GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

the Psychotherapy and Counselling Union, our strapline is “Standing up for

therapists and therapy”. We have got members who are self-employed, we

have got members who are in the NHS, we have got lots and lots of trainees.

There is a massive issue with trainees volunteering and actually having to pay

for their own expenses, their own supervision, pay, pay, pay, and support a lot

of other organisations and that is almost, I will not say unique, but really stands

out in our sector, so that is something we are trying to change. Maybe that will

do for now. I just wanted to say we are here. (Applause)

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Sasha. You are very welcome and we

hope to welcome your union into the GFTU family very soon. Thank you.

Take our best wishes back to your union. Now we will move on to education,

so I will ask the General Secretary to introduce this debate.

THE EDUCATIONAL TRUST AND THE GFTU’S WORK ON EDUCATION

THE GENERAL SECRETARY: Thanks. This, I hope, is going to be a wide ranging

discussion and debate about education in its broadest sense. There are many

colleagues in the room who play a leading role in progressive education and

we hope they will come up and add to this discussion so that people get a real

impression of the range of education issues that we are part of and leading and

helping along. Many, many workers have had their only post-16 education

through the GFTU education programme and it is always great to recognise

that fact, particularly at a time when we have seen the ravages of austerity in

adult education from local authorities and from university extension courses

practically collapsed and there have been lots of difficulties also, of course, for

trade union education. But if we are to do something about the 26 million

workers who are not part of the trade union movement, education is going to

play an increasing role. We have had an Educational Trust for 40 years now

and we have offered this year as part of our celebrations of 120 years our

biggest education programme ever which is contained in that document

Education for Action. You can see it on the website as well.

We have also now opened our own classrooms at our offices in Quorn. That is

a first as well. Historically for the last 40 years the GFTU has been paying

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