This year’s TUC Congress delegates voted unanimously to support the FDA’s motions on civil service job cuts and protecting public servants from bullying and harassment. 

Our President, Tony Wallace, spoke on Wednesday morning to move composite motion 16 ’91,000 civil service job cuts’. This motion asked Congress to recognise that the government’s announcement of 91,000 job cuts in the civil service was a cynical political stunt and that cuts of this size will have a significant detrimental impact on vital public services – calling on the General Council to:

iv. support industrial action aimed at preventing job cuts and coordinate such action with other unions in dispute where possible.

Addressing Congress, Wallace stressed the impact that cuts of this scale will have on the public services that “educate our children, heal the sick, support the poorest, administer the law, defend the country and the environment, help fund business and economic development, and care for the elderly and infirm”. He continued by likening the civil service to the air around us: “you may not be conscious of it; you can’t taste it, smell it, or see it. But by God, you would quickly miss it if it was gone.”

There was some hope that, with a recent change in Prime Minister and delay to this year’s conference , the reality of the 91,000 job cuts may be realised and abandoned. “Given the events of the last few weeks”, the FDA President stated in reference to growing calls for public spending cuts to tackle economic difficulties, this motion “appears to be completely current”. 

The motion was seconded by PCS and support by Prospect. 

Assistant General Secretary of the FDA, Lucille Thirlby, moved motion 28 ‘Protecting public servants from bullying and harassment’. This motion sought to recognise that every employee deserves to be able to work in an environment without fear of bullying and harassment, with focus on complaints against ministers and parliamentarians. This motion called on the General Council to: 

ii. support unions in their campaign to ensure that all parliamentary staff are protected in circumstances where serious, substantiated allegations are made against a parliamentarian.

The Committee on Standards in Public Life has recommended strengthening the role of the Independent Adviser on Minister’s interests, with increased independence and the authority to determine breaches of the Ministerial Code . Thirlby argued that this would help to remove political interest from a system that lacks transparency and has consistently put party politics over the welfare of civil servants. 

The Assistant General Secretary concluded that “parliament and the civil service should be an exemplar employer with safe workplaces and just processes. Leading on behalf of all of us”.

On the first day of Congress the FDA also spoke to support a motion put forward by UNISON on decarbonising public services.  “There is a movement out there for action, for change, for rapid progress to net zero” Executive Committee member and FDA delegate, Richard Mulcahy argued. “We need to be part of that movement and we need that movement to be part of our movement as well.”

Dave Penman, FDA General Secretary, was also re-elected to the TUC General Council, which oversees the TUC’s work programme and sanctions new policy initiatives.