Welcome to the branch “Blog” which aims to become a new way of speaking to members and reaching out to potential new ones. (That is not to say that tried and trusted methods will be set aside, quite the opposite.)
To introduce myself: I’m Derek Baldwin and I was recently elected as the Publicity Officer for the branch. I’ve previously served as a steward for Unite, at a time when the company I was working for was being taken over by a much larger one. There was lots of argument about terms and conditions, TUPE was the phrase on everyone’s lips, and when our intranet site (which I edited) refused to pull its punches it was summarily shut down! Ironically the day I was made redundant was also the day the union was officially derecognised by the new managers.
I’ve worked at the University for about 14 months and from what I’ve seen industrial relations at the University seem a great deal more harmonious than those I’ve described above. My priority will basically be to keep spreading the word and building on the brilliant work of my predecessors in this role, who I’m sure I’ll be looking to for advice and support. Ideas and suggestions will be very welcome indeed!
That’s enough from me, but before closing this first post here’s a quick reminder about the film event tomorrow at the Gulbenkian, as publicised at the branch AGM earlier this month. Happy Lands is set between the two World Wars and depicts how austerity cuts imposed by the British government of the day are opposed by ordinary citizens, and it sounds completely relevant to the contemporary UK: http://www.kent.ac.uk/gulbenkian/cinema/films/2013/april/2013-04-the-happy-lands.html
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