Sophy Ridge on Sunday Interview with Frances O'Grady TUC General Secretary

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO SKY NEWS, SOPHY RIDGE ON SUNDAY

SOPHY RIDGE: Now for all the figures and forecasts that come with the budget it is one of those political events that has a direct impact on the lives of millions of people. Someone with a keen interest in what we may hear tomorrow on wages and taxes is Frances O’Grady, the General Secretary of the TUC and she joins us now. Thank you very much for being with us just before the budget. I don't know if you managed to catch the interview with Philip Hammond but I was quite keen to get your thoughts on one thing in particular that he was talking about, I think hopefully we should be able to get a quick look at it on the wall just to remind us what he did say. There we go, so he said: “If there isn’t a deal in Brexit, we would need to look at a different strategy and frankly we would need to have a new budget that set out a different strategy for the future.” Does that concern you?

FRANCES O’GRADY: Well I think it’s very clear that if we ended up with a hard Brexit then our economy would be in real trouble and that’s got real implications for people’s jobs and livelihoods, their rights at work, so I think he is probably giving a warning there about the kind of deal that we’d need but from the TUC’s point of view neither no deal nor Mrs May’s deal are looking good because the priorities that we think are most important are jobs, protecting jobs, protecting people’s rights at work and avoiding that hard border in Ireland to protect the Good Friday Agreement.

SR: The problem is, listening to you, you say you don’t really like the idea of no deal, you don’t really like the idea of Theresa May’s deal but you are going to have to support something aren’t you? It may be that you don’t like the options but perhaps would it be do you think more responsible perhaps of the Labour party to for example back Theresa May’s deal if the alternative was no deal at all?

FRANCES O’GRADY: Well the Labour party can speak for the Labour party but from the TUC’s perspective, we’ve set out some very clear tests. I mean I was up in the north-east on Friday visiting manufacturing firms, talking to workers and managers. The north-east will be one of the hardest hit areas if we end up with a hard deal or no deal, so we’re talking about real manufacturing firms, we’re talking about the future of our economy.

SR: At the same time though, there is a big difference between no deal and Theresa May’s current deal which would be …

FRANCES O’GRADY: Well we don’t know yet do we?

SR: Well the backstop at the minute is the Customs Union so that would be a big difference for manufacturers.

FRANCES O’GRADY: We don’t know exactly what she’s going to sign up and what we’ve said is look, we’ll look at the deal, we’ll match it against our tests. If it falls short of our tests then we think that Mrs May should go to the country with a general election or have a popular vote but one way or another, people deserve the final say on that deal because it’s their livelihoods that are at stake.

SR: There’s not much time though is there?

FRANCES O’GRADY: There certainly isn’t much time …

SR: So is it realistic to get through those things?

FRANCES O’GRADY: It has to be, yes. What we can’t have is being presented with a Hobson’s Choice that you can either have a really bad deal or a bad deal that’s not quite as bad. We need the Prime Minister to go back to the drawing board, the same with this budget. We’ve been told for years that austerity was necessary: the truth is that our economy has grown on average for the last ten years by 1.1%. That is far worse than all our major competitors, it’s the worst decade in six decades for growth in Britain so we need a new plan and that has to be about investing in jobs, getting our NHS back on its feet, investing in skills and colleges. How crazy that we’re cutting Further Education at the very time when we’re expecting big transformations at work because of digital, we should be investing in apprenticeships and skills and local communities.

SR: Talking about digital, the other thing that I discussed in the interview with the Chancellor was the high street and he acknowledged that the high street would be getting smaller. Is this something that you are concerned about? Would you like to see action against some of those bigger companies?

FRANCES O’GRADY: I think there is going to be real change in the high street but I think what people feel really frustrated about is that this government is continuing to give away tax cuts to big corporations like Amazon, like Facebook, who are hardly paying any tax on the profits that they earn here.

SR: On Amazon, I actually asked Philip Hammond if he shopped at Amazon, he said he did. Do you shop at Amazon?

FRANCES O’GRADY: I have shopped at Amazon, but what I’m concerned about is the workers.

SR: Why do you shop at Amazon if you are concerned about the workers then?

FRANCES O’GRADY: Because we are trying to organise the workers and the key point is getting Amazon to recognise the unions so that it treats its workers fairly.

SR: So why would you shop at Amazon while criticising them?

FRANCES O’GRADY: Of course there are lots of companies that people criticise but the fair thing to do, the right thing for that company to do and for the government to support, is to recognise the unions so that those workers get paid a living wage and treated decently like human beings, instead of what we’re currently seeing – people too scared to take a toilet break and being tracked constantly by surveillance. I mean that is wrong.

SR: Amazon do deny that, I need to point that out, that point. I know those allegations have been made.

FRANCES O’GRADY: Well they have certainly been reported.

SR: But is there not a point here about consumer spending power. Surely a way to try and change company’s behaviour is to vote with your wallet?

FRANCES O’GRADY: Well here’s something that the government could do, it could use its spending power, procurement, to get companies to do the right thing. The government spends billions on procurement, it can really help raise standards but instead of bashing trade unions through anti-democratic trade union acts, why isn’t it empowering trade unions to organise those workers and get fair treatment and a fair deal at work. That’s all that people want, is a fair hearing.

SR: So if you were sitting in the Chancellor’s seat tomorrow, if you had the opportunity to deliver the budget, what would be your number one priority?

FRANCES O’GRADY: I think he’s got to get wages and living standards rising again and I’ll tell you, our teachers, our fire fighters, our civil servants, our prison officers, all public servants deserve a decent pay rise and he could boost the national minimum wage, we’ve been calling for £10 an hour. He could reverse those cuts to Universal Credit and in-work benefits and of course our NHS and schools and public services.

SR: Do you believe austerity is ending?

FRANCES O’GRADY: Well he’s got to prove it, I think the Chancellor has got to prove it but he surely has been given mission impossible by the Prime Minister unless we get a Brexit deal that puts jobs first. I think people feel in this country that we do need a national recovery plan, we need to get our country fit for whatever kind of Brexit that we need but we need to start investing rather than cutting. It’s been a false economy, it’s failed, it’s time to change tack.

SR: Okay, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning.

FRANCES O’GRADY: Thank you.