GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

Motion 12 was CARRIED unanimously

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. I would now like to ask Wendy Cumming

from the Gibraltar General Clerical Association to come and address the GFTU

and talk to us about the situation in Gibraltar, I hope, which will be very

interesting.

WENDY CUMMING: Firstly, a very big thank you to Manuel Cortes for facilitating my

attendance here and a very big thank you to Doug and the panel for allowing

me to address you. Thinking about what I actually wanted to say today, I

suppose a little bit about the GGCA and what it is that we do and how we came

about. In terms of Gibraltar standards, given that we are a little peninsular with

30,000 people, we have got about 1,700 members. In its infancy the GGCA

was a civil service union originally set up in 1947, so it is quite a longstanding

union. Largely we have been white collar, increasingly more blue collar as

more members come in and affiliate to our union. I will not say anything about

Unite, but we are one of the three main trade unions in Gibraltar. There is

Unite, GGCA and a smaller teachers union. We are very, very lucky in

Gibraltar. We have had a very strong economy. In fact we were discussing

just last night that we have free university for our students. They come over to

the UK. They have maintenance grants, they have tuition fees paid. Our

political spectrum is centre left. We are doing very well. We have a

Mediterranean climate. We have religious tolerance, we get along.

But we are actually also very unlucky, because we have a very big neighbour

to the north who is actually, we feel, very aggressive and bullying towards us.

How does this relationship with Spain impact upon us and upon the working

lives of our members? Very, very, very strongly. Like all cross border

communities, we have a symbiotic relationship with the people from La Linea

and the Campo area. We have about 12,000 workers coming in every day.

We rely on this workforce and the La Linea community relies on the jobs that

we provide, so why are we unlucky with that? Because Madrid uses the

frontier to exert political pressure on us in their claim for sovereignty of

Gibraltar. I have lived all my life in Gibraltar and as you think back on your

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