The Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (NIC-ICTU) is hosting its Biennial Delegate Conference (BDC) this week online. The BDC was originally planned to take place over two days last March in the Killyhevlin Hotel, Enniskillen, but was postponed for obvious reasons. The conference will run online using Zoom and will be attended by 200 delegates from the 25 trade unions and ten Trades Councils affiliated to Congress in Northern Ireland.
The Northern Ireland Committee (NIC) of the ICTU is the representative body for 24 trade unions with over 200,000 members across Northern Ireland. In membership terms, it is the largest civil society organisation in Northern Ireland.
The conference will debate 19 motions covering a comprehensive agenda of issues relevant to all workers and their families in Northern Ireland. Naturally, the conference will have as a common thread its No Going Back Campaign (https://www.ictu.ie/download/pdf/no_going_back_final_document_may_2020.pdf ), which promotes collective bargaining fair pay and decent work for all workers across Northern Ireland. There will also be special discussion on Just Transition, ensuring that climate responsibility is complimented with social justice.
The conference will be addressed by senior trade union figures, and there should be an especially stimulating guest contribution from Patricia King, General Secretary of the ICTU, the leader of the trade union movement on the island of Ireland. Other guest speakers will include the General Secretaries of the Scottish TUC and the Wales TUC.
The Biennial Delegate Conference will be chaired by Gerry Murphy, the culmination of his duties as chair of NIC-ICTU since 2018.
The conference, which sets common policy goals for Northern Ireland's trade union movement for the next two years, will discuss and vote upon motions on topics of significant interest to all working people including:
- Working life during and after Covid-19
- Making Stormont deliver for working people
- Defending pay and conditions in the private and public sectors
- Harassment in the workplace and other equality matters
- Developing an industrial strategy
- Celebrating the NHS on its 70th anniversary
- Gaining real terms pay rises for working families
- The policy priorities of the No Going Back Campaign
The full agenda with motions can be viewed at:
https://www.ictuni.org/publications/nic-ictu-bdc-21-motions/
