Back from Brighton

Just got back from 3 days down at the TUC Congress in Brighton.

Congress is always pretty tiring - but I had a stomach bug for a couple of days which meant I actually went to bed at 10.30pm on Sunday night. Regular union conference goers will know that this is pretty unheard of behaviour!

Won't give you the full blow by blow of what happened at Congress this year (the anoraks amongst you can track the decisions made at Congress here), but here are 4 or 5 random things I thought I'd mention:

1) On Monday morning more than a 100 Gate Gourmet workers attended Congress and were given a standing ovation by the delegates. Congress also passed an emergency resolution in response to the ongoing dispute and made a financial appeal for unions to support the, predominately Asian women, dismissed workers.

2) No less than 5 senior Government Ministers, including Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, made the trip down to Brighton. A theme running through a lot of their speeches was the need for the UK to meet the competitive challenge posed by the emergence of China and India, and the work the UK government is doing to help developing countries out of poverty. All fair enough stuff, but I would have liked to see some mention being made of the unique role unions can play in all of this, and what more both unions and government here can do to support the development and growth of independent, representative and effective unions around the world.

3) I had the pleasure of spending a few minutes talking to Jack Jones on Tuesday night. I've never been one for hero worship, but he manages to combine being a genuine great with being just an all round decent bloke as well. We could do with a few more like Jack today.

4) The days of staying up all night in the hotel-bar and then getting up bright eyed first thing the next (same) morning are well and truly behind me. A further sign of my decline is that I actually chose to have a continental breakfast (fruit salad, brown toast) each morning rather than the traditional Congress all English fry-up. By next year's Congress I'll probably be drinking herbal tea - and enjoying it.

5) There was a lot of debate around the fringe of the Congress on the prospects of a new 'super-union' created by the merger of the TGWU, AMICUS and the GMB. The two basic strands of discussion seem to be - 'Big unions are better than small unions (or vice versa)' and 'What will this mean for the TUC? Will we still be needed etc etc'. Interesting debate but all a bit limited at the movement I think. The reality is of course that there plenty of examples (in the UK and around the world) of big unions that are great, just as there are plenty of examples of big unions that are poor and ineffective. Likewise there are some great, well focused, well run smaller union, and some pretty awful small unions that aren't doing the job their members deserve. In one sense size really doesn't matter - well-run unions, with a clear focus on the needs of their members, are what matters - not size.

On the TUC issue, there is a general consensus that there will still be a need for a central federation (after all some 4m TUC affiliated trade union members will not be members of the new union) - but less of a consensus on what this means for the TUC's role. Again, there is a danger that this argument ends up in a bit of a cul-de-sac. Merger or no merger the TUC will hopefully continue to help unions speak with a united voice on the issues that matter most to our members - and to represent and support unions as effectively as it can.

Interested in any thoughts people may have about how Congress is perceived/reported on from outside the Brighton 'bubble'? Please post in comments - ta.