Kez
28th April 2004, 17:28
This is a message from the General Secretary
""The T&G - a union that 'does the business' for its members, not a 'business union' "
The T&G is entering a new era, with a new leadership team. Under my leadership the T&G will be a union that fights back, winning for the members in the workplace. It will be a campaigning union, a voice for working people. And it will be a tolerant union, which treats people with dignity and respect.
Though the world of work has changed radically, the issues that made people join unions in past decades are still relevant today - seeking decent pay and conditions, ensuring your workplace is a safe and free from bullying or too much stress, tackling unfairness, getting helpful advice in times of need, having someone to speak up for you if you have a disagreement with your boss.
This website is intended to keep T&G members informed, support our representatives and officers and tell workers who might be interested in the union about what we do.
As the UK's largest general trade union we believe it is important to cater for the needs of everyone, and so this website has been designed to be accessible by all, no matter what technology you use. We are proud to achieved the RNIB's See It Right logo, which shows our commitment to web accessibility.
Please contact us, tell us how we can improve this website and feed in your thoughts about how our union can work better in the interests of members in the years to come. We will never forget that the T&G is a members' union and our work must be aimed at a better life for our members and all working people.
Yours
Tony Woodley
General Secretary"
Together stronger
Issue date: 1 Dec 2003
"At our Biennial Delegate Conference earlier this year I began by expressing my sense of honour at having been elected as general secretary of our great union.
I remain immensely honoured, but I also know that the challenge now is to deliver on the mandate for change that you, our members, have awarded Jack Dromey and I as the elected leadership of our union.
As your general secretary, my philosophy will be simple: Listen and lead. Or perhaps more accurately, listen then lead.
It is only together that we can begin to deliver on the ambitious agenda the T&G has before it. Together, we will start at the top, Jack and I, a united team that will lead by example.
We have an exciting agenda, a clear vision for a united, tolerant and growing union.
And this springs directly from the core values on which the T&G was founded and which remain the cornerstone for our future.
A fighting back union
If we fight we may not always win, but if we don't fight we will surely lose. That philosophy has served me well and I don't intend to change my approach now.
For me, fighting back means standing up, and being seen to stand up for the interests of our members, no matter whose cage gets rattled in the process.
We live in a society where workers can be sacked by text message. Where unscrupulous employers close down factories here because it is quicker, cheaper and easier to sack British workers than those elsewhere in Europe. Where poverty pay remains rife, and women and black people are, too often, second-class citizens at work.
Too commonly we see a race to the bottom in terms and conditions for workers, where the bad employer is able to undercut the good, a world of pensions robbery for those at the bottom and unbridled fat cat greed at the top.
So fighting back is not a permanent call to arms, or a programme of endless strikes. No, fighting back means never letting an injustice in the workplace go by without challenging it.
I am not interested in being loved by employers or ministers. Instead, I aim to gain respect, and will do, as they and others grow to understand: the T&G puts members first no matter who stands in the way.
A campaigning T&G
But however good our message is it won't be heard unless we get it out there. We need a voice in the wider community and the wider world. The T&G has a fine campaigning tradition. It has been at its best when we have linked our members' industrial concerns with wider social issues.
I want our voice to be HEARD - loud and clear - once more.
So we will be campaigning on the issues that matter - campaigning in Parliament, in Europe, in the council chambers, in the media and out there at the grassroots among our people.
Pensions are the single biggest concern for our members. That is why we have to continue to pressurise government as well as employers until we secure justice.
Corporate killing is another big issue. Employer recklessness will only be dealt with through legislation as well as powerful union organisation at the sharp end.
My vision of campaigning is one based on the greatest resource we have - tens of thousands of active trade unionists who can and must be mobilised behind the objectives the union sets itself.
A growing T&G
To achieve all this we need a bigger, growing T&G. I pay tribute to the many officers and staff members who are, day in and day out, putting such efforts into recruitment and building the T&G, but now need a new approach, new energy, new vision and resources at the front line, coupled with real commitment from the very top of the T&G to grow the union. Put simply, it is time to kiss goodbye to the cutback culture. It is time to refocus our resources to support our members in their workplaces.
We are now gearing up for growth. Our union must get back in our communities as fast as resources can permit. So I will be asking regions to identify towns where a case can be made for a new, physical T&G presence, taking trade unionism back into local communities.
I visited 91 factories and workplaces during my election campaign - none were fully unionised, far from it. So it is vital that we work for 100% membership in our already organised workplaces.
Size matters - politically and industrially. There will be no cheap promises but I do promise this - we are going to break the psychology of decline for good, and become a stronger union once more.
A members' union
Our lay democracy is perhaps the most treasured part of our inheritance. Without it the T&G would cease to be a democratic organisation of the working class.
But we must also be a union for all our members. We cannot relax for a moment in our fight for genuine equality in our union, at work and in society as a whole. Yes, we have made progress, but we cannot allow ourselves a moment's complacency.
I am not happy that there are only three women among our national officials, and only one black person. If that is still the position in a few years' time, never mind five or ten, I will have failed.
I repeat the commitment I made during my election campaign. I will set realistic targets for appointing more black and women officers and hold myself - and the whole union - to achieving them.
Let's get equality beyond the conference hall and into our daily lives.
A progressive T&G
Some pundits say it is all right for trade unions to deal with workplace matters, but that it is almost an impertinence to speak about politics. I say that is a false division.
The T&G has been involved in politics from its foundation, and will always be so. That is for two good reasons. First, so many of the problems we face at work can be made better - or worse - by what is done or not done in Parliament. And second, working people have a collective vision not just of better working lives, but also of better lives in their communities and around the world. The reality is that too many of the working men and women of this country feel a profound disappointment in this government.
Yes, we acknowledge the many good things that Labour have achieved - the minimum wage, rights to recognition, family-friendly improvements and investment in public services.
But I ask why is this the first Labour government in our history under which the gap between rich and poor has grown? Why is this the first Labour government in our history to leave on the statute book anti-union laws, illegal laws, placed there by the Tories, in violation of ILO standards, laws which mean suffering for our members at Friction Dynamex and elsewhere?
Why is this the first Labour government in our history, which has sought to extend privatisation, rather than advance the public sector?
And why is this the first Labour government in our history to abandon the principles of peace and international law and instead line up with a reckless, aggressive and reactionary US administration?
It isn't good enough that thousands can be sacked by a text message, that our Friction Dynamex workers can't have justice.
It isn't good enough that the government is listening to the rich and powerful and not to its supporters.
It isn't good enough - but we have a job to do in making sure that this Labour government becomes so.
A united and tolerant T&G
Our values also talk of a united and tolerant T&G, which is why this union must be in the forefront of fighting against the BNP and the poison it spreads wherever it raises its head.
We must make it clear that there will never be any place for fascists or racists within the ranks of the T&G. Where we find them, we will root them out, and we will drive them out.
The T&G will remain an internationalist union. Solidarity does not stop at the seashore. This union will always be a comrade to all those fighting injustice, for working people's rights, anywhere in the world.
I am conscious that I am standing in the shoes of giants - of Bevin, Cousins and Jack Jones. Alone, I cannot hope to fill them.
I am not here for patronage or a pay rise.
I am not here for a quiet life. I am here to help this great union realise in the 21st century the vision that made us strong in the 20th.
A vision of justice and decency for working people in a socialist Britain, within a peaceful world. With your help, with your support and with your commitment, we can make that difference together!"
And his speech at the first conference:
Tony Woodley's conference address
Given at the Biennial Delegate Conference, Brighton, 2nd July 2003
Brothers and sisters
I stand before you today both proud and humbled by the honour the members of this union have bestowed upon me. For any trade unionist to be elected leader of their union is a great honour. When that union is the T&G - our great union - it is the highest honour that can be given.
Let me say straight away that I intend to be the General Secretary of the whole T&G - not just of those who voted for me. I want to work with, and lead, those of you who supported other candidates just as much as those who supported my campaign.
That is not just a generous gesture. It is essential for our future.
We all know the phrase "unity is strength". All our experience, at work and in the wider world, teaches us that only a united trade union can win for its members, that only all of us working together can achieve anything for any one of us.
But I also believe - really believe - in a tolerant union. A union where who you vote for in elections matters far less than what you do to achieve our common objectives - the objectives set by you here at this BDC and in the lay committees which will always form the bedrock of our union's democracy.
A tribute to Bill Morris
Let me also say here a word about Bill Morris.
It is common knowledge that Bill and I have not seen eye to eye in recent times, however, I remember all those many years ago how proud I was for our Union to have elected the first black General Secretary in our movement. When I finally came back down to earth, I, like many others who supported Bill Morris, I had tears in my eyes, and let me tell you this; I am as proud today as I was then.
Every general secretary of our union has written his page in the history of our movement. Bill will be remembered for many things, but above all, for what he represents in terms of the achievements of the black communities of our country. He has not just talked the struggle for equality, he has lived it. That, and his campaign for justice for asylum seekers, is a legacy that I pledge to not just preserve, but build upon. Bill, or should I say Sir Bill, we wish you a long and happy retirement.
Vote for change and make a difference
Colleagues, let me now spell out to you where I am coming from. I stood for election using the slogan of "vote for change and make a difference".
This was more than a slogan, it was a mandate for change - for real change in the way the T&G does its business. Not ill-thought out change for change's sake, but a reorientation in our thinking, our outlook and our attitudes.
But we must start with our culture. We are not a business. We must be business-like and professional in the way that we conduct ourselves, but we are not a business - we are a trade union, an organisation of Officers and Staff not master and servants. The language of business, ie chief executive, directors, managers, supervisors, is inappropriate for our union.
Many of our members already believe that we are too close to the bosses without us sounding, dressing talking and acting like them - this must change. We are a team whose wages are paid for by the members, working together for the members. And only for the members - no other interest.
Change is needed - now
But real change must start at the sharp end - in the workplace. Every day's news underlines how important that is. We live in a society where workers can be sacked by text message. Where unscrupulous employers close down factories here because it is quick cheap and easy to sack British workers, than those elsewhere in Europe. Where poverty pay remains rife, and women and black people are second-class citizens at work.
We live in a world where there is too often a race to the bottom in terms and conditions for workers, where the bad employer is able to undercut the good. A world of pensions robbery for those at the bottom and unbridled fat cat greed at the top.
And we have to recognise it - a society where the trade union movement has been able to do too little to help those who need us most.
Over the last year I have met tens of thousands of T&G members around the country. It has been an exhilarating experience - but also at times a sobering, even a depressing, one. How many times have I heard workers say, "why isn't the union doing anything for us?" Even, "what is the point in the union?" And if those who are already our members are saying that, we can only imagine what the attitude is among those millions who aren't in unions.
Why? Because we have taken our eye off the ball, because, we are sometimes seen as too close to the gaffer, because we are not delivering satisfaction at the sharp end, in the workplace, we have become almost irrelevant to our members.
That is why we must refocus our time, money and effort on the workplace and industrial priorities of the union, on the T&G becoming once more a "fighting back union".
A fighting union
"Because fighting back makes a difference to our members."
Some people may misinterpret that as a permanent call to arms, or a programme of endless strikes. That is not the case. What I mean is a T&G that:
Never lets an injustice in the workplace go by without challenging it.
Encourages, rather than damps down, the aspirations of working people.
When a problem arises, always meets the members before we meet the governor
And, if our members decide they need to fight to secure improvements to pay and conditions, equality, or to save their jobs, gets right behind them one hundred and ten per cent and fights to win.
"If we fight we may not always win, but if we don't fight we will surely lose".
That philosophy has served me well and I don't intend to change my approach now.
That is why I have said loud and clear that social partnership is not the way forward for working people. Of course, I don't mean that we stop negotiating, that we stop reaching pragmatic agreements with employers, that we don't have constructive engagement, or that we stop respecting companies that respect their own workforce and their unions.
But it does mean ending the situation where we look at a company's business plan and demands before we look at our own member's needs and demands.
We want workplace improvements
"Concession bargaining must end, our members want real improvements in the workplace."
How many times do you hear the members say: "why are you ramming ballots down our throats - we've had one and we have told you, the answer's NO - get out and do better"?
How many times have we found imaginative ways to pressurise you to vote yes? This behaviour will stop.
We must put aside the illusion that if we all just pull our socks up and work harder, the employer will look after us: I have never met a generous employer in my life.
Look around you; every industrial community in this country has reminders in closed factories and derelict industrial areas, communities destroyed as corporate greed takes its toll.
Shareholder value being the only value whilst the stakeholders, you our members, pay the price with lost jobs.
Fighting back means standing up, and being seen to stand up for the interests of our members, no matter whose cage gets rattled in the process.
I am not interested in being loved by Labour ministers because I sell members short, I will gain respect as they and others understand - it is 'members first' no matter who is getting in the way.
And I believe that standing up for our members today is the surest way to win the members of tomorrow - to attract the millions of unorganised workers in Britain into the T&G.
Forward to a bigger union
Let me now turn to the issue of organisation. We all know that we need a bigger T&G - millions out there need it, and our existing membership can only profit from being part of a stronger organisation, size matters politically and industrially.
And let me pay tribute here to the many members of our union who are, day in and day out, putting such efforts into recruitment and building the T&G.
But we all know it has not been enough. We all know the plans; the strategies, the seminars and the conferences have not stopped the decline.
We now need a new approach, new energy, a new vision and resources at the front line, coupled with real commitment from the very top of the T&G to grow the union.
The T&G is back
My message is simple: The T&G is back.
It will be back in the communities we have abandoned as fast as resources can permit. And I will be asking regions to identify towns where a case can be made for a new, physical, T&G presence.
Let me make one thing clear, contrary to my critics' pronouncements, I will not bankrupt the Union. The union's finances are safe in my hands. We will, however, target and pilot new offices in line with indisputable growth opportunities.
My critics will also be somewhat surprised by the visionary and imaginative ways in which we will achieve our goals. But I make this point. You don't need £3 million offices like some monument to Ceaucescu on the smartest docksides and quaysides, which are completely inaccessible to members, to recruit £4.50 poorly paid workers - we just need to be there when they need us. In communities, part of communities.
We will be back in the workplaces where the employer does not want us. I renew my promise here, to build separate specialist organising teams in the regions to put the T&G on the doorstep and in the face of every anti-union employer in the country. And to work for 100% membership in our already organised workplaces.
I visited 91 factories and workplaces during the recent election, none were fully unionised, far from it.
We must say no to no go areas for recruitment.
And we will be back in the mergers market. I know that mergers do not on their own make an extra trade unionist.
But I also know that a stronger union can recruit more readily, can make better use of resources and can eliminate that wasteful competition between Unions which only benefits management. So I pledge to start, in fact we have already started, aggressively seeking mergers which make industrial sense for the T&G, and which can ensure that our great democratic traditions are respected.
When this parliament of our union next meets, I am confident that we can be representing an expanding T&G, not a contracting one, and that we will have broken the psychology of decline for good.
A political question
Colleagues - I, like I am sure all of you here, reject the false division between industrial work and political activity which some pundits try to create. They say it is all right for trade unions to deal with workplace matters, but that it is almost an impertinence to speak about politics. If you do, you risk being called a "wrecker" by the great and the good.
Well, I've been called nicer things, but worse things too. Let me make it clear to the hard of understanding - the T&G has been involved in politics from its foundation, and will always be so.
That is for two good reasons. First, so many of the problems we face at work can be made better - or worse - by what is done or not done in parliament. Second, working people have a collective vision not just of better working lives, but also of better lives in their communities and around the world. As a great democratic working class organisation, the T&G will always hold true to that vision.
So I want to take this opportunity to make it clear where I stand on the political questions facing this union.
We must start by facing the reality of the bitter disappointment that working men and women throughout the country feel towards this government.
I don't have selective amnesia about how bad it was under a Tory administration, but for a Labour Government or anyone else, six years in to say "remember the Tories and therefore be happy with what you've got" is unacceptable.
No to New Labour
I ask the question:
Why is this the first Labour Government in our history under which the gap between rich and poor has grown?
Why is this the first Labour Government in our history to leave on the statute book anti-union laws, illegal laws, placed there by the Tories, in violation of ILO standards?
Why are Friction Dynamics workers unfairly sacked after eight weeks, not legally entitled to go back to their jobs?
Why is this the first Labour Government in our history, which has sought to extend privatisation, rather than advance the public sector?
Why is this the first Labour Government in our history to do nothing - nothing - to protect working class communities from the devastation of redundancies and closures?
And why is this the first Labour Government in our history to abandon the principles of peace and international law and line up instead with a reckless, aggressive reactionary US administration.
Perhaps we are part of the answer to that question. Perhaps it is because the trade union movement has not been firm enough and early enough in drawing a line in the sand.
Let me put that right here today. The days of New Labour are now numbered. Working people want something different.
I say it is time to reclaim our party. Not walk away from it as a few on the fringes would argue, but reclaim it for the values of working class men and women, the values of socialism.
We cannot do it alone. But I am prepared to work with our brothers and sisters in other trade unions to put the Labour back in our party.
That means an end to privatisation, an end to anti-union laws, an end to pandering to big business, and an end to wars of aggression.
It also means taking another look at the Party's democracy, at opening up the structures so policy is no longer handed down from the top with no room to challenge or question it, but built up from the bottom, reflecting the experiences of our people.
If we can make that change in our Party we will not just be doing a favour to T&G members or trade unionists, but to democracy as a whole. Apathy and disillusionment in our political system is spreading, and sinister forces are working to take advantage of that - filling the gap of frustrated, disillusioned and disappointed Labour-voting people.
Let me say here, that this union will be in the forefront of fighting against the BNP and the poison it represents in any community where it raises its head. And I can also make it clear that there will never be any place for fascists or racists within the ranks of the T&G. Where we find them, we will root them out, and we will drive them out.
Equality for all
Brothers and sisters - many other challenges face us. We cannot relax for a moment in our fight for genuine equality in our union, at work and in society as a whole. We have made progress, but not so much that we can allow ourselves a moment's complacency.
I am not happy that there are only three women among our national officials, and only one black person once Bill Morris retires. If that is still the position in a few year's time, never mind five or ten, I will have failed. Let's get equality out of the conferences, out of the composites and into our daily lives.
Nor can we continue to allow ourselves the luxury of thinking that our practical tasks stop at Dover. Capital is global. While Labour remains local, we will too often be on the back foot against the Trans-National Corporations. Internationalism is no longer just a matter of solidarity, important though that is. It is a matter of finding ways of working with our brothers and sisters in other lands which can actually level up the playing field with global big business and end the situation where workers in one land can be used to undercut workers in others. There is no more important task for the future.
Summary
Colleagues, I would like to return to the theme I started with. I want to lead a united union. I know that you all want to work and be active in a united union. I want my team to be 850,000-strong - as a start!
I do not stand before you as someone who has all the answers. I believe I am asking the right questions, the ones our members are themselves asking. Only together do we have any chance of finding the right solutions.
I am conscious that I am standing in the shoes of giants - of Bevin, Cousins and Jack Jones. Alone, I cannot hope to fill them. Together, we can do more than that - we can stride forward to new victories for working people.
I stand here as your servant. Your decisions will be my only guide in my new responsibilities.
I am not here for patronage or a pay rise.
I am not here for a quiet life.
I am here to help this great union realise in the 21st century, the vision that made us strong in the twentieth.
Of justice and decency for working people in a socialist Britain and a peaceful world.
With your help, with your support we can make it happen, we can make that difference.
What are your views of woodley?
If the workers are going to battle inside Labour, what are communists doing fighting outside?
""The T&G - a union that 'does the business' for its members, not a 'business union' "
The T&G is entering a new era, with a new leadership team. Under my leadership the T&G will be a union that fights back, winning for the members in the workplace. It will be a campaigning union, a voice for working people. And it will be a tolerant union, which treats people with dignity and respect.
Though the world of work has changed radically, the issues that made people join unions in past decades are still relevant today - seeking decent pay and conditions, ensuring your workplace is a safe and free from bullying or too much stress, tackling unfairness, getting helpful advice in times of need, having someone to speak up for you if you have a disagreement with your boss.
This website is intended to keep T&G members informed, support our representatives and officers and tell workers who might be interested in the union about what we do.
As the UK's largest general trade union we believe it is important to cater for the needs of everyone, and so this website has been designed to be accessible by all, no matter what technology you use. We are proud to achieved the RNIB's See It Right logo, which shows our commitment to web accessibility.
Please contact us, tell us how we can improve this website and feed in your thoughts about how our union can work better in the interests of members in the years to come. We will never forget that the T&G is a members' union and our work must be aimed at a better life for our members and all working people.
Yours
Tony Woodley
General Secretary"
Together stronger
Issue date: 1 Dec 2003
"At our Biennial Delegate Conference earlier this year I began by expressing my sense of honour at having been elected as general secretary of our great union.
I remain immensely honoured, but I also know that the challenge now is to deliver on the mandate for change that you, our members, have awarded Jack Dromey and I as the elected leadership of our union.
As your general secretary, my philosophy will be simple: Listen and lead. Or perhaps more accurately, listen then lead.
It is only together that we can begin to deliver on the ambitious agenda the T&G has before it. Together, we will start at the top, Jack and I, a united team that will lead by example.
We have an exciting agenda, a clear vision for a united, tolerant and growing union.
And this springs directly from the core values on which the T&G was founded and which remain the cornerstone for our future.
A fighting back union
If we fight we may not always win, but if we don't fight we will surely lose. That philosophy has served me well and I don't intend to change my approach now.
For me, fighting back means standing up, and being seen to stand up for the interests of our members, no matter whose cage gets rattled in the process.
We live in a society where workers can be sacked by text message. Where unscrupulous employers close down factories here because it is quicker, cheaper and easier to sack British workers than those elsewhere in Europe. Where poverty pay remains rife, and women and black people are, too often, second-class citizens at work.
Too commonly we see a race to the bottom in terms and conditions for workers, where the bad employer is able to undercut the good, a world of pensions robbery for those at the bottom and unbridled fat cat greed at the top.
So fighting back is not a permanent call to arms, or a programme of endless strikes. No, fighting back means never letting an injustice in the workplace go by without challenging it.
I am not interested in being loved by employers or ministers. Instead, I aim to gain respect, and will do, as they and others grow to understand: the T&G puts members first no matter who stands in the way.
A campaigning T&G
But however good our message is it won't be heard unless we get it out there. We need a voice in the wider community and the wider world. The T&G has a fine campaigning tradition. It has been at its best when we have linked our members' industrial concerns with wider social issues.
I want our voice to be HEARD - loud and clear - once more.
So we will be campaigning on the issues that matter - campaigning in Parliament, in Europe, in the council chambers, in the media and out there at the grassroots among our people.
Pensions are the single biggest concern for our members. That is why we have to continue to pressurise government as well as employers until we secure justice.
Corporate killing is another big issue. Employer recklessness will only be dealt with through legislation as well as powerful union organisation at the sharp end.
My vision of campaigning is one based on the greatest resource we have - tens of thousands of active trade unionists who can and must be mobilised behind the objectives the union sets itself.
A growing T&G
To achieve all this we need a bigger, growing T&G. I pay tribute to the many officers and staff members who are, day in and day out, putting such efforts into recruitment and building the T&G, but now need a new approach, new energy, new vision and resources at the front line, coupled with real commitment from the very top of the T&G to grow the union. Put simply, it is time to kiss goodbye to the cutback culture. It is time to refocus our resources to support our members in their workplaces.
We are now gearing up for growth. Our union must get back in our communities as fast as resources can permit. So I will be asking regions to identify towns where a case can be made for a new, physical T&G presence, taking trade unionism back into local communities.
I visited 91 factories and workplaces during my election campaign - none were fully unionised, far from it. So it is vital that we work for 100% membership in our already organised workplaces.
Size matters - politically and industrially. There will be no cheap promises but I do promise this - we are going to break the psychology of decline for good, and become a stronger union once more.
A members' union
Our lay democracy is perhaps the most treasured part of our inheritance. Without it the T&G would cease to be a democratic organisation of the working class.
But we must also be a union for all our members. We cannot relax for a moment in our fight for genuine equality in our union, at work and in society as a whole. Yes, we have made progress, but we cannot allow ourselves a moment's complacency.
I am not happy that there are only three women among our national officials, and only one black person. If that is still the position in a few years' time, never mind five or ten, I will have failed.
I repeat the commitment I made during my election campaign. I will set realistic targets for appointing more black and women officers and hold myself - and the whole union - to achieving them.
Let's get equality beyond the conference hall and into our daily lives.
A progressive T&G
Some pundits say it is all right for trade unions to deal with workplace matters, but that it is almost an impertinence to speak about politics. I say that is a false division.
The T&G has been involved in politics from its foundation, and will always be so. That is for two good reasons. First, so many of the problems we face at work can be made better - or worse - by what is done or not done in Parliament. And second, working people have a collective vision not just of better working lives, but also of better lives in their communities and around the world. The reality is that too many of the working men and women of this country feel a profound disappointment in this government.
Yes, we acknowledge the many good things that Labour have achieved - the minimum wage, rights to recognition, family-friendly improvements and investment in public services.
But I ask why is this the first Labour government in our history under which the gap between rich and poor has grown? Why is this the first Labour government in our history to leave on the statute book anti-union laws, illegal laws, placed there by the Tories, in violation of ILO standards, laws which mean suffering for our members at Friction Dynamex and elsewhere?
Why is this the first Labour government in our history, which has sought to extend privatisation, rather than advance the public sector?
And why is this the first Labour government in our history to abandon the principles of peace and international law and instead line up with a reckless, aggressive and reactionary US administration?
It isn't good enough that thousands can be sacked by a text message, that our Friction Dynamex workers can't have justice.
It isn't good enough that the government is listening to the rich and powerful and not to its supporters.
It isn't good enough - but we have a job to do in making sure that this Labour government becomes so.
A united and tolerant T&G
Our values also talk of a united and tolerant T&G, which is why this union must be in the forefront of fighting against the BNP and the poison it spreads wherever it raises its head.
We must make it clear that there will never be any place for fascists or racists within the ranks of the T&G. Where we find them, we will root them out, and we will drive them out.
The T&G will remain an internationalist union. Solidarity does not stop at the seashore. This union will always be a comrade to all those fighting injustice, for working people's rights, anywhere in the world.
I am conscious that I am standing in the shoes of giants - of Bevin, Cousins and Jack Jones. Alone, I cannot hope to fill them.
I am not here for patronage or a pay rise.
I am not here for a quiet life. I am here to help this great union realise in the 21st century the vision that made us strong in the 20th.
A vision of justice and decency for working people in a socialist Britain, within a peaceful world. With your help, with your support and with your commitment, we can make that difference together!"
And his speech at the first conference:
Tony Woodley's conference address
Given at the Biennial Delegate Conference, Brighton, 2nd July 2003
Brothers and sisters
I stand before you today both proud and humbled by the honour the members of this union have bestowed upon me. For any trade unionist to be elected leader of their union is a great honour. When that union is the T&G - our great union - it is the highest honour that can be given.
Let me say straight away that I intend to be the General Secretary of the whole T&G - not just of those who voted for me. I want to work with, and lead, those of you who supported other candidates just as much as those who supported my campaign.
That is not just a generous gesture. It is essential for our future.
We all know the phrase "unity is strength". All our experience, at work and in the wider world, teaches us that only a united trade union can win for its members, that only all of us working together can achieve anything for any one of us.
But I also believe - really believe - in a tolerant union. A union where who you vote for in elections matters far less than what you do to achieve our common objectives - the objectives set by you here at this BDC and in the lay committees which will always form the bedrock of our union's democracy.
A tribute to Bill Morris
Let me also say here a word about Bill Morris.
It is common knowledge that Bill and I have not seen eye to eye in recent times, however, I remember all those many years ago how proud I was for our Union to have elected the first black General Secretary in our movement. When I finally came back down to earth, I, like many others who supported Bill Morris, I had tears in my eyes, and let me tell you this; I am as proud today as I was then.
Every general secretary of our union has written his page in the history of our movement. Bill will be remembered for many things, but above all, for what he represents in terms of the achievements of the black communities of our country. He has not just talked the struggle for equality, he has lived it. That, and his campaign for justice for asylum seekers, is a legacy that I pledge to not just preserve, but build upon. Bill, or should I say Sir Bill, we wish you a long and happy retirement.
Vote for change and make a difference
Colleagues, let me now spell out to you where I am coming from. I stood for election using the slogan of "vote for change and make a difference".
This was more than a slogan, it was a mandate for change - for real change in the way the T&G does its business. Not ill-thought out change for change's sake, but a reorientation in our thinking, our outlook and our attitudes.
But we must start with our culture. We are not a business. We must be business-like and professional in the way that we conduct ourselves, but we are not a business - we are a trade union, an organisation of Officers and Staff not master and servants. The language of business, ie chief executive, directors, managers, supervisors, is inappropriate for our union.
Many of our members already believe that we are too close to the bosses without us sounding, dressing talking and acting like them - this must change. We are a team whose wages are paid for by the members, working together for the members. And only for the members - no other interest.
Change is needed - now
But real change must start at the sharp end - in the workplace. Every day's news underlines how important that is. We live in a society where workers can be sacked by text message. Where unscrupulous employers close down factories here because it is quick cheap and easy to sack British workers, than those elsewhere in Europe. Where poverty pay remains rife, and women and black people are second-class citizens at work.
We live in a world where there is too often a race to the bottom in terms and conditions for workers, where the bad employer is able to undercut the good. A world of pensions robbery for those at the bottom and unbridled fat cat greed at the top.
And we have to recognise it - a society where the trade union movement has been able to do too little to help those who need us most.
Over the last year I have met tens of thousands of T&G members around the country. It has been an exhilarating experience - but also at times a sobering, even a depressing, one. How many times have I heard workers say, "why isn't the union doing anything for us?" Even, "what is the point in the union?" And if those who are already our members are saying that, we can only imagine what the attitude is among those millions who aren't in unions.
Why? Because we have taken our eye off the ball, because, we are sometimes seen as too close to the gaffer, because we are not delivering satisfaction at the sharp end, in the workplace, we have become almost irrelevant to our members.
That is why we must refocus our time, money and effort on the workplace and industrial priorities of the union, on the T&G becoming once more a "fighting back union".
A fighting union
"Because fighting back makes a difference to our members."
Some people may misinterpret that as a permanent call to arms, or a programme of endless strikes. That is not the case. What I mean is a T&G that:
Never lets an injustice in the workplace go by without challenging it.
Encourages, rather than damps down, the aspirations of working people.
When a problem arises, always meets the members before we meet the governor
And, if our members decide they need to fight to secure improvements to pay and conditions, equality, or to save their jobs, gets right behind them one hundred and ten per cent and fights to win.
"If we fight we may not always win, but if we don't fight we will surely lose".
That philosophy has served me well and I don't intend to change my approach now.
That is why I have said loud and clear that social partnership is not the way forward for working people. Of course, I don't mean that we stop negotiating, that we stop reaching pragmatic agreements with employers, that we don't have constructive engagement, or that we stop respecting companies that respect their own workforce and their unions.
But it does mean ending the situation where we look at a company's business plan and demands before we look at our own member's needs and demands.
We want workplace improvements
"Concession bargaining must end, our members want real improvements in the workplace."
How many times do you hear the members say: "why are you ramming ballots down our throats - we've had one and we have told you, the answer's NO - get out and do better"?
How many times have we found imaginative ways to pressurise you to vote yes? This behaviour will stop.
We must put aside the illusion that if we all just pull our socks up and work harder, the employer will look after us: I have never met a generous employer in my life.
Look around you; every industrial community in this country has reminders in closed factories and derelict industrial areas, communities destroyed as corporate greed takes its toll.
Shareholder value being the only value whilst the stakeholders, you our members, pay the price with lost jobs.
Fighting back means standing up, and being seen to stand up for the interests of our members, no matter whose cage gets rattled in the process.
I am not interested in being loved by Labour ministers because I sell members short, I will gain respect as they and others understand - it is 'members first' no matter who is getting in the way.
And I believe that standing up for our members today is the surest way to win the members of tomorrow - to attract the millions of unorganised workers in Britain into the T&G.
Forward to a bigger union
Let me now turn to the issue of organisation. We all know that we need a bigger T&G - millions out there need it, and our existing membership can only profit from being part of a stronger organisation, size matters politically and industrially.
And let me pay tribute here to the many members of our union who are, day in and day out, putting such efforts into recruitment and building the T&G.
But we all know it has not been enough. We all know the plans; the strategies, the seminars and the conferences have not stopped the decline.
We now need a new approach, new energy, a new vision and resources at the front line, coupled with real commitment from the very top of the T&G to grow the union.
The T&G is back
My message is simple: The T&G is back.
It will be back in the communities we have abandoned as fast as resources can permit. And I will be asking regions to identify towns where a case can be made for a new, physical, T&G presence.
Let me make one thing clear, contrary to my critics' pronouncements, I will not bankrupt the Union. The union's finances are safe in my hands. We will, however, target and pilot new offices in line with indisputable growth opportunities.
My critics will also be somewhat surprised by the visionary and imaginative ways in which we will achieve our goals. But I make this point. You don't need £3 million offices like some monument to Ceaucescu on the smartest docksides and quaysides, which are completely inaccessible to members, to recruit £4.50 poorly paid workers - we just need to be there when they need us. In communities, part of communities.
We will be back in the workplaces where the employer does not want us. I renew my promise here, to build separate specialist organising teams in the regions to put the T&G on the doorstep and in the face of every anti-union employer in the country. And to work for 100% membership in our already organised workplaces.
I visited 91 factories and workplaces during the recent election, none were fully unionised, far from it.
We must say no to no go areas for recruitment.
And we will be back in the mergers market. I know that mergers do not on their own make an extra trade unionist.
But I also know that a stronger union can recruit more readily, can make better use of resources and can eliminate that wasteful competition between Unions which only benefits management. So I pledge to start, in fact we have already started, aggressively seeking mergers which make industrial sense for the T&G, and which can ensure that our great democratic traditions are respected.
When this parliament of our union next meets, I am confident that we can be representing an expanding T&G, not a contracting one, and that we will have broken the psychology of decline for good.
A political question
Colleagues - I, like I am sure all of you here, reject the false division between industrial work and political activity which some pundits try to create. They say it is all right for trade unions to deal with workplace matters, but that it is almost an impertinence to speak about politics. If you do, you risk being called a "wrecker" by the great and the good.
Well, I've been called nicer things, but worse things too. Let me make it clear to the hard of understanding - the T&G has been involved in politics from its foundation, and will always be so.
That is for two good reasons. First, so many of the problems we face at work can be made better - or worse - by what is done or not done in parliament. Second, working people have a collective vision not just of better working lives, but also of better lives in their communities and around the world. As a great democratic working class organisation, the T&G will always hold true to that vision.
So I want to take this opportunity to make it clear where I stand on the political questions facing this union.
We must start by facing the reality of the bitter disappointment that working men and women throughout the country feel towards this government.
I don't have selective amnesia about how bad it was under a Tory administration, but for a Labour Government or anyone else, six years in to say "remember the Tories and therefore be happy with what you've got" is unacceptable.
No to New Labour
I ask the question:
Why is this the first Labour Government in our history under which the gap between rich and poor has grown?
Why is this the first Labour Government in our history to leave on the statute book anti-union laws, illegal laws, placed there by the Tories, in violation of ILO standards?
Why are Friction Dynamics workers unfairly sacked after eight weeks, not legally entitled to go back to their jobs?
Why is this the first Labour Government in our history, which has sought to extend privatisation, rather than advance the public sector?
Why is this the first Labour Government in our history to do nothing - nothing - to protect working class communities from the devastation of redundancies and closures?
And why is this the first Labour Government in our history to abandon the principles of peace and international law and line up instead with a reckless, aggressive reactionary US administration.
Perhaps we are part of the answer to that question. Perhaps it is because the trade union movement has not been firm enough and early enough in drawing a line in the sand.
Let me put that right here today. The days of New Labour are now numbered. Working people want something different.
I say it is time to reclaim our party. Not walk away from it as a few on the fringes would argue, but reclaim it for the values of working class men and women, the values of socialism.
We cannot do it alone. But I am prepared to work with our brothers and sisters in other trade unions to put the Labour back in our party.
That means an end to privatisation, an end to anti-union laws, an end to pandering to big business, and an end to wars of aggression.
It also means taking another look at the Party's democracy, at opening up the structures so policy is no longer handed down from the top with no room to challenge or question it, but built up from the bottom, reflecting the experiences of our people.
If we can make that change in our Party we will not just be doing a favour to T&G members or trade unionists, but to democracy as a whole. Apathy and disillusionment in our political system is spreading, and sinister forces are working to take advantage of that - filling the gap of frustrated, disillusioned and disappointed Labour-voting people.
Let me say here, that this union will be in the forefront of fighting against the BNP and the poison it represents in any community where it raises its head. And I can also make it clear that there will never be any place for fascists or racists within the ranks of the T&G. Where we find them, we will root them out, and we will drive them out.
Equality for all
Brothers and sisters - many other challenges face us. We cannot relax for a moment in our fight for genuine equality in our union, at work and in society as a whole. We have made progress, but not so much that we can allow ourselves a moment's complacency.
I am not happy that there are only three women among our national officials, and only one black person once Bill Morris retires. If that is still the position in a few year's time, never mind five or ten, I will have failed. Let's get equality out of the conferences, out of the composites and into our daily lives.
Nor can we continue to allow ourselves the luxury of thinking that our practical tasks stop at Dover. Capital is global. While Labour remains local, we will too often be on the back foot against the Trans-National Corporations. Internationalism is no longer just a matter of solidarity, important though that is. It is a matter of finding ways of working with our brothers and sisters in other lands which can actually level up the playing field with global big business and end the situation where workers in one land can be used to undercut workers in others. There is no more important task for the future.
Summary
Colleagues, I would like to return to the theme I started with. I want to lead a united union. I know that you all want to work and be active in a united union. I want my team to be 850,000-strong - as a start!
I do not stand before you as someone who has all the answers. I believe I am asking the right questions, the ones our members are themselves asking. Only together do we have any chance of finding the right solutions.
I am conscious that I am standing in the shoes of giants - of Bevin, Cousins and Jack Jones. Alone, I cannot hope to fill them. Together, we can do more than that - we can stride forward to new victories for working people.
I stand here as your servant. Your decisions will be my only guide in my new responsibilities.
I am not here for patronage or a pay rise.
I am not here for a quiet life.
I am here to help this great union realise in the 21st century, the vision that made us strong in the twentieth.
Of justice and decency for working people in a socialist Britain and a peaceful world.
With your help, with your support we can make it happen, we can make that difference.
What are your views of woodley?
If the workers are going to battle inside Labour, what are communists doing fighting outside?