Super-union to fight back
A ‘super-union’ made up of three of Britain’s largest trade unions will give them more power against an increasingly remote Labour leadership, union activists said today.
Secretary general of Amicus Derek Simpson said joining forces with the GMB and T&G unions would also better equip them in the global economy.
At a heated fringe meeting at the TUC congress in Brighton, Mr Simpson said one of the greatest challenges facing the union movement was how they could actually affect the law.
Complaints have been growing over recent years that motions passed at the Labour conference are subsequently ignored by ministers, to the point that a commission has now been set up to investigate the perceived lack of democracy in the party.
“Isn’t it the role of the trade union movement to become influential, to become strong, to grow, to allow us to focus our efforts on representing our members?” Mr Simpson asked.
As well as increasing unions’ power in the Labour party, he believes joining forces would also help international efforts to promote workers’ rights.
In an increasingly globalised society, unions are having to cooperate with their colleagues abroad to deal with multi-national corporations. To do this, Mr Simpson believes unions must be able to “speak as one voice”.
In addition, he argued that a ‘super-union’ would eliminate competition between unions in Britain, allowing them to be more effective.
None of this would affect the role of the umbrella trade union organisation, the TUC, he insisted, but instead would strengthen its bargaining power.
“If the only way the TUC can survive is being made up of weak unions, then it will only ever be weak. With stronger and more influential unions, that strength will be transferred to the TUC as well,” he said.
Mr Simpson’s comments were echoed by Tony Woodley, secretary general of the T&G union, who said joining forces could bring some “tremendous” results.
After 19 or 20 years of the Conservatives, and seven years of being unable to change the direction of the Labour party, Mr Woodley said: “We need to do things to help ourselves.”
What this required was “organising, organising, organising” – and if the creation of a super-union enabled the trade union movement to focus its resources on action, then this could only be a good thing.
“We would have the resources to grow, to organise and fight back industrially, and to go back into the constituencies of our party and get the fresh-faced activists that we once were,” he added.
