THE TUC Congress voted today to reject reform of the TUC involving the election of its general secretary and their deputy for five-year terms.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) motion prompted a debate on how to arrest the long-term decline of trade unions in membership and power, and boost the TUC’s ability to act collectively on behalf of the working class.

Moving, CWU general secretary Dave Ward said unions faced “unprecedented challenges.

“Only 22 per cent of workers in the UK are now in unions. That is something we cannot ignore. We cannot carry on doing the things we’ve been doing and think that we’re going to put it right.

“The second big challenge is that millions of jobs are going to be threatened by the onset of the digital and AI revolution; and the third is that it doesn’t matter how many reshuffles this Labour government has … unless this movement is united, workers will not see real change.”

Mr Ward said regular re-election would strengthen the TUC leader’s mandate and called for reform of TUC structures to reflect sectors of the economy, to facilitate the federation “bringing together common bargaining agendas” to organise unorganised workers and create an outward-facing movement that could truly speak for the working class — something the far right was currently pretending to do.

Seconding, RMT’s Eddie Dempsey said TUC reform should reduce competition between unions within sectors and build “industrial unity where we pull together to drive workers’ conditions, wages and living standards up,” while the UCU’s Jo Grady said the TUC should not be reluctant to debate and revisit its fitness for purpose in a changing world.

The National Education Union’s Daniel Kebede gave an example. “Eighty per cent of teachers are in a union. For support staff, only a third. The difference between a 3.2 per cent pay award for support staff and 4 per cent for teachers is down to trade union organisation and that alone.”

Unions opposing the motion argued that regular elections for the TUC leadership would undermine its character as a federation of independent unions, and the TUC general secretary could end up standing for particular factions or slates within the movement rather than acting to facilitate inter-union co-operation and build consensus.