The story of the Martyrs will be familiar to many Tribune readers. Six agricultural workers, who were transported to Australia in 1834, having been convicted of taking an “illegal oath” – had in reality been convicted for coming together to form in a union. Like all the best episodes in labour movement history, the Martyrs’ story did not end in a historic defeat. Instead public outrage – culminating in a demonstration attended by 100,000 people in London and with 800,000 signing a petition to Parliament – led to the martyrs returning home with a full pardon. The nascent trade union movement had been put to the test and passed with flying colours.
The Tolpuddle Festival gives an opportunity to reflect on the Martyrs’ story, and the countless other stories of struggle and bravery which underpin the union movement here and abroad. It also gives us a chance to catch up with old friends and to re-live past struggles. But the Tolpuddle Festival is much more than an opportunity for trade union nostalgia. It’s a chance to build new friendships and share new ideas – to give ourselves the confidence and the inspiration to go back to our workplaces and communities, refreshed and ready to face a very real set of modern-day challenges.
These include challenges such as those faced by the 6,500 workers at Shropshire County Council – care assistants, cleaners and social workers – told to accept a 5.4 per cent pay cut or face the sack. Or the 1,400 workers at Bombardier facing the axe because of the Government’s short-sighted decision not to support train manufacturing in Britain. Or challenges like the ones confronting six million public sector workers – facing the prospect of increases in pension contributions in the middle of a two-year pay freeze. Or the 50,000 National Health Service workers due to lose their jobs over the next four years in the name of efficiency savings – at a time when the Government is preparing to let the private sector cherry-pick those bits of the NHS from which they can turn a quick profit. All these examples, and many, many more illustrate the real cost of the Government’s slash-and-burn approach to public spending, and its refusal to put the long term interests of the British economy over short-term savings. “Business as usual” for the bankers is being paid for by the 2.5 million people out of work, by families struggling to make ends meet as inflation tops five per cent, and by cuts to our public services that will take a generation to repair.
The Government is using its programme of deficit reduction as a cover for introducing policies of privatisation and marketisation, many of which – like the scale and pace of cuts – were not put to voters before the general election. The publication this week of the Government’s long-awaited white paper on public service ‘reform’ heralds a future where competition is everything. The abolition of the so-called “two-tier code” – put in place by the last Government to ensure that new starters on outsourced public sector contracts were treated fairly – suggests that this latest wave of privatisation will be built on a race to the bottom for the pay and the terms and conditions of those delivering our public services. And it’s not just in the public sector that the impact of the Government’s cuts and reforms are being felt. The private sector has been hit hard too. Spending cuts have reduced consumer and business confidence. Early signs of recovery following the economic stimulus put in place by the previous government have been replaced by stagnation.
But what has all this got to do with Tolpuddle? 1834 was a long time ago and people are no longer transported to the new world for daring to join a union. But I believe the same spirit of defiance which forced the government to bring the martyrs’ home is being re-kindled in villages, towns and cities across Britain today. It’s the spirit which has seen more than 190 anti-cuts campaigns springing up all over the country, the spirit which helped to mobilise the largest ever demonstration in the history of the British trade union movement when 500,000 people took to the streets on March 26, and it’s the spirit which gives me confidence that we can roll back the Government’s programme of cuts.
This won’t happen overnight. One demonstration, no matter how large or popular, was never going to get the Government to think again. That’s why we want to step up our local campaigning efforts, build on the success of our campaign work around the NHS and extend it to other sectors, to build a digital army of online activists and to build new alliances with service users and communities. Alongside this campaign the TUC will working hard to support unions and their members who take industrial action to defend their jobs and pensions.
This will not be easy. Polling suggests that although a majority believes the Government’s cuts are unfair and damaging to the economy, a persistent majority still believes there is no alternative. Our job will be to show them that there is a genuine economic alternative, one which puts growth and progressive taxation at its heart. It’s a message that is becoming more and more credible as people see and feel the impact of the cuts. It’s a message that will ring out loudly from Tolpuddle and one that unions will carry confidently back to their workplaces and communities.
