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GENERAL SECRETARY SPEAKS TO BFAWU ULR CONFERENCE 2009

Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2009

ADDRESS TO BFAWU ULR CONFERENCE 2009

Chair, Colleagues,

Thank you very much indeed for the opportunity to be with you this week-end. I bring fraternal greetings from your colleagues in the General Federation of Trade Unions.

I was fortunate enough to be with you at your 2008 ULR Conference in Blackpool and gained a valuable insight into the remarkable work that you do for your members. No union in the UK, in my view, invests more money per member than your Union in education and training and I congratulate everybody involved in BFAWU for that.

Education and Training is without doubt, one of the most important elements in developing a successful, effective Union such as yours. To be able to empower Representatives and members in this way is crucial if we in the Trades Union movement wish to remain relevant for working people in the 21st Century. To have informed, skilled, motivated activists is, I know, your goal and it is also the objective of the GFTU.

Lifelong learning equips members to better deal with the complete society that we live in; whether at work or in any other aspect of own lives. To be able to improve literacy or numeracy skills; to give more confidence, and to equip members to deal with the day to day challenges that we all face is a wonderful contribution not only to individual direction but also to the community that we are all part of.

I hope that you have all seen the GFTU Programme for 2009. If not I have some copies with me. I know that many of you in the room have attended GFTU courses. Full details are also on our website www.gftu.org.uk . The Programme was devised following extensive consultation with affiliated Unions and valuable contributions to the Programme were made by your General Secretary and President. Joe is currently our Vice-President and from May of this year I look forward to working closely with him as President of GFTU.

We are also very pleased to be involved in a comprehensive programme of customised training for you. Full details are available from your officer. The work that we have done together on Health and Safety has been particularly satisfying to me.

Like you, we are involved in Union Learning Fund and Union Modernisation Fund projects. We also have projects under the auspices of Department for Work and Pensions and the European Union. Further bids have been made to run projects for affiliated Unions this year.

I particularly want to commend you for your work on English for Speakers of other languages and dyslexia. Both have made an enormous contribution to the understanding of these important subjects.

Thank you, once again, for the invite and I hope that you have an interesting and successful Conference.