GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

operative called Suma Foods in Elland near Halifax. Suma is the biggest

specialist wholesaler of vegetarian, organic and fair trade products in the UK.

Member employees hold monthly general meetings to decide what their

business will do. There is a lengthy process to become a member employee in

order to keep the ethos of the co-operative alive. All members, regardless of

role, are paid the same, so you can be sweeping the floor one week, driving a

truck, checking stock or making orders. Everyone is equal. Everyone

contributes to the business and everyone shares the profits equally too.

Incidentally, they are some of our highest paid members. They even provide

all employees and visitors with free hot meals three times a day and it is not

like any other factory or workplace I have visited. It feels like a family. You sit

in like a kitchen and the food is all freshly made and everybody is happy

because everybody is equal.

Music, like all the arts, has been treated appallingly by this Government. By

supporting the Musicians Union in developing co-operatives around the country

the trade union movement can help to keep music alive in our children and

their children’s lives. Music teachers can become members in their own co-

operatives, determine their own terms and conditions, wages and approach the

teaching of music consistently and not be reliant on local councils or schools.

With the support of the GFTU and its affiliates, music teachers around the UK

will be able to watch their co-operatives thrive like we have done with our

members at Suma.

Please support this motion and let’s get proper instrument tuition by qualified

and happy instrument teachers back into our children’s grasps, because the

alternative does not bear thinking about. (Applause)

BRO IAN LAWRENCE (NAPO): Brothers, sisters, chair, thank you. Just a few

thoughts, clearly supporting the motion which I know will be carried

overwhelmingly. The concept that you have been talking about is absolutely

first rate. It just got me thinking why stop there. We have heard today

contributions about the gig economy, we have heard about the need to

continue our work encouraging younger workers into the movement, we have

160