GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

They had the Bridlington procedures because of unions poaching other ones’

members. There are nearly 30 million people who are not in unions. We can

work together. We do not need to be taking each other’s members. I think that

in the fast food campaign that we have been running we have shown that we

can work with other unions, because Unite did TGI Fridays; GMB did Deliveroo;

IWGB did some of the other fast food issues. What we did, we coordinated a

date and we took the action against those employers on the same day and it

made the worldwide papers. It did not just make the press here. In our union,

and I cannot speak for the others, we have seen an influx of young members

and that takes me on to the position with young people. We have to change

the way that we do things. We get members to join our union and they fit in

with our rules and the policies and the procedures that we have done for many,

many years. What we should be doing is engaging young people and seeing

what their thoughts are. We have to change the way unions are going,

otherwise we will die with the youngest of the old people and, Dave, you are

absolutely right, we have got to stop doing that.

The very last point I want to make, and it is something that our union has

already put forward and I know it is going through an early day motion, is the

question of access for trade unions into workplaces. We have had repressive

legislation where you can get 100% membership (prior to the law change that

Labour brought in) and never get in because a company could hold you off.

You still have a situation now where our organisers go to a place, they can

have a few members, they go into the company, they ask for the ability to

speak to workers and the employer says, “No, my workers don’t want a union,

my workers don’t need a union”. They passed legislation in New Zealand that

gave access and it was down to the people in the workplace to say, “I want a

union” or “I don’t want a union”, but at least you have got access as a trade

union to deliver your message, to get it right at the heart of companies and that

is seeing membership in New Zealand increase massively, recognition with the

likes of McDonalds where they have not got it anywhere else in the world and

that is because you have got access.

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