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RUEHBL/AMCONSUL BELFAST 0619
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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 LONDON 006761 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ELAB PGOV UK
SUBJECT: UK TRADE UNIONS ALTERNATELY PURSUE ENLIGHTENED AND 
NARROW SELF INTERESTS 
 
 
LONDON 00006761  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
 Sensitive but unclassified.  Not for internet. 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  The British trades union movement's 
annual convention was an exposition of both the broad and 
narrow visions of its members.  At times it pursued the lofty 
goals of workplace equality, better conditions, skills 
training and opportunity.  At others, its members called for 
the preservation of uneconomic practices simply because they 
benefited from them.  Their icy reception of PM Blair 
epitomized this dichotomy: they recognized and appreciated 
what he has done in the Labour Party's nine years in power to 
promote jobs, improve the National Health Service, invest in 
education and reform pensions.  But when he has sought to 
trim government spending by reducing positions, he has met 
with anger.  The moderate General Secretary of the TUC, 
Brendan Barber, faces increasing difficulty holding the 
trades union movement near the political center, as a 
powerful core of big unions pulls it left.  End Summary. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) The UK's broad union coalition, the Trades Union 
Congress (TUC) held its annual conference September 11 to 14 
in Brighton.  Comprising 64 unions, the TUC represents about 
6.5 million of the 7 million organized workers in UK.  Just 
over a quarter of the UK work force is unionized, much more 
so in the public sector (60% unionized) than the private 
(17%).  A handful of recently consolidated mega-unions make 
up the majority of membership:  the largest public sector 
union, Unison, has 1.3 million members.  Its private sector 
counterpart, Amicus, has 1.2 million.  Other big players are 
the Transport and General Workers Union (777,000) and the 
initials-only union, GMB (575,000).   Although the unions 
founded the Labour Party in 1906, only 16 of the 64 unions in 
the TUC are also members of the Party.  They are among the 
biggest, however, including the top four listed above.  The 
TUC itself is not affiliated. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) The TUC leadership hoped to use its annual moment 
in the spotlight to showcase its current agenda: protecting 
jobs in the National Health Service; upholding legal 
protections for immigrant workers, so they do not undercut 
other jobseekers; and fighting the proposed raising of the 
retirement age to 68 (in 2044). As expected, however, most of 
the national media attention focused on the leadership battle 
within the Labour Party.  Despite a preconference pledge by 
the unions to avoid public position taking, few General 
Secretaries could resist the temptation to share their views 
 
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when the TV cameras were on them.  A senior official at 
Amicus privately shook his head when his union's General 
Secretary, Derek Simpson, announced without prior 
 
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consultation that his union would support Chancellor Gordon 
Brown's bid to replace PM Blair, who has said he will stand 
down within twelve months.  "There is no process" the 
official moaned. 
 
¶4. (SBU) PM Blair's last address to the TUC was the mostly 
widely covered event at the Congress, but not particularly 
groundbreaking.  The handful of protestors, primarily from 
the hard left National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport 
Workers (RMT) led by their firebrand General Secretary Bob 
Crow, staged a choreographed walkout as Blair began.   Blair 
responded as he always has:  a Labour Government is better 
for the unions than a Tory one.  "I simply say to people who 
make the protest, you are perfectly entitled to do it but 
realize that those hostile to a Labour government - you are 
doing precisely what (the Tories) want. Not very sensible," 
he said.  The moderate members of the movement acknowledge 
the great strides workers have made under Blair - there are 
no longer "jobs marches" for example - but concede that 
Gordon Brown's union background will always make him more 
appealing to the rank and file. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) On the international front, the members were at 
their most leftist, supporting perennial resolutions in favor 
of Cuba and Venezuela, and more narrowly denouncing MOD plans 
to replace the Trident nuclear deterrent.  The vote on the 
Trident was more divided because of the union jobs at stake 
in the defense industries, another example of the broad 
vision warring with the narrow interests.  An observer from 
the AFL-CIO (protect) explained that Barber tends to allow 
the left-wing to dominate the international agenda, because 
it is of little consequence to the unions. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Despite the anti-American flavor of many of the 
motions, the AFL-CIO retains its honored position as the only 
union invited to address the congress every year.  This 
year's representative was William Lucy, International 
Secretary Treasurer of the American Federation of State, 
 
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County and Municipal Employees and Founder-President of the 
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists.   Lucy was also a 
 
LONDON 00006761  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
featured speaker at a "fringe" session with Barber and TUC 
President Gloria Mills, its first black female President, on 
Tackling Racism in the Workplace.   British unions are 
alarmed by the rise of the extreme right wing, nativist, 
British National Party.  Lucy pointed out that it is usually 
not the tiny percentage of overt racist who are the problem, 
but the many who remain indifferent in the face of racism. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Comment:  The British Labor movement is very much 
alive, but struggling to remain relevant to workers. 
Membership had declined slowly in a decade, from about 33% of 
the workforce in 1995 to about 26% today.  Ironically, as 
more union demands are written into national law, such as the 
minimum wage, improved health care and pensions, the need for 
union-specific protections weaken.   The struggle to absorb 
hundreds of thousands of workers from Eastern Europe without 
depressing wages, however, and to oppose the government's 
move to streamline the public sector mean that there will 
continue to be scope for the unions to pursue both their 
broad and narrow agendas. 
 
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