Motion 35 plus amendment, motion 36 plus amendment and motion 37Congress notes the steps taken by the government towards delivering on the Make Work Pay commitments on insourcing, the two-tier code and public interest test.
Congress notes that outsourcing and privatisation have driven down pay, pensions, terms and conditions, decimated public services and created a two-tier workforce, while allowing private companies to profit from public money.
Congress believes delivering on insourcing would help low paid and outsourced workers with the cost-of-living crisis, rebuild and reintegrate essential public services and give communities greater public control over those services.
Congress welcomes the Cabinet Office’s recent guidance to central government departments to develop insourcing strategies and conduct public interest tests on all contracts as they expire and calls as a minimum for this legislation to be extended across publicly funded and public facing services as a matter of urgency.
Congress believes that publicly funded services should be publicly delivered. Insourcing improves accountability, service quality, recruitment and retention, strengthens collective bargaining, and ensures public money is invested in services and workers rather than shareholder profit.
While recognising the scale of challenge involved in turning back decades of orthodoxy, Congress is concerned that the weakness of measures brought forward so far threatens to de-rail what should be a major means of providing both better services and increasing the number of decent, secure union jobs across our communities.
The forthcoming two-tier code and the public interest test will not apply to wholly owned subsidiaries, despite an explicit manifesto commitment. This means that many across the public sector, working for subsidiary companies and local authority trading companies, will not be protected and that incentives will remain for public sector organisations to make savings off the back of the inferior terms and conditions of outsourced workers.
In addition, the public interest test, as published in June, is only guidance and, along with the requirement for contracting authorities to develop insourcing strategies, will only apply to larger central government contracts – not the wider public sector.
Congress deplores the catastrophic impact of privatisation of the administration of civil service pensions, with Capita now leaving pensioners without payments, and workers delaying retirement through fear of being left without pensions.
Congress demands cessation of the government’s continued contracting out to private companies like Capita who profit while delivering abysmal services, terrible working conditions and pay.
Congress is concerned that despite welcome victories for insourcing in some central government departments the overwhelming majority of outsourced workers across our publicly funded and public facing services have not benefited from insourcing.
In rail for example, despite the progress towards public ownership, there is still no plan for insourcing tens of thousands of workers employed in essential roles such as cleaners, catering, stations, security, and on the railway infrastructure, while outsourcing is also still widespread in Labour-controlled Transport for London.
Congress also welcomes the work of the TUC and affiliates to date on insourcing and agrees to continue to assist with the supporting and coordinating of insourcing campaigning.
Congress therefore agrees to campaign for the change in Labour leadership to act with urgency to:
i. deliver a strategy and timetable for delivery of the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation and an agreement with the recognised unions for a full and urgent insourcing plan to begin the mass insourcing of public services before the next general election.
ii. ensure that the government insourcing agenda is public sector wide – not just related to large central government contracts
iii. bring forward a new procurement bill that will address the issues above and give the public interest legislative teeth.
iv. prohibit the use of wholly owned subsidiary companies to employ staff as a mechanism to avoid pension obligations and other employment terms and conditions (as recommended by the UK House of Commons Education Select Committee to prevent universities denying staff access to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme)
v. bring utilities and services back into a well-funded public sector – including railways, energy, mail as well as civil service pension administration and all outsourced government contracts
vi. transfer outsourced workers into direct public sector employment with protection of pay, pensions, continuity of service, trade union recognition and terms and conditions
vii. remove legislative, financial and procurement barriers that prevent public bodies bringing services back in-house
viii. ensure that restructuring of public services protects workers and is undertaken only with the consent of the impacted workers and their trade unions
ix. strengthen trade union rights including repeal of all anti-union legislation, restoration of collective bargaining and an end to fire and rehire.
x. ensure firefighter and public safety is not delivered for profit. Bring the Fire Service College and BRE into public ownership, insource all control rooms, appliances and other fire and rescue assets, and make the new College of Fire and Rescue publicly owned and funded, with democratic governance.
Mover: UNISON
Seconder: Public and Commercial Services Union
Supported by: National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers; University and College Union; Fire Brigades Union