GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

been at this conference since 2003, us ever having an actual vote.

Nevertheless, we do need to appoint two tellers.

THE GENERAL SECRETARY: We have had two willing volunteers. We have had

brother Neil Crew from AEGIS and sister Yvonne Pattison from NAPO.

THE PRESIDENT: Is that agreed? (Agreed)

THE VICE PRESIDENT: This is where I take over, my only bit of formal business, I

think. It is a great pleasure now to ask our President to address the BCGM. It

has been an incredible two years. There has been a lot of activity, we are

going to hear all about that and Ben has been at the forefront of all of it and it

has been a pleasure to work with him, so, Ben, please, I invite you to address

conference. (Applause)

PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, John. Brothers and sisters, those of you who know

me know that I have never written a speech in my life. I usually go to the

rostrum thinking, “I wonder what I am going to say now”, but because there is

this tradition of the thing being printed out, I have actually had to write a speech

for the first time in my life, so here you go. I am now going to have to read a

speech.

It has been a genuine honour, and mostly very interesting and sometimes

thoroughly stressful, to have been the GFTU’s President for the past two years.

I have had a very long and, in some ways, very fortunate career in the trade

union movement. I became active in the then Post Office Engineering Union

(now the Communication Workers Union) in the early 1970s and became an

official of my current union in 1984, having not entirely successfully led the

campaign in the early 1980s to prevent BT from being privatised.

I am retiring from my day job at the end of this month, so presiding over this

conference will be one of my last acts before I step down and taking on what

looks like becoming a fulltime job as a trustee of the BT Pension Scheme.

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