GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Ian. All of our friends from the Win:Win organisations

that are working with us are going to be around, so do take the opportunity to

go and have a chat and see how they can help your union as well as helping

the Educational Trust, of course, which is vitally important to the work of the

GFTU.

INTERNATIONAL WORK

THE PRESIDENT: We are moving on now to the international section. You will find

this under the green tab in the book where the report is pages 37 to 47. It is

quite a comprehensive report, but really it just scratches the surface, I suppose,

of the whole of the international stuff that we do. When Doug was speaking

yesterday he mentioned that one of my other roles is the President of the

International Federation of Musicians and I have been President since 2004. It

is fantastic doing this international work, it is fantastic helping developing

countries to get their unions organised. There are some real issues we have

had to deal with. Recognition of a union for freelance musicians in Kenya was

quite a battle with the Government and we even took it to the ILO in Geneva on

behalf of that Kenyan organisation. The only way that these small emerging

unions can do that is that through the international federations and they do

some vital work and it is great that the GFTU is well connected throughout the

network of these international bodies.

We have had an exciting couple of years and we are going to start off with the

study visit that we undertook to Poland. Every two years the Executive

Committee has a study visit and this time we met some Polish colleagues. I

am going to ask Ian Lawrence of NAPO to give a report. Thanks, Ian.

BRO IAN LAWRENCE (NAPO): Thank you, John. Good morning, conference. Ian

Lawrence, General Secretary at NAPO. I am very happy to say a few words in

the international section, if I may. Firstly, can I say how privileged I have been

to have been able to represent the GFTU in two international visits over the last

year, one being to Brussels to hear the verdict of the EU’s independent

commission into Turkish military atrocities in Kurdistan. You will hear more

about this, of course, later from Osman and Manuel who made a trip to Turkey

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