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Implementing 2015 Resolutions
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Resolution 20 (continued)
(14) Congress agrees that all pending and future trade agreements entered into
by the EU should be subject to a vigorous and transparent regime of scrutiny
and consultation, ensuring that they are of benefit and acceptable to the
millions of people affected by their content, in all countries covered by the
agreement.
Resolution 21
Support UK Manufacturing
(1) The GFTU believes that it is imperative that UK manufacturing is supported in
order that there can be no over-reliance on financial services and the service
sector ever again.
(2) Conference believes that the decline of UK manufacturing must be reversed
through an interventionist industrial and manufacturing policy to drive the
economy forward – which the current coalition government is failing to do.
The ConDem coalition government’s growth strategy and manufacturing
policy has failed to materialise.
(3) Conference also notes the support given to German manufacturing
companies by their federal and national governments with the government,
unions and employers working together – which ahs protected German
manufacturing from the worst of the economic crisis and defended their
strategically important manufacturing companies.
(4) Conferences therefore calls for the GFTU to campaign to support and defend
UK manufacturing.
(5) Including support for:
•
A strategic Investment Bank where manufacturing companies including
SMEs have easy access to investment funding at an affordable rate. This
will facilitate loans at competitive rates to enable SMEs to increase capital
investment in new machinery, technology and equipment.
•
The use of government procurement opportunities to ensure goods and
services purchased are manufactured or produced in the UK by UK based
companies.
•
The establishment of a Takeover Commission to ensure that workers
and their representatives to be informed and consulted on the business
and financing plan of any takeover prior to the acquisition. Through
their trade unions, workers should have the right, equivalent to that of
pension fund trustees, to seek fair compensation and protection should
substantially greater levels of leverage be part of a takeover.
•
Support for a new skills strategy based on skilled apprenticeships,
providing long term, skilled and well paid employment.
•
Environmental considerations can only fairly be considered on a global
basis but they must form part of any sustainable industrial policy in the
future and must include the maximisation of opportunity that the low
carbon revolution provides whilst crating a level playing field to deliver
security and fair pricing for energy. The structure of “green taxes”must be
such so as not to stifle manufacturing growth or export it to parts of the
world where such taxes do not exist, but to create a sustainable industrial
strategy which embraces equity and viable employment.
(6) Conference calls for more government action and less rhetoric on boosting
the UK’s manufacturing sector. Without action now the threat to the future
of manufacturing in the UK is real. The current 12% contribution to GDP does
not represent a balanced economy which economists and politicians alike
agree is what the UK needs.
Implementation
Implementation
The GFTU has constantly prioritized these policies
as central to its work.