GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

Not to mention the work that unions do day in/day out in terms of bargaining,

dealing with individual cases, recruiting new workers, including increasingly

workers in the so-called ‘gig’ economy. I prefer to refer to outright exploitation.

‘gig’ economy sounds almost cheerful when, frankly, it is anything but; Saving

jobs. Look at what, for example, Community has done in the steel industry, but

that is just one (important) example amongst many.

For those who say the movement is in decline, I say the evidence is only too

clear that it is not. It might get a very bad press from organisations with an axe

to grind, but day in/day out we achieve a great deal for our members. Being a

union activist can be difficult, it can be stressful, it can be very challenging, but

it is incredibly rewarding. I think I have got the best job in the world and I

suspect that most of you think the same. I think we need to be much more

optimistic as a movement and I think that we achieve day in/day out in a way

that gives us every right to be optimistic, but we could do with a much better

economic and political environment.

This is the fifth richest country in the world. It is absurd that we have a

collapsing health service, decimated local government, actually worse than

decimated. “Decimation” implies a 10% reduction, but what is happening to

local government services is far worse than that. Education cuts so savage that some schools are unlikely to survive. Food banks. Food banks in the 5 th

richest country in the world. A more than doubling of rough sleepers in four

years. House prices and rents now so high that in many parts of the country

we are now embarking on, arguably, the most severe housing crisis since

Cathy Come Home in the 1960s. Cuts to benefits so drastic that they are

killing people. A criminal justice system so beleaguered that justice itself is

clearly impossible for many. In every sense, by the way. It is our people,

working people, who are often the victims of crime. A world where war is

horrifyingly endemic. My earliest political activism included protesting against

the Vietnam War. The world situation now is far worse than it was then. How is

that even possible?

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