Network Journal 2007 Issue 6 Nov/Dec

Campaigns have driven our success

I can't remember a busier year for Usdaw officials, staff, reps and members. On all fronts we have excelled. We have held two very successful Spotlight Days for the Supporting parents and carers campaign. Our national Respect Day, part of the Freedom From Fear campaign, attracted widespread interest and support from MPs and the general public.

Our recognition campaign at Marks and Spencer continues to make inroads and our efforts to stop large shops in Scotland opening on Christmas Day were passed into law earlier this year. And finally on the campaign front our Check Out Learning roadshows have been a huge success with thousands of members signing up for courses. You will see more of the these campaigns in the coming year.

Support

As you know membership has shown unprecedented growth this year but we can't sit back and expect this to continue without more hard work. That's why we will be repeating our national membership week in January and June of next year.

All area organisers will be devoting all of their time during these weeks to organise recruitment activities in all of their workplaces. They will be relying on our team of reps to support them and I would urge all activists to play a big part to give our membership figures a boost.

Fiasco

This year saw the demise of discount retailer Kwik Save. Company casualties in this sector are nothing new, but what was particularly disturbing about the Kwik Save fiasco was the way our members were left unpaid for weeks and with massive uncertainty surrounding their future.

In the end we had to take our members' claim for non-payment of wages and redundancy money through the legal process, which was very time consuming and costly. Staff also lost out on contractual redundancy pay and could only claim statutory payments which were much lower.

Since then we have met with prime minister Gordon Brown to press for changes in the law.

I'm pleased to report that we had a sympathetic hearing from the premier on a number of the points we raised. There will be more coverage of our meeting in the next issue of Network.

Confident

Finally, Kwik Save apart, it's been a great year for everyone involved in Usdaw. We are a confident, forward-looking union ready for the challenges of the coming year. On behalf of the executive council I want to wish all of our hard-working reps a happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

John Hannett
General Secretary

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