Morning Star: STUC urged to back People's Charter - April 2010

Monday 19 April 2010

by Malcolm Burns in Dundee

The STUC has rallied behind the principles of the People's Charter calling for the current failed economic and social model to be ditched.

RMT delegate Phil McGarry slammed the politicians and financiers who seem mystified as to how the system has failed.

"If you think we're gonna pay for it, you've got another thing coming," he said. "The working people in this country will not accept redundancies, they will not accept terms and conditions or pension rights being eroded, they will not accept public services being slashed."

Mr McGarry called for the STUC to take the opportunity it had missed at last year's congress and support the People's Charter. "I believe we can mobilise support for the principles in the People's Charter and the STUC Collective Prosperity agenda. They're inextricably linked and you cannae put a fag paper between them.

"Let's go out there in to the workplaces and communities we're privileged to represent and build support for these policies."

Congress unanimously supported a call to "rebuild collective prosperity," arguing that governments at all levels must make genuine progress towards a "new, fairer more sustainable economic and social model."

STUC general secretary Grahame Smith said: "If our views had been listened to by policy-makers, the economy would not be in the perilous state it is today."

Unite delegate John Quigley said: "The prevailing economic model failed. It should be ditched for good."

Fiona Farmer, also from Unite, said that support for a revitalised manufacturing sector was crucial. "Manufacturing still employs 200,000 in Scotland but its continued decline is a disaster," she said. "Scotland still suffering from reign of Thatcher."

Moray TUC delegate John Leslie said it was "time to ditch the SNP's wasteful Scottish Future's Trust, which was supposed to replace PPP/PFI but took two years to form and cost £30 million while 30,000 construction jobs were lost, with no schools or hospitals built."

Agnes Tolmie of Unite called for a revamped financial regulatory structure to include trade unions and questioned why exorbitant sums were needed to keep the top talent in the banking industry. "What talent?" she asked to laughter and applause. "After the shambles over which they presided, who would have them?"