Are you or were you in a Union?

CWU been in for nearly 30 plus years and as Redwurzel posts above I use it as an insurance and hope I never need to use them.
 
Only the Merchant Navy & Airline Officers Association but that was ages ago.

I was in the NNAOA and it's successor NUMAST from when I started as a cadet in 78 until 2015 when they let me down for the last time & I stopped paying my subs.

When I started union membership was compulsory across the industry, if you weren't in one you didn't work.

For the entire time I was in it they were absolutely useless & like most of the people I knew I only remained in for the legal protection.

I think unions are a great idea and can be really useful but they must be run for the members not the union officials.
 
CWU been in for nearly 30 plus years and as Redwurzel posts above I use it as an insurance and hope I never need to use them.
Same for 18 yrs, and when I needed them they were absolutely useless. Their poor advice almost cost me £24k that I was due. I had my solicitor act in the end and they sorted it with one letter.
 
It was part of work experience so probably around 1979/80

It was only about a month but one of the longest in my life
One of my uncles was a manager there - he was made redundant at the end of 1981 when the workforce dropped to about 500 from 1200 a couple of years earlier. He never minced his words and was always conscientious, so I guess he was pushed out for rocking some boats probably with the other managers and some of the workers. He had 20 successful years after leaving them.

When did the factory move to Poland?
 
One of my uncles was a manager there - he was made redundant at the end of 1981 when the workforce dropped to about 500 from 1200 a couple of years earlier. He never minced his words and was always conscientious, so I guess he was pushed out for rocking some boats probably with the other managers and some of the workers. He had 20 successful years after leaving them.

When did the factory move to Poland?
No idea but what was happening when I was there was unsustainable so it was inevitable.
 
GMB for around 19years, the last 4 as shop steward. I’ll probably never join a union again, whenever I needed their support they were useless. When I was shop steward it was ‘in house’ so I had senior stewards above me and they just stank of corruption.
I was in a metal worker union way back in late 90s and they lost my job through last in first out, the GMB rolled over whilst fire and rehire was instigated.
I career changed so don’t really see myself in a collective anymore.
 
FBU , who were fantastic sorting out bullying issues by management. Although the 30k fire pay strikes of 2002 weren't so successful, not sure who thought that we could win a 40% pay rise!!!
 
FBU , who were fantastic sorting out bullying issues by management. Although the 30k fire pay strikes of 2002 weren't so successful, not sure who thought that we could win a 40% pay rise!!!
I was the Regional co-ordinator during the 2002 strikes, which actually dragged into 2004. We never, ever registered an actual claim for 40%. An independent report was commissioned by the Labour Research Department to look at our job description, the roles we were expected to perform and to compare them against other jobs. The LRD report said that 30K was the going rate for the job. We presented that report to the Employers, but did not make a specific claim, we said to them have a read and make us an offer to put to our members. The employers eventually offered 16.6% over two and a half years. We then agreed to put that to a vote and virtually everyone I spoke to would have accepted that.

Gordon Brown then shafted the deal and it took us about another 18 months to get back to where we were in November 2002. Incidentally, if we had kept with the old Pay Formula, we would have had a pay rise of around 7% over those two and a half years, so we got over double what we would have.

As to the bullying issues, it seemed at one point that that's all we were dealing with in the few years following the pay dispute, certainly in 3 of the 4 Brigades in our Region, my annual car mileage almost tripled from 2002 onwards.

I might be seeing you on the picket lines again very shortly.
 
Started off in The National Union of Blastfurnacemen, Ore Miners, Coke Workers and Kindred Trades, in the 80’s
Finished off the The Community Union over thirty years later.
 
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