GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes
the Psychotherapy and Counselling Union, our strapline is “Standing up for
therapists and therapy”. We have got members who are self-employed, we
have got members who are in the NHS, we have got lots and lots of trainees.
There is a massive issue with trainees volunteering and actually having to pay
for their own expenses, their own supervision, pay, pay, pay, and support a lot
of other organisations and that is almost, I will not say unique, but really stands
out in our sector, so that is something we are trying to change. Maybe that will
do for now. I just wanted to say we are here. (Applause)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Sasha. You are very welcome and we
hope to welcome your union into the GFTU family very soon. Thank you.
Take our best wishes back to your union. Now we will move on to education,
so I will ask the General Secretary to introduce this debate.
THE EDUCATIONAL TRUST AND THE GFTU’S WORK ON EDUCATION
THE GENERAL SECRETARY: Thanks. This, I hope, is going to be a wide ranging
discussion and debate about education in its broadest sense. There are many
colleagues in the room who play a leading role in progressive education and
we hope they will come up and add to this discussion so that people get a real
impression of the range of education issues that we are part of and leading and
helping along. Many, many workers have had their only post-16 education
through the GFTU education programme and it is always great to recognise
that fact, particularly at a time when we have seen the ravages of austerity in
adult education from local authorities and from university extension courses
practically collapsed and there have been lots of difficulties also, of course, for
trade union education. But if we are to do something about the 26 million
workers who are not part of the trade union movement, education is going to
play an increasing role. We have had an Educational Trust for 40 years now
and we have offered this year as part of our celebrations of 120 years our
biggest education programme ever which is contained in that document
Education for Action. You can see it on the website as well.
We have also now opened our own classrooms at our offices in Quorn. That is
a first as well. Historically for the last 40 years the GFTU has been paying
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