T&G to call for meeting of like minds
Tony Woodley, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, is to invite hundreds of Labour MPs to a trade unions summit early next year, in a bid to put trade union policy at the heart of Government.
The T&G is proposing a summit of union general secretaries and Labour MPs to push for a return to traditional Labour ideas.
Mr Woodley, a left-winger in the Labour movement, wants to get across the T&G’s message on pensions, workers’ rights, public services and manufacturing.
Mr Woodley told the FT: “We’re going to talk about the obvious, important issues: the importance of public services being publicly owned, the importance of labour laws that give us protection, the importance of making sure that our pensions and our people’s jobs are looked after.
“We’ve just got to be focused and keep pressuring. We’ve got to do more.”
Half of the Labour’s 408 MPs could be invited to the summit if other union leaders agree.
Mr Woodley will most likely be joined by Derek Simpson of Amicus, Dave Prentis of Unison and Kevin Curran of the GMB, after union leaders put past differences behind them to unite against controversial elements of Government policy at the Labour Conference.
Mr Woodley told the FT he felt unions had to save Labour from self-implosion, to “try and convince this Government to save itself from itself” by returning to core values.
