TUC New Year Message
December 28 2005 - In the 2006 New Year message to Britain's trade unionists, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said:
'2006 promises real opportunities to advance the trade union agenda, building on the achievements of the last year. There is no doubt Britain is mostly a better place to live and work than a decade ago, with a strong economy, rising living standards for most and better public services, but there is still much more to do to achieve the fair, productive economy for which unions stand.
'But there is one big exception to this progress. On pensions we have gone backwards. Employers are continuing to walk away from their responsibilities. Only one in four private sector employees are now members of good employer pension schemes, and the trend is downwards. Many employers have shut salary-based schemes to new members, while Rentokil is now proposing to close its salary-based scheme altogether. Directors in too many companies have been keen to tighten every belt other than their own - boardroom schemes continue to guarantee huge pay-outs. We will not build a new pensions consensus on the foundations of double standards and gross inequality.
'Pensions will therefore continue to top the trade union agenda. In the year ahead we will have to step up our defence of existing pensions. Rentokil will have rung alarms bells in every workplace with a decent pension. And it is clear that the best defence workers can have for their pension is effective union workplace organisation.
'But the year ahead also provides an opportunity for unions to move from defence to advance following the publication of the Turner Report. There is wide support for the basic elements of the Commission's report. These include a basic state pension indexed to earnings that in time becomes universal, a universal pension for the over-75s and a national pensions saving plan with compulsory employer contributions.
'Of course while union arguments were clearly influential, we would have wanted the report to go further. But the choice now is between using the wide support that the Turner Report has won to build a new pensions settlement, or kicking the issue into the long grass of indecision.
'It will need tough choices. In particular more generous state pensions will have to be paid for through the tax system, particularly if we resist raising the state pension age. Some of that should come from looking at the big handouts in tax reliefs on pensions paid to higher rate taxpayers, but it will mean over time a bigger tax burden.
'The looming pensions crisis is not the only issue the Government has to tackle. It deserves much credit for the strength of the economy, investment in public services and introducing new rights at work. The manifesto on which they won the election contained measures that add up to a real programme for the workplace with better rights for parents, investment in childcare and new holiday rights. But too much of the public sector reform programme risks alienating the very staff who have to implement it by both failing to celebrate real progress and seeming to prefer private sector solutions for ideological reasons.
'Unions also face their own challenges over the year ahead. We must continue to put more efforts into winning and organising members, particularly in the private sector.
'We must continue to campaign effectively on the issues that matter to people at work. We will continue to be enemies of exploitation and unfair treatment, but also champions of better working across Britain's workplaces. This means arguing for better childcare, pensions and work-life balance.
'The launch of the major new initiative to step up the role that unions play in learning in the workplace this Spring will play an important part in showing the importance of unions to the modern world of work.'
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