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Draft Conference Statement

From the Steering Group For debate at Conference

"This national conference of shop stewards and workplace representatives convened on July 7th 2007 recognises the role of the Rail Maritime and Transport Workers Union in the support it has given in the organising of this conference.

"Today’s conference is the result of the initiative of the RMT who called the first conference in October 2006 on the following basis.

National Shop Stewards Network – Founding Basis
A National Shop Stewards Network should be set up on the following basis:
1. Participation and support is a matter for individual TUC affiliated trade unions.
2. The National Shop Stewards Network will be made up of bona fide rank and file TUC affiliated trade union workplace representatives. The participation of full time trade union officials would be as observers with speaking rights.
3. It would not encroach on the established organisation and recruitment activity or interfere in the internal affairs and elections of TUC affiliated trade unions or the functions of the TUC.
4. The aim of the Network would be
      • To offer support to TUC affiliated trade unions in their campaigns and industrial disputes;
      • To offer support to existing workplace committees and trades councils.
We support the establishment of a steering group of ten trade unionists from this conference. The role of this steering group would be to organise a formal delegate conference in the spring of 2007, open to all TUC affiliated trade union shop stewards, to establish a National Shop Stewards Network as outlined on the basis of points 1-4 above.
To that end the steering group has organised today’s conference to continue the process of building a network of shop stewards and workplace representatives.

"This conference agrees:

1. To immediately send messages of support to all workers in struggle.
2. To organise a mass lobby of the TUC conference in Brighton in September to call for the unions to step up their efforts to end the anti-trade union laws as soon as possible.
3. To support the call by the PCS for a national day of action against the government’s pay freeze in the public sector.
4. To support all efforts to defend the NHS against cuts and closures by mobilising support for the proposed national demonstration in October.
5. To organise at regional level conferences of work shop stewards and workplace representatives to build regional shop stewards networks, and to mobilise the local unions in support of those in struggle.
6. To organise a further national conference next year in the late spring.
7. To give support to all workers in struggle for a decent wage, to defend their jobs and to fight for a shorter working week.
8. To produce a short pamphlet on the need for a new shop stewards’ movement."