Delegates to the TUC conference have, for the second year running, backed a motion opposing an increase in arms spending, building on last year’s historic vote which reversed the TUC’s commitment to it rising.
Moving the motion Building Real Security, UCU general secretary Jo Grady, said that since the TUC passed the landmark Wages not Weapons motion last year, the US and Israel had launched yet another war of aggression against the people of Iran, while the hurt and devastation in Palestine and Sudan and beyond continues.
“Politicians have begun to talk as if there is no alternative to militarisation. And that is because of national security. Our lives, Congress, our lives, they do not feel more secure because BAE Systems is getting another multi-billion pound contract. The global arms race does not make us feel safer.
“Security is having stable employment with a decent wage. Being able to afford a home, knowing that your children can go to a good school, college or university. Being able to see the doctor when you need to, knowing your elderly relatives can receive care. Being equipped to face the climate crisis.
“That’s what real security means for our class. But right now, collectively, the majority of working people are denied these things.”
She set out what her union was calling for: advancing our movement’s vision of security based on decent work, public services, equality, climate action, democracy and peace. To campaign for genuine and sustained public investment in health, education, housing, social care and more. To raise awareness of our fundamental rights, including conscientious objection to compulsory military service. And crucially, to uphold with others and respect international law.
To claims by some unions – Unite and GMB in particular who support increased defence spending to protect the jobs of their members in the sector – that the motion was intended to divide the movement, Stop the War national officer and former RMT president Alex Gordon hit back.
“Let’s get something straight. Last year in this Congress we took a very important decision. A pivotal decision to reject the mistaken policy adopted by the Trade Union Congress three years earlier. That policy, that mistaken policy, was to support demands for increases in military spending. And that policy came, in fact, from a motion from the GMB union. Let’s be clear, it’s not the RMT, it’s not the UCU, it’s not Unison, it’s not any of the unions that are opposed to that policy that are dividing this movement.
“This movement is about fighting for jobs, for public services, for investment in the industries of the future that our young people, that our young workers need. Those industries are not military industries. The skills of the workers in the military sector are vital skills, vital skills that need to be used in civilian production.
“This year is the 50th anniversary of the Lucas Aerospace Workers’ plan. We should learn from our own history, learn from the great people who came before us, who had the vision to understand that we will not build a future for our children, we will not build a future for our fellow trade unionists, by building nuclear bombs, by spending billions on American F35 fighters which are destroying the people of Palestine at this very moment.
“Let’s get something absolutely straight, Congress. The money that is being sucked up by the military sector in R&D, in development of the AUKUS programme in Barrow-in- Furness, is money that should be spent on civilian jobs in much needed engineering and infrastructure improvements in this country and beyond.”
The motion, passed by a show of hands and with more delegates backing it than last year, resolves:
The UCU now plans to roll the Wages not Weapons campaign out across the trade unions to take it into every workplace.
TUC votes to back Palestinian-led boycott divestment and sanctions movement
Delegates for the first time backed a Palestinian-led BDS movement, calling for an escalation in the workplace to end the complicity of companies, institutions and the government in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people and for support for the next workplace day of action on 26 November.
The vote came just days after the foreign secretary Ed Miliband stated that he “whole-heartedly” opposes the BDS movement, and efforts by Unite to amend the composite motion to “worker-led”.
It resolves:
Solidarity with Ukrainian workers
A motion on Ukrainian workers was passed. While the motion itself focussed on continuing to campaign with Ukraine and its workers, in line with existing TUC policy, and campaigning for the release of the detained ZNPP workers, it was clear from some of the speakers that they supported the British government’s military backing of Ukraine and for keeping the war going.
Read our convenor Lindsey German’s article on why some British unions are making a strategic error in backing militarised solutions instead of working for a ceasefire and end to the war.
Stop the War at the TUC
Our team was outside the Brighton Centre with a stall and handing out leaflets to delegates – building for the 10 October national Palestine demonstration, encouraging trade union affiliation to StW and distributing copies of our new Iran and Youth and Student Network leaflets. (You can download the leaflets here.)
We attended and contributed to the UCU fringe Wages not Weapons fringe meeting and our convenor Lindsey German spoke at the Left Unions rally.