GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

a call at that meeting from the affiliates to see whether there was any way in

which we could put something together on the legal front, not just employment

advice, but across the board, which could be a bit pick and mix for unions, most

of whom have got their own relationships, of course, but there are some gaps,

so it is a sort of pick and mix approach for unions to dip into, but also most of

our unions cannot sustain a 24 hour helpline, so we were asked to see if we

could find a way of beginning to do that through the GFTU. Our colleagues

and Paul and David Sorensen at Morrish Solicitors have spent a very careful

two years thinking of ways in which we could meet those demands from that

summit and it is a great pleasure to introduce Paul Scholey who is the Senior

Partner at Morrish to say what they have come up with for us.

PAUL SCHOLEY: Thanks, Doug. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for giving me

the opportunity to say a few words about the proposal. Hopefully everyone has

a copy of this . There should be enough copies on the tables to go round. As I

promised last night, I will be brief. I am very pleased to be able to introduce

what I think is a unique proposal. We are proud to act already for a number of

affiliates to the GFTU, so we act now for TSSA, for Aegis, for NASS, for SWU

for the Artist Union and I am very pleased to say that as of last month also for

the Musicians Union.

We looked, as Doug said, back in autumn 2015 together at the summit in

relation to the question of shared services and, plainly, what we are offering

here will not be for everybody. I know that people have good relationships with

their existing lawyers and will want to continue with them. We are not

suggesting that we can replace all those things, although it would be nice to do

so and I see that given that the Sky News headline this morning is “Theresa

May promises to advance workers’ rights” then I figure I can say pretty much

anything today and get away with it!

We worked largely with Doug and talking to our existing clients about the sort

of services they would like to see offered and what we have developed is set

out here and I am not going to take you through the whole document, hopefully

it is straight forward. I will say, if I may, just four key things about it. Firstly,

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