A stunning majority - 88% - voted in favour of Connect merging with Prospect. It's not known how many ballots the CWU delayed due to strikes. Adrian Askew, Connect's General Secretary, said: I am delighted that our members have strongly backed plans to merge with Prospect. This promises an exciting future and we look forward to working closely with colleagues in Prospect, sharing our expertise and our innovative approaches to trade unionism to represent and protect our members. While it w…
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At the Connect Biennial Conference, I proudly stated the case for Connect's merger with the Prospect Union. Our other choice was the CWU. Unions - in the UK at least - are democratic structures. What gets proposed at conference has to be approved by a majority vote of members - not just those who could take a few days off to go to Blackpool. Casting My Ballot The irony is that the strikers at the CWU will be delaying our votes from reaching their destination. I'm sure the bad press and…
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At the Connect Conference in Blackpool we voted to merge our union with Prospect. The other potential merger was with CWU. There's a plethora of articles about the CWU ruining businesses. Is this really the union people want representing them? Let's face facts, the postal service is dying. I literally can't remember I posted a letter. Email does for me. To tie our fortunes to a sector which is rapidly vanishing is madness. Some talk of the synergies between CWU and BT. Well, that may ha…
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I'm still writing up my notes from the Connect Biennial Conference in Blackpool which I hope to turn into a full post this week. However, I found an anonymous article in the Socialist Worker decrying the merger vote. Socialist Worker accept comments for publication in the paper, but not on their website, so here's the response I emailed them. Dear Sir, I was a delegate at the Connect Conference. I must take issue with your statement "The whole weight of the union machine was used to force …
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Terry Eden (Connect) speaking in support of Composite Motion 10. I want to focus on public procurement and the role it can play in driving forward social and environmental goals and, in particular, raising labour standards. The money public authorities spend on buying goods and services amounts to £108 billion every year from major capital projects to buying office stationery. Our public money supports private business. It is right that our public money should be used to encourage the private …
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