Prospect takes the stage at TUC Congress 2022
The annual TUC Congress took place in Brighton this week, with delegates from across the union movement coming together to set the agenda for the labour movement for the year ahead.
Photo credit: Jess Hurd
Prospect played a key role in the proceedings this year, with Senior Deputy General Secretary Sue Ferns chairing proceedings as President of the TUC. In her address to Congress, Ferns challenged the movement to “focus relentlessly on growing membership” and build for the future. Ferns also used her speech at the podium to express her pride of being part of Prospect and to have the opportunity to “represent professionals and specialists on whom we all depend”.
Moving a vote of thanks for Ferns, Prospect’s General Secretary Mike Clancy said that Prospect had “lent our most valuable asset to the TUC” for the past year” and praised the “wisdom, calm and determination” Ferns has brought to a career spent delivering for working people.
The delegation played an active part in the motions debates, with Prospect proposing motions on resourcing in the Health and Safety Executive and defending public service broadcasting.
Geoff Fletcher, NEC member and HSE Health and Safety Inspector outlined the fundamental right of workers to “be kept healthy and safe at work” and highlighted the “parlous state” HSE has been left in after “more than a decade [of] sustained and damaging budget cuts which have undermined this system of regulation and enforcement.” The motion, which passed, called on the Work and Pensions Select Committee to undertake an inquiry into the resourcing, work and independence of HSE.
Prospect’s motion on public service broadcasting was introduced by Prospect’s Head of Bectu Sector, Philippa Childs. Taking to the podium exactly 100 years after the BBC was founded, Childs offered a fierce of the principle of public service broadcasting and the “crucial role” played by the BBC and Channel 4 in the UK’s “ecosystem of creative industries”, setting out their extensive investment in skills and regional economies. Delegates passed the motion, which called on the TUC to campaign to keep Channel 4 in public hands and to protect the BBC’s licence fee funding model.
The delegation also spoke on a range of motions put forward by other unions affecting Prospect members.
President Eleanor Wade spoke up for civil servants coming under attack, highlighting the impact of staff shortages on civil service departments and bodies, and criticising ministers who have “treated civil servants as a political football”. Wade pledged to organise members across the civil service to oppose swingeing job cuts and the weakening of redundancy terms.
Deputy General Secretary Andrew Pakes supported a motion from the Musicians’ Union setting out the logistical and financial barriers musicians, performers and crew face in touring the EU, calling for a cultural exemption to these burdens for touring artists and vehicles.
Speaking on a motion seeking to protect public servants from bullying and harassment, Vice-President Neil Hope-Collins set out the appalling levels of sexual harassment experienced by workers in Parliament, and called for those working at the heart of our democracy to have their rights upheld.
Deputy Vice-President Christine Danniell gave a moving, personal speech on the gender pensions gap, setting out her hopes that her nieces wouldn’t face the same disparities as her sister, whose pension pot is a decade behind her male colleagues’ due to caring responsibilities.
Prospect delegates also spoke up for manufacturing jobs, action on energy costs and the need to defend abortion rights.