclusive prerogative of the industrial relations agenda. We have a responsibility to fight discrimination, to promote equality, not side-line issues or marginalise members. The support of Composite 5 will demonstrate a commitment to further representative representation. Please, in promoting fairness and equality, vote in favour of the motion and against the statement.

Ms Cathy Williams (Chartered Society of Physiotherapy) supporting the composite motion said: We have heard at the start of Congress this week a number of high-profile speakers from the TUC supporting equality issues. We have heard how the President is skilled at turning policy into practice.

The time is long overdue for disabled workers to have a conference and committee along the lines of the Women's, Black Workers', and Lesbian and Gay Conferences and Committees. The views of disabled workers have been ignored for so long and the TUC has an obligation to hear their voice and action their requests.

In this year's General Council Report it was stated that the TUC is committed to mainstreaming equality issues and driving the equal rights agenda forward. One of the significant ways that this could be achieved is by two motions from each of the equality conferences being debated here at Congress. Being able to submit motions would benefit those with direct experience of the oppression and discrimination. This opportunity will serve to illustrate more clearly and inform the debate around equality issues more effectively than at present.

The TUC also states in its annual report that taking two motions from each of these Conferences is not permitted under current TUC rules. However, it cannot be beyond the TUC to produce a rule change. The TUC must be flexible and creative to be reflective and responsive to its members' changing needs. Equality issues need to be a core value of the TUC and the Millennial Challenge. This Congress has debated and supported on Monday morning with the motion on the Millennial Challenge the importance of the recruitment of members traditionally under-represented in the Movement. Passing this motion would provide that recruitment opportunity.

Congress, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy fully supports this motion. I urge you to give women, black workers, lesbian and gay workers and workers with disabilities a direct voice and their own voice - and we want it now! Please support.

Mr Andrew Taylor (UNIFI) supporting the composite motion said: UNIFI fully supports and welcomes the opportunities which the passing of this composite gives to us all in the trade union Movement. My union has, at every opportunity, joined in the debate and in some cases instigated the debate on how we can open out the equality agenda. The TUC equality agenda is rightly set at the relevant TUC Conferences for our black workers, women and lesbian and gay members. It is, of course, accepted that resolutions passed at these Conferences by delegates with direct experience and expertise are the key method of formulating policy.

However, delegates, we have all been guilty of not taking the equality agenda forward at the TUC Congress. If we are serious, then why have there been so few motions on equality issues submitted onto our Congress agenda? Now is the time to rectify this situation. We all need to take a serious and clear approach in furthering equality issues. This resolution goes some way in making that progression. If we are serious as a Movement about challenging discrimination and moving the equality debate forward then, yes, we will have to change. Change is only a problem when people do not want it and I ask myself, "Why would any union oppose a change which would open up how Congress does its business?"

Congress, let us not lose our way in this debate. On our agenda cover are the words "Partners at work". Let us show real partnership at work in the TUC by acknowledging the key role that we all can play. There have already been supportive responses on this issue debated at both the Women's and Black Workers' Conferences. My own union's joint General Secretary, Ed Sweeney, chairs the TUC Lesbian and Gay Committee, and the debate is ongoing by our members with disabilities. Passing this composite gives a clear and positive message to all our members. Now is the time, there is no better time, for us all to endorse this resolution.

Ms Jackie Lewis (UNISON) supporting the composite motion said: This motion is not just about the TUC's equality structures, but about the very meaning of equality and its place in our Movement. Building equality and tackling discrimination are core trade union functions. The Black Workers', Women's and Lesbian and Gay Conferences allow trade unionists who experience particular forms of discrimination to meet together to identify problems and identify solutions. Many affiliates have set up structures based on the same principle. They do not take away the responsibility of unions or the TUC for equality issues; they help fulfil it. But they can only do so if those problems and solutions can then be placed onto mainstream trade union agendas.

This motion proposes changes to help achieve that more effectively by establishing a Disabled Workers' Conference, by providing a voice for these Conferences at Congress itself, by allowing each Conference to identify two priority issues which they can make sure are on the Congress agenda. This would not take away the responsibility of unions to address equality issues within their motions and affiliates will still want to put forward their own policies on equality issues. After all, there are plenty to go round! There is not a single trade union issue which does not have an equalities angle and, Congress, you - Congress - would still decide on Congress policy.

Congress, there has been a lot of talk this week about changing the image of the TUC and unions and how that means changing the way we do things. That must include the TUC and Congress itself. This motion is about a step towards building the trade union Movement of tomorrow. The General Council is asking you not to take that step. It promises you that it will think about it - tomorrow, or maybe next year, or maybe .....

Congress, UNISON believes that we have been down this road long enough already. It is time now to act. (Applause) We should take that next step towards including equality issues at the heart of our Movement, at the heart of the Congress agenda. We should take that step today. We should not need to think about the basic principles involved in this motion. UNISON cannot support the General Council's statement. It simply isn't good enough, in 1999 it simply isn't good enough and it is no good saying, "We promise". The trade union Movement has to show its willingness to act, its willingness to be inclusive. UNISON urges you to support Composite 5 and reject the General Council's statement.

Ms Louisa Bull (Graphical, Paper and Media Union) supporting the composite motion said: In recent years, colleagues, the priority given to equality issues has been heightened by all TUC affiliates. My own union, GPMU, has expanded not only its policy development in this area, but has encouraged the greater participation of its women, its disabled, black, ethnic and lesbian and gay members - the majority, I must say, of TUC members. Our participation and support for the TUC motion-based conferences has also been total. However, our frustration, and that felt by our members, when it fails to get to Congress is understandable.

I know from my own experience that pressure to allocate one of the two Congress motions over to an equality issue is hard to achieve. It is also the reality faced by most other unions, a reality that has, in my view, been acknowledged by the TUC Equal Rights Department before. I believe it is no different on the General Council. How often have we argued the need to raise the profile of the equality debate here at Congress when we decide the Congress timetable? Here we see reality has hit home again: it is Thursday afternoon, last session of Congress and we are arguing to expand the equality debate. (Applause)

GPMU has already a mechanism to get our Women's Conference policy onto our BDC agenda, and it was not difficult. It is also a process our colleagues at the STUC have managed to already put right and I think we should take a lead from our Scottish colleagues.

Ms Maureen Rooney (Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union) supporting the General Council's statement said: I have to say that much that has been said in support of Composite Motion 5 it is very difficult to argue against. Lots of it has made sense, but I have to tell particularly my good sister from UNISON that I resented some of the innuendos that she was making in her statement. The General Council's statement makes it quite clear that, even as we speak, preparations are being made for in-depth discussions about the whole structure not only of the General Council, which is obviously very important, but indeed on how we do our business.

I do not agree with her either when she says that the prescriptive elements in Composite Motion 5, particularly about the suggestion on the eight motions, actually help the debate. I have a genuine and deep passion for this issue. I am genuinely concerned that perhaps pushing that element in the motion actually is a backward step.

Many of you are older than even me, some of you are younger, but I bet you have experienced in debates in conferences in your own unions and, indeed, at the Labour Party, perhaps even here at Congress, times when we have, in fact, concentrated on equality and often the room becomes half empty. I say to you, Congress, this is not the way forward. Trust the General Council in their deliberations over the next couple of weeks. (Cries of protest) Well, the General Council is made up of your leaders who you elect, and I do not think you should be saying too much about that. (Applause) Do not let the affiliated unions off the hook by saying we will send resolutions from our other conferences. It is anti-mainstreaming.

Support the General Council's statement. I say to you my support is not about practicalities here at Congress; it is actually more about the ownership and the development of the policies that are so important to all of us. We should be considering equality issues in a proper and a considered way and I believe that is what the General Council will bring back to Congress next year in good old Glasgow.

Mr Geoff Ellis (Fire Brigades Union) supporting the composite motion said: Congress, the speakers have said already that on Monday we heard two people from the platform, Hector MacKenzie and Jimmy Knapp, both saying about the importance of putting equality issues high on the agenda. What we need to do, as both of them said, is put it high on the agenda within the Movement and within the workplace. This composite, if carried, is exactly what that is going to do. What the composite calls for is a lot more than just a few fine words at this rostrum. It calls for actual physical action to get items onto the agenda so that we can debate them and actually carry things forward.

The Fire Brigades Union has recently set up their own groups within the union. We now have reserved seats and committee structures at all levels within the union for black members, for women members, for gay and lesbian members and for our part-time members. This is a step in the right direction. We have still got a long way to go.

Congress, if we are serious about the equality debate and equality issues - and I hope we are - what better way is there than to pass this composite and actually get the stuff put on the agenda at this Congress? We need to give our black members, our women members, our gay and lesbian members, our disabled members, a proper voice, a real opportunity to make change within this Movement.

Congress I ask: what are we scared of? Are we scared of having equality items on the agenda? Are we scared of having to spend a bit more time listening to eight more motions? Or, Congress, are we scared that we might have to reciprocate this in our own unions and give a voice to the members in our own unions as well?

Congress, the Fire Brigades Union has not yet carried out the full motives of this motion in our union although we are in the right direction, and I call on the TUC to take a lead in this and show unions how to do it and what to do. It is a disgrace that the General Council will not implement this at this time. I call on you to support the composite and oppose the General Council.

Mr Frederick Pyne (British Actors Equity Association), supporting Composite 5, said: I have a sense of deja vu because we went through exactly this process two years ago when we set up the Lesbian and Gay Committee and it was opposed by the Council. How can we in 1999 deny equal rights to our disabled members. Two thousand years ago somebody is supposed to have said "All men are born equal". Wrong: all people are born equal and let us treat everybody equally. That is what trade unionism is all about. Support Composite 5 and do not support the General Council.

Ms Anita Halpin (National Union of Journalists): First, I apologise to the National Union of Journalists Disabled Members Council that we were not able to table at conference the motion they instructed us to on disability rights. Unfortunately, two key issues (recognition and the Freedom of Information Bill) used up both our motions.

Second, I say to everybody who supports Composite 5, as we do wholeheartedly, remember it is either or: if you vote for Composite 5, you must vote against the General Council statement because, constitutionally, a General Council statement takes precedence and actually condemns your motion only to the status of an amendment. That is quite clear. One vote for Composite 5.

Ms Carol Popplewell (Public and Commercial Services Union): There must be a lot of delegates out there who are in what we call a typical TUC position of facing two ways at the same time.

I will outline some of the concerns that my members in PCS have if the Disability Forum were to be discontinued. My members value the work of the disability forum and the input participation that they have in helping to shape TUC policy. Because there are several forums a year, it enables PCS to send at least 20 delegates to be involved in these forums which gives many more people the opportunity to be involved in disability issues. If the disability forum was discontinued, our disabled members would feel that something had been taken away which was a very important and successful vehicle to them. We welcome the General Council's statement that there is going to be a consultative process. The General Council should take that consultative process and take into account not only what disabled people want but also what they need. It would be a retrograde step if the Disability Forum was discontinued because our members value it very, very highly.

Mr Joe Mann (National League of the Blind and Disabled), speaking in opposition to the composite and in support of the General Council's Statement, said: There is a major problem with the composite which is not at first self-evident, and I am sure it is inadvertent rather than deliberate. If you support the composite as it stands you are going to be excluding disabled people from something which they have become used to within the trade union annual agenda.

When we initiated the Annual Disability Conference, some two years ago, the National League approached the TUC (who willingly wished to move forward in that direction, and now do so on a joint basis with the National League), but I was very clear at that time that we did not want it to be on the same basis as the other conferences because we did not want to exclude anybody. The position today is that the Disability Forums are available for any union to send any number of delegates they want. To the National Disability Conference, a small union like our own (the National League), which would normally only be entitled to one delegate if it was a resolution-based conference, we are free to take as many disabled people as we want to; we take 40, 50 or 60 delegates to that conference. Anybody here in this conference today who is going to vote in favour of the composite and against the General Council's Statement is actually voting in favour of excluding my members from attending a disability conference which they have become used to. We have been fighting against exclusion for disabled people for a long, long time and the last thing we want is TUC Congress to go down that road. Please support the General Council's statement and vote against the composite.

Mr Pav Alam, replying on Composite Motion 5, said: There has been a great deal of opposition. The volume of support that has been put forward for our position has spoken for itself, but we do need, obviously, to take on board those specific points.

John raised in his opening contribution, in the Statement, the issue about other TUC conferences. I think some of us know what he is referring to, but there are other bodies who have conferences who may want at some stage to actually to down a similar avenue. That is not the issue we are debating here; it is not in the terms of the motion and the words are the words. Do not fall for that sort of smokescreen.

As to the serious issue of the Disability Forum (as my comrade from MSF mentioned in some detail), the conference is not a replacement for the Disability Forum. I take on board seriously those points from the various individuals, and the comrade who just spoke from the National League of the Blind and Disabled mentioned the word "exclusions". There is nothing in the composite motion about excluding. As to how the terms of reference are determined, it is up to the TUC, you are slightly missing the point there.

One of the things that was said (I think it was Maureen from the AEEU) was against mainstreaming. I suspect that a number of years ago I might have had some sympathy for what she was saying. We all generally understand that we want to bring these issues into the mainstream of union conferences everywhere and not just limit people to particular areas. But now the agenda has been set and driven by those conferences we referred to -- the lesbian and gay, the black workers and the women's conference -- and that is what they want. It is not necessarily my personal view, but that is the way they are going so we have to take recognition of that.

One of the things mentioned this morning was how do we encourage young people. It was mentioned numerous times this week. What signal will we send back to those young people who we want to encourage to join trade unions and to get involved? What message are we sending to young black women workers, disabled and lesbian and gay workers? You have to take recognition of that kind of thing. There is a dual standard taking place there. If we legislate at the TUC today then we will actually get a commitment out of the TUC. That is what we demand from Government and we ask them to change the law. So we are only asking for the same thing.

I conclude in terms of what was said at the very beginning of Congress this week by Lord MacKenzie in his statement, that he had a reputation as a fully paid-up member of the awkward squad when he pressed the case for the establishment of an Equality Department at Congress House. I ask you to support the motion and reject the statement on the basis that we want to join the awkward squad. Now is the time to do it.

Mr John Monks (General Secretary), replying to the debate on behalf of the General Council, said: This is an issue about heart and it is also an issue about head. There were quite a few points in the debate to which I could respond, but I am just going to pick on two.

One is that -- and it may be a bit dull to say this -- the TUC's resources are finite and there are many things that we must do. As to the idea of adding on in the disability area different bits of machinery in addition to the Disability Forum (and it may be that a motion-based conference is the preference of unions when you have had a chance to think about it), we are asking you in the General Council's Statement to think about it because it is a choice, not an addition. On motion-based conferences, I quote what one of the young people in one of the conversations that have been taking place through the week. I think it was Andy who said "We do not want more conferences where people are just talking at each other; we want conversations", the kind of spirit found in the Disability Forum -- and I have been there -- with its open access, is something different; I think it is something very important.

The other issue I want to pick on is access to Congress. "Treat everyone equally" was said very persuasively by the Equity delegate: Trades councils, yes? Regional councils, yes? Unemployed centres? Young workers have been mentioned. What about industrial sectors, who probably do not have too much of a shout either, and I know we are just about to move to the transport debate, a very important high-profile issue at the moment, which, due to the way the timetable has worked out, is on the end of the agenda. What about the occupational groups that we have round here, professional and managerial staffs who meet from time to time in TUC? If you drew a line with your heart, everybody would be included, but, in so doing, you would have changed the character of Congress from a parliament of unions who bring their policies to us to something that would be very diffuse. If you do not draw a strict line and say no to somebody from time to time, you get in trouble. Oppose composite 5 -- you will not let the General Council off the hook -- and support the General Council's Statement so that the head can look at it as well as the heart.

The President: We have calls for a card vote. Before we move to the card vote, two of the tellers who you approved earlier this week had to leave today because of urgent union business. Can I ask you to approve the following replacement tellers: Ray Hill of ISTC and Catherine Donaldson of IPMS. Is that agreed?

* This was AGREED.

The result of the card vote on Composite 5 was as follows:

For the Composite Motion: 3,020,000.

Against the Composite Motion: 3,340,000.

* Composite Motion 5 was LOST

The President: We now move to the vote on the General Council's Statement. There are calls for a card vote, but let us try the vote on a show of hands.

* The General Council's Statement was CARRIED

Mutuality

The President: The General Council supports Motion 67 on mutuality.

Mr David O'Dowd (Britannia Staff Union) moved Motion 67:

He said: Mutuals are coming under increasing pressure to convert to banks and the whole concept of mutuality could become a thing of the past if trade unionists fail to speak up in its defence.

In putting this motion forward, it is not our intention to interfere with the democratic process associated with member voting rights, nor is it the intention to enter the debate about whether present-day members are entitled to share in the distribution of reserves. The motion is about tightening the regulations governing building societies to ensure consideration is given to their long-term well being and that protection is given to borrowers. Look at what has happened at the Bradford & Bingley; they are working towards becoming a public limited company. This is not because of sound business planning but because of a members' resolution. Asking members to vote on whether they should receive windfall payments is like giving them access to the company cheque-book and inviting them to dip their bread. Their actions would be both understandable and predictable.

When building society members sign their voting slips on a motion to demutualise, do we expect them to concern themselves with the long-term well being of the business? Do we expect them to worry about the impact the decisions will have on jobs? Do we expect them to worry about the local community? Do we expect them to consider how the mutuality movement itself will be affected? No. The best we can hope for is that members follow the recommendations of the board of directors. Yet if the Bradford & Bingley experience is anything to go by, the likelihood is that many members will not vote objectively when a financial reward is on offer.

As trade unionists, our job is to represent members, whatever the status of the company. When there is no business rationale to challenge or be consulted upon, that task becomes impossible and the focus falls on company survival and job security.

Why is this happening and whose fault is it? If I have to apportion blame, I blame a government which appears reluctant to introduce primary legislation to halt the stampede to conversion. Despite a Treasury Select Committee investigation, the word is that its recommendations will go unanswered by a government which has no stomach for the fight to protect mutuality. Prime Minister, do you and your colleagues really mean to condone defensive tactics that exclude the less well off from becoming building society members just so the mutuals can fend off the carpet bagger? Prime Minister, we urge you to add your weight to the battle in support of mutuals and help remove the requirement for such defensive tactics. Find time for primary legislation. Congress, the trade union and mutuality movements complement each other. Let us ensure they continue to give dignity to the working man and let us ensure there is no social exclusion as we enter the next millennium. Please help the mutual interest campaign promote the benefits of mutuality and shame the Government into action. Please support the motion.

Mr Rory Murphy (UNIFI), seconding Motion 67, said: I express our support and admiration, and I hope Congress as well, to the Union for Bradford & Bingley staff and the Britannia Staff Union for their sterling defence of the mutual concept. Now it is our turn to support them. This current fad for demutualisation has sorely weakened the ability of ordinary people to have control over their finances. As a nation that predominantly goes in for home ownership, the benefits of mutuality have been clear for generations and many of us who now have mortgages have them because of the mutual building societies of the past and not the banks who now are trying to muscle into the market.

Let us not forget that it is not only building societies that are covered by the concept of mutuality. Indeed, one day maybe somebody will get the daft idea of demutualising trade unions. It is not for the faceless city wonder kids to decide whether a particular mutual society can make more money for them and their shareholders or not. Bribing people to pay for their vote with windfalls is not the way forward and is a bad echo to the greed of the 80s, which we can do without.

One thought that we might want to consider as we continue the campaign against demutualisation is that perhaps many of the predatory institutions are in fact frightened of the power of mutuality. When votes are taken in mutual societies, trade unionists hold block votes. Let us use them to protect mutuality for the next century.

* Motion 67 was CARRIED

Transport

Mr Jimmy Knapp (National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers) moved Composite Motion 21

He said: Congress, for the first time in a generation we have a Government committed to an integrated transport policy and encouraging the use of public transport. However, the Transport White Paper does not address the issue of ownership. We believe very sincerely that there should be a publicly owned, publicly accountable railway at the heart of our infrastructure. Investment should be for public need and not private greed, and that includes schemes like Central Railways. That is our goal.

The privatised framework within the rail industry has failed to deliver. Despite the clear evidence of that, the Government are now proposing to tread the same path on London Underground. That is a bad deal for the traveller, a bad deal for the taxpayer and a bad deal for the workforce. When the London Transport Board was asked to choose the preferred option of funding from a list of 15 alternatives, they put the issue of a public bond as top of the list, and they placed a private finance initiative or a private/partnership, whatever you want to call it, at number 14. The London School of Economics and the City firm of accountants, Chantrey Vellacott, agreed with that assessment. So the Government should be seriously looking at realistic alternative methods of funding.

The House of Commons Transport Select Committee agreed with that approach. That Select Committee has called on the Government to justify the case for the PPP against the public auction. We believe that there should be an independent audit of that comparison. It should not be conducted by those with vested interests, whether it is the DETR, London Underground or the City firms which have a direct financial interest. There should be an independent audit conducted in public and the results published.

The proposal is to give Railtrack the job of running the surface lines of the Underground. Railtrack have been threatened with heavy fines by the Regulator because their performance is poor and they are not investing enough in the maintenance of the mainline railways. Broken rails were up by 25 per cent last year, and yet the Government have said to Railtrack, "Oh, you have done such a wonderful job, now come and run the London Underground". Unfortunately, we do not understand the Government's thinking.

Congress, the type of alternative funding arrangements which we are talking about have been deployed very successfully in New York and Paris where the Metro systems are still in public ownership and funded by means other than PPP. So there is still time to change these proposals. There is a united trade union campaign of ASLEF, RMT and TSSA designed to achieve that object. We are asking for your support today, Congress, in helping us to keep the Tube public. You can take us a long way down that road by carrying Composite 21 and helping us to get government policy straight so that we can really serve the needs of the public in London and elsewhere.

Mr Richard Rosser (Transport Salaried Staffs' Association) seconding the composite motion, said: This composite is positive about development in public transport. It recognises that the Government's White Paper proposals are far reaching in terms of discharging the commitment to create a better and more integrated transport system. But it also points out that there are significant issues still outstanding concerning the funding and ownership of public transport, though it does recognise that it is unlikely that the railway industry will be back in public ownership in the foreseeable future.

That is why we welcome the legislation to create a strategic rail authority with the powers needed to create a tight regulatory framework to help ensure that the industry is geared to increased investment and increased and better services.

The news for Britain's railway industry is certainly not all negative. Passenger traffic is increasing, freight traffic is considerably higher than three years ago, the number of trains and services is up and investment by Railtrack last year, at long last, showed a welcomed rise. But there is also a significant downside. Complaints are at record levels, punctuality standards have fallen, Railtrack has failed to keep to even its own targets for reducing delays and also future investment plans by Railtrack depend on others providing money, and thus lack a firm base. We have an industry that lacks unity, it seems in a state of mutual warfare and not least with the new Regulator and the Rail Users' Committee. If the railway industry were a football team, it would have been shown the red card in the first minute.

When working relationships between many of the different firms within the industry are so poor and the work pressures on employees are ever-increasing, when the industry is the subject of regular adverse publicity, with ridicule and stinging criticism, it does nothing for the morale of the staff. Frankly, they deserve something better from those who run the railway companies, and we hope that John Prescott's new Strategic Rail Authority will bang a few heads together and point out that there is a national interest as well as the shareholder interest to take into account.

Privatisation of the railway industry has given us discord and disillusionment where previously there was unity and commitment to service. That, Congress, as Jimmy Knapp has said, is why we now want to see the much needed investment in London Transport provided by the ‘better value’ option of publicly based funding rather than through the public private partnership now being considered.

Mr Mick Rix (Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen): I speak in support of the composite but with reservations. Comrades, this motion records our support for a sane transport policy based on integration and our disgust and disbelief that New Labour now wants to repeat the same stupid mistakes as the Tories by privatising the Tube.

The reservation is that I cannot support publicly Central Railways and public finance. I fully agree with what Jimmy said on this issue.

This motion provides Congress with a beacon to fire a campaign against public private finance initiatives. I am speaking up for London Underground workers and for the people of London when we condemn the backdoor privatisation of the Tube. The Listen to London Campaign polled Tube users. Sixty-six per cent wanted the Tube to remain in the public sector. Seventy-eight per cent feared further fare increases on the world's most expensive mass transit system. Fares, they predict, will rise by more than 30 per cent with the money going to line the pockets of fat cat managers or invisible shareholders.

New Labour should admit that the dash for PPP is a result of the Government's problems over who will be the candidate for Mayor. You cannot say you are creating a democratic voice for London and then gag that voice on how public transport is owned and funded.

I say that there is an alternative way, not a third way. It is the way that Londoners would prefer. It is the "Listen to London" way.

I want to keep a publicly owned and publicly financed and accountable railway. Do not throw Tube workers to the wolves over their terms and conditions. Back the "Listen to London Campaign". Join us, Comrades, in our fight to save the Tube.

Mr Peter McEwen (National Union of Marine, Aviation and Shipping Transport Officers) speaking in support of the composite motion, said: Can I just show you this little friend (showing a dead rat). Its Latin name is rattus-rattus, otherwise known as the black rat or the ship's rat. It is not a very friendly little beast and it spreads disease. It spread the plague, viles disease, salmonella, so what has all of this got to do with transport? We all thought that it had gone about 300 years ago, but it has returned courtesy to the rise of sub-standard FOCs, flags of convenience ships, coming into our waters and into our ports.

Fifteen per cent of foreign ships inspected were unseaworthy, clapped-out coffin ships, riddled with rust, invested with these rats and cockroaches and lacking basic safety equipment. Five ships every month are abandoned by shipowners, with crews left without food or money. They may be forced to eat dogs or sell their ship's equipment for food. However, I do not think they eat these rats.

This Government have now started to reverse the decline of the British fleet and to improve the employment prospects for British seafarers, and many thanks, in particular, to John Prescott for that, but it will take a very long time to have the proper reaction. We must all finish the job by ridding the seas of the scourge of our sub-standard shipping and by ensuring that sea-farers have the ability to work in decent conditions.

Mr Bill Morris (General Council): President and Congress, the General Council is recommending support for the composite, although we do have some reservations about some aspects of the wording.

The composite instructs the TUC to campaign vigorously against the London Underground PPP proposals. The General Council's attitude to PFI and PPPs has already been set out in the General Council's statement, which was debated earlier.

Colleagues, we recognise the need to promote services to the public in areas such as transport as well as promoting and protecting our members.

Secondly, we need to be clear that this instruction is not seen as diluting our support for the integrated transport programme. We need to ensure that the integrated transport policy fully develops and engages all modes of transport. We submit that the country urgently needs to develop more rail capacity, as the composite suggests, but we also must have sufficient road capacity and sufficient air and sea capacity if our policy is to succeed.

However, the General Council is advocating support because the composite calls for many of the measures which Congress supported when we welcomed the publication of the Transport White Paper last year. We will want to renew our support for the Deputy Prime Minister and to do everything that we can to help him get the transport programme moving and to ensure that the integrated concept of road, air, sea and rail gets not just public support but better public funding. In that context, President, we believe that getting the relevant legislation through as quickly as possible remains a high priority. The General Council, therefore, seeks your support.

* Composite Motion 21 was CARRIED

Adoption of the General Council's Report

The President: That completes the formal business of Congress. I now ask Congress to adopt the General Council's Report. Do you adopt it? (Agreed)

* The General Council's Report was ADOPTED.

Votes of Thanks

The President: I now have a number of vote of thanks to make to those who have contributed to the smooth running of our Congress this week. They will be brief but I do not want anyone to assume that because of their brevity they are not sincere and well meant.

I move a vote of thanks to the Brighton staff for all they have done to ensure that the Congress has gone so well, and to the stewards for their assistance. (Applause)

On your behalf, I would like to thank the creche workers, and a special thanks to the team of signers who have worked so hard throughout the week.

Now, on behalf of the General Council and of Congress, I need to say farewell to a number of good colleagues.

Helen McGrath and John Chowcat left the General Council during the year. Brendan Fenelon is also leave the General Council after one year's service. We also say goodbye to Dave Hewitt, who has been a member of Congress's GPC for the past three years. On your behalf, many thanks to all four of them for their significant contributions and we wish them well for the future. (Applause)

Colleagues, three General Council members who are leaving us today qualify for the Gold Badge of Congress. First, I want to refer to Jack Adams, who rose from his position as convenor at Rover's Longbridge plant straight to becoming a national officer of his union and then National Secretary for the Automotive Trade Group of the T&G. From there he was elected T&G's Deputy General Secretary and he joined the General Council in 1992. Jack is a widely respected trade union leader, respected by workers and employers alike, as an indomitable negotiator. Jack has always held the view that paid union officials should never become distant from the working people they represent. As a person who lives by his principles, Jack has, since retiring, become a dedicated activist in his local T&G branch. Jack is not able to be with us this afternoon, but we will see that he does get his Gold Badge on an appropriate occasion. We want to record our very good thanks to Jack for all of his work. (Applause)

Bill Brett, who was former General Secretary of the Institution of Professionals, Managers and Specialists, has proved himself to be a worthy advocate of trade unionism around the world. Bill joined the General Council in 1989. He became chair of the Trade Union Group of the ILO, the International Labour Organisation, and under his leadership, unions have scored important victories on a range of vital issues from home workers' rights to tackling union busters worldwide. As a Lancastrian, Bill has never been afraid to speak his mind and, no doubt, the House of Lords, which he has recently joined, is going to be all the better for that. Bill, we wish you all of the best in your retirement, and I am delighted to present you with the Gold Badge of Congress. (Presentation made amidst applause)

Lord Brett: Chair, after 31 years of coming here, I was going to celebrate attending a Congress at which I did not actually speak.

However, I have three things to say. Firstly, thank you to IPMS for the last ten years of putting up with me as their General Secretary, and, more importantly, in supporting me for the work I have been able to do on behalf of the TUC. I am particularly grateful to Jenny Thurston, my deputy, who has joined the General Council, without whom it would not have been possible for me to have done my job.

In 1968 when I came to my first Congress, which was the centenary Congress, the membership was on the up. Thirty-one years later, the membership is on the increase. I can remember more of the first day of my first Congress than the first day of this Congress. That is a sign of increasing age.

When I was a kid, I used to get off the bus on the corner, because you did not have to pay the fare that way. Somebody said this week, we are passing the corner. I hope we are and I believe we are. I hope that the membership will accelerate. I am delighted, therefore, to be getting off the bus when it is in that position of slowing down at the corner.

Finally, to you, Hector, I have to say -- this is something you do not know -- that Keith and I are modelling the uniform for trade union peers in the House of Lords, so you will have to get a jacket like this. (Applause)

The President: Keith Brookman was, until recently, the General Secretary of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation. Amongst his many achievements, Keith has proved himself to be a real champion of the organising agenda. His was one of the first unions to pledge sponsorship of the TUC's Organising Academy and train a new generation of young women and men to lead union organising campaigns. Keith has also recently joined the House of Lords and is continuing the campaign for a fair framework of law for working people and their unions from the red benches.

Keith, please accept the Gold Badge and the very best wishes of Congress. (Presentation made amidst applause)

Lord Brookman: As a Welshman, I could not leave without saying a few words. I have to say that many emotions are racing through me. At this moment, there is a sadness at leaving good colleagues and a relief at leaving others. (Laughter) But the main feeling is one of gratitude, gratitude to my workmates at Ebbw Vale who elected me to represent them some 30 years ago; gratitude to the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, who elected me and nominated me to the General Council; gratitude for electing Michael Leahy, my successor, who will ensure that my union's voice will remain strong; gratitude for my union's support and gratitude for my wife, Pat and our children, for putting up with me during those years.

In the General Council, President, I was made to feel welcome by John and others in the very wide and, at first, bewildering community of the TUC. It is a community, nevertheless, where the values of justice and solidarity are still guiding lights. We saw that yesterday on the Euro debate.

There have been great victories, and I have been there for some of them. I was glad that the ISTC, in my time on the General Council, was fully engaged in the work of the TUC in supporting the South African trade unions when the TUC was at the cutting edge when dealing with the stranglehold of apartheid. I was glad, too, to have been a member of TUC delegations I went to Israel with them. It opened up my eyes to one of the major problems in the world and the role which the TUC is playing to try and resolve it.

Like my colleagues who have joined me in the House of Lords, I owe so much to working people and to my colleagues, friends and to the TUC itself. Thank you and good luck. (Applause)

The President: Another colleague whose retirement we mark at this Congress is that of David Lea, who has been TUC Assistant General Secretary for the past 21 years. David joined the TUC Economic Department in the early 1960s. He was appointed by George Woodcock, and that for the trade union historians is some long time ago. I suppose it is five General Secretaries ago.

David has played a central role in most of the TUC's major projects during the past 35 years, from the evidence to the Royal Commission in the mid-1960s to the current policies on the environment and Europe. He has been a passionate advocate of redistribution of income and wealth, and most recently he has been closely involved in the detailed behind the scenes work on the Employment Relations Act.

David was recently appointed a life peer and he will be joining me with Bill Brett, Keith Brookman and many other former trade union colleagues on the Labour benches in the Lords.

He has been responsible, I guess, one way or another, for very many of the words which have appeared before Congress during the past three decades. So far as I can ascertain, he has never actually addressed Congress in any of those 35 years. So we are not going to let him away scot free completely. For the first time, I invite David to address Congress.

Lord Lea :Congress, I am very proud to be about to receive the Gold Badge and, at the same time, receive a card, which I have here, from the TUC's staff, which contains a quote from William Cobbett, which I will read to you, if I may:

"It is a great error to suppose that people are rendered stupid by remaining in the same place". He said that in 1826. I never realised what a perceptive person he was.

I have done my own rural ride of Britain. I remember spending the autumn of 1966 at weekend schools in 1 star hotels from Clacton-on-Sea to Weston-Super-Mare, and I became quite skilled at stuffing the windows with fag packets to stop them rattling. I was there to explain the vital importance of George Brown's National Plan to people like Rodney Bickerstaffe, who happened to become a full-time official that year. As you probably know, the National Plan collapsed soon afterwards.

We have all had our ups and downs and that, after all, is the history of the trade union Movement. As Robert Taylor showed in his book the Future of the Trade Unions, the 50 per cent fall in membership since 1979 is not the first time that has happened. The first time was at the end of the 19th Century, but it was followed by a rise to a new record level. The second time was between the wars, and that was then followed by another record high. So, it has actually happened three times in the last one hundred years, and on each occasion a new unionism brought a rise to higher peaks than before. So that is where our sights are now set.

Two further points should be made. All three periods of growth were periods of extending TUC authority, but then, in each case, a traumatic episode set us back. The trick, then, is to continue relentlessly to use our collective nous, to ensure that the dialogue with the Government does not stop and not to overplay our hand. If I may say so, that goes for the relations of unions with each other.

I recently asked some one if they knew how much of his time John Monks has to spend on inter-union relations and on avoiding this or that union throwing a handgrenade into the works? Did you know that it was about 50 per cent? She said that she was surprised. She assumed that it was more like 90 per cent. (Laughter) On reflection, she was probably right. The trend is going that way. But it is not really the best use of John's time, is it? It certainly will not be the best use of his time in the next three or four years when there is an unprecedented opportunity for growth.

I thought the best debate this week was on Europe. Some people are still puzzled by how pro-European a lot of you have become. My theory about this is because, somehow, Europe now seems familiar. So many of them around Europe now use Lord Citrine's ABC of Chairmanship. Even the Norwegians will get their in the end. I recently attended their Congress, and the President was reading out the obituaries. She had got as far as "N". "Eric Nielsen, for 37 years, general secretary of the Lofoten Islands Fishing Workers Union". At this point, there was a disturbance at the back of the hall and someone was trying to come to the front. "Sit down", said the President, "I am reading out the obituaries". She then resumed her text. "Eric Nielsen, for 37 years, general secretary of the Lofoten Islands Fishing Workers Union" and so on, at which the point the man who had been causing the disturbance came right to the front and shouted out, "Point of Order", so he was allowed to come to the rostrum. "Madam President", he said, "you have just read out the obituary of Eric Nielsen, for 37 years, General Secretary of the Lofoten Islands Fishing Workers Union." "I am Eric Nielsen". "That is not a point of order", replied the President. (Laughter and Applause)

Before you make your own point of order, President, may I say that it has been a privilege to work for the TUC for 35 years as part of a magnificent team. I am equally privileged to have been asked along with you, yourself, and other colleagues to continue to serve the labour Movement in a different capacity. Thank you. (Applause)

The President: Thank you very much indeed. I am delighted to present you with this Gold Badge of Congress, so very well deserved. (The presentation was then made)

(Applause)

Vote of thanks to the President

Mr John Monks (General Secretary): I am calling on John Edmonds to move a vote of thanks in accordance with traditional ritual.

Mr John Edmonds (Vice President): There is something about being in the President's Chair. It is a bit like a public exposure: however much you want to present yourself in a particular way at the beginning of the week, by the end of the week, after all of the strains and traumas, delegates know exactly what you are like.

Now we know all about Hector, and unless there are any tabloid journalists here I will say what we know about Hector is all good. He is, as you would imagine as a lighthouse keeper -- ex -- self contained; he is extremely kind as delegates, who have spoken at the rostrum will have noticed. He was also rather kind to me at the beginning of the week when I had a little bit of trouble. He is extremely effective. We have got through the business in reasonable time. He has supplied me with sweets, he has switched the lights on when I forgot to do it, he has woken me up when I have dozed off and he has generally given the support that the President is expected to give to the Vice President on these occasions!

He has also of course, and this is the important thing, presided over what I regard as a very successful Congress. I think what made the difference, and I think we should accept it, was not really us, but the speech that Tony Blair made on Tuesday. I have heard it described in many ways but I will use my own adjective. I thought it was interesting. I do not mean that in the Steve Davies sense; I really listened to it and, if I can let you into a shocking secret, I do not listen to every speech even from Prime Ministers.

He was telling us something and inviting us into a partnership. It is a long time since we have heard a speech from a Prime Minister, even of the Labour Party, a Labour Government, as good as that. So well done Hector for presiding over what I regard as one of the most positive Congresses for very many years. Well done, Hector, for that. (Applause).

Hector is also a man of impeccable judgment. At the General Council dinner earlier this week he issued a public warning. He said "no more poetry". This was, I must say, an extremely sensible conclusion. John Monks has reminded some of us, and Norman Willis reminded him, that the first time the TUC confronted poetry at one of its conferences -- and I think probably that is the right way of describing the way the two came together -- was in 19O1 when the Rev. Lewis Morris read his poem of welcome. I will only give you a small piece of it. You can get its quality quite easily from these few lines: "One people are we small and great, dispel the clouds of ignorance and hate, a little time, a little ‘tis we live and I who have no aid but this to give, welcome you gladly with a heartful song." Good eh! There are actually 47 other verses, but since John wants to use most of those I will not bore you with them.

Tony's contribution to the cultural orgy started like this. A miracle of scansion this: "Every year at this time of year I come to the TUC. And every year the press report there'll be a row between you and me". I used to read stuff like that in Rupert Annuals.

Then John Prescott at the General Council Dinner gave us an extended poem which sounded to me like limericks with the filthy bits left out! But my own President, the GMB President, has been nagging me all week to offer up her contribution and we all have to be careful when we deal with union Presidents. I will give you just two lines; this is her comment on Stephen Byers's charismatic speech on Monday. She says "The Trade Minister spoke with perfect diction. If you've got insomnia his speech is on prescription"!

As I say, Hector, a man of impeccable judgments. I think we will try a number of things the future, but I think we have done poetry to death. Hector, I want to award you on behalf of Congress on behalf of the many members throughout this country, firstly, with the Gold Badge of Congress. Hector MacKenzie, Lord Mackenzie, Hector, many thanks and well done. (Applause).

(The presentation was then made)

And then, of course, the Silver Bell of Congress, the greatest honour we can give you. Hector, thank you very much indeed. (Applause)

(The presentation was then made)

The President: Thank you very much indeed for these very kind remarks, John. May I start by thanking you as my Vice President throughout the year and this week. I think you have exaggerated a little. I did not have to look after you all that much, but I am grateful to you and to your, I think you describe it as your little team of helpers who assist me to keep the time clock. Thank you very much indeed, John.

I particularly want to thank you, the delegates, because you have made my presiding over Congress this week very easy indeed. I am very grateful for your tolerance, for all of the kind remarks I have had throughout the week whenever I have had the opportunity -- and it has been little enough I know -- to talk to you and to meet with you, but thank you very much indeed.

I want to thank the General Council for their support, not only this week but again throughout the year. It has been very easy to work with them and to chair meetings of the Executive and the General Council. I am very much appreciative of the support I have had.

I want to thank the General Secretary, Deputy General Secretary, Assistant General Secretary, heads of departments in the TUC office and also all of the other staff both back at the office and who have been working there, some you see on the platform and others are working behind the scenes. Without all of them we would not have had the very successful Congress we have had this week, so my particular thanks to all of the staff of the TUC. (Applause).

John is right. I did promise I was not going to try any poetry, but I thought one of the best press headlines I saw this week in one of the Scottish nationals -- I think it was the Herald -- which probably accurately describes this Congress, was "rhyme and reason". I think we have had both. We have had some rhyme and I we have had lots of reason.

It has been a great year for me. It is a privilege that comes to very few in the trade union Movement. I am delighted to have been President of Congress over this year. I have loved it enormously. Very many thanks to all of you for all of your help. It has been one of the great highlights of my life. I will always cherish it.

There is little more I want to add. You have had enough of trying to make out my highland diction most of the week but thank you all very very much indeed. (Applause).

I now call the General Secretary.

Vote of thanks to the media

Mr John Monks (General Secretary): President, Congress, for the last time, what a week, what a week we have had. We have created 100 new FA Cup holders, including I understand a Leak Town supporter and a Manchester City one. And they talk about Manchester United's absence de-valuing the trophy.

Well, you know, I have a lot of thanks myself to express this week. First, the Independent Union of Halifax Staff who thought I was looking a bit thin have been sending up cakes and making me feel like a member of the Test Match Special team. It is traditional to thank the press and the media on these occasions. They got it right some of the time, wrong some of the time, with a particular mention for getting wrong to Simon Hoggart, usually the very amusing diarist in The Guardian who got the nationality of the Director-General of the ILO wrong yesterday.

I thought the forecast in the media about Congress and blood on the floor was misplaced. We did get prepared with a nurse in the chair. We were ready for blood in the Congress, but none of it really developed in that way. There were some very important debates. I hope some meetings of minds, and we go forward, I think, in good heart and in good shape.

A word about Hector and special thanks to him on behalf of myself and all colleagues in the TUC. Lighthouse keeper, nurse, working peer, that is real flexibility. A credit to the Highlands and Islands and the traditional courtesy of people who come from that beautiful part of the world, and a credit to UNISON who I think he has represented with great credit before other unions this particular week. There was one nasty moment this afternoon in the transport debate where I thought he had merged RMT with the Transport and General Workers Union, thereby getting the Millennial Challenge off to a rather fast start, and I was not sure when that rat was waved by NUMAST. It was NUMAST's Congress really for waving things, waving piracy flags yesterday, waving the rat today. I must say I was more frightened of the rat than I was of the pirates!

Anyway, at the beginning of the week I took a few liberties with a very great speech by Martin Luther King about the dream, a wonderful, wonderful dream. I have had another one, another dream, and this was a dream of a group of trades unionists coming down to Brighton -- and it always seemed to be Brighton -- for what used to be called an improper relationship. The result of this has been Ken Cameron ending up with a divorce from the Labour Party, Ken Jackson proposing marriage to the CBI, and Richard Rosser being reported to the Child Support Agency for failing to provide maintenance payments to the composite that he had fathered.

You have just paid some tribute to members of the General Council who are retiring and you have paid a warm tribute to David Lea, our Assistant General Secretary, retiring after all those years at the TUC. Briefly, I add my personal thanks to David. He has made an enormous contribution to the work of the TUC, with total commitment and total dedication. Tenacious to a point that sometimes David has been irritating. But always because he believed it was in the best interests of workers and the TUC. You know, he has often been right when he has been irritating. I will miss him deeply and I know my colleagues will do so as well.

I want also to mention Bill Callaghan, who has been head of our Economic and Social Affairs Department now for as long as I was head of the Organisation Department, from 1977. Bill too worked for the TUC for 30 years and again has made a tremendous contribution, a distinguished economist in his own right, and a staunch and skilful colleague. He made an enormous contribution in a wide range of areas, most particularly recently with Rita Donaghy and Paul Gates as the trade union members of the Low Pay Commission which has done a lot to secure at least the introduction of a national minimum wage on which we can now go forward to build. Bill, we are proud to say, is to be the Chair of the Health and Safety Commission, a very important post that will keep him in very close touch with many of you. We are immensely proud of Bill, that he should have been appointed to fill such a role and I know you will join with me in wishing him very very well in that important new job. (Applause).

It would be remiss of me not to mention one other member of staff, Michael Walsh, again known to many of you as head of the International Department of the TUC for many years, again another long servant, more than 30 years, and a strong and staunch friend to trades unionists around the world. He took early retirement from the TUC in the spring as part of the staff reduction exercise, but he wanted to continue to work for the Movement and I am pleased that this week he has joined the staff of the ISTC. I ask Congress to express our thanks to Mike Walsh. (Applause).

John has “trailered” the poem from 19O1 by the Rev. Lewis Morris, and quoted one particular distinguished stanza. I quote one other bit, about the same length, and just draw it to your attention. It has a nice phrase in it about what we do.

"Consider well oh toilers,

these your lives worn and spent" –

( nothing much has been spent looking where I am at the moment out there )–

"lift thou the heavy burden of thy care,

gain for them healthier dwellings, wholesome air, the wage that is their due

do thou secure, make thou their weakness strong.

Guide them to live lives sober provident and pure" –

(the record suggests that the General Council entered reservations at that particular point). It finishes with

"For strife teach them the ways of peace

their knowledge and their restful hours increase."

Well, at least it rhymed, more or less.

At the beginning of the week the President asked for a more representative balance of people at the rostrum and I am afraid that we perhaps have not lived up to those expectations. But perhaps, you know, for once the media might be teaching us a lesson and have taken note, Hector, of what you said. For once, the last word of the week is to come from a woman speaker. I say overall I think it has been a very good week. It is not enough though to have one good week a year. I am looking forward to us having a good year, returning to Glasgow for next year's Toilers Parliament, with a trade union Movement bigger, a trade union Movement stronger, and a trade union Movement that is more effective for all Britain's workers. Thank you very much. (Applause).

The President: Thank you very much indeed, John. I now call on Christine Buckley of The Times to reply on behalf of the media.

Ms Christine Buckley (Industrial Correspondents Group) The Times and the National Union of Journalists.

Congress, I was going to start with a poem but I think after this week we should not only be tough on rhyme but tough on the causes of rhyme.

I am pleased to be able to speak on behalf of the media as Chair of the Industrial Correspondent Group, particularly as I am very much the newcomer to the group. Many of my colleagues have clocked up 20 or 30 years of covering Congress and industrial relations. I added employment to the other areas that I look after for The Times when my former boss Philip Bassett went to the Ministry of Truth at Downing Street just two years ago.

I was, therefore, quite flattered by my sudden election to the Chair of the group. This elevation came about after several drinks at a reception at the Labour Party Conference last year when I fell into bad company and was suddenly volunteered into this role. I am told that this involved more consultation than usual. Generally the person in question gets no notice whatsoever of their new responsibilities.

To prepare for saying a few words today I asked to look at one or two speeches by my predecessors in the hope of stealing a few ideas. As a relative newcomer I was struck by the number of references to falling numbers both of industrial correspondents and also union members. Of course, that is true compared with days gone by but I must say that from my perspective things seem stronger rather than on a decline. Union numbers now are stable and indeed rising, and they will rise further when the Employment Relations Act is implemented. The number of dedicated employment journalists may be reduced but then our roles are very different now and so is the way in which your activities are reported. There are no longer hordes of journalists camped outside ACAS, and very few strikes, although I must say that this may now be entirely dependent on how many more pronouncements Ken Jackson makes on a strike free Britain. Just one mention of such a goal this week caused hundreds of his own members to down tools at Ford. But unless Sir Ken has judged the mood wrongly -- and I do not think he has – we now have far less combative industrial relations and the unions are replacing strike stories with other issues.

One of the most successful campaigns recently for the TUC has been the pensions hot line. I have to say as an industrial journalist I run a mile from writing about pensions but The Times Personal Financial staff think that the TUC's work, along with that of other unions, has been brilliant. Unions make a strong contribution to economics and policy debates; with ventures such as Union Energy you attract the interest of consumer journalists. I do not think your influence is declining; I think it is changing and I think there are many opportunities for getting your messages across.

It is important to engage with the media. There are some in the union Movement who do not trust the media, who think that much of it has a right wing bias and there is some truth in this but the answer is not to retreat. Millions of people read newspapers and take in the broadcast media, your members as well as others. The Government is more than eager to get its points across, as are the employers' organisations; so should you be.

I think it is customary on these occasions to pay tribute to those who have departed our working lives, so I would like to spend a minute or two -- if that is not far too long -- on Peter Mandelson. Only this time last year, for what seemed like a matter of weeks, he was Trade and Industry Secretary. That was a troublesome and unproductive time for me and some of my colleagues. I think you may have had similar experiences.

Mr Mandelson is a man of singular talents. He is a politician who manages to make everyone dislike him and last year he was an Industry Secretary who said quite openly that he did not want to deal with industrial journalists but rather business correspondents. He told other Fleet Street hacks that we were far too redolent of trades unions and Old Labour. He banned a number of us from briefings and found the time to try and act as news editor for both The Times and the BBC over the Competitiveness White Paper when he tried to say, fruitlessly, who should cover its publication.

But Mandelson did demonstrate one thing, that if you wish for something hard enough you often get it. Soon he found his activities poured over by reporters who had great knowledge of mortgages and personal finance. I think after a few months of dealing with the former Trade and Industry Secretary I learned the answer to why so many people take an instant dislike to him: it saves time!

But this is not just a gratuitous attack on Peter Mandelson, although there would not be anything wrong with that. I wanted to make a point about negative campaigning. More than anyone else Mandelson is associated with negative briefings, with trying to promote himself above others, with creating divides, with talking up a crisis. But much of this type of criticism is also sadly laid at the doors of the unions, and while I would not want to compare my worst enemy with Mandelson it is worth reflecting on the repercussions of negative briefing.

At the risk of stopping my phone from ringing as much, I have been surprised sometimes from the amount of calls I get from unions offering bits and bobs against others. Often they do not check out. Often they are of such marginal interest they will never see the light of print. I would, unless the wrong doing is so earth shattering, much rather talk to unions about industrial issues, campaigns and policy. I think when negative briefings are made for the sake of it, it does the Movement no credit; it perpetuates the old fashioned image of barons and of splits.

In many ways the unions embrace some of the most forward looking and long-term thinking of the labour Movement. You owe it to yourselves to let that be heard properly. I know that, as I am the last speaker, I am the only thing standing between you and home so I will draw to a close with a few short goodbyes: to Ken Cameron the General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, who is to retire next year and who left us with a good story before he went; and to Roy Jones, formerly of the Morning Star, who has recently been working for the Herald. This is likely to be Roy's last Congress and I think he will be greatly missed by a large number of people.

This time next year the Employment Relations Act will be in force, I hope then that trades union recognition will have returned to many, many employers, including my own at Wapping. Thank you for listening. (Applause).

The President: Thank you very much indeed, Christine, for that reply. I now declare the 131st Congress closed and ask you to join with me in singing Auld Lang Syne.

Congress concluded with the singing of Auld Lang Syne.

-----------------------

1

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download