South West Trades Coucils Annual Meeting
Held on Saturday 24 February 2024 in Bridgwater
This is the annual conference for the 18 Trades Councils spread throughout the South West. As a newly formed Trades Council it was our first time in attendance. We had four delegates, one of whom could not attend at the last minute. All three who did made contributions to discussion and debate. They were from NEU, UCU and Unite unions.
The Conference was opened by Hannah David, South West TUC Chair who praised the work of Trades Councils and highlighted their important role in the overall work of the South West TUC.
Dave Chapple who represents the South West on the TUC Joint Consultative Committee (TUCJCC), which has nine elected trades council delegates and meets with members of the TUC General Council six times a year gave his report on “How are we doing regionally and nationally?”
He believed that Trades Councils in the region were mainly healthy and doing good work in bringing unions together although one or two were struggling at the moment. He also mentioned two that had revived including our neighbours in Cheltenham and gave particular mention to the fact that we had established Stroud Trades Council after a gap of many years without one in the area.
There were two inspiring guest speakers, train driver. Rob Kitley of Exeter Branch ASLEF and Vice-President of Exeter and East Devon Trades Council spoke about the union’s ongoing dispute and how it had been hampered by the government interfering with the freedom of train companies to negotiate properly both without taking responsibility for a settlement themselves. He criticised myths spread by politicians and the media in both the ASLEF dispute and the recent RMT dispute. In response to a request from one of our delegates he promised to see if a simple “myth busting” leaflet could be produced to use with the public on street stalls, etc.
The second speaker was Garfield Hylton, Senior GMB Representative and currently in dispute with Amazon in the West Midlands. He outlined how the Union branch had grown from a handful of members to about 1,500 in not much more than 18 months despite union busting tactics by management and how even some. Managers were now joining the Union. Many Amazon workers have limited English speaking a variety of first languages but the union activists have been able to overcome this and build solidarity.
The two talks, followed by questions and comments from the floor, were praised by delegates as great examples of, on the one hand, an established and well organised union and, on the other, a new local union organisation building itself up but both of them mounting good and potentially successful campaign.
Ines Lage, South West TUC Regional Secretary, then gave an overview of the successes and challenges of union organisation at present and how important it was to work together on issues, including challenging anti-union laws. She warned that the current Tory Government were planning to once again introduce fees for making an application to an Employment Tribunal which would restrict access to justice for working people.
An impressive buffet lunch including plenty of vegan food was appreciated by delegates before the afternoon session.
The main remaining business was a session on “Creating solidarity: how can trades councils grow stronger and bring striking unions together?” The speakers were Tanbir Sidddique of Cheltenham Trades Council who described how the council had been revived and our own Secretary, Ruth Amias (see picture above, Ruth is second from the right).
Ruth spoke about how the trade council had been born and developed over the past months. She mentioned how we had supported local unions in dispute with their employers, held street stalls, taken part in campaigns like the one to protect railway ticket offices and been asked to take over running of the annual Stroud May Day event from the local Labour Party (this event will take place on Saturday 4 May 2024). She also described some of the discussions on issues like Palestine and our meeting with the local Labour Party Parliamentary Candidate where we expressed our concern about a number of issues, not least for a future Labour Government to keep its promises to repeal anti-union laws and improve industrial relations soon after election.
The final item of Any Other Business was to pass a motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, the conflict having been mentioned several times during the day.