Awards, activists and ... Arsenal

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StartFragment5000 years of service - Glasgow long service awards

I was delighted to be invited to GMB Scotland this month to present long service awards to our proud craftspeople who joined the boilermaker union back in the day. In total, there were over 5000 years of GMB membership in the room, which is astonishing! It was absolutely fantastic to see old friends from the shipyards meeting up once more and the sense of comradeship and pride in our union was very obvious to everyone. Alongside GMB Scotland Secretary, Gary Smith and GMB Scotland President, Jim Lennox, I shook each and every hand and each member was presented with a certificate and badge. One member particularly stood out. Mr Leighton has 80 years of GMB membership and was a steward back in Will Thorne’s days. He has some stories to tell!

Out and about

I try to be out and about as much as possible, visiting branches and workplaces. This month I have addressed the Regional Committees of Wales and South West and North West and Irish Regions about 2017 performance and the challenges we face in 2018. Some excellent points were made in debate and I look forward to visiting more regional committees next month. I was delighted as ever to be invited back to my old region for the Branch Activist Weekend. Bigger than ever, over 200 activists met in Leeds to look at the past year, plan for the year ahead and to take part in workshops. I addressed the full session and took questions from the floor on everything from Carillion to our planned new website and retention of members.

Sessions during the two day event included a workshop on how to develop good branch communications, tackling sexual harassment, why we organise politically and branch organising. Thank you to regions for the invites. Next stop - National Equality Conference in Clydebank!

Fighting racism and the far right

Tackling racism is core to our values as GMB members. I’m a proud supporter of Show Racism the Red Card, it’s a charity I feel especially connected to because of my love of the ‘beautiful game’ (although lately I’m not sure what Arsenal are doing could be classed as beautiful!) I grew up in and around football. I played semi-pro for a bit. Taking football as just one example in society, it’s clear to see how far we’ve come but how far we still have to go. Show Racism the Red Card (SRtRC) do fantastic community work. The event I attended with Jeremy Corbyn was a showcase as to why GMB supports the organisation. Hundreds of school kids came to an event at the Emirates stadium, joined by Jeremy, by artists, former players and people from the music industry, all in the name of education and tackling the evils of racism and hate crime. It’s easy to throw the term around, but it really was inspirational. Given what’s happening in the world, it’s easy to miss or forget the good - this was a nice reminder on a very cold winter day. As an added bonus, this old Gooner fan got to meet the legendary Michael Thomas - he scored the winning goal (with almost the last kick of the match) to clinch the league for Arsenal against Liverpool at Anfield in 1989. EndFragment

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