Annual report for 2009

2009 has been a tough year.  At the centre has been the fight to defend jobs but also against victimisation, privatisation, pay cuts and attacks on pensions.  Internationally, the fight for global justice and against imperialist wars continues.  The following report tries to be brief but comprehensive.  Please let the secretary have any additions and corrections.

In the fight to defend jobs, we supported the UCU strikes at Manchester College in July and August and the UNITE strike at Fujitsu in December.  We also hosted visits from representatives from Waterford Glass, Visteon, Enfield and Belfast and Vestas, four factories that occupied in defence of jobs in 2009.  The UNITE rep from Waterford, Donie Fell, also took part in the half day school we organised in March which had Paul Mason, BBC Newsnight, speaking on fighting the recession.  Ron Clark from Visteon Enfield did delegation work with us in Manchester in April and Gary Baxter and John Campbell from Visteon Belfast spoke at our May Day celebration, going on to visit workplaces afterwards.  Our meeting with a Vestas worker in July was followed by a setting up a Vestas Solidarity group which we backed including the national day of action on 17 September and visits by two further more workers from Vestas.  We also supported the demonstrations in support of jobs at Salford University in February and in Liverpool on 9 May, called by UCU  - both of these campaigns were successful in preventing compulsory redundancies - and in Birmingham on 16 May, organised by UNITE.  We backed the NUJ in their fight against job losses at the MEN and the meeting they organised at Manchester Town Hall in March.  In September, we organised a coach to the Right to Work demonstration, supported by six national trade unions, at the Labour Party conference, together with a public meeting to help build it.

Victimisation of union reps is an ongoing issue being one of the reasons for the strikes at Manchester College  We also backed the solidarity social in support of Karen Reissmann and the rally before her employment tribunal on 26 January.

Our banner featured prominently on the front page of the MEN in October supporting the CWU picket line outside the Manchester sorting office in their national dispute with Royal Mail.  Earlier in the year in February, together with the CWU, we organised a Public Service Not Private Profit (PSNPP) meeting in the Mechanics "Keep the Royal Mail Public, No privatisation".

The fight in defence of jobs is an international one and is linked to the fight for global justice and against climate change.  MTUC organised one of the five coaches that went from Manchester to the Jobs, Justice, Climate demonstration in London on 28 March.  We also backed the Campaign for Free Public Transport and its meeting in March which followed the defeat of the congestion charge proposal in the referendum in November 2007.  We encouraged affiliates to support the 100,000 strong ‘Wave’ demonstration against climate change in London on 5 December.

A key battle has been against fascism, the BNP and the EDL. Our work has included support for pre-Euro election leafleting, the protests outside Manchester Town Hall on election night and in Piccadilly the next day, the UAF national conference in Manchester on 18 July and the protest against the EDL in Piccadilly on 10 October.

The year started with the attack on Gaza and the occupation of Afghanistan continues.  We supported the Stop the War demonstration on 10 January in London and national StW demo on 24 October.  Our banner went to the demonstration against the occupation of Afghanistan in Strasbourg at NATO’s 60^th anniversary in April.

The crisis of working class representation was shown in the European elections when Labour polled just 15.7%, its lowest share since 1918.  MTUC has supported a range of initiatives, organising a large public meeting in June in support of the People’s Charter with Matt Wrack and John Hendy among the speakers and sending a delegate to the RMT conference on the crisis of working class representation in London in November.  We sent a delegate to the Fight for the Right to Work conference on 13 June and the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) conference 20 June.

2009 has seen a real fight against blacklisting.  In November, on the eve of a  CMD at the Manchester employment tribunal, we organised a meeting together with the Blacklist Support Group.

We have been committed to re-establishing the tradition of May Day, international workers day and, despite appalling weather, our march, rally and much else on the May Bank holiday was our biggest yet with 500 participating and excellent media coverage.  Our speakers included Billy Hayes, general secretary CWU, Paul Mason and the Visteon strikers.  An excellent video of the march is available on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbJ0zGQPslY

We remembered the 190^th anniversary of Peterloo in August, supporting the rally and organising an evening event in the Briton’s Protection with Alun Parry and Claire Mooney.  Our banner was at the Durham Miner’s Gala.

MTUC sent delegates to the UCU LGBT history month conference in February and had a stall at the International Women’s Day celebration in Manchester Town Hall , 8 March.

There are currently 32 branches affiliated to the council with an affiliated membership of about 15,000.  The income of the council in 2009 was £6,461 (provisional), the expenditure was £9,210.75 (provisional). This included £1,620 donated towards May Day activity and £5,220 spent on May Day.  The audited account for 2009 will be available at the AGM in March.

Speakers at MTUC included Kevin Brown, regional secretary FBU on the FBU delegation’s visit to Palestine, Pat Devine, author ‘Democracy and Economic Planning’ on ‘Can socialist planning work?’, the No2ID campaign, Dick Withecombe, UAF, and Charlotte Smith, LMHR, Manchester TUC Pensioners, Manchester Refugee Support Network, Honduras Solidarity Campaign,

Thanks to the efforts of our webmaster, our website www.manchestertuc.org was successfully launched.  The site is designed to encourage affiliated branches to register and then add their own reports.

We said farewell to our longest standing delegate, Alan Knowles, NUJ delegate for 49 years.  We also welcomed the re-launch of Salford TUC.

2010 promises to be even tougher than 2009.The 2008 report concluded

“The year to come looks set to be a bigger challenge than 2008 with the worst recession in generations, the need to campaign in defence of jobs, justice and climate at the demonstration in London on 28 March shortly before the meeting of the G20 as well as against the BNP in the European elections this summer.  The May Day march and celebration on Monday 4 May will be an important part of this.  Ongoing battles include the current fight against compulsory redundancies at Salford University.”

While we faced the challenges of 2009, the recession may or may not be coming to an end, the prospects for workers and their families are no better than a year ago and may be worse.  Today’s ongoing battles at Fujitsu and Manchester Metropolitan University will doubtless be joined by others.  As always what we do using our collective strength will make a difference.

Geoff Brown

Secretary

4 February 2010