Moving the motion George Smith, general secretary of the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, pointed to the 30,000 registered homeless families in Britain and the 7,000 children in local authority care as a direct result of homelessness.
To this appalling situation can be adeed well over a million homes unfit for human habitation; hospital conditions that have not changed since Victorian times; and school buildings lacking essential repairs or being kept in use long after they were scheduled for demolition.
However by mid-July of this year, 166,862 construction workers were without jobs - over 12 per cent of all building workers. More than one in seven of the registered unemployed (seasonally adjusted) is a building worker. The response of the Wilson Government to such desperate social need and waste of humA motion calling for a massive housebuilding programme in both the public and private sector, based on annual completion targets and utilising the full resources of the construction industry, was overwhelmingly carried by last week's Trades Union Congress an resources has been to introduce a £6 wagecurb which will further increase unemployment, and systematically cut back public expenditure.