GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

The presentation was made amidst applause

THE PRESIDENT: That is lovely. I will not open them now, but they look really

good. Thank you very much, Osh. Thank you, everybody, thank you. Thank

you, Doug. (Applause) That is wonderful, thank you, and thank you for those

great speeches. I will tell you a few things about tuba players in the bar later

where you can usually find them! Okay. Thank you very much for that.

NEW AFFILIATES REPORTS – GGCA, PDA, VOICE

THE PRESIDENT: Moving on, we come now to our new affiliates and we have got

three new affiliates that it has been really exciting to have. I have already

mentioned the PDA and we will come to them in just a moment. The first one

that you have got on your running order, the Gibraltar General and Clerical

Association, are arriving later this afternoon, so they will be here for this

evening and maybe I will invite them to say a couple of words. I think it will be

Wendy that a lot of you met before from Gibraltar. It is a very interesting union

and it is great to have them in membership. Before we move on to hear about

the pharmacists and their victory with Boots I would like to introduce a very

important new affiliate, one of the education unions and it has been great for

them to join the GFTU and join in with our activities. We did have an Executive

Committee meeting at their headquarters in Derby just a few months ago. Let

me invite Deborah Lawson, the General Secretary, just to say a few words

about Voice. (Applause)

SIS DEBORAH LAWSON (Voice): Thank you very much for this opportunity and with

apologies to our friends in the Social Workers Union, because actually the

article I recently wrote for you I am using as the basis for this, because I have

only had three days’ notice or something like that, so please forgive me.

Voice represents over 20 education professionals, students from early years to

self-employed tutors and obviously teachers. Ours is a diverse union

organising a diverse profession, so we represent the whole of the education

workforce, including teachers, headteachers, lecturers, assistants, technicians,

bursars and we have nannies as well as nursery staff in the private, voluntary

and independent sector as well as within the maintained sector.

15