GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

MOTION 5 – GFTU RULE CHANGE – GENERAL SECRETARY AND TREASURER’S SELECTION

SIS CLAIRE JONES (Society of Union Employees): Good morning, conference.

Claire Jones, Society of Union Employees. Last week at SUE conference we

had a number of rule changes and they were a bit like Doug’s more popular

auction items inasmuch as they reached treble figures, so I was quite relieved

to just see three on this agenda. We made a large number of rule changes, not

because we were doing anything wrong, but because our rule book no longer

reflected who we are or what we are doing.

I would like to draw conference’s attention to line 3 of Rule 15(h) which refer to

“his” duties. Elsewhere in the rule book, and I promise you I am not a rule

geek, we do refer to “his” and “her”; for example, in Rule 18(a). So,

conference, we need to update not just this rule, but I think we need to review

the language that we are using in our rule book to ensure that it is non-gender

specific. We all understand the power of words to influence, the power of

words to form opinions and the power of words to create impressions and we

heard yesterday from Shout Out about some of the fantastic work that they are

doing with young people and they specifically talked about LGBT plus young

people and it is those young people that are the leaders of the future, so when

they look to the GFTU and they look at, “Where is my place in this?” it may well

be on the top table in the future, as lovely as they are, that we have people that

do not just identify as female or male, but also identify as nonbinary.

Rita Mae Brown, a leading feminist and LGBT activist, said: “Language is the

road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they

are going”. So I would encourage conference and the Executive to amend the

language used in this specific rule and to review the rule book to reflect the

inclusivity and diversity of the GFTU and its members. Thank you. (Applause)

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much for pointing that out. It is quite obvious

when you read it. You know what the problem is. With all unions’ rule books

they are so old some of them and they do need revising. If we immediately

amend that first example you gave in the third line of Rule 15(h) to “his/her” and

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