johninnit

Just arrived in Liverpool, ready for this year’s TUC Congress (www.tuc.org.uk/congress2009), which is worryingly my eighth one (I hope there’s some kind of medal). I’m pretty chuffed with some work I’ve been doing on a separate site Congress Voices, which aims to collate social media coverage of Congress, linking people here at the event with the millions of UK trade unionists that this parliament of unions represents.

You can find it at www.congressvoices.org , but if you are blogging, Tweeting or Flickring about Congress, it will hopefully find you! I’ve already noticed a few Tweets coming in on the hashtag #TUC09, and any flickr photos shared with user tuc.org.uk will also come to our attention. The site also provides a commentable agenda, where users can have their say on the motions under debate, which is another first. (more…)

Iain Dale made a flying visit to Congress today – He doesn’t seem to have been impressed enough to hang around with us. Iain may lack Richard Balfe’s staying power (he’s been lurking in the corridors outside the hall for days now) but it looks like did shift a few copies of his Total Politics Guide to Blogging (as ever a lovely list-fest for blogging trainspotters, with the ‘top’ 200 political blogs listed).

So given the Dale shaped hole in Congress this afternoon, may I present the TIGMOO.co.uk Guide to Blogging – a slender cash-in volume for us union bloggers – with its own little list.

You can download a copy here – you know you want to.

At Congress 2008 in Brighton, which is turning out as interesting as ever – spending a week in the company of pretty much every element of the UK labour movement.

I spoke at a fringe today on online organising, along with Eric Lee and  APT’s Paul Smith. For the 99.995% of trade unionists who didn’t make it along, here’s part of what I had to say – my 4 predictions on how unions (or at any rate unionists) will be using Web 2.0 in the next couple of years: (more…)

Well, that’s another Congress over. I watched a pretty empty looking hall on telly for the last words, which this year went to David Hencke of the Guardian, with the traditional less-than-serious “Reply from the Media”.

He proposed a new round of Union Modernisation money to be spent entirely on high-tech innovations. The upcoming “Winter of Discontent”  would be replaced by a “Summer of Fun” Wi-Fi beach festival instead of next year’s Congress, with motions downloadable as podcasts for a individually customisable event, and unions would go entirely online to conduct their disputes through hacking and phreaking.

Might work. In fact online might already be how they’re organising the GC elections, given the results 

And they’re off! The motions for TUC Congress 2007 have been announced, and the shape of the event is starting to get clearer. They’re going to be amended, collated, composited and spat out the other side before September, but on a brief flick through the book (see it here) it looks like a good snapshot of issues that concern the UK’s unions.

Not as much as I might have thought on private equity, given current profile. Connect (p34) are calling for a database to monitor private equity fund activities, which is interesting, and might be a useful step in getting the hard proof needed to show how PE takeovers have historically resulted in worsened work conditions – an area where the PE lobby are currently calling unions’ bluff. There’s also an oddly worded motion from BECTU on accountancy as a revolutionary tactic (p69) may well prove useful in dealing with tax and transparency issues.

The TUC’s co-ordinating work on countering public sector privatisation will get a boost from Unison and Prospect (p45 and 46), and the media will likely use PCS and NUT’s public sector pay motions (p47 and 48) to bash visiting ministers (of whom there may be a good crop, given a new cabinet wanting to establish itself).

I think around 95% of Congress motions pass, with only a minority seriously contested, so much of this will be a shoe-in. Card votes in the past (where opinion is too close to call on a show of hands) have often come in the Global Solidarity section, and this year mightn’t disappoint. No Israel boycotts on the menu, but controversy in the international arena may come from the FBU’s Venezuela motion (p76), which supports Chavez’s revoking of a TV station’s licence, and the RMT’s motion (p72) to call for a referendum (and a ‘no’ vote campaign) on the new EU Reform Treaty.

The POA are getting a bit miffed about motions that don’t get followed up properly during the year. They had a motion in last year, politely chastising those unions who don’t fulfil the commitments they make in their Congress votes every year, and are on the same theme again, a little more directly, with motion P15: “Congress notes the need for the TUC and its affiliated unions fully to support TUC policies, once democratically adopted by Congress”. That’ll tell ‘em!

The PFA (p18) have an interesting organising motion, asking the TUC to help share good practice between unions who want to do more to be seen as key professional development bodies, something my own union (NUJ) are keen on. A practical initiative that might help our niche unions really play up their strengths in organising.

Adjacent motions on environmentally friendly freight may have a little barney, with ASLEF (p37) unsurprisingly calling for priority to rail freight and Nautilus UK (p38) to shipping. Strange that URTU and BALPA don’t have motions here

Incidentally, I was very glad to see that Nautilus UK are calling for Congress’ support in dealing with “mythical obstacles to the use of short sea shipping”. Scylla and Charybdis be warned!

I probably won’t be there this year, so hope there are going to be a lot of livebloggers to let us follow the fun (luckily I think MarshaJane has already volunteered, and Judy McKnight will hopefully have her laptop in the hall for a third year). Hey, at least NASUWT’s motion (p79) on “Abuse of technology” will mean you shouldn’t get sacked for blogging it!