Billy Hayes - Speech to North East regional committee

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The overall situation is dominated by the dire state of the economy – with only 0.5% growth achieved over the past year in the UK economy.

The Governor of the Bank of England estimates that the economy will grow by just 1% in 2012 – on past record this would be an over-estimate.

The Tory led Government’s attempts to blame this on the crisis in Europe are unconvincing. It is clear that the fall into stagnation occurred in the UK before the onset of the crisis in the Eurozone.

We can expect a continued downward revision of the Government’s economic forecast. Austerity will not revive the economy, although it will cut living standards – and is effectively cutting wages.

With inflation at over 5%, many public sector workers are on a wage freeze – and current wages settlements are generally at around 2%.

The situation in the EU is reinforcing these negative trends – half of UK exports go to EU countries. With every government opting for reducing public spending in services, there is every likelihood of renewed recession in the EU. In these circumstances, we are in for a long, defensive struggle.

Obviously, all eyes are on November 30th – within the past week we have seen a positive strike vote from GMB members.

And, positive votes from very conservative unions such as the National Association of Head Teachers and the First Division Association in the Civil Service.

The Government is signalling the possibility of a further concession – but nothing is being offered yet which could avert a major national strike at the end of this month.

It is important that branches, and the regions, extend what support they can to the rallies and demonstrations that take place that day.

Clearly the success or failure of this struggle will condition the framework for pension bargaining for the whole trade union movement.

Both Royal Mail and BT members have experienced a difficult restructuring of pension provision recently. The possibility of achieving some positive improvements in future depends in large part upon the campaign of the civil service and local government unions. So we must do what we can to help.

Incidentally, the most recent news on Royal Mail pensions is that we are meeting with representative of the European Commission next week on the application for state aid approval for pension support.

We are still some time away from a decision. When we met with Ed Davey last week, the Government wasn’t expecting a decision before March.

On other political matters, perhaps the most important is that the “refounding Labour” reforms were endorsed at Labour Party Conference.

This means that the Unions will continue to play an important role in the constitutional structure of the party.

Before the conference, there were attempts in the press to create a trade unions versus the Labour leader type conflict.

Actually, matters were successfully negotiated. These include:

the establishment of a registered supporters network
greater freedom for local CLPs to organise their instructions and procedures
the introduction of local campaign forums to organise local government candidates and campaigning
contracts for all candidates
and a new emphasis on community organising

These are generally good changes. A further consultation is taking place which goes on till the end of January. But I do not believe that there will be much more tinkering with the constitution.

Of more concern is the Kelly review of party funding. The report is due to be published next Tuesday. There will be dissent from both Tory and Labour members on the review. This is important because traditionally matters of funding are subject to cross-party agreement.

But amongst the proposals being discussed are:

a donation cap for individuals and organisations of £10,000
the introduction of two tier political funds in the unions – one for those members affiliated to the Labour Party and one for those not

On donation caps – in general the unions affiliated to the Labour Party have opposed these as they would treat the unions the same as individuals.

There appears to be some move to accept that union affiliation fees will be excluded from the caps. But there is still a problem that Labour funding would be hit completely disproportionately. The Tories might know many individuals who could pay £10,000 but I’m sure you don’t.

The Lib Dems want a big increase in state funding of the parties to make up the shortfall – but this would be unpopular with the electorate.

The two tier political fund idea is similar to the current system in UNISON. All the people I talk to in UNISON regard it as a bad system, which was a bi-product of their initial merger.

With two funds you build in conflict over policy – whereas unions work best when its policy is united and clear. Obviously there is always a need for a discussion. But with two institutions campaigning on politics it is inevitable you are creating very difficult tensions.

We are working with other unions, and the Labour leadership, to try and prevent the worst of these proposals being placed before parliament.

This years annual conference directed us to make some changes with the conditions of our political fund.

Hence we will be:

reopening our panel of candidates
refounding our group of constituency MPs, MEPs, MSP and AMs.

We need to bring forward new candidates for our parliamentary panel. Certainly there are too few MPs who have experience of the type of work our members engage in.

And we want to improve the training and support that we can offer to our panellists. So we will be calling for new panellists in the near future.

On our constituency supported representatives – we need to:

add some new MPs
regularise our support for some MEPs
and strengthen the number of members of the Scottish parliament, and Welsh Assembly members that we support

We will be taking into consideration from the regions any submissions on these issues you wish to make. Certainly changes are necessary after the results of the general election, Scottish parliamentary election, and the Welsh Assembly election.

Finally, I need to mention the work that the national union has begun around implementing Proposition 67 from this years annual conference.

This was the proposition that instructed the union to examine how we can implement those rules which cover proportionality in our representative structure.

The first step in this has been an examination of the position in CWU headquarters amongst staff employed by the national union.

We have just completed a census which will be published to branches in the not too distant future.

The results are not really surprising – women are under represented in the higher grades, and black employees even more so.

OK – before we can change anything, we must first establish the facts.

Having done so – this initiates a process of change which we will discuss and co-ordinate with the unions, employees and the GMB who represent those staff.

The main aim is to remove the obstacles that exist to the promotion of women and black employees to senior levels.

We will also begin an extended discussion with branches and regions about the situation in the localities. Obviously we are not talking about employees of the union. But we are wanting to examine how far our equalities policies are being effectively implemented, and what are the existing proportions amongst our representatives.

No-one claims to have all the answers. We examine CWU headquarters first because it ought to be the easiest to address. But we know this whole debate will be complex.

That is why we envisage a long process which requires close collaboration with the branches. But achieving a more representative leadership means achieving a stronger union – so it is important that we do proceed with Proposition 67.

Thanks for listening.