Speech to the National Youth Education Event - Billy Hayes

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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Thanks for the invitation and the opportunity to address you.

The question-and-answer session we’ve just had shows the range of issues we are dealing with.

It also shows the level of knowledge and commitment to make sure the members we represent continue to defend their terms and condition, jobs and environment.

Particularly grateful for Ed’s contribution today, and to wish him well in his new Shadow Cabinet responsibilities.

SETTING THE SCENE
This is the 9th Youth Education event and it is 10 years since young people in our union, against the advice of the Executive of the day, took more control of how they were treated in the union, and how the union responded to their needs by voting to create a national youth committee.

That is worth celebrating but we can’t take anything for granted.

WORKING LIFE
The nature of work has changed significantly in the last ten years.

In 2000, about 520 thousand people worked in posts and telecoms in the UK. Now it is around 430 thousand.


The workforce of today is has many more women and people from ethnic minorities than 10 years ago.

The growth of insecure employment - agency, Fixed Term Contracts, short hours - has been an attack on the idea of durable, sustainable employment being the norm.

That’s not to say flexible employment is bad, but it is not the same as insecure employment, where choice is loaded on the side of the employer.

The quality of life has also changed dramatically. Is “going to work” the same as “earning a living” any more? I suspect not.

Our expectations have changed – the internet pushes our horizons much further away.

Deference has declined.

We can see more - We want more - We expect more.

But there are still deep pockets with no internet access. A real digital divide that is closely linked to poverty.

9 million adults have never used the internet and internet use is lower among people with low incomes and few formal qualifications.

And just because we can see further away does not mean we can reach further - the gap between rich and poor has grown obscenely.

Income inequality is now higher than in 1989; the household wealth of the top 10% of the population is now over 100 times greater than the wealth of the poorest 10%.

A Commission on High Pay - a commission on top people’s pay - excluding the private sector from it, the government has made something of marginally less value.


We call for a High Pay Commission to put that right.


As Wilkinson and Picket said in their book “The Spirit Level” - “equality is better for everyone.”

SPECIFIC CHALLENGES FOR THE CWU

We have two specific challenges - to make the union strong and to make the union relevant.


Union density for all employees is now only 27.4%.


Only 9.4% of employees aged 16 to 24 are union members.


You can see why relevance is an issue.

The strength of the union can be measured objectively - how many members do we have?

But more importantly, how “match fit” are we? What is the density of members in any one workplace or any employer.

In the CWU this is 79% in the Telecoms sector where we have recognition - so that’s giants like BT and tiddlers like Telereal. In Royal Mail, our density peaks at 83%.

But in posts and telecoms’ industries as a whole, irrespective of CWU recognition, the percentage of union members is around 55% .

But our relevance is just as important but perhaps less easy to judge.

I do think we need to be more community based.

We need to be a friend and a source of strength for our members not just at work but in their communities too.

This underpins a lot of our political work, or projects such as Climate Solidarity or Civil Liberties.

Because these issues don’t just exist at work, or stop when you clock on or clock off.

Extending and strengthening our roots in the community gives us more protection, and more clout, because it means our values and priorities expand out of the workplace and into society.

It’s a model used best by Barak Obama in his presidential election campaign – whose successful online campaign recruited 13 million supporters and raised more that $500m online.

We also need to speak the right language Tell the right stories - develop a narrative.

A poll earlier this year for the Press Complaints Commission shows that 54% of people get their news and information mostly on-line

Unions 21 found that 55% of 18 -34 years olds look to the internet as their source of information about employment rights.

So I am pleased to see the continuing development of the CWU Youth website.

Visitor levels are rising month by month and the site has recently broken in to the top 20 of trade union sites in a poll by TIGMOO (which stands for “This Great Movement of Ours” for those who were unaware).


The emphasis on user-generated content is very important as a way of young members speaking for themselves to a wide audience.


It’s important for their , your, development and as a platform to exert influence.


Allied to the website is of course Twitter, which of course is snappier and more dynamic.

We can use this to broadcast instantly to our followers - of which there are over 150 ranging from UAF to several members of the shadow cabinet, and to push items of interest from those who we ourselves follow.

It’s important to understand that this is not a free for all - it is a formal communications channel of the union.

So there will always be a difficult balance between saying exactly what you want and not losing credibility by seeming to face in opposite directions on key issues.


But it’s clear that these channels are effective and popular and I would commend them to you.


FINALLY

Finally, I would want to leave you with two messages:

First, don’t take any thing for granted.


And second, don’t believe that you don’t make a difference.

Let me expand on each of these.

Don’t take anything for granted. Just because things have always been a particular way, don’t assume they can’t change.

Look at what the government is doing to the public sector and welfare state - rolling it back to how it was decades ago.

Don’t assume that unions are immune from economic pressures - our New Zealand counter-parts went bust around 15 years ago.

It can happen and we must make sure it doesn’t.

But the union’s structures are also not set in stone.

We have to prioritise what we spend money on to support key industrial objective and assist the rebuilding of CWU.

The challenge for the Youth movement is to show it how it contributes to that.

But don’t believe that you don’t make a difference.

Your membership of the CWU, your willingness to be here makes a very real difference.

If you didn’t bother or weren’t interested, there’s no guarantee that someone else would step into your shoes.

In fact they almost certainly wouldn’t

And then our influence and effectiveness starts to decline and out terms and conditions get eroded and we are in a vicious downwards spiral.

So don’t under-estimate your role.

And I would like to conclude by saying thank you for undertaking those work you do – because you help the union help all of us.

So thanks.

[Lounge Lizard]

"SPECIFIC CHALLENGES FOR THE CWU
We have two specific challenges - to make the union strong and to make the union relevant."
and, all being well, Billy will have both those sorted by Christmas.

[stokes11eg]

And--'the gap betwen rich and poor has grown obscenely--notice the irony Billy?