GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

country. Here is our manifesto”, so we publicise that, “Here is what we are

trying to achieve” very, very clearly in a way that people can relate to, so you

do talk about things like we are going to slow down the intensity of work. It

cannot carry on like this. We are not going to have our lives controlled every

minute and every second by technology, we ain’t going to put up with it any

more.

I think it would make a massive difference, but you would choose the action

that you could deliver and my only plea would be that each union goes further

than it has ever gone before. I think you would draw up a portfolio of maybe 10

or 12 or whatever forms of actions and you would leave it to each union to do

something on that day. Our union, I will be honest, we would call our members

out on the gate. We do that quite a lot. It is very successful. I learnt that many

years ago not far from here when were having a strike ballot and the

management all turned up outside at Watford, about 40 of them, to stop us

coming into the office to tell the members in work time why they should vote for

action and we just started marching up and they were pushing back on us and

there were about four of us and we were pushing with our arms down like this

and they were manned outside the office. All of a sudden obviously people

inside the office got wind of it, so what did they do? They came out and they

stood on the gate and we had a fantastic meeting on the gate and I think half

the managers wished they had been in our union at the time. So you can do

these things, you can get people to come out at a given point in time and I

would urge every union to say, “We are going to have a meeting. Maybe we

are going to sign up to the campaign on that day, that we are going to urge

workers online, in workplaces, everywhere to join the campaign for a new deal

for workers”. Maybe that might be the action that you do. My point is we have

got to develop that action.

So there is a plan for a new deal for workers. I think it is necessary and I think

if we focus that around a serious fight for changing the balance of forces in the

world of work and we bring our collective strength together, we will reassert

trade union values in society. I have no doubt about that whatsoever. We will

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