GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

and getting that change in society is bigger for me than the Brexit debate. I am

on record as saying I do not actually think in or out of the EU that we are going

to solve those problems. We are going to solve it by bringing in a new Labour

Government with a manifesto that the trade union movement has helped write.

So they are the three things that I think about. I want to focus on a new deal

for workers and to do that I want to talk about what is happening in the world of

work very briefly by just giving you a few things. I do not do this from a point of

view of doom and gloom, you all know what is happening in the world of work,

but the reason why I think it is important that we keep these things in mind in as

simple way as we can is that we have to keep remembering this point about

how much the balance of power has shifted away from working people. I say

this from this point of view, that if you want to do something about it, your

ambition and our ambition as a movement for workers has to match the scale

of the problems. There is a stat that I often talk about that came from the

OECD and I think it tells the real story about what has happened to workers

today, far more than what Brexit does in any shape or form. If you look at the

GDP of the country, from what I understand economists are saying broadly that

May’s deal which probably is not going to go through would have a minus three

impact over about 10 or 15 years on the GDP of the country. A no deal is also

recognised as potentially over the same time frame having something like a

minus 9 impact, bigger than the financial crisis in 2008 on the GDP of the

country. But there is a figure that we do not talk about that is bigger than both

of those figures that I think does tell the story and it is this. In the last 40 years

the proportion of the overall economy of the country that is made up of workers’

wages has fallen from 65% to 49%. For me, that tells you again the scale of

the problem. The shift that has got to be made back towards workers is

enormous.

If I think about the position with the trade union movement, at a time when we

have never needed a stronger voice for workers, the truth is we actually

represent less workers than at any time in my lifetime in the trade union

movement. I think the figure is around about 75% of workers in the UK are not

in a trade union at the moment. 75% of workers, therefore, are not covered by

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