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1 Gmb Congress 2016 GMB CONGRESS 2016 …………………… SIS. MARY TURNER MBE (President) (In the Chair) ……………………… Held in: Bournemouth International Centre, Bournemouth on: Sunday, 5th June 2016 Monday, 6th June 2016 Tuesday 7th June 2016 (Sectional Conferences) Wednesday, 8th June 2016 and Thursday 9th June 2016 ……………………………… PROCEEDINGS DAY ONE (Sunday, 5th June 2016) …………………………….. (Transcript prepared by: Marten Walsh Cherer Limited, 1st Floor, Quality House, 6-9 Quality Court, Chancery Lane. London WC2A 1HP. email: [email protected]) ................................................... 1 FIRST DAY’S PROCEEDINGS SUNDAY, 5TH JUNE 2016 MORNING SESSION (Congress assembled at 9.30 a.m.) CALL TO ORDER THE PRESIDENT (Mary Turner): Good morning, Congress. Will Congress please come to order. BANNER CEREMONY THE PRESIDENT: We are now going to move into the Banner Ceremony. For those of you who are here for the first time, the Banner Ceremony is the traditional opening of Congress. This year Birmingham Region will be forming the Banner Party with the National Banner, and we also welcome Regional Banners and the Unity Banner into the Hall. Please stand to greet the National Banner. (Congress was upstanding for the Banner Party to the singing and music of Jerusalem) (Applause) Congress, I want to thank all of those involved with the Banner Ceremony because they came to the Hall earlier this morning and yesterday to practise. Well done to all of you. VIDEO MONTAGE THE PRESIDENT: Colleagues, we start with a short video showing events and campaigns from the last year. (Video Montage shown) (Applause) THE PRESIDENT: Very good, and well done to all the regions that participated. I am going to eat that Gingerbread man before I leave Congress this year. You will find details of the fire and evacuation procedures on page 119 in the Final Agenda and Congress Guide document. Please take time to look at these and familiarise yourself with your nearest exits. We practised last night in our hotel at 2 o‘clock this morning. Unite will do anything to stop our Congress. (Laughter) If the BIC Operations Manager comes into the hall to the stage it will be to announce an evacuation. Please listen carefully. WELCOME TO DELEGATES AND VISITORS THE PRESIDENT: Congress, I would now like to introduce the members of the platform. On my right is my right-hand, the Vice President, Malcolm Sage, and sitting next to him is our European Officer, who will be assisting the Vice President, Kathleen Walker Shaw. Welcome Kathleen. On my left is the our General Secretary and Treasurer, Tim Roache (Cheers and applause), and in case he needs advice, sitting next to him is Maria Ludkin, our Legal Director, and also someone who works extremely hard with her team to make this Congress run is Ida Clemo, Executive Policy Officer. Well done to all of you. (Applause) Congress, could I please welcome the following guests and visitors. I would like to welcome ex-Regional Secretary Allan Garley from Wales and the South West. I hope you‘ve got your phone on, Allan. We also welcome Vic Baines. It is good to see you back and in good health. Vic is from the Midland & East Coast Region. I welcome 2 Billy Smithy and Paul Evans from the North West & Irish Region, and Frank Rowberry, Wales & South West. Of course, a very warm welcome to our verbatim shorthand writers, Phyllis Hilder and Michael Thear. They have been doing this for years. I don‘t know how, sometimes, they even understand the names. Could I ask you, when you do come to the platform, to help them and us, to give your name clearly and your region. That would be appreciated. Could I remind all delegates that ALL Congress sessions are transmitted live on GMB Congress TV, so watch your words. This means that your speech will be shown live over the internet through the GMB National website, so please don‘t use any inappropriate language, unless I‘ve used it first. Also mention if you are a first-time speaker. I ask delegates to take a moment that you have the following three important documents: Firstly, the one page Delegate Outline Programme. Next we have the Income & Expenditure Report. These are the Annual Accounts. Lastly, we have the Final Agenda & Congress Guide. Do we all have those documents? (Agreed) This document gives you all the information you need on motions, fringe meetings and the exhibition, and you will also need this on Tuesday when you go to your Section Conference. All Congress documents are printed on environmentally-friendly paper. Free tea and coffee is available from the Café in the Solent Hall Exhibition Area. This has been sponsored by TU Fund Manager, Leigh Day Solicitors, Vivid, TU ink and Netrix. So thank them very much every time you have a cuppa. I would also like to thank our other sponsors, who are UnionLine for lanyards, wallets and the T-shirts; Pellacraft for the Congress notepads in your wallets; LV for the water in the Hall and Organise Consulting for sponsoring the GMB Internet Café. Please make sure, Congress, that you visit these areas and to thank them. ROLL CALL THE PRESIDENT: Could all Regional Secretaries, please, notify the Congress Office of any changes to their delegations. OBITUARIES THE PRESIDENT: I now call on Congress to stand in silence as a mark of respect for departed GMB colleagues. Names will be shown on the screen and a copy of the Obituary List is on page 118 of the Final Agenda & Congress Guide. Additional names not on the printed list are: Tommy Grimes, the founder of the Jim Connell Society, who addressed Congress last year. Tommy was a great friend of the GMB. He kept going until he found where Jim Connell was buried in County Meath. With the Union, we opened a memorial in his honour. I always called ―Tommy the Commie‖. He was a wonderful man who stood for principles that we all admire, him, his wife, Anne, and the family. We send them our most sincere condolences and wish them well without their Tommie the Commie. Could I also pay tribute to Ann McLaren, a member of GMB Scotland, who was a CEC member, a devoted trade unionist and a really lovely, lovely person. Ann will be missed so dreadfully in the region and by her family. We do send them our condolences and wish them well also for the future. 3 TRIBUTE TO JOHN COPE I now come to someone who has been my mentor as long as I have been in this Union. He was the London Regional Secretary, his name was John Cope who guided many of us, including Paul Kenny, who is in the room, and many, many others— officers, trade unionists and activists —to make this Union a great union, and particularly in this Congress where democracy would rule he and he alone made sure that you, you in this hall today, like we were, mandated to vote for resolutions that we did not believe in. John Cope, when he spoke — I just wish that our young members could hear the speeches that he made — he took on the Executive with great power and taught many of us to do the same. I worked with that man. I became very close friends with him and his family for most of my working life. John Cope was the GMB and the GMW through and through. When Perivale branch resolutions were on the agenda, we were proud to listen to a man who cared very, very deeply about honesty and everything that we respect. He stood for months outside Hoovers with other trade unionists on behalf of the GMB on strike to make sure that the women in the factory that they worked in got the same rights of pension as the men did. That was the stature of that man. He will be missed dreadfully by London and by all of us who knew that man. I am in close contact with his family and always will be, because John Cope was my trade union man. Thank you, colleagues. Would you now, please, stand? (Congress stood in silent tribute) APPOINTMENT OF TWO TELLERS THE VICE PRESIDENT (Malcolm Sage): Could I now inform Congress that the names of the Regional Tellers who have been appointed are now being shown on the screen. Could I, please, emphasise that Tellers must remain in the Congress Hall whilst Congress is in session and that delegates must be in their allotted seats when a vote is taken. Could I also welcome the General Member Auditors, who will be supervising the counting of votes. They are John Swainson from the Northern Region, and Andy Burgin from the Midland Region. Delegates, if you could, please, look down at your Congress credentials, and if it says the word ―Delegate‖ on it then you are able to vote. All others in the Hall are not eligible to vote. CONFIRMATION OF STANDING ORDERS COMMITTEE THE VICE PRESIDENT: The members of the Standing Orders Committee and the CEC observers are now being shown on the screen. THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Malcolm. Could I congratulate Helen Johnson on her election as Chair of the Standing Orders Committee for the ninth time. Well done, Helen. (Applause) 4 STANDING ORDERS COMMITTEE REPORT NO. 1 SIS. HELEN JOHNSON (Chair, Standing Orders Committee): President and Congress, as your Standing Orders Committee Chair, I formally move SOC Report No. 1. President and Congress, you will find a copy of SOC Report No. 1 in your Final Agenda, starting at page 24. I formally move adoption of that report and, in doing so, the SOC would like to thank the delegates and their regional secretaries for agreeing the 15 composite motions that also appear in your Final Agenda, starting at page 93.
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