Methodist Central Hall

Tom Mann Memorial Lecture The Future of Work

Speech by Len McCluskey 30 October 2019 4 unite theUNION 1

TOM MANN LECTURE Tom Mann Memorial Lecture - The Future of Work

INTRODUCTION

The Tom Mann Centre and Coventry Trades Union Council launched the annual Tom Mann Memorial lecture at the end of the 1970s. The launch of the first lecture, A2 years ago, involved such national figures as Jack Jones, then leader of the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU).

Jack had been a divisional organiser of the union here in Coventry before rising to become general secretary. In 1946, an agreement between the TGWU and the Coventry company Standard Motors introduced a five-day week of 42.5 hours. The following year the agreement began to be adopted nationally. The TGWU gave us the weekend!

The TGWU is now part of Unite, and so we were particularly delighted that the general secretary of Unite, Len McCluskey, retied the knot and relaunched this lecture with his keynote address.

Tom Mann was born in Coventry and became a national leader of the transport and engineering unions. He was one of the leaders of the great dock strike of 1889. He was the first general secretary of the , and in 1920 a founder of the British Communist Party.

He was undoubtedly a pivotal figure in the development of the labour and movement, and we are proud to celebrate his life as a "Coventry Kid'.

Along with , Tom Mann led the campaign in Britain at the end of the 19th century for a shorter working week. 130 years after the TUC adopted the 8-hour day, and in the year that we also commemorated 130 years since the Coventry TUC was formed, we celebrate Tom Mann's Legacy. Our memorial lecture discussed what strategy trade unions need today to ensure that the changes brought about by robotics, automation and Al are shared so that working people gain the benefits of modernisation, not become its victims.

Coventry TUC, which brings together trade unions and community groups across the city, is committed to ensuring that this event becomes again an annual trade union event. We thank Len for his important contribution and thank Unite for ensuring this lecture is published.

Finally, the reputed last words of Tom Mann in 1941 are quite apt for the struggles we are yet to face - "Tell the comrades to be of good courage. Go on with the work".

Jane Nellist President, Coventry TUC

3 TOM MANN LECTURE Tom Mann Memorial Lecture - The Future of Work

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Thank you Jane and thank you Coventry such fire, vehemence, passion, humour, TUG for inviting me. And thank all of you drama and crashing excitement that there for making the effort to be here on a has never been anyone equal to him. cold night. When Tom Mann spoke, Thompson said, What better way to begin my contribution "everything gave way before the than with the words of Tom Mann: tremendous torrents of oratory he let loose upon his audiences". Well, I can't promise Oh staves of these laborious years. I'll be letting loose a torrent of oratory Oh freemen of the years to be: tonight, but I'll give it my best shot. Shal

TOM MANN LECTURE Political disappointment with the Liberal Engineering and Chemical Group, which in Party was focussing minds on the need to go turn became a major driver for the growth of beyond radical democratic demands with a the TGWU (and its transformation away from working-class ideology and parliamentary a solely transport union). representation. Mann was also a major figure in the National Though it was the gas workers' and dockers' Transport Workers' Federation, and played a strikes which really exposed the extent to significant role in the Liverpool Transport which the Liberals, who had been supported Strike of 1911. by many trade unionists at the time, would never be on the side of working people. And then, of course, he became general secretary of the ASE in 1919, which soon Some things don't change. They are the became the Amalgamated Engineering party that gave us austerity and destroyed Union. our communities, championing an economy for the few. ]o Swinson reminds us of what Mann's work was key to the success of the Tom Mann and his comrades knew,that you new unionism movement, which was can never, ever trust a Liberal Democrat. focussed on organising semi and unskilled And given half the chance she will take her workers into unions, though he's best Party back into bed with the Tories after the remembered as one of the chief organisers general election. and leaders of the aforementioned dockers' strike. But enough of those Liberals for now - I'll return to Jo Swinson later. It's shameful that, 100 years after the dockers won their fight for union My theme tonight is how Tom Mann's legacy recognition, the abolition of contract work, to the trade union and and a minimum wage of sixpence an hour- helps us shape our responses to the the 'dockers' tanner'- their rights were challenges of today's changing world of work swept away by Thatcher when the National Dock Labour Scheme was abolished. And That legacy is one we're especially proud of our leadership was not properly prepared in Unite. Tom Mann laid the foundations for for the fight that was needed. what our union is today - representing both the TGWU and Amicus traditions. First Nevertheless, that historic strike, along with president of the Dockers' Union, created the Taff Vale Railway strike of 1900 is, for after the victorious 1889 London dockers' me,among the key moments in our history strike and then playing a key role in the that gave trade unions greater confidence to formation of the Workers' Union, a late'new organise and fight. union'formed in 1898. It organised unskilled and semi-skilled workers and New unionism,for the first time,focused on amalgamated with the TCWU in 1929, workplace issues beyond hours and pay. It strengthening the General Workers' Group started to recognise the importance of and providing the basis of the new Metal, challenging injustices in working conditions.

TOM MANN LECTURE Tom Mann Memorial Lecture - The Future of Work and the need to provide some financial and fervently anti-war, he went on to join support to members,including through the the Liberal Party and became a minister in formation of friendly societies that could pay the 1905 Liberal government, only the sickness benefits. second working-class MR to do so. This was in spite of the work being done at the time But the shorter working day was the issue by Keir Hardie and others, including Mann, Tom Mann identified as one most likely to to establish a Labour Party to give workers rally and galvanise working people. Mann a voice in Parliament. called the campaign for the 8-hour day the struggle for free time, and it is this that I'll To be fair. Burns did resign from the concentrate on this evening, 100 years on government in August 1914,in protest at from the International Labour Organisation's its imminent declaration of war on (ILO) Hours of Work (Industry) Convention Germany. But still, what was it I said about of 1919. never trusting a Liberal?

Indeed,the 8-hour day was the very first Tom Mann was of course all for topic discussed by the newly established ILO. overthrowing , but he was convinced that a campaign for a shorter Tom Mann didn't at first have an easy ride working week would help rouse and unite with the campaign. He established the Eight men and women,skilled and unskilled Hours League in 1886 in the face of workers. He argued in his 1886 pamphlet opposition from some of his comrades in the "What a Compulsory Eight Hour Day Means Socialist Democratic Federation, which he to the Workers" that an 8-hour day would had joined a couple of years earlier. The cut unemployment and, that by increasing SDF's leadership was critical of trade unions leisure time, workers' discontent with the as "at best palliatives, at worst props of conditions of their working lives capitalism" and Henry Hyndman - the SDF's would increase. Ultimately, shorter hours founder-and John Burns in particular, and full employment would strengthen opposed a motion brought by Mann to the trade unions. branch of the SDF. Sure enough, the campaign around the They argued that the "capitalist system was pamphlet grew and started to intersect on its last legs" and it was the duty of with the creation of the "new unions" of socialists to prepare to seize the whole of semi and unskilled workers at that time. the means of production and "wipe out the capitalists altogether". An 8-hour day Karl Marx wrote in Capital about the campaign would be a distraction in this. struggle for the "normal working day'. He Burns insisted, and Mann's motion was described how capital, over centuries, had defeated. extended the working day not just to its natural limit, but beyond,so that even the It's worth noting here that while John Burns definitions of day and night became was a principled socialist and trade unionist confused.

TOM MANN LECTURE Mann too observed in his pamphlet how working hours came to be what they were:

"Socialists have probed and theyfi nd the disease of want to be spread by the profit- w making system upon which all industry and society itself is based. They know thatfi ve or six centuries ago, without machinery. Englishmen obtainedfor their work sufficient to keep them in vigorous health and that they were not subject to periodical trade depressions;and when theyfurther reflect upon thefact that the working day then consisted ofno more than eight hours, no wonder thatsocialists are discontented with the presentstate ofaffairs, and that they resolve to use every means in their power to replace the present discord, misery, and anarchy, with harmony, happiness, and order." 1886 8.1S92

I'll talk later about our chance to achieve that in the forthcoming general election. Three years after Mann's pamphlet was published,the gas workers of Beckton in "Battle of ', after the running battles East London achieved the 8-hour day that broke out when police tried to escort through the strike led by Will Thome. The blackleg labour to break the ensuing was organised in response to the that plunged parts of the city into darkness. introduction of compulsory l8-hour shifts, up from the previous 12. Under the slogan Funny how Liberals always show their true of"shorten our hours to prolong our lives" colours when the chips are down. strikes spread to other gas works, most notably in Leeds, where the works were By the time Tom Mann wrote his second owned by the counciL which was dominated pamphlet on the issue "The Workers Demand by the Liberal Party. the Eight Hour Day", in 1892,those sceptics who'd opposed his efforts in the SDF, along Although the bosses capitulated after a few with the TUC and the leaders of the skilled weeks, and the new shifts were replaced workers unions-which new unionism had with an increased number of 8-hour ones, already done so much to reach out beyond - providing work for more people, in Leeds had largely got behind the campaign. those Liberal councillors soon reneged on the deal when the weather warmed up and Tom Mann was of course a committed the demand for gas lowered. This betrayal internationalist and it didn't escape his led to what Frederick Engels dubbed the attention that at the same time as the

TOM MANN LECTURE Tom Mann Memorial Lecture - The Future of Work

8-hour day campaign was gaining There the Dutch economist Rutger Bregman momentum in the UK, US trade unionists made headlines for daring to berate the were demanding exactly the same cut in assembled billionaires, who champion the hours and were working for a general solving of inequality through philanthropy, strike as a means to achieve it. but never talk about tax avoidance. He argues in his book Utopiafor Realists for a And now,in 2019,1 see that the drive to shorter working week and a basic income, shorten the American working week may and pointed out at Davos that a shorter be gaining a powerful ally in the 2020 working week is really not all that radical. presidential race. Socialist US senator Bernie Sanders agreed it's a policy that I quote; needs taking seriously, when asked about it recently. "For decades, all the major economists, philosophers, sociologists, they all believed, And I read that Russia is considering up until the 1970s, that we would be working "gradually' adopting a A-day week to less and less. In the 1920s and 1930s, major reduce unemployment. capitalists discovered that if you shorten the working week, employees become more "A shorter work week will give Russians productive. Henry Ford discovered that if he extra timefor theirfamilies and to pursue changed the working weekfrom 60 hours to their interests, without losing any pay", 40 hours, his employees would become more according to the deputy speaker of the productive, because they were not that tired Russian parliament's lower house. The in their spare time." move is backed by the unions. However, some polls indicate that Russian citizens Clearly there is a head of steam building are concerned about a shorter working behind the call for shorter, more flexible week because they fear it will mean lower working weeks. It's a key demand around pay. today's debate on automation and a just transition on climate change from And that's our challenge. To convince our traditional polluting industries to cleaner, members and society,just as Tom Mann greener ones,just as it was in the post- did, that fewer hours can be achieved not industrial revolution years when Tom Mann just without loss of pay, but with the was organising workers. potential for wage increases. The coming new wave of automation has the The need for shorter working weeks in potential to generate huge wealth and order to provide more leisure time was profits for corporations, while millions of also discussed at this year's World jobs could be at risk. But it doesn't have to Economic Forum in Davos, though I doubt be like that. We can't allow the fourth those flying in on their private jets lacked industrial revolution as it's called to benefit the opportunity or money to enjoy their only the bosses. Workers must get their full down time. share of the wealth they create from it.

8 TOM MANN LECTURE And because automation brings about an absorb the unemployed into the ranks of the increase in output per unit of effort, it employed by rigidly suppressing overtime should, as a result, ease the burden of toil and curtailing the nominal nine hours per day and bring about shorter hours of work, with to something less." no loss of pay. I am convinced that automation can be And it can, if governments involve strong, steered in the right direction so that the unshackled trade unions in finding workable gains from technology are used to change solutions to it. the lives of working people for the better and its benefits reaped by all of society. But Tom Mann wasn't opposed to new we need a radical response to the new technology. He wrote: realities of the labour market and working people must be at the centre of the debate. "Whatever improvement may come through more efficient machinery, its effect, while Here's a question: how can automation owned by, and usedfor the profit of, the provide us with decent jobs, and how can employing class, will be to throw men out of the fundamental role of trade unions ensure work and swell the already toofull pockets of that it does? the capitalists. If we do not decide to curtail the hours oflabour, what then can we do? My union has been developing just such a Allow things to gofrom bad to worse? That is radical response. We've mapped out what most assuredly will happen unless we industrial and political responses to

9 TOM MANN LECTURE Tom Mann Memorial Lecture-The Future of Work automation and digitalisation, offering collective bargaining will include working advice to negotiators, including the hours, as will legally binding sectoral establishment of new technology agreements, placing unions and workers at agreements, and discussed the issues with the centre of deciding how best to reduce our shop stewards so that our members hours in their sectors. have a say in their workplaces. Labour's policy has also been shaped by Our 2015 report. The Threat of Automation, Lord Skidelsky's inquiry into shorter working recommended shorter working time without time and the impact of automation on loss of pay to protect jobs - a call backed by employment. Skidelsky challenges the free- thousands of Unite reps which is now official marketeers in their conviction that nothing Labour policy. John McDonnell pledged at should be placed in the way of automation Labour conference last month that a Labour and that competitive markets allow workers government will reduce average full-time to "choose" how many hours they want to working hours to 32 a week within the next work, or whether to be trained for different decade, with no loss of pay. jobs and pay levels.

Unite conference last year carried a motion Skidelsky also recognises that, since the calling for a shorter working week without first industrial revolution, the main impact any loss in pay, and which could involve a of machinery in reducing hours of work move to a 4-day, 28-hour week-it's has been in the manufacturing sector. The important not to be too prescriptive in our deliberate decimation of the sector by approach. We also called for an incoming Thatcher and subsequent governments Labour government to establish structures has been in favour of services, which are which include trade unions to agree a so much harder to achieve productivity national plan on how the UK deals with the gains in (other than by exploitative digital revolution and further development methods). of an automation strategy, with a focus on job protection and the creation of new It's vital that the balance is shifted back by technology agreements through collective restoring Britain's manufacturing capacity, bargaining. through an integrated industrial and investment policy, investing in start-ups and We want to see trade union members at renewable sources of energy. In short, we board level involved in all decisions relating must start making things again in order to to the introduction of new technology in the benefit from the productivity gains that can workplace, and a government commitment lead to shorter working hours. to a programme of re-skilling and up-skilling in existing workplaces, and the creation of I've mentioned how the trade union new training and apprenticeship schemes response to climate change is part and reflecting changing job roles. parcel of the debate on automation and the opportunities to transform working lives. These are all demands that Labour has No part of our society will be untouched by pledged to deliver. The roll-out of sectoral the transformation required - energy.

10 TOM MANN LECTURE transport, our heavy industries or our new film Sorry VJe Missed You, which is homes. released tomorrow, may have flinched at the observation made by one of the characters Trade unions must be central to the urgent "Whatever happened to the 8-hour day?". debate on climate change - it's a trade union issue and it is essential that we ensure Tom Mann, with all the progress he and the our members are up-skilled or re-skilled and trade union movement made in the late transitioned to new, sustainable, local jobs l800s, and particularly after the with no loss of pay or undermining of terms establishment of the Labour Party and the and conditions. passing of thel906 Trades Disputes Act, would have been aghast at how we got here. There is, though, a far darker side to the Thatcher started it of course, sweeping away debate about the future of work, the 8-hour the rights and protections that Act provided day, the shorter working week,and beyond: and through her neoliberal drive towards a zero hours and bogus self-employment, the flexible, service sector economy and scourge of our economy. determination to break the unions and their collective bargaining powers - which I don't want to spoil it, but those of you weakened our ability to organise and who've seen a preview showing of Ken negotiate, including to resist increased Loache's excellent, but relentlessly bleak. labour 'flexibility'.

11 TOM MANN LECTURE Tom Mann Memorial Lecture - The Future of Work

New Labour was happy to allow this swing capitalism was the cause of their troubles. away from manufacturing to continue, in Anyone who sees Sorry We Missed You and favour of privatisation and the dismisses the human tragedy it portrays, fragmentation of work. Its leadership was caused by this precarious, so-called part of a national consensus that was willing modern, world of work, as just a story to embrace a globalised free market, a should remind themselves of the real-life deregulated financial sector and a flexible tragic death of the DPD courier Don Lane labour market. who missed medical appointments to avoid the firm's £150 daily penalties if he It is disgraceful that,in today's zero-hour did not find cover for his shift. wastelands, and with so many people struggling to live on the minimum wage and Our determination to achieve a re- Universal Credit forcing them into in-work industrialisation of the British economy,to poverty, nothing has changed since the days build for a green, highly productive, when Robert Tressell wrote, in the Ragged industrially technological future does not Trousered Philanthropists, of the efforts of mean that we leave those in the service Frank Owen to convince his colleagues that sector behind, to continue working 14

12 TOM MANN LECTURE hour days on zero hour contracts, not Let me say here that Jeremy Corbyn is a knowing whether they'll be able to pay thousand times right in trying to speak to our the rent or put food in their kids' bellies. whole country through our party's Brexit Yes those contracts must be banned, but policy. it's up to us a movement to make ourselves relevant to gig economy When we have the Tories dismissing half of workers, or we will never reach and our nation as they pursue their hard-right, represent them. agenda.

There is so much more to say about the And Jo Swinson is writing off the other half challenges and opportunities the future of as her Liberals turn their back on democracy work presents, and I hope that we can and referendum results they don't like. discuss some of those in the question and answer session that follows. But, in We need a Labour government that will re conclusion, let me return to the words of negotiate a deal that won't destroy our Tom Mann, who urged workers to: manufacturing industries, and will put it back to the people. "Take pleasure in the performance of your duty as an honest citizen and the result will A government that gives us hope,that a better be a hastening of that glorious time when Britain, a better future, is possible. the domination of a class shall be a matter of history, and when all shall have enough Something that working people,the people of work and none shall have too much." Coventry, desperately need right now.

Comrades, we do not need to view the The sooner the Tories are gone,the sooner future of our economy or the future of Labour can get on with restoring dignity, work in trepidation and fear. We can and decency and economic sanity to this country. must fight for something better. It's time for a government for the people And, comrades,it's the fight of our lives. that will; As of last night, we have the real opportunity to return a radical Labour • Say no and never again to austerity government, a Jeremy Corbyn government. • Secure our future with large scale A government that will unite a divided investment in our infrastructure nation. • Establish an industrial strategy that re A government that puts social justice first. shapes our economy and transitions us to a sustainable future. A social justice that says whether you are 'leave' or 'remain' matters less than your • From which we can rebuild our class - are you with the many or the few. manufacturing base.

13 TOM MANN LECTURE Tom Mann Memorial Lecture - The Future of Work

A government that stands for jobs, • It's time the greedy bastards paid their investment- including through taxes. regional investment banks - proper labour market regulation and • It's time for the 4-million kids living in protections. poverty to feel hope again.

For a real Living Wage. • Time to protect the vulnerable.

For one million homes to be built - and • To lift the debt off our young students. to be fit for humans. • To put people before profit. To an end to the aberration of human dignity of zero hours contracts, of Comrades, it's time for Labour. bogus self-employment and agency work. And what better tribute to Tom Mann's memory and legacy than to now get out One that will take back control of and there, seize the opportunity and win the properly fund our public services, our prize of a lifetime. transport and our NHS, not hand them to Trump For the many, not the few.

14 TOM MANN LECTURE TOM MANN tECTURE Coventry Methodist Central Hall

4 unite theUNION

Tom Mann Memorial Lecture The Future of Work

Speech by Len McCluskey 30 October 2019