Selling the Family Silver

 by New Worker correspondent

 London’s Great Russell Street is the address of two major institutions: the British Museum and the TUC HQ, Congress House. But not for much longer. While the classical nineteenth century Museum is staying put the 1950s modernist Congress House is up for sale. 
This little noticed decision is a damning reflection on the state of Britain’s trade unions which now represent less than a quarter (22 per cent to be precise) of the workforce. 
After the TUC’s Finance Committee decided it is no longer viable to keep the building its General Council agreed that point in early June. It is claimed that essential refurbishment will cost around £20 million.
Congress House was opened in 1958, some 14 years after the 1944 TUC called for a new building. It is the grandest purpose-built labour movement building in Britain, although the nearby British Medical Association’s Tavistock House and the National Education Union’s Hamilton House are equally impressive. 
 In 1946 David Du Roi Aberdeen won the design competition against 180 rivals, but it was not until 1958 the building finally opened.
 The competition brief was to provide a building which would be “fitting to the dignity and propagation of the great ideals for which the Movement stands”. 
 It is centred on a large semi-basement conference hall surrounded with offices, smaller meeting rooms, it had a library (now at the University of North London), a catering hall, with a well-lighted entrance hall. The panelled rooms are the result of timber donated by unions from across the globe. All the construction workers had to have a union card. As the TUC is very respectable the Royal Horse Guards played at the opening ceremony.
Modernist architecture is not to everybody’s taste, being rather plain, but the building has important unique features. Its internal courtyard is dominated by Sir Jacob Epstein’s 1957 sculpture of a mother carrying her dead son, a striking anti-war monument. This was designed specifically for the building. At the front the plain Cornish granite slabs frontage looks down the bronze “Spirit of Brotherhood” showing a strong man helping a weak one, by communist sculptor Bernard Meadows. Being a Grade II listed building such important features will have to be retained, which be certain to put off buyers. A mysterious Ministry of Defence building at the back enabled the spooks to know what was going on.  
The TUC claims it needs a “modern fit-for-purpose” building. But this is something which they already have. It is near three major railway stations connected the north of Britain. The building is used by other trade unionists. As a humble trades union council delegate this correspondent recalls sitting in the top floor council chamber listening to both fiery and long-winded speeches.
Parts of the building are already rented out to sympathetic bodies such as law firm Thompsons. Its large hall has been rented out to all and sundry including for large company AGMs, which bring in cash, albeit at the cost of generating controversy. 
Forty jobs, largely of catering workers are at risk from the TUC’s planned move. TUC General Secretary Paul Nowack said the decision was “an incredibly difficult one” but was as in the movement’s best interests. 
 In some respects this is like a twenty-strong congregation struggling to keep a Victorian church built for hundreds water-tight. But things are not as bad as that for the TUC. Given its location the TUC could clearly do more to exploit the building rather than simply throw in the towel, even if that meant hiring its soul for corporate AGMs. The  alternative will likely be a suite of offices occupying a couple of floors in an expensive nearby office block. 
The planned sell-off is definitely a retreat at a time when trade unions need to go on the offensive. There is a petition against the sale focusing on the risk of lost jobs at:   https://www.change.org/p/save-congress-house-jobs.