Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:28 pm on 18 September 2018.
Minister, I was very interested, actually, in the comments that started off from Adam Price with regard to Coleg Harlech, because Members will remember the actual role that played in the actual training of workers and trade union representatives and so on in exactly these sorts of issues that we're discussing now. Of course, there has been demise of many of these other similar courses that were in colleges and, in fact, in many ways a sidelining of the Workers' Educational Association, which actually carried out many of these functions as well.
I welcome very much what you've said. The only point that seems to be the glaring omission is there's barely a mention of the Wales TUC or mention of the trade unions. It seems to me that they are fundamental in this. So, when we talk about training, apprenticeships, equality, lifelong learning, job progression, the economic contract, low pay, better jobs closer to home and issues like that, those are all issues that the trade unions have been specifically involved in and have a great deal of experience in, but quite frankly it seems to me that they are being sidelined in some way, because there was nothing specific about what their role is. I wondered if you could help by outlining precisely how you see the role of the trade unions within this. What exactly is their position within it, what functions are they being given, where are they within this social partnership? My concern is that the social partnership is becoming rather imbalanced towards one side and not recognising that if you don't have the workers and the trade union organisations on board, you've already got one ball and chain around one of your legs, and the ability to actually deliver is significantly undermined.