GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

GENERAL FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS

103rd GENERAL COUNCIL MEETING REPORT

held at:

Holiday Inn, Wembley, London

on

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday 19 th , 20 th , and 21st May 2019

President: John Smith

Vice-President: Oshor Williams

General Secretary: Doug Nicholls

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Reported by Jane Norman, Verbatim Reporter JC Norman Transcription Ltd Tel: 01889 271 001 Email: jcnorman4@btinternet.com

Sunday 19 th May 2019

Welcome

4

Apologies

5

Adoption of Standing Orders

5

Election of 2 Tellers

6

President’s Address

6

Vote of thanks to the President

12

New Affiliates reports – GGCA, PDA, Voice

16

Motion 6 – Let’s fix the broken Probation Service

22

Motion 7 – We demand pay unity in probation

24

Finances

27

Implementation of resolutions 2017

32

The Educational Trust and the GFTU’s work on education

35

Motion 11 – Working Conditions of Social Workers

64

Motion 14 – Disability Hate Crime

69

Monday 20th May 2019

New Affiliate report – GGCA

74

Win:Win Services to affiliates

75

International Work

82

Mr Osman Baydemir

88

GFTU History and related projects

96

GFTU Cultural work and Liberating Arts Festival

99

Motion 4 – Mental health at work

103

Motion 1 – Corporal Punishment of Children in England

109

The British Economy – Larry Elliott

113

Announcement of new Executive Committee, President and Vice President

128

Cat Smith, MP, Young People and the future of the Youth service

130

Shout Out Project

140

Mr Geoff Thompson

150

Tuesday 21 st May 2019

1

Motion 15 – Mental Health for Education

165

Motion 3 – Climate Change

168

Motion 5 - GFTU Rule Change

172

Motion 9 – Rehabilitation needed in our communities

177

GFTU activities report

180

Motion 8 – Initiatives against domestic violence

186

Motion 13 – Menopause

189

Update on British Steel – Roy Rickhuss

192

A New Deal for Workers – Dave Ward, General Secretary CWU 196

Motion 12 – Public transport

218

Motion 10 – Expanding access to education

221

Dr Michael Sanders, GFTU Educational Trust

224

Incoming President’s address

226

Vote of thanks

238

SUNDAY 19 th MAY 2019

The Meeting assembled at 2.00 pm

WELCOMES

THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. A very warm welcome to this

Biennial General Council Meeting of the General Federation of Trade Unions.

My name is John Smith, I am President for this conference and it has been a

great pleasure to have been your President for the last couple of years, and we

will delve into that a bit more deeply as we go through during the conference.

There are a couple of things I need to say. First of all, just to talk generally

about our unions and what they do and the support that the GFTU can give to

them. I hope you are going to get some copious reports about what people

have been doing through the motions, through the debates, but I am just going

to highlight two to begin with. A great victory from our colleagues at NAPO. I

know there is lots to do, but the Probation Service has been all over the place.

Thank goodness it is going to be renationalised. (Applause) It is another tick

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with a cross through it against Chris Grayling’s name, isn’t it? It must have

been a joy working with him, Ian, and all your colleagues, but that is really

pleasing and it is really great that even this Government, even this

Government, have seen that, that it is such a disaster.

The other thing I just briefly want to mention is one of our new affiliates. The

Pharmacists Union – Paul is here somewhere, there he is over there – had a

great victory in getting a recognition from Boots who had a kind of sweetheart

union deal for many years, I believe, and that is a really good victory for a

relatively new union, so congratulations on that, Paul, and we will look forward

to hearing a bit more about that later on.

Before we get down to the formal business, I just need to point out a couple of

corrections, we may get more as we go through. One correction and one

notice. Motion 9 you will find behind the light blue tab in the booklet which is

the motions and it is page 9, it is NAPO (4). It is actually duplicated from

another motion and you are going to get an extra sheet, probably tomorrow to

replace that motion. There is one missing. There has just been an error there

with duplication. Also Motion 2 at the beginning of this section from the Artists

Union England has been withdrawn, so we will not be hearing that motion.

That is all the housekeeping as far as the conference goes at the moment so I

think we can actually now refer to the agenda.

I am going to welcome all our guests. Let me just go through in the order I

have got here. First of all, welcome to Jane Norman who is sitting at the front

here who is going to take the verbatim minutes, so think of her when you

launch into moving your motions or whatever. Thank you very much to the

staff that have been working on this for ages, Ian sitting at the back, I cannot

see Claire at the moment, but she is around, she was outside, so thank you

and well done on all the organisation for this. A special guest who is with us for

the duration of the conference and will be speaking to us in the international

debate is Osman Baydemir who is over there . He was a Turkish MP and is

representing the Kurdish people. The GFTU has done a lot in this area and we

will be having a full report later. You are very welcome, Osman, nice to see

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you. (Applause) Akif Wan will also be coming from the Kurdish National

Council, which is great. There are a lot of commercial partners that we will

introduce as we go through, but let me just say a particular welcome to Jill

Westerman, former principal of Northern College, if Jill is here. Hi, Jill. She is

a trustee of the Educational Trust. Of course, former President and Hotel

Director, Quorn Grange Director, John Fray who is sitting at the back

somewhere. Hello, John. You are always very welcome and it is nice to see

you and Carol here. I will be doing more introductions as we go through.

APOLOGIES

THE PRESIDENT: Steve Gillan, I am told, from the POA is coming tomorrow, so it

will be nice to see him then.

ADOPTION OF STANDING ORDERS

THE PRESIDENT: If I can refer you to the booklet, it is the green tab and page 6 is

standing orders. I just move from the chair that these be adopted. Is that

okay? (Agreed) Thank you. Have a look at no. 4 and be warned. We will see

what disorder comes during the course of the conference!

ELECTION OF 2 TELLERS

THE PRESIDENT: Now then, the election of tellers. We have got two willing

volunteers who were press ganged at the Executive Committee meeting who

will act as tellers if there needs to be a vote. Each delegation should have a

voting card with the number of votes which you will be asked to wave if we get

to a vote and the tellers will count those votes on there. Claire Jones from the

Society of Union Employees and Keeley Lipscombe from TSSA will be our

tellers. Thank you very much for volunteering to do that. I think at this stage I

will hand over to Osh.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. In a moment I am going to

hand over to our President, John Smith, for the President’s address. I have

taken great delight in acting as Vice President under John. I will say more of

that later. When John assumed the presidency two years ago he did say that

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one of his aims was to see out the next BGCM at Quorn, having seen all the

developments and improvements to our conference room all completed. You

did not quite make it, John, but I am sure you are going to give us a run down

of your own activities over this excellent two years. I hand over to our

President, John Smith. (Applause)

PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Oshor. My dear friends, as I reach the end of my presidency of the GFTU in its 120 th year, it is an obvious time to reflect on my

long association with the federation and to look to the future. I have spent

around 15 years on the Executive Committee. The only person who has got a

longer association than me is, of course, the General Secretary, who was a

long serving EC member and, of course, a former President. Much has

changed during this time and the last few years have not only seen the

consolidation of our finances into our investment into the Quorn Grange Hotel,

but have also seen us embark on a massive development of the hotel site with

the aim of making the most of this fantastic asset to the benefit of all our

affiliates and to the rest of our movement. As Oshor said, the idea was that we

would have this conference to actually introduce the new development, but, of

course, they are running late and they will not be ready for a few weeks, so

time was against us, but next time round when Oshor has his BCGM we should

be there and I look forward to being there.

I will come on to the hotel and the current issues in a moment, but, first of all,

let me reflect upon my background in the trade union movement and the

changes I have witnessed, both at the GFTU and also in the labour movement

at large.

As most of you know, I was General Secretary of the Musicians’ Union for 15

years before retiring from that role in 2017. In total I was a fulltime official of

the MU for 23 years and before that a professional musician for 25 years. I

joined the union in 1969, so this year, in fact this month, I am celebrating 50

years of continuous membership, which I am quite pleased about. As you can

imagine, I am passionate about the value of the arts and creativity and the

5

contribution that they make to our society and to all of us as individuals. Arts

and culture touch virtually every aspect of society and all people, whether it be

literature, painting and the visual arts, going to the cinema or theatre and, of

course, music. So instead of developing this successful sector and helping it

grow, Tory Government cuts have seen it contract and become a luxury item

enjoyed by the elite and not readily available to ordinary people.

So let me stick to my area, if I may, music, as I reflect on what has been

happening during the Cameron and May administrations. The worst cuts have

hit grassroots music making and music education. Like sport, learning a

musical instrument not only gives young people an additional skill, but it also

introduces them to the world of collectivity where you produce your final

product, in our case a fantastic and memorable performance, as part of a team.

Unless you are one of the few artists who write and perform their own songs

with no help and support from others, you quickly learn that playing in a band,

ensemble, orchestra or even in a duo means that you rely on other people and

they rely on you. I love watching small groups of musicians perform, whether it

be a jazz band or a string quartet. The interaction between the musicians is

fascinating – the eye contact, knowing when to take the leading role or when to

accompany others. It is all part and parcel of playing in that close knit

ensemble and, as I said, relying totally on other people.

Learning to perform music makes you a more rounded individual, to appreciate

the need for teamwork and to be sympathetic to others in the interests of the

performance you are involved in. The same goes for all of the performing arts

– dancing, singing and acting. Isn’t it tragic that access to these skills is

becoming more and more limited to students whose parents have the ability to

pay? I started learning my music at school and in the brass band movement. I

progressed to the County Youth Orchestra and eventually I made it to the

Royal Academy of Music. All of my tuition was free, paid for by the local

authority. As the eldest of five children, there was no way that my parents could

have afforded to pay for lessons or to send me to the weekly rehearsals of the

youth orchestra. I want the same opportunities to be available to all, not with a

view of creating more professional musicians in what is already, except for the

6

stars and the household names, an overcrowded and underpaid profession. I

want young people to experience the fantastic feeling of performing, learning to

work closely with other people and retaining a love of music for the rest of their

lives.

Music is not just something you can hum along to and enjoy the tunes and

even be emotionally moved by them. Music and the other art forms often

provide a commentary on life and the society that we live in. Many of you will

have seen the film La La Land. Don’t worry, I am not going to sing anything

from it! There is a section in the movie when Mia, the female lead, is

auditioning and she sings a song about her dead aunt who was a bit of a

revolutionary. One part of the lyric really sticks out from me: “So bring on the

rebels, the ripples from pebbles, the painters, the poets and plays … here’s to

the fools who dream, crazy as it may seem”. The dreamers have a lot to say to

us and they tell us about the world and often explain why we feel like we do

about what is going on around us - in music Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie who

had “This machine kills fascists” emblazoned across his guitar, Joan Baez; In

literature Dickens, Shelly, Orwell, Solzhenitsyn (who was sent to a gulag

because of his criticism of the State); in art Picasso. You cannot fail to be

moved by his painting Guernica, which gave us a premonition of what was to

come – and many, many more artists and writers. The GFTU’s Liberating Arts

Festival celebrated the role of the arts in politics and I hope that the federation

will keep developing and expanding its work in this area.

Moving on, the MU is affiliated to the Labour Party and over the years I have

had the pleasure, or mostly otherwise, of briefing Ministers and civil servants on

the big music industry issues of the day that will affect our members. These

have ranged from the intricacies of intellectual property to the crisis in music

education and the precarious nature of live performance. My experiences of

politicians are mixed. I have worked with some excellent Culture Ministers and

some pretty poor ones. You will not be surprised to hear that most Tory

Ministers refused to even meet me. However, the constant has been the

Government officials and advisers. While I respect that most Ministers have

been parachuted into roles that they do not necessarily have any experience

7

of, or even much interest in, my respect is generally not extended to the

officials. They specialise in the arts (excuse the pun) of obfuscation and

procrastination, while aiming to make their own lives as simple as possible. In

my experience, only one Secretary of State overruled his officials and changed

his mind on an important issue that we were lobbying on. That was Andy

Burnham who listened to the arguments we made on the extension of the

period of copyright that protects performers and sound recordings. It was an

unpopular change in some quarters, particularly with those who see copyright

protection as an impediment. They do not see why they should have to

acknowledge or, God forbid, pay, creators when they are making their

mashups and adding music to their homemade videos of something like

squirrels dancing on washing lines that they post on YouTube. The aim of the

campaign was to increase the protection from 50 years from the release of the

recording to 90 years. We settled in the end for 70 years. The reason was the

value of many tracks originally released in the 1960s and 1970s which are still

being

played and are still very popular. We knew that many of the performers on

these recordings were now elderly and were going to lose valuable broadcast

royalties as their recorded performances slipped into the public domain. Much

to the chagrin of the civil servants, we won that campaign, but many other

campaigns fell by the wayside. When you are a trade union official you soon

learn the art of perseverance.

Like many of you, I have been proud to have been a long term member of the

Labour Party. Even when I was having intense rows with Labour politicians,

and believe me I had many, my loyalty to the Party and its principles were

unswerving. The slogan that I chose for this BGCM is ‘All Together Now’. Of

course, this has musical connotations and is a popular little slogan and phrase.

It is even the title of a Saturday night TV talent show. But it is also a slogan that

can be used to epitomise the collective nature of the labour movement. We

have always had differences of opinions and differences in emphasis within the

trade union movement and within the Labour Party, but most of the time we

have been able to reach a consensus and a compromise which takes us

8

forward. Through this process of internal bargaining we have kept together all

of the varied talents within our movement, we have treated each other with

respect and while we have agreed to differ with colleagues, we have found a

way to maintain our unity and, of course, unity is strength.

The consensus in the Labour Party appears to be breaking down and I am

very saddened by this. It is a cliché to say that our movement is a ‘broad

church’, but it is true. We are a coalition of the left and we need our best

brains, our best orators and our best leaders if we as a labour movement are

going to rescue the country from the mess that it finds itself in. I will not be

changing parties. I am and always will be Labour through and through and I

truly hope that we have no more splits, whether they be from the right or from

the left and that we unite to fight the common enemy, the Conservatives, and

not to fight each other.

I first joined the GFTU EC in 2003. I always enjoyed the meetings and seeing

old friends and colleagues, but we did not seem to do much in those days.

This has dramatically changed in recent years. The Executive Committee and

the General Secretary have been working intensely to provide a high level of

service to our affiliates and to secure the future of our federation. I must pay

tribute to the two previous Presidents. During John Fray’s presidency we made

the really important ground breaking decision to redirect a significant part of our

reserves into property and we purchased the Quorn Grange Hotel. Previously

we had been subject to the vagaries of the financial markets and more often

than not we were losing money. We knew that the GFTU could put its own

hotel to good use, as well investing in it on behalf of our affiliates. So now we

have moved on from spending lots of money on hotels around the country in

order to house our education courses, to being able to use our own facilities for

education, training and for meetings and all of our affiliates have benefited from

having unfettered access to this delightful country hotel.

So our investments have been used to benefit our members and our

movement, not to benefit the City of London. It was under Ben Marshall’s

presidency who followed John as President that we made another massive

9

decision – to use more of our reserves to extend the hotel, to improve the

facilities and to build a number of houses that could be available for rent, so

providing us with a significant income stream whilst being of service to the local

community. My presidency has seen the planning stage turned into reality.

During this whole period the GFTU has also been able to expand its services to

members and its international and lobbying work, as you will see from the

excellent biennial report that the General Secretary has produced. I ask you,

as our current affiliates, to help the GFTU to continue with this work and to

develop it. Please use what the GT has to offer and support the future growth

and strength of our federation.

As you can see, the EC has been asked to make some very far-reaching

decisions during the past few years and I want to thank all of the members of

the EC, particularly the ones who have served over the last six years and

especially those who have served on the EC during my presidency. I thank

them for their support and for their encouragement. The most senior members

of the EC become President and Vice President, so it is a four year

commitment and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I was Vice President during Ben

Marshall’s presidency and I have been very lucky to have had Oshor Williams

as my Vice President during my two years and I wish Oshor the best of luck

with his presidency. I am jumping the gun here, but this will be confirmed later.

It is down to Oshor and the new EC, under Oshor’s guidance, to work with

Doug and with Tim Marshall, the hotel’s General Manager, to make a success

of our investment and to secure the future of our federation.

So at the end of this BGCM I will be stepping down. I am confident that our

federation remains in good hands. I wish Oshor, Ronnie Draper, the incoming

Vice President, and Doug and all the staff at the GFTU and at the hotel the

very best of luck for the future. Thank you. (Applause)

VOTE OF THANKS TO THE PRESIDENT

THE GENERAL SECRETARY: Just to move the vote of thanks on behalf of the

Executive. I think I have said at a previous BGCM that the worst part of my job

really is to say farewell to colleagues who have been President who I have

10

worked with for a very long time so closely, as we do. We are in very regular

weekly contact and it has been 16 years working with John. One of the many

things that John did for the Musicians’ Union was to make sure that they published their history and the union goes back to the 14 th century. It was not

called the Musicians’ Union then, it was called the Society of Minstrels, which I

think is a great name, and one of the first things they did when they joined the

GFTU 100 years ago was a campaign to save the orchestras in the theatres

against the devilish incursion of the talking movies which was putting musicians

out of work. So there is a long history there and John has been an absolutely

brilliant bearer of that history and forward thinking for the future.

I have no need to get too emotional this year, because John has kindly agreed

to stay on as a hotel director, so I can continue having the pleasure of

continuing to work with him. On a number of occasions I have tried to point out

some of the financial difficulties in the GFTU to John and suggest that maybe

he donates his Air Miles to us, because if he did we would not have any

financial difficulties whatsoever! Among many other things that he has done,

he is currently still the President of the International Federation of Musicians

and his travels supporting the development of new musicians’ unions in

Eastern Europe, in Africa, in supporting well-established musicians’ unions in

global action to defend their members is absolutely staggering and, despite his

intergalactic travels, he has never had any difficulty being anything other than

efficient and on point all the time for the GFTU.

Just think about the music industry globally and the fact that you are dealing

with these giants that reproduce music across the globe – Spotify, Netflix and

all of the others that publish music – and imagine having to negotiate with them

to ensure that every time there is a download or a stream through Spotify or

Netflix members do get the benefit and are not ripped off by those intergalactic

companies. John has amazing talents on the international sphere and is

always there for musicians throughout the world and he has led ourselves and

he continues to lead the International Federation in a relaxed but very

determined manner. Thanks a lot, John. (Applause)

11

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Doug.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Doug. I would like to second the vote of thanks

to the President. John joined the Executive shortly before I did. I thought that

was the case, but John had about four years on me. When I joined the

Executive John was one of the friendly faces who really made me feel

welcome, made me feel engaged and encouraged contribution. I took great

delight in introducing John earlier before he gave his address and in seconding

the vote of thanks to the President I am sure he will forgive me if I take equal

delight in infusing a touch of mischief into this particular address.

I have had several conversations with John about his distinguished career in

music, which was a distinguished career, by the way, and with typical good

humour he has always been rather self-deprecating about his achievements. I

also recall during his incoming address as President two years that he said that

the joke about tuba players is that they sit there either bored to death or scared

to death awaiting the moment to deliver their brief but important contributions.

There are lengthy periods of inactivity, but when you are called upon you had

better be alert and on point, because you do not get a chance to retrieve the

situation. In this respect the tuba player is rather like the goalkeeper in a

football team. If you do the job well you are respected, but your excellence is

almost taken for granted. However, if you make a mistake, it can be

disastrous, so you have to be alert to everything. You have to display patience,

you have to deliver timely interventions which support and enhance the overall

performance and body of work. In many ways, these mirror some of the

qualities which John has employed throughout his time as a member of the EC,

but, more significantly, during the two years of his presidency.

As Chair of the Executive, together with several other key committees, he has

navigated the GFTU through some challenging situations. Whilst John is a

man of great humour and impeccable good manners, his many years as

General Secretary of the Musicians’ Union and President of the International

Musicians’ Federation have given him the confidence and clarity to lead and

progress meetings efficiently and effectively. I often describe John as a man

12

with an iron resolve shrouded in a velvet voice and although he never loses his

cool, if a situation requires a strong and robust intervention, he will always

respond in a respectful yet decisive manner.

When I was preparing this address I was looking for information about tuba

players, whether it be about the instrument, about the role of the tuba player

within the orchestra, and one of the things I came across was an old joke and

being rather old myself I thought I will put it in anyway. I will take any

opportunity to shoe horn a good old joke into an address. It is one that is

wellknown to most musicians and it is about the tuba player. A father enrols

his son for music lessons. After a brief period of discussion and assessment

the teacher assigns his son the tuba. The father goes home while the first

lesson takes place. When the son comes home his father asks, “What did you

do today?” The young boy says, “I learnt how to play the C note”. The next

day when he comes home his father says, “What did you do today?” He says,

“I learnt to play the G note”. The following day when his dad says, “What did

you do today?” he says, “I joined an orchestra”. That obviously went above all

of those apart from myself and John who are skilled and knowledgeable

musicians! But behind that joke it says something kind of interesting. As I say,

it is not about the quantity of content, it is the quality. Just a little addition to

that. What made me laugh about that joke was not so much the joke, it was on

an online forum, but it was the serious musicians who posted following the

comment: “As a tuba player, I am outraged. It would never be C and G. It

would B flat and F” and I thought, “There is a serious side to these guys”!

I have often wondered whether musicians choose their instruments or whether

the instrument chooses them. If so, what are the traits which marry tuba

players to their instrument? Here are a few interesting views and comments

which I came across during my, I have to say, not too in depth research into the

subject. Of the tuba itself: “The tuba is the most important instrument in the

band. It is the largest of wind instruments, and it produces the fundamental

sound upon which all others are built”. Then I looked up about the tuba player,

are there any particular traits? What I came across was that the tuba player’s

13

personality traits are “unique”, “reliable”, “consistent”. I think that more than

adequately describes my friend and colleague John Smith.

John, it has been a thorough pleasure to work with you, not only over the last

two years of your presidency when I was able to work in closer concert with you

and Doug, but over all the years that I have been on the EC. I would have to

say that I have learnt so much from you over the last couple of years,

particularly in the way you conduct yourself. Your responses and actions are

always professional rather than emotional, yet they are never devoid of

emotional depth and sensitivity. The relationship between you and Doug has

been vitally important during the investment and development of Quorn and the

delivery of an ambitious and progressive programme of education. I could not

conclude without mentioning your lovely wife Sandra who as well as being

supportive of you and your work within the GFTU has been a major influence

on your dress sense! (Laughter)

John, although you are nominally retired, I know that you will remain active

within your international work with the International Musicians’ Federation.

Importantly, I know that rather like some of our former presidents, people like

John Fray, that you will always remain available for advice and guidance as we

continue to strengthen the GFTU over the coming years. On behalf of us all I

would like to say thank you for your years of service to the GFTU and

particular thanks for your two years of dedicated service to the presidency.

(Applause)

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Oshor.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: John, on behalf of us all I was going to say I would like you

to accept a small gift, but it is not particularly small!

THE PRESIDENT: I am glad I have got the car!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: From all of us this is a little token of our appreciation for

your dedicated service over the years.

14

The presentation was made amidst applause

THE PRESIDENT: That is lovely. I will not open them now, but they look really

good. Thank you very much, Osh. Thank you, everybody, thank you. Thank

you, Doug. (Applause) That is wonderful, thank you, and thank you for those

great speeches. I will tell you a few things about tuba players in the bar later

where you can usually find them! Okay. Thank you very much for that.

NEW AFFILIATES REPORTS – GGCA, PDA, VOICE

THE PRESIDENT: Moving on, we come now to our new affiliates and we have got

three new affiliates that it has been really exciting to have. I have already

mentioned the PDA and we will come to them in just a moment. The first one

that you have got on your running order, the Gibraltar General and Clerical

Association, are arriving later this afternoon, so they will be here for this

evening and maybe I will invite them to say a couple of words. I think it will be

Wendy that a lot of you met before from Gibraltar. It is a very interesting union

and it is great to have them in membership. Before we move on to hear about

the pharmacists and their victory with Boots I would like to introduce a very

important new affiliate, one of the education unions and it has been great for

them to join the GFTU and join in with our activities. We did have an Executive

Committee meeting at their headquarters in Derby just a few months ago. Let

me invite Deborah Lawson, the General Secretary, just to say a few words

about Voice. (Applause)

SIS DEBORAH LAWSON (Voice): Thank you very much for this opportunity and with

apologies to our friends in the Social Workers Union, because actually the

article I recently wrote for you I am using as the basis for this, because I have

only had three days’ notice or something like that, so please forgive me.

Voice represents over 20 education professionals, students from early years to

self-employed tutors and obviously teachers. Ours is a diverse union

organising a diverse profession, so we represent the whole of the education

workforce, including teachers, headteachers, lecturers, assistants, technicians,

bursars and we have nannies as well as nursery staff in the private, voluntary

and independent sector as well as within the maintained sector.

15

Voice was founded in 1970 as the Professional Association of Teachers by

two teachers during an era of great industrial unrest and they were greatly

concerned at that time about the effect of the strikes on their pupils and on their

education, so they gathered together a group of teachers who were committed

in principle to seeking resolution through the force of argument rather than the

argument of force. In 1982 a group of likeminded nursery nurses established

the Professional Association of Nursery Nurses, and that is when I came on the

scene, which became a section of PAT in 1995. We recognise and promote

the benefit of trade unions to employees and employers, fostering and

promoting good working relationships and we believe that the core purpose of

unions in a modern society is not only to protect their members and negotiate

improvements in their pay and conditions, but also, especially within education

and childcare, to promote professional standards and engage constructively

with all of our stakeholders, be they employers, and all this for the benefit of

pupils and colleagues within the profession.

As I say, we very much believe in the force of argument over the argument of

force, but while we recognise and reserve our legal right and respect the right

of others to take lawful industrial action, we veer away from it where we

possibly can, but that does not mean to say that we would not take it if it was

the right thing to do, but it would have to be something that was not going to be

injurious to the pupils and the children in our care, so actually it would be

something around the cause of education. But we believe that this position

provides professionals with the opportunity for reasoned discussion,

negotiation and compromise.

Teaching and childcare are great professions and the erosion that they have

endured from external and political sources (a lot from political sources, and I

am sure we are going to hear a bit more about that throughout this next couple

of days) has definitely taken their toll on the position of education and childcare

within society at a time when education is seen as the silver bullet which will

improve social mobility and a multitude of social welfare issues. Public

perception of education and teaching and childcare is actually in the doldrums,

there are no two ways about it. It is, therefore, essential to make the case to

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regain the public’s respect and central to this is the professional conduct,

including how we actually conduct ourselves in negotiations with employers

and school leaders. As we modernise, we aim to eliminate negative

perceptions about trade unions and promote the benefits of positive

engagement and the achievement of harmonious working relationships. Voice

enjoys very positive relationships with a whole host of different employers,

because we all know we have not just State schools now and the independent

sector, but we have this hybrid of the academies, but we are growing there with

our recognition too.

As I say, we have a very broad membership and our membership includes

those who are employed as well as students, both teaching students and those

who are early years and childcare. Does that give you just the flavour that you

need? Great. Thank you very much, conference. (Applause)

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Deborah. I will now invite Paul Day to come forward

and tell us a bit about the PDA.

BRO PAUL DAY: Hello. I am Paul Day, National Officer for the PDA Union. As a

first time affiliate here this is obviously my first time speaking at the GFTU. The

PDA Union has been around for 10 years, so we are quite new, but, brothers

and sisters, I bring you fraternal greetings from 28,000 pharmacists. We are

already one of the largest 30 trade unions in the country with about 50%

density in our profession and we are continuing to grow at between 5% and

10% a year, which is quite good for us and quite alien, sadly, for many in the

movement.

Our members do a five year masters degree qualification, four years at

university, followed by a year in what is called their pre-registration year where

they are on the job. They are the experts in medicines. The NHS’s biggest

expenditure is labour, its second biggest expenditure is medicines and every

member except me (I am the only non-pharmacist member of our union) know

what they are doing with medicines and keep you safe. In a previous life I was

the Deputy General Secretary of one of the other big teaching unions. I used

to say then that my members could ruin someone’s life, but it would always

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take them a couple of terms. With pharmacists their life is often in your hands.

If they make a mistake, unlike doctors, unlike nurses, they are criminally

responsible and could not only lose their job, their career, but can also lose

their freedom, the legislation around management of medicines being tighter

than that round the rest of medical care. Our members are across the UK, in

the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. They are in hospitals, they are in

primary care like your local GP practice and they are in community pharmacy,

by which I mean the high street chemist which is probably the most accessible

part of the National Health Service. Clearly, if you have a zero hours contract

and you phone your doctor for an appointment, you cannot guarantee you are

going to be available at 3 o’clock next Tuesday, because you do not know

when your shifts are coming, but you can walk off the street and see a

pharmacist and those experts can give you very sound pharmaceutical care.

Many of our members are locums, so we are affected by the gig economy.

There is actually in many places, in most places a surplus of pharmacists, so

all the pressures of the gig economy come to bear on those people and we

have got the usual issues of anyone else that is working in that sector. As I

said, we have been around for 10 years. Through an organisation called

EPhEU, which is the Employed Pharmacists of the European Union, which has

been around for seven years, we are quite active in that European area and we

have been helping in setting up the Polish pharmacists union, so we are very

international. I will not try and pronounce the name of the Polish Union. It is the

ZZPF, some very long words.

John mentioned Boots. I said that community pharmacy is the most

accessible part of the NHS. Our members are also, as I say, health

professionals, but they are delivering patient care whilst employed by what is

essentially a retailer that wants profit, so there is this conflict for our members.

Our members face the same sort of issues we all face, which is bad

management, unreasonable targets, health and safety, but they are also trying

to manage patient care and put that rightfully at the top of their agenda where

often their employer wants profit. I will spend a minute or two quickly to tell you

about Boots, because in most union circles when I say I am from the PDAU I

get a blank look, but if I mention Boots people very often have heard of us and

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what we have done. I have only been in the PDAU for two years, but, as I say,

it has been around for ten and our attitude shortly after getting our certificate of

independence was, “Right, we need to get recognition so that we can best

serve our members in community pharmacy”. The attitude of my colleagues

was that you turn up at school, you go to the playground and you knock out the

biggest kid on the playground, then people are going to listen to you. So we

chose to start with the biggest and most powerful opponent we could choose

and that was Boots who own and operate about one sixth of all high street

pharmacies in this country and, indeed, internationally nowadays as well.

We wrote to them and asked for recognition. They declined. At that time

Walgreens Boots Alliance, of which Boots are part, had a whole website called

WBA Unfunded, which was dedicated to explaining to workers why they did not

need to be in a trade union, incredibly anti-union. We submitted our claim for a

ballot for statutory recognition. Boots persuaded us to allow talks to continue to

withdraw our application, which we did, but in secret they had met with a

managers organisation which had been around, was a registered trade union,

but had been refused its certificate of independence, and got a recognition

agreement and I still cannot believe even now that this so-called trade union

had signed an agreement which explicitly said, “We will not negotiate pay and

conditions for our members. All we will do is negotiate facilities time and what

resources the company will give us to help us function” and that agreement

was enough in law. We went through judicial reviews, the Court of Appeal and

all sorts of places, but ultimately that was enough in law to keep out a

genuinely independent trade union trying to act in the interests of its members.

So we were faced with a challenge. As many of you will realise, there is a way

through law that if workers are unhappy with the recognition of a

nonindependent trade union they can apply to have that recognition dissolved.

Nobody in the 17 years that that law has existed had even tried, let alone

succeeded, to do that, but, and John was talking in his contribution about

perseverance, we went for it. One sunny Friday in summer 2017 with, if I say

so myself, quite military precision, we submitted an application on behalf of six

of our members to derecognise this sweetheart union. Our website went live,

copies of magazines went to every store and every member. The long and the

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short of it is that ultimately more than 40% of the workforce voted to remove

that sweetheart union. So currently, and I hope this ends soon, I am able to

speak on behalf of 100% of trade unions that have ever removed a sweetheart

union in that process, but if any of you are trying to do the same, please come

and talk to us, because we have done it and we would love to help you do it

too.

Strangely, as you can imagine, we then had to go through the same thing and

every other union having aborted suggestions of removing them, because it is

the 40% threshold that we must complete, we had to do it again to get

recognition, so we did it twice, so we have now got recognition in Boots, that is

7,000 pharmacists and in line with our original philosophy, having now

effectively knocked out the biggest kid on the playground – We are not really

up for aggression, I will say that to our members from Voice, we are not really

encouraging playground violence – other community pharmacist organisations

are starting to talk to us, because they clearly understand that they can either

voluntarily start to work with us or also become famous.

So that is what we do, that is who we are. John, I hope that is helpful. As I

say, we, as a union, are very, very excited to be part of the GFTU and looking

forward to the future together. Thank you. (Applause)

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Paul, and congratulations again to the union for its

campaign against Boots and we look forward to great things from you on the

GFTU. As I say, we will listen to our Gibraltar colleagues tomorrow when they

arrive. We move on now to the first two motions that we are going to hear.

Both are going to be moved by NAPO, so I call Motion 6 which is Let’s fix the

broken Probation Service. Maybe this is slightly out of date!

MOTION 6 – LET’S FIX THE BROKEN PROBATION SERVICE

SIS KATIE LOMAS (NAPO) moved the following motion:

This BCGM notes with concern the current operational state of the Probation

service following it’s part privatisation in 2015 and the introduction of 21

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Community Rehabilitation Companies and the creation of the National

Probation Service.

Since then, a series of parliamentary reports and highly critical assessments

by HMI Probation have laid bare this most disastrous policy, which has failed in

a number of areas including: support for prisoners re-entering the community,

the monitoring of domestic violence perpetrators, and the introduction of

operating models and substandard supervision regimes which expert

practitioners have assessed as representing a direct threat to public safety.

Despite this catalogue of failure, and £250 million in further bailouts by the

taxpayer, the 21 CRC contracts are being terminated early. Nevertheless, the

Government has announced its intention to remarketise the service into 10 new

contract package areas by 2020 and will be inviting current CRC owners to

tender for new delivery contracts.

This BGCM instructs the Executive Committee to do all that it can to support

the campaign of total opposition to this plan by the probation unions, who are

also committed to seeing the return of the service into public ownership.

She said: Conference, brothers, sisters and guests, you might expect us to

have withdrawn this motion, because on Thursday the Government announced

that part of the work currently undertaken by private companies in probation will

be returned to the public sector, but, and I have written that in capitals and

underlined it twice, this is not the end of our struggle. We still have a long way

to go. Although there has been widespread recognition that Failing Grayling’s

outsourcing of the probation service was disastrous, the proposal announced

on Thursday was not NAPO’s desired outcome. It retains a split in provision

between the public and the private sector and all of the difficulties that this

presents. It also presents difficulties in terms of the access for charities, third

sector and other small and specialist providers into the probation system.

Our members working in probation are dedicated professionals who have

clung on, despite the challenges they have faced over the last five years and

let’s not forget what those challenges really are – being forced to deliver unsafe

operating models which gave them unacceptably high workloads and the

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