GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

are the affiliates. Me and Doug talk about this quite a bit. There is room for

other organisations here, because the key thing is not to feel that the union

movement is some exclusive club. It is about opening up and breaking down

the barriers and I think the TUC will have to change. My personal take on that

is that whenever I have the opportunity, if I do something-- I have been doing a

couple of little slots on LBC which is an unusual station to go to, but we went to

them and we went to them and said, “You never have people that represent

workers. You have loads of people talking a load of nonsense, but you don’t

have the people who represent the workers on there”. We agreed a pitch.

Unfortunately, Brexit has got in the way, because every time I am on there I do

an hour’s slot and I have done it about four times now and we have actually got

a deal with them where we can do it, but our pitch was we want an hour on the

world of work, not on trade unions. We want to know what is really happening

in the world of work. My point is that whenever I am in there I say, “And if the

TUC don’t call this day of action, well, we will” and, do you know what, it moves

things along and the TUC is now actually debating the manifesto. It agreed a

charter the other day. It was not everything that I thought it should be, but it is

moving along in a better direction and they are talking about a day’s action.

We need to do it quicker and we need to do it in a way that is deliverable.

Ronnie, many of the things that the Bakers Union have done need to be

applauded in the movement, in the way that you have organised workers –

McDonalds, TGI Fridays. There are some great activists and activism that is

taking place in there. I agree with a lot of your points. On the trade union laws,

that has to be one of our demands, but that is also ultimately a political

demand. But it should not stop us believing that we cannot beat the trade

union laws. The way you beat the trade union laws ultimately is keep

developing your engagement with members and what the CWU is doing, and I

have said this, I am on record as saying this, I think we are building a machine

that could win any industrial action ballot. That is what we think about, not the

industrial action ballot itself. We think about building a machine. We represent

postal workers, we represent telecommunication workers, a lot of workers who

are out on the street. If our members download this app we could be in their

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