John Robertson
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Organising out of decline – The rebuilding of the UK and Ireland shop stewards movement - 19/12/2007 18:47
This thread discusses the Content article: Organising out of decline – The rebuilding of the UK and Ireland shop stewards movement
Is this about the things called T&G branches, which have a wilfully cumbersome voting system designed so that only the committee themselves are likely to vote, or is this about the T&G shop stewards, who may be working without any budget and be exasperated by lack of help by paid officials or lawyers to their members.
My experience may not be typical, but in South London the two groups showed little in common. One had a large budget and a foreighn policy. Another had the endless grind & stress of negotiating with colleagues un-aided while over-worked in their main jobs. One group was interested in members who got the sack. The other group told me that "the web site may say that we offer legal insurance, but that is a mistake." "A union is not the fifth emergency service; a union is about solidarity". One group knew about one particular employer. Another knew about the Byzantine internal committees of the T&G lay activists.
Until all the hundreds of members of a branch can read the branch budget and vote for budget-holders online, I do not see these two worlds getting any closer.
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