Left Foot Forward spoke to the ASLEF general secretary at this year’s TUC Congress
ASLEF general secretary Mick Whelan has described his union as a ‘firm and critical friend’ of the Labour government. He made the comments in an interview with Left Foot Forward at this year’s TUC Congress.
When asked for his assessment of the first year of the Labour government, Whelan told Left Foot Forward “I sometimes find myself a firm and critical friend of the Labour Party. We – like most trade unions – didn’t like what happened with PIP, we didn’t like what happened Winter Fuel Allowance, and we campaigned for what we believed in.”
However, he went on to highlight what he sees as some of the biggest achievements of Labour in government, saying: “they took 400,000 kids out of poverty the first week in, they did away with rendition to Rwanda, they improved the lives of a million people through the minimum wage stuff. Look, the real problem for us is that after 14 years of austerity, everybody wanted a big bang change, and economically it’s going take time for that to be delivered. It won’t stop us asking for demanding though.”
With the government currently going through a major internal change with the Labour Party’s deputy leadership election, Whelan told Left foot Forward what he wants to see from the next deputy leader. He said: “We want people that will continue the work that Angela Rayner – those two million houses that she wanted to build; building upon the Employment Rights Bill, not letting it be watered down in the Lords by the Institute of Directors, the Federation of Small Businesses, the CBI and the others, but us keeping what we’ve gained so far and then talking about the bits that we’ve promised to do that we haven’t delivered yet and how we build upon it going forward. So I would like to see whoever comes into that role taking on that legacy and running with it.”
Alongside discussions around the Labour Party, Whelan also spoke to Left Foot Forward about one of the major campaigns ASLEF are currently running. The union is calling for ‘dignity for drivers’, and successfully got the TUC’s endorsement for the campaign through a motion at this year’s Congress.
“We’ve got people got people at 3:20 in the morning and not get access to a toilet for 6-12 hours,” Whelan said. He added: “I don’t care what you think about train drivers, what you think about our pay or whatever else – the reality is we’re human. So we’ve all these wonderful companies giving us lifestyle briefings about drinking two litres of water a day – there are people not drinking anything at all because they’re terrified of getting caught short. These are safety critical staff.”
Whelan went on to say: “All we’re asking for is the right to access to the toilet within four hours of booking on duty – we don’t believe that’s unreasonable.”
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
Image credit – ASLEF
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