| GFTU RECEPTION AT TUC - 02-08-2007 |
The annual GFTU reception at TUC Congress will be held at 6-30pm in the Clarence Suite of the Metropole Hotel , Brighton on Sunday 9 September 2007.
The event is sponsored by Trade Union Fund Managers , Ruskin College , Northern College and Thompsons Solicitors. A new edition of Federation News will be launched at the reception.
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| GFTU RECEPTION AT TUC - 10 SEPTEMBER - 09-08-2006 |
| The GFTU reception at TUC 2006 will be held on Sunday 10 September in the Grand Hotel , Brighton commencing at 6-30pm. The reception is sponsored by Ruskin College , Trade Union Fund Managers and Northern College. |
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| GFTU STRATEGY MEETING 14 JUNE 2004 - 12-05-2004 |
The GFTU Strategic Review Meeting to be held on 14 June 2004 will break into four workshops in order to discuss and plan the development of the Federation.
The workshops are:- Research and Information Technology; Education and Training ; Politics and Campaigns ; and Finance and Property. Reports will be received from each workshop and a plenary session will then be held to cover all elements of strategic development.
The strategic review process is supported by :- Thompson's Solicitors , Hacker Young Accountants , Whittles Solicitors , Trade Union Fund Managers and Gregory Rowcliffe and Milner Solicitors. |
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| GFTU STRATEGIC REVIEW - 18-02-2004 |
A date has now been set for the Conference; it is 14 June 2004 at the Mechanics Institute , Manchester.
We have received six submissions from affiliated unions and the next phase is to seek submissions from Partner organisations and other interested parties.
Whittles' Solicitors has joined the growing list of supporters for the project. |
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| GFTU STRATEGIC REVIEW - 02-02-2004 |
| The GFTU is conducting a comprehensive review of activities following a conference resolution. The review will consider all aspects of the work of the Federation and consultations with affiliate and partner organisations has begun. A strategy review conference will be held in the summer of 2004 to discuss the results of the consultation excercise to to debate the future direction of the GFTU. Submissions have been received from six affiliated unions and discussions are being held with partner organisations such as Ruskin and Northern Colleges and IFWEA. The review is been supported by Thompson' s Solicitors , Trade Union Fund Managers , Hacker Young Accountants and Gregory Rowcliffe and Milner Solicitors. |
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| GFTU PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS TO CONFERENCE 2003 - 09-05-2003 |
GENERAL FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS Biennial General Council, Cardiff, May 12-13 PRESIDENT’S OPENING ADDRESS
It is an honour and a great pleasure for me to welcome all delegates, guests and visitors here to our General Council meeting in Cardiff. We are in the land of my fathers. Dylan Thomas said that they – my fathers - were welcome to it - but I am immensely proud of my Welsh roots and of the strength of the labour and trade union movement here, particularly of the traditions of loyalty and solidarity. So welcome.
I extend a particularly warm welcome to three new member organisations. The three are from most diverse areas of the national economy and will make the reach of the GFTU even more extensive.
They are the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union, the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers, and the Association for College Management. I ask you to give a warm welcome to them.
I am sure that your representatives and all other first time delegates will enjoy your stay here. The people here are well used to looking after talented, talkative, and thirsty guests: they are well equipped to look after us.
First, as President I am happy report to you that the General Federation is in good shape.
My good friend, Terry Pye, preceded me as President and we have played complementary roles in the GFTU over the four years. He did a great job in increasing awareness of the GFTU round the globe. In his term as President the Federation sent delegations to Cuba and other remote and sunny locations in the depths of winter here. My job as President has been to sit most of the time in stuffy and gloomy London offices poring over the accounts and trying to find ways of paying for those delegations.
But it was to some serious purpose. Do not get the idea that we were in Cuba just for the sea, the sun and the rum. Oh no! We were intent particularly on raising issues of trade union and other human rights.
We said to the Cubans that they should be open about their record and take us to meet victims of the worst human rights abuses on the island. They told us “Senores, we would do that but the Yankee imperialists would shoot us if we went anywhere near Guantanamo Bay.”
We did try to take a boat close to there and, though we did not report this, Fidel joined us on the cruise. He recognised Terry as another Presidente and addressed him alone throughout the trip. I did however overhear part of their conversation. President Castro asked Terry to put out a couple of deckchairs so that they could sit down.
In accordance with prescriptive planning, he said to Terry that if he wanted to look backwards – as he clearly did himself – then the deckchairs needed to be facing the stern of our boat. Fidel added with some distaste that if Terry wanted to look forward than the chairs should face the prow.
Fidel then asked him, now Presidente which way do you want your deckchair facing? Terry replied bravely “I’m very sorry, Mr President, I don’t seem to be able to get it unfolded.”
In the difficult and sometimes fraught organisational and financial work that Mike Bradley and I have had to engage in during the last two years we have managed to get the deckchairs unfolded.
I think that we can sit down and should look to the future with renewed confidence in our ability to grow and to equip ourselves to defend more effectively our members’ employment and the well-being of their families. We have a sustainable financial base and a larger income and we are in a position to offer improved services.
Your organisations can take advantage of some of them already. I am happy in particular that the educational and training work of our Federation has been expanded, in part through the development of cooperation with Ruskin College and the Northern College. Our General Secretary, Michael, and his staff have introduced several new courses, responding to the needs of affiliated unions, not least in communications and the uses of new technology.
And we have introduced new technology ourselves in the form of a website for the Federation.
I am happy to report to the General Council that the Federation has been a force for good in facing a number of policy questions which make us particularly useful to affiliated organisations. On the policy issues, I will try not to trespass too far into the choices set out in the motions which we will debate in the next two days. Rightly, they are for the delegates to decide.
I do want to go on record about manufacturing in Britain because it matters to us all. The Government can rightly claim much credit for its management of the economy.
The UK has grown at a faster rate than any of the other big European Union countries; last year growth was faster here. Even at the bottom end of the Chancellor’s estimates for this year and 2004 we will still see more rapid economic growth than Germany, France, Italy, and most of the smaller EU countries.
And the Government is doing great things with its economic success to improve public services, particularly health and education. As the Federation we applaud this: this is what we always wanted from Labour in power.
But, colleagues we must also issue a warning to the Government.
There is no chance that as a nation we will be able to maintain the rate of economic growth needed to pay for the growth of public services unless we are able to take advantage of the productivity growth achievable only through manufacturing.
Regretfully, I have to say that our record in manufacturing stands in complete contrast to the overall economic success. Since the spurt of production we achieved for a brief period from 1995, manufacturing output today is two per cent less than it was seven years ago. In the same period manufacturing output in the EU as a whole has increased by seventeen per cent.
The unions represented here are all too well aware of the impact on employment, none more so than the union I represent which has seen our membership in the steel industry fall by more than a third in just over three years. And we will not accept the argument that the fault lies with British management and workers. In steel British working people have the highest productivity in the world bar none. Our productivity improvement is on average ten per cent per year.
No, our problem has resided mainly in an exchange rate with the Euro grossly out of line with relative economic efficiency and competitiveness.
That is why we have a vast and growing trade deficit; that is why we have an appalling investment record; and that is why Britain has been haemorrhaging well-paid industrial jobs.
The Government is still in deluded awe of the market and has refused to intervene while the strength of Sterling was strangling our industries and when no risk was attached to buying into Euro-denominated assets. We had the chance to get out of US Dollars which were quite clearly riding for a fall greater than that of the Pound.
Well, it has happened now. In the last five months the Pound has lost eleven per cent of its value against the Euro while the Dollar has lost ten per cent of its value against the Pound.
This has given us a lifeline in steel and in manufacturing as a whole. It has made British manufacturing industries much more competitive, particularly in home markets in which we have lost much share in recent years. We must seize this opportunity and we need the help of the Government to make the most of the opportunities to attract inward investment.
We need a robust defence of British trade interests and resistance to dumping and other unfair practices such as the imposition of tariffs and quotas on steel imports. We need the Government to encourage even further training in scarce skills so that any expansion in manufacturing does not become stifled by labour market bottlenecks.
And I believe we need to instil confidence in Britain as a centre of excellence in manufacturing by making the most of the public expenditure permitted under European Union rules to assist regions and industries with restructuring. There can be no excuse for Britain always to be at the bottom of the league for this type of expenditure; for being always the most reluctant to take action against US protectionism; for allowing our manufacturing to decline at the fastest rate in the EU.
Our achievements in manufacturing would be much enhanced if we did not have to contend with out of touch and out of date managements in many sectors.
The Government must speed the reform by ensuring that the knowledge, know-how and commitment of working people are harnessed properly to our productive efforts. If it were as sensitive to equal treatment and social justice as it is to avoiding displeasing the failed captains of industry, it would have ensured by now that British workers had the same access to information and effective consultation rights, as do their counterparts in nearly all other European Union countries.
Colleagues, workplaces have closed here in Wales, in Scotland, in Ireland and in England because it was easier to close them than elsewhere.
We need to follow a further continental lead. There is no doubt in my mind that the British culture of long hours in manufacturing is slowing productivity improvement and endangering safety at work at the same time as it is destroying family life and eroding communities. Reversing the trend and overturning the practices that have become part of the scene in workplaces all over Britain will not be easy.
We will need to convince our own members about reducing working time before we tackle the employers. I could say too that our Government needs to move quickly before it is too late on economic integration with our European trading partners, but that is for another debate and I know that many of you do not agree with me.
Pensions are a further issue on our agenda here both for our own employees and for our members. Here, I will refer to it only as a concern for all of our members, for employers and for the Government. In my own union, we have had a significant impact in protecting final salary pension entitlements in Corus, Avesta Polarit, and Caparo. In the last case we became the first British union to call strikes in defence of a defined benefit scheme. We called them and we won them.
Friends, we hold the moral high ground on this more clearly than we hold it elsewhere. Pensions are deferred pay and it is absolutely immoral to deny them to working people through greed or negligence.
Our members see the bosses, who were well rewarded for leading their companies into bankruptcy, escape with vast handouts and gold – plated pensions – financed in part by pensions holidays for their companies, while the security of their income in retirement is undermined by the unilateral abandonment of defined benefits schemes.
It is downright wicked to deprive people of the means they need to survive decently in the increasingly long periods of retirement to which they should be able to look forward. At the end of the present consultation the Government should make it unlawful for an employer to deprive employees of their wages just at the time when they come to depend on that form of pay.
Employees at Allied Steel and Wire here in Cardiff are in danger of being put precisely in that wretchedly unfair position and their unions are fighting through all the avenues open to them to prevent it. We are confident in the justness of our cause but the law could be much clearer than it is in upholding justice and prudence. I know that the GFTU will be a force for good in the discussions to come with the Government about pensions reform.
I want to say a final few words about the international situation. I am really sad that the world today is still vulnerable to uncertainty, injustice, and violence. I shed no tears for Saddam and his evil crew. Their departure makes for good riddance. But we have also had to say goodbye or at least adieu to the authority of the United Nations Security Council. We have to be sensitive to the burning humiliation which millions of ordinary Iraqis, of other Arab people, and of Moslems have experienced. We have to make amends for the death, mayhem, and destruction affecting tens of thousands of people. We have to bring an end as soon as possible to the continuing deprivation that men, women and children are suffering in Iraq now.
That is not an impossible task. We can make great progress and I am convinced that Tony Blair wants to achieve that progress through promoting a lasting, peaceful and just solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The solution has to be in line with the UN Security Council resolutions and the Oslo accords in giving Palestinian people full sovereignty over an economically viable state of their own.
In recent weeks our Government has shown much awareness and sensitivity in this respect. I am sure that the General Council will join me in expressing the hope that the Government will work hard to restore UN authority; to relieve suffering, and to give to Iraqi people, as well as Palestinians, control over their own destiny.
Thank you, delegates, for listening to me. Thank you for your many kindnesses to me during my two years as President. Thank you Michael for your untiring support during the last two years and please extend to all the staff of the Federation our appreciation and gratitude for their invaluable contribution.
I hope that you all enjoy the General Council meeting and that our work here in the next two days will carry forward the influence and repute of the Federation. I declare the General Council meeting open. |
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| GFTU SUCCESFUL IN DFID BID - 02-05-2003 |
| GFTU have succeeded in obtaining funds from the Department for International Development to continue its work of integrating international perspectives into workplace representative education. This money will help us run extra courses on International Trade Unionism and will equip members with the skills and knowledge to make an impact on alleviating poverty by raising labour standards across the globe. For further details contact Andrew Harvey at the GFTU. |
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| SUPPORTING SMALLER UNIONS – THE GFTU LIFELONG LEARNING PROJECT - 02-05-2003 |
The GFTU is pleased to launch its 2-year lifelong learning project, financed by the Union Learning Fund and supported by Northern and Ruskin Colleges.
The project can help affiliates with a range of educational and training opportunities, including:
- Rapid Response to Redundancy – information, advice and guidance
- Dealing with Life Changes Accredited Programmes
- Basic Skills Assessments and Courses
- National Numeracy and Literacy Tests
- Union Learning Reps courses
- Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced
- Accessing Further and Higher Education
- Certificate of Higher Education Courses
- Workforce Development Agreements with Employers
- On and off site training programmes
PROJECT TEAM
Project Director:
Andrew Harvey
GFTU EDUCATIONAL TRUST
Central House
Upper Woburn Place
London
WC1H 0HY
andrew@gftu.org.uk
Tel: 020 7387 2578
Mobile: 07780 684047
Project Co-ordinator:
Alan Irwin
ieteuk@yahoo.co.uk
Tel: 01536 356994
Mobile: 07884 497958
Project Workers (the key people!)
Angie Kolka
Ricky Hopkins
Vicki Powell
+ TWO BASIC SKILLS OFFICERS, BASED AT RUSKIN AND NORTHERN
ALL ENQUIRIES TO ANDREW AT THE GFTU OFFICE PLEASE. IN MY ABSENCE PLEASE SPEAK TO JUDITH AT THE OFFICE OR TO ALAN |
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| GENERAL SECRETARY AT CYWU CONFERENCE - 14-04-2003 |
| EXTRACTS OF GENERAL SECRETARY SPEECH TO COMMUNITY AND YOUTH WORKERS CONFERENCE , 6 APRIL 2003. Chair , Colleagues , thank you once again for the opportunity to be with you at conference. I bring fraternal greetings from your colleagues in the General Federation of Trade Unions. It is good to be back in Cumbria. The last time in was in the county was during the foot and mouth epidemic and I took the railway journey from Carlisle to Settle. There were very few animals in the fields at that time so I was very pleased to see some semblance of normality returning to this beautiful area. I am delighted to be able to report that the partnership between CYWU and GFTU increases with every passing year. In 2002 we did 130 hours of research work for you and 33 members of your union attended our training courses. Training at conferences has been a major development for us over the last five years and I was pleased that the training provided by the GFTU here seems to have been well received. I hope that you will make input to the deliberations now taking place on our programme for 2004. We have been successful in a bid under the Union Learning fund to provide assistance in respect of life changes , for example redundancy or retirement. Under this provision we will be able to help members with basic skills , re-training , cv writing etc. We have also had a successful bid to the Department for International development to incorporate issues around globilisation into our courses. The next round of political fund ballots is upon us and we will be acting in a co-ordinating role for affiliated unions. It is essential that unions maintain a political voice at work. The GFTU Conference will take place next month and we have a full agenda of business. Brendan Barber from the TUC and Peter Hain the Secretary of State for Wales will be our principal speakers. Before I left the office on Friday I took a look at your website and was impressed with the way you have developed this over the last few years . I hope that you get a chance to look at the GFTU site in the near future. Finally , I look forward to even closer co-operation between us to mutual benefit in the year ahead. |
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| GFTU GCM PRELIMINARY AGENDA - 19-02-2003 |
| PRELIMINARY AGENDA FOR THE NINETY-FIFTH GENERAL COUNCIL MEETING THE CARDIFF MARRIOTT HOTEL CARDIFF Monday and Tuesday, 12 and 13 May 2003 Opening of Exhibition Area 9.00 am Opening of Meeting 9.30 am Addresses of Welcome Election of Tellers Adoption of Standing Orders and Programme of Business President’s Address – Mr M J Leahy Biennial Report and Accounts Election of the Executive Committee Motions and Amendments to Rule Closure 5pm 13 May 2003 AMENDMENTS Amendments to any items on the Preliminary Agenda must be received in writing by the General Secretary on or before 17 March 2003. MOTIONS 2003 1 Manufacturing Support This Biennial General Meeting firmly believes that not enough is being done to support manufacturing in the United Kingdom. The decline in the manufacturing sector is now leaving the UK economy with a major balance of payment deficit. The UK economy has also seen a decline in full time skilled employment and many of these jobs have been replaced by low skilled, often part time and low paid, which may have led to the assumption that the UK is in a position of full employment. This in turn has led to a diminishing of the education and skill base of working people and this is highlighted in many aspects of the Moser Report. One of the significant statistics of this Report had revealed that millions of working people have little of no competence in numeracy or literacy. This Biennial General Meeting believes that the GFTU is ideally placed to play a role in supporting the infrastructure of the ever changing manufacturing sector, particularly in view of the fact that most affiliated Unions are either sector/industrial specific or small specialist Unions who have close day to day working arrangements with the employers in their sector and therefore, are in a position to work on partnership initiatives for education and training in particular. This Biennial General Meeting therefore, calls on the Executive Committee to develop a proactive policy in conjunction with affiliated Unions, employers and other partners to promote and provide Basic Skills education. In particular, training is so badly needed in the manufacturing sector if the productivity and performance of that sector is to be improved in order to compete in the global market place. National Union of Knitwear, Footwear and Apparel Trades 2 Manufacturing 1 The manufacturing sector in Britain is in a deepening recession. We require a new emphasis from Government. The manufacturing sector is vital to the success of the whole economy, directly providing over 4 million jobs and £150 billion in exports. Manufacturing also contributes another 5 million jobs directly to the economy. 2 This Conference calls upon the Executive Committee to a.Stress the benefits of manufacturing in the UK and campaign for investment in manufacturing from employers, inward investors and government. b.Encourage employers to act responsibly in these difficult times stressing that the future of manufacturing is reliant on the skills that their workforces possess at present. c.Develop a policy for the UK manufacturing industry that ensures sufficient investment is directed into the industry to ensure that its infrastructure is maintained and built upon. AMICUS (Craft Sector) 3 Single European Currency Conference believes that it is in the interests of the entire economy and political democracy that Britain stays out of the single European currency. Conference calls on the Executive to provide information to affiliates supporting this position. Community and Youth Workers’ Union 4 Final Salary Schemes The final salary pension scheme is the only sound scheme around for most people. Employers are now withdrawing from this type of scheme now because their responsibilities are greater than their returns. They have had payment holidays in the past when the investment returns have been good, plus surplus returns for the business and loyalty from employees because of the scheme. Now payment holidays cannot be afforded because the employers have been made accountable for the funding of the scheme, meaning no more paybacks. Those who will benefit from the scheme, who regard it as deferred pay, those who will have to pay tax on that benefit, the employees, are not given any consideration. Conference instructs the Executive Committee to campaign for the retention and restoration of final salary schemes. AMICUS (Scalemakers Craft Sector) 5 Pension This Conference calls on the GFTU to seek urgent talks with the Government regarding the provision of company pension schemes. While the introduction of Stakeholder schemes has helped, many of our members face poverty in old age because of the winding up of final salary pension schemes. This Conference therefore calls on the GFTU to campaign for employers to be forced by legislation to provide additional pension provisions for all employees. Conference also calls on the Government to introduce legislation that would protect workers from employers who wish to have pension contribution holidays or who wish to reduce the employers’ contribution. GMB CFTA Section 6 Pensions This Conference notes with alarm the growing crisis in pension provision, which is affecting both current and future pensioners. Conference calls upon the Executive Committee to lobby government to take responsibility for resolving this crisis and ensuring all pensioners have a decent retirement income. Conference calls upon the Executive to press the government to incorporate the following elements in future pension arrangements - no increase in the age at which state pension can be paid - earnings related increases in the state pension rates - compulsory contributions into occupational pensions by all employers - compulsory membership of occupational pension schemes for all employees. Association of Magisterial Officers 7 Maintaining Pensions The Biennial General Council welcomes the success of the ISTC – the Community Union in securing through strikes and other industrial action the retention of a defined benefits scheme for its members. It commends the example to other unions when they are confronted with the determination of employers to withdraw such schemes from the employees they represent. The GFTU views the retreat by increasing numbers of employers from defined benefits pensions schemes as a determined attack on the pay and conditions of working people. It considers largely spurious the arguments about changes in the tax regime and about the potential costs of final salary schemes often used by employers to support their withdrawal or their closure to new entrants, and calls on the Government, at the conclusion of its review, to introduce a Bill to ensure that pensions entitlements – deferred pay – are afforded as much protection in law as wages and salaries. Action by Parliament is most urgently needed in respect of pensions schemes which are inadequately funded because of the failure of insolvent employers to meet their pension commitments to their employees. The Conference also calls on the Government to require all employers to make contributions to the pensions of their employees as part of the provision to all working people of means of maintaining a reasonable standard of living, consistent with their human dignity, in retirement. Governance of schemes and control over surpluses should be shared equally by employers’ and employees’ trustees. The Government should in addition restore the link between the basic state pension and earnings as part of it contribution to eliminating the poverty and deprivation experienced by many retired people, particularly women. ISTC – the Community Union 8 National Hazards Charter This BDGM notes the content of the Hazards Charter and urges all affiliates to align themselves closer to the aims and aspirations of that Charter. We call for the end to the compromising of health and safety standards by the use of the words “reasonably practicable”. This BDGM calls on all affiliates to campaign through the HSE, HSC, Government and labour movement to achieve success in these aims. Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union 9 Genetically Modified Foods This BDGM notes the call by the BMA for a moratorium on Genetically Modified Foods for a period of five years. The BDGM notes the concern of consumers, workers and many producers about the long-term effects of genetically modified foods on the environment, food production and workers health. Whilst supporting the call for a five year freeze as a first step in the campaign the BDGM believes that each case should be treated on its merits and that, in some instances, a five year moratorium may not be enough (and in other cases too long) to guarantee the safety of our food. Any moratorium should depend on investigations by independent experts-including trade union experts covering health, safety and nutrition - carrying out a full investigation into the long term and cumulative effects of the genetically modified food stuffs on humans and the environment. The BDGM asks the Executive Committee to convey the concern of affiliates to Government, the European Parliament, European Commission and other interested organisations that consider the safety of humans and the preservation of the environment to be paramount to profit. This BDGM also calls on the GFTU to ensure that food safety is an issue of concern to all affiliates and to press the case for food safety at every opportunity. Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union 10 DISCRIMINATION IN EMPLOYMENT LEGISLATION This Biennial General Meeting is deeply concerned that some aspects of employment legislation in the industrial relations field are discriminatory. In particular, reference to the Trade Union recognition legislation, which gives exemption to companies employing less than 20 people. Many of these companies employ a majority of women or workers from ethnic communities. This Biennial General Meeting therefore calls on the Executive Committee to work in partnership with other interested bodies and if necessary carry out some research in order to present the case of discrimination in this field. National Union of Knitwear, Footwear and Apparel Trades 11 Basic Skills This Conference fully supports the priority this Government accords to workforce development and basic skills. We believe that high quality and accessible training opportunities for employees, particularly for those individuals who have previously under-achieved, are important to our goals of social justice and national economic prosperity. In order to advance these priorities and goals, the GFTU calls upon this Government to adopt a policy of publicly funded education up to level 2 for all adults. Association for College Management 12 British Manufacturing Industry The GFTU Biennial General Council welcomes the recent appreciation of the Euro against Sterling but notes that overvaluation of Sterling remains a major obstacle to increasing investment, raising productivity, and maintaining employment in manufacturing industry in Britain. In welcoming the commitment of the Government to the development of a manufacturing strategy and confirming the readiness of the trade union movement to work with government and industry to raise rates of productivity improvement, the GFTU calls on ministers to address the currency overvaluation through all practical measures, including reminding the Monetary Policy Committee of the need to end undershooting of the inflation target. The GFTU Biennial General Council notes that British equivocation over membership of the Euro system is harmful to attracting foreign investment and narrows opportunities to influence the future operation of the system. The GFTU calls on the Government to hold a referendum in 2003. The GFTU notes that failure to put into full effect EU provisions and proposals for informing and consulting employees and organising working time also prevents industry from taking full advantage of technological development. The Biennial Council calls on the Government to act in the long-term interests of manufacturing by encouraging the full commitment of employees to the success of their companies through applying the same provisions in force in most other European Union countries for several years. ISTC – the Community Union 13 Combating Dealing in Drugs The GFTU welcomes the additional resources made available for drug treatment throughout the United Kingdom this year. It notes in particular the problem of heroin in communities which have suffered significant job losses and social and industrial change, including steel communities, as well as the rise in violent crime in inner cities due to crack cocaine, and the growth of a gun culture amongst crack cocaine dealers. The GFTU is convinced that the trade union movement should play a central role in anti-drugs campaigning and calls on unions: - to press every employer to adopt a coherent drugs policy, which encourages honesty from workers about drug addiction and offers support and information to workers with drug dependent relatives - to offer advice on negotiating work-place drugs policies to shop stewards - to pursue with employers a policy of zero tolerance of drugs in the workplace - to press for longer prison sentences for all drug dealers, and especially those selling drugs outside schools - to press for drug education to be a compulsory part of the national curriculum - and to call for immediate treatment for all those with a drug dependency. ISTC – the Community Union 14 Alcohol – Minimum Price - Fixing That this Conference welcomes, and supports, the Governments introduction of a LICENSING BILL to reform the existing out dated Licensing Laws. It is this Conference’s view that these long awaited reforms will create a social and family friendly atmosphere in public houses. That this Conference believes that this attempt to reduce “binge” drinking is being seriously undermined by “happy hours”, cut price drinks and “two for one” promotions. That this Conference fully supports the action taken by Perth and Kinross Licensing Board, and other Scottish Licensing Boards, to impose minimum prices for the sale of alcohol on licensed premises, and further, that this Conference calls on the GEC to make representation to the Office of Fair Trading to support a similar proposal for England and Wales. TGWU (NALHM National Branch) 15 GFTU Policy/Strategy Direction In view of the changing requirements placed on Trade Unions by their membership individual unions have had to focus carefully on the service provision they provide. This Biennial General Meeting believes that it is equally important for the GFTU to carry out an overall reassessment of its policies and strategies. The major player project accepted by the 1995 BGM has served to introduce new affiliates into the GFTU but in overall policy terms it has never been strongly focused enough in service provisions. This BGM further believes that the GFTU is ideally placed to take up the opportunities provided by change – firstly, in Government attitude to education and training for working people and secondly, the requirements of members in individual Unions to gain greater knowledge. Trade Unionists are also turning more and more to their Unions for assistance in providing career development support. The GFTU has always had invaluable expertise in these areas. Therefore, this BGM calls on the Executive Committee to develop a new strategic role for the GFTU on behalf of its affiliated Unions. This strategy should be based on providing support for individual Unions to introduce training, particularly in the area of Basic Skills and career development education, as well as transitional Trade Union education, which will assist many members who face difficulties moving from one job opportunity to another in an ever changing working environment. This policy would also provide the GFTU with the opportunity to create a funding stream which will inject much needed financial resources into the organisation, as well as enabling it to develop into the UK’s number one education and support provider for lifelong career development to working people. This BGM further calls on the Executive Committee to put forward proposals as to how such a strategy could be introduced and developed to a meeting of representatives of affiliated Unions within the next twelve months. National Union of Knitwear Footwear and Apparel Trades 16 Working Time Regulations This Biennial General Council meeting recognises that the Working Time Regulations are an important first step in addressing the long hours culture in UK industry. However, the legislation as it is implemented in the United Kingdom leaves workers in an inferior position than their counterparts in other EU countries. In the broadcasting, film and entertainment industries tens of thousands of freelance workers have been denied the right to paid holidays by their employers. Despite a successful challenge against the British Government in Europe, UK employment tribunals are still excluding claims on behalf of freelance workers because in the view of tribunals they are not workers. This council meeting calls on the Executive Committee of the GFTU to pursue the following amendments to the Working Time Regulations: 1 that all British workers are entitled to paid annual leave from day one of their employment; 2 public holidays to become a statutory employment right and therefore excluded from the four weeks’ holidays; 3 any revisions of the regulations should place a duty on employers to ensure that leave is taken and cannot under any circumstances be bought out in advance; 4 in the event of successful tribunal cases being brought against employers who have breached the statutory regulations, the companies should be fined and the individuals should be given compensation in addition to their statutory entitlements. Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph & Theatre Union |
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