GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

leaders. I want the TUC and I want the union movement to lead this fight for

change in the world of work and I think we can do it. What is key to that is

when we talk about action, let’s move away from the debate that I think in

recent years, as well-intentioned as it is, has caused us inactivity and it has

caused us to not come together and that is that we go to the TUC every so

often and we say, “Let’s have a general strike”. It ain’t going to happen and it

will not happen because we ain’t representing all of the workers in the country

and we ain’t connecting as well as we could be connecting with all of those

workers. But what you can do is you can build towards it. So I am not against

a general strike, I am not personally somebody who believes you have a strike,

I believe you have an objective and if a strike is necessary to achieve that

objective, you use it that way round. But I am interested in what I see from

groups like Extinction Rebellion.

Again, I use my own experience. I was talking to my son about this. He was

going across Waterloo Bridge. He is a plumber and he was going across the

bridge and he said to me, “I couldn’t get over there”. He was working in a place

round by the Aldwych for the whole week. He said, “I went up there on the first

day and I said to them, ‘You know you’re stopping me from going to work’ and

they came back with some really good arguments”. I said, “So what have you

learnt out of that?” He said, “Well, I understand the threat of climate change

now more than what I did and I am willing to support people now who want to

make that an argument”. We have got do to the same thing and I think the

action could be this. Let’s not start by talking about things we are not going to

deliver. Let’s turn it on its head and talk about what we can deliver, so the

action we are calling for is a day at some point in the near future. You have got

to build towards this and it is not happening as quick as we would like, but it is

moving. I would actually say to every single trade union, “What can you do?

What can you do in the form of action, innovative action, that could add to a

day where we go out and we get all of our communications teams, we get all of

our forces that we have got, we muster together and we say on that day in six

months’ time, workers, we are having enough of this, we are going to have a

day of action to change the balance of forces in the world of work in this

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