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TUC CONGRESS


TUC Congress 2010

In Debate

(Photos of Brian Cookson, Kathy Duggan, Chris Lines, Paula Roe, John Rimmer)


Health and Safety at Work

Plans by the Coalition Government to deregulate and sweep aside vital health and safety laws will jeopardise the lives of workers, exposing thousands to illness and injury, the NASUWT has warned.

Brian Cookson, NASUWT Honorary Treasurer, condemned the Government’s attack on health and safety, which has seen Prime Minister David Cameron call for a ‘new approach’ that does not ‘overwhelm businesses with red tape’ and the appointment of Lord Young to lead a review of health and safety legislation.

Mr Cookson hit out at comments by Lord Young describing workplace fatalities as ‘unfortunate but part of life’, saying: “The Government and employers have an unequivocal priority to protect all workers from accidents, assaults and abuse, but instead are hell-bent on deregulation and removing or diluting the regulatory requirements. This is putting profit before people’s lives.”


Academies and Free Schools

Paula Roe, the NASUWT’s Junior Vice-President, denounced the Government’s academies and free school policy at Congress.

“Free schools are not free,” she stated. “They will have to be paid for, yet they will deliver less, not more.”

Ms Roe hit out at the decision to axe the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme while providing funding for free schools, saying: “BSF funding was ripped away from the majority to fund free schools for the minority.”


Pensions

Attacks on public sector pensions are “savage, fruitless and economically illiterate,” the NASUWT’s Senior Vice-President, John Rimmer, declared. Mr Rimmer told delegates that the Government is attempting to bury the truth about public sector pensions by perpetuating myths about inflated pensions and unaffordable benefits.

“The reality is that the average pension of a public sector worker is £5,000 per annum and £9,000 for a teacher. Hardly ‘gold-plated’ by any stretch of the imagination,” he said.

“Rather than hard-working public servants, we should be attacking the greedy bankers who got us into this crisis.”


A Workplace Agenda for Women

The disproportionate impact on women of the Government’s emergency budget and public sector cuts was highlighted by the NASUWT during Congress.

Mothers and female carers stand to lose up to £1,200 a year as a result of cutbacks to benefits and public services, Kathy Duggan, Chair of the NASUWT’s Equal Opportunities Committee, told delegates.

Women stand to shoulder three quarters of the burden of the cuts announced so far, Ms Duggan stated, as more women than men work in the public sector, are in receipt of benefits and use public services.

Ms Duggan called on the TUC to continue to campaign for action to tackle the gender pay gap, as well as fighting cuts to public services.

“We must continue to advocate decent work for women, along with gender equality in the workplace, the tax and benefits systems and our communities,” she urged delegates.


Investing in our Future

Young people are being made the ‘sacrificial lambs’ of the Government’s cuts to the education system, the NASUWT’s President, Chris Lines, told Congress.

Cuts to further education and financial support for young learners risk creating a ‘lost generation’ unable to access employment or training, Chris Lines stated, adding that their horizons are being narrowed still further by the Government’s drive to recreate the tripartite education system of the 1950s by reintroducing a stark divide between academic and vocational learning.

He said: “We have to invest in education and training if we are to compete in a globalised economy.

“More and more jobs require well-qualified people to do them and we fail young people if we don’t invest in an education system that allows all of them to achieve their potential.”

Calling on the TUC to lead a campaign for a fully resourced education and training system that meets the needs of all young people, Mr Lines added: “The education system generates the wealth of the nation at one remove, but we can’t do it with one hand tied behind our backs.”


Defending Public Services

(Photo of Chris Keates)

The NASUWT called on Congress to build a public coalition to defend public services from the Government’s relentless mission to dismantle and irreparably damage the state.

Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, condemned the ‘daily diet of misinformation’ being fed to the public by ministers, supported by much of the media, that characterises the public sector as ‘bloated’ and ‘wasteful’ and the workforce as feather-bedded with gold-plated pensions.

The Government is distorting the truth to secure public support for its aim of dismantling the public sector and opening up public services to a ‘free market free-for-all,’ Ms Keates stated.

“The Coalition Government’s plans for schools, hospitals and other public services are not about tackling the nation’s deficit,” she said. “They are not some kind of necessary but unpalatable medicine needed to stave off economic meltdown. They are an ideologically driven assault on the weakest in society, based on an irrational contempt of the public sector.”