GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

know from Scotland that once people lose the habit of voting for parties of the

left, voting for Labour, it is quite hard to get them back.

My sense of this is that the economy under the Tories, under May, May will

probably get her mandate, but this economy, as it is constituted, heavily reliant

on personal debt and on the housing market and on the City of London, where,

despite what they say, trade unions find it very hard to actually negotiate

decent pay awards, where real wages are constantly squeezed, something is

going to go seriously wrong with this economy in the not too distant future and

it is up to the parties of the left and people on the left next time it happens, as it

will, to have a better analysis of what has gone wrong and a blueprint for how

to put it right. Thank you very much. (Applause)

THE PRESIDENT: Does anybody want to question any of that? (Laughter) It would

be quite difficult, wouldn’t it?

SIS KATHY DYSON (Musicians Union): Thank you very much for that. That was

really interesting and a great analysis and it is good to hear the other side from

the left because where a lot of us are we are pro-Remain. Our union took the

stance of being pro-Remain, but I just wanted to ask you, we have got a long

tradition in the MU of being internationalists, I know a lot of unions have, and

we see that internationalism as being intrinsic with the European project and for

us, as musicians, things to do with Europe, which are fundamentally important,

are to do with freedom of movement, freedom of expression, cultural exchange

and creative cultural exchange and sharing good practice. As John Smith was

saying this morning, he is the President of FIM. We have a lot of connections

internationally with unions, strong connections, both with Europe and globally

and we feel it is really important, cultural exchange is really vital.

We are also really concerned obviously about employment protections,

employment rights, which we use. We need those rights and we feel they are

going to be taken away when Brexit goes through and human rights as well. I

know it is about the economy and obviously you are focusing on the economy,

you are an economist, I do not want to detract from that, but I do want to ask

you about that, because I think that is really important, that we feel it is really

120