Brexit may have dominated the political headlines over the last year or so, but 2018 has been about that and a lot more for GMB politics.
We’ve continued to see members’ voices and experiences at the heart of our political campaigns. Whether it is shipbuilders fighting for the future of the industry and our union leading the way for Labour’s policy commitment to build Royal Navy ships here in the UK - or brave ambulance members like Sarah Kelly who shared her horrific experiences on the frontline which led to a change of law which will now see all emergency workers receive greater protections at work – GMB has sought to ensure that the voice of working people is heard by politicians at every level.
Although it is harder to achieve without a Labour government we have managed to use politics to change some things for the better. The first of hopefully many more businesses are already lining up to sign GMB’s newly launched workplace charter on Domestic Abuse, ensuring that employees experiencing domestic abuse don’t lose out at work.
We’ve lead the political argument against the dangers of the gig economy and insecure work with our Amazon campaign.
We paved the way on taking the water industry back into public hands, which saw Jeremy Corbyn sign up to our pledges to Take Back the Tap at Congress.
And the second law we have successfully worked to change in 2018 was to help our members in foster care. Our foster care members will now be entitled to the same bereavement rights as parents.
Breaking the Westminster bubble takes work from all sides, building on our network of politicians and using the experience of members. We’ve organised members speaking in front of select committees, had numerous lobbies in Parliament, parliamentary debates on specific GMB issues, frontbench Labour MPs visit workplaces and ensured that the MPs we work with know what matters to our members every step of the way.
Over the last year we have worked with politicians to ensure GMB members’ values, aims and needs are heard loud and clear. But our work is far from over, with the future ever more uncertain and a divided Tory government, we will need to fight just as hard next year.
