GMB

Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB general union, used his speech to the GMB congress in Blackpool (15 June) to call for the Labour Party to select "fresh working-class candidates that people can relate to". He called on the Labour Party "to help with the process of rebuilding trust with not bankers but bakers, butchers, bricklayers, and bus and tram drivers; and god preserve us from any more solicitors in the House of Commons. We do not want solicitors, we want security workers, steelworkers, supermarket workers, school support staff, and no more consultants. How about a few carers?...

There were some definite positives to the 16 May “March for Jobs” organised by Unite in central Birmingham. The turnout — up to 8,000 people, mostly rank-and-file workers — was bigger than many marchers were expecting. Unite seeming to have done a decent job of mobilising in workplaces. There were contingents from the Longbridge plant in Birmingham, as well as from steelworkers in Teesside, Visteon workers and Latin American cleaners from London. Other unions, most notably Unison, were also visibly present. The very fact that the demonstration took place at all is encouraging. A contrast to...

Alan Fraser is a GMB union official involved in helping migrant workers organise. He spoke to Solidarity. Recent events — and not just recent events, the last few years — demonstrate that we need stronger links with European unions and other unions internationally. We need an international union card that is transferrable and can be used wherever you are working. As regards the “Posted Workers' Directive”, I understand that some of the union leaders made some quite serious points about it around the Warwick Agreement [of 2004, between the union leaders and the Labour Party leaders]. But the...

For unions to be slack about fighting for higher wages is one thing. For unions to campaign for lower wages is quite another. But that is the new proposal from GMB general secretary Paul Kenny, a supposed left-winger. "It is difficult", so Kenny told the Financial Times (15/12/08), "for union officials to stand up in front of members and recommend that they should lose pay". But Kenny is not daunted. "It is much easier just to say 'No, no, no' to employers. But it must be an adult dialogue... "We must consider all the available tools in the box to keep companies viable and save jobs". The...

As we go to press (20 August 2008) a 24-hour strike action by local government workers, members of UNISON, UNITE, and the GMB is taking place. The same day PCS members employed by the Scottish Government and Registers of Scotland, are staging a follow-up 24-hour strike. Both strikes are about below-inflation pay offers for workers in the public sector. The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has offered local authority workers a three-year pay-deal, with pay going up by just 2.5% each year. Scottish Ministers have offered for Scottish government employees just 2%. These pay offers...

Drivers who work on a contact for Shell Oil were offered a 14% pay increase over two years after four days of strike action. The increase may be worth 9% in the first year and 5% in the second, taking average annual earnings to £41,750 — it’s not clear because contracts are due to be renewed in a year. The sucessful strike was well supported with drivers from other companies, like BP, who are also Unite members refusing to cross picket lines and even the independent drivers who aren’t in the union supported the strike. Workers on the picket line told Solidarity the dispute has been building up...

According to the Daily Mail, “the GMB trade union has already taken the extraordinary step of discussing at its last executive council meeting whether its two representatives on Labour's ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) should be indemnified against financial loss in the event Labour goes bankrupt”. David Pitt-Watson, a City financier whom Labour's Executive appointed as the party's new general secretary after immense pressure for the decision was applied by Gordon Brown, has already refused the appointment after looking at Labour's accounts and saying that he is worried that he might...

A fortnight after the Grangemouth oil refinery was shut down by strike action, talks continue between refinery owners (INEOS) and UNITE. The strike by the 1,200 union members was in defence of the refinery’s final salary pension scheme, inherited by INEOS from the refinery’s previous owners (BP). INEOS wanted to close the scheme to new staff, force existing employees to pay 6% of their salaries into the scheme, and financially penalise workers who opted for early retirement. Calculated on an hourly basis, the strike was the costliest industrial action in British history. Despite its relatively...

A House of Lords Committee headed by former CBI president, Lord Vallance of Tummel, has attacked the government in a report "The Economic Impact of Migration". The committee claims that immigration has had "little or no [economic] impact" in contrast to claims by Immigration Minister, Liam Byrne, that £6bn has been brought into the economy by migration. The Tories, Lib Dems and Sir Andrew Green from the right-wing MigrationWatch organisation have all jumped on the issue. Green claimed that the report has "torn to shreds the government's economic case for the massive levels of immigration which...