We’re ready to join fight for equality in society
BY LYNN HENDERSON STUC President AS THE 122nd president of the Scottish Trades Union Congress, I look forward to offering fraternal greetings in my address to the Scottish Labour Party conference today.
Our history is the history of Scottish Labour. The STUC was founded as an independent trade union centre in 1897, splitting from the British TUC over a dispute over political representation for the labour movement. Our struggle for independent working-class political representation led to the formation of the Scottish Labour Party, taking the name of workers, which it has proudly retained.
Although the STUC remains independent of the Labour Party, we positively engage with the party on our shared agenda for workplace and economic advances for working people.
We should be proud, therefore, to have one of our own, Richard Leonard, as Scottish Labour leader. Richard, a former employee of the STUC, has brought socialist principles, labour movement economics and a deep understanding of contemporary workplace issues back into the Scottish Labour Party.
I have personally known Richard for 35 years. As a colleague and a comrade, like Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, Richard is a friend to working people in Scotland.
My own union, PCS, is not affiliated to Labour and we do not bankroll its operation.
However, the PCS annual delegate conference in May last year adopted a policy which stated clearly that a Corbyn-led Government is in the interests of members. That is because, under the current leadership, Labour commits to return national pay bargaining to the civil service, invest in public services and improve the conditions of workers and union freedoms.
PCS has been working with the shadow teams on alternative policies on key platforms including tax justice, social security and transport. This is a new and positive relationship which our union has not enjoyed with previous Labour front-bench teams, in spite of our members being in the
This is a new and positive relationship LYNN HENDERSON STUC PRESIDENT
front line of Government service delivery.
John McDonnell told the PCS conference, to roaring applause: “When Labour gets into Government, we will take the entire trade union movement with us.”
With socialists leading Labour north and south of the Border, and with a pro-trade union agenda in tune with the wants and needs of workers, there is a political platform for full recovery in Scotland that is positive and forwardlooking.