GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

so that this could be spoken about by everybody to everyone and within this

open forum the stigma hanging over our heads and small suitable adjustments

to the workplace, quiet places so that we can go and reflect and take our time

to do so, it is not much to ask, it really is not. We are not asking for the world,

we are just asking for that small portion. With so many being affected, please,

think about your female colleagues, your sisters, your wives and all of those

that will be affected by this and please support our motion. I move. (Applause)

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Keeley, and I should say that Keeley is

also stepping down from the EC at the moment and let us hope we see you

again in GFTU committees soon. Can I have a seconder for that motion,

please.

BRO JOE SIMPSON (POA): Chair, brothers and sisters, Joe Simpson, Deputy

General Secretary of the POA. I am absolutely delighted to second this

motion, because this is something that the POA have been asking the Prison

Service for for the last five years. Our colleagues, or the best part of our

colleagues, have to do a fitness test and because of the way that the Prison

Service recruit, we get a lot of prison officers who are of the age of the

menopause and have to do a fitness test. We have asked the Prison Service

every year to allow our sisters who have to do the fitness test who are going

through the menopause to be given a pass for that year, because when they go

along to do the fitness test, their blood pressure is taken and their heart rate is

taken, but whenever anybody goes for a fitness test anywhere your heart rate

and your blood pressure is a little bit elevated anyway, because you are

worried, because if you fail it, you come under the inefficiency route out of the

job. You only get three chances to pass it. If the blood pressure is higher than

what they believe it should be for you to do the fitness test, that is classed as a

fail.

So we are absolutely delighted that this has come along and we commend you

for bringing it as well. At the last meeting that I went to there was myself and

Terry Fullerton, two men, and across from the table from the Prison Service

were three women and they never budged, not once. They put everything in

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