Joanne Thomas thanks Usdaw women, past and present, and all who helped her break the glass ceiling

Joanne Thomas – Usdaw general secretary said: Standing here today, it's hard to put into words exactly how it feels to address you as your General Secretary. I've been coming to this ADM since 1998, when I was a young rep with that fire in my belly. A working mam who wanted a better deal for my colleagues and a better world for my daughter Abbie. It seems like another lifetime, but that fire has never gone out and today it burns brighter than ever.

“Becoming your General Secretary is the most incredible honour and privilege and I'd like to start by thanking my predecessor, Paddy Lillis. A great friend, and inspiration, who did so much for our Union and who has been incredibly supportive to me and Rab personally. We’ve had such fantastic support from right across the Union too. Rab and I have both worked so hard every day, and will continue to do so, to live up to the trust that has been placed in us and to go above and beyond what’s expected from us. 

“It has been a particular honour, and responsibility, to be elected as Usdaw's first woman General Secretary. It’s not just a personal victory, it’s a collective one. So I want to pay tribute to all the women in Usdaw, who paved this incredible path that I now get to walk down. The women I know and have been inspired by throughout my Usdaw journey, but also, the women who shaped Usdaw so many years ago, long before any of us were born. Women like Ellen Wilkinson, Margaret Bondfield, and Mary McArthur, women whose names I see on the walls in Head Office every day, who were born in a time when we could not even vote and yet they organised workers, they fought for change and they helped to build this union.

“When we have lived with barriers, we understand struggle, but we know that many workers still face many barriers. Confidence gaps, the challenges of juggling caring responsibilities and work, discrimination and class bias. But these challenges create leaders with empathy, resilience and fire, leaders who will listen deeply, leaders who will fight with purpose. I will fight with purpose. 
I will never forget that I would not be standing here without those women who came before me and that I would not be standing here without the people in this room, my Usdaw family.

“A family where we take care of each other and turn to each other for help, where we teach each other and learn from each other, where we laugh, and cry, and everything in between. A family that is sometimes slightly dysfunctional! Where we might have disagreements around the family table, but where we are always stronger together. That's what Usdaw is to me, and I know that so many of you feel the same way.

“As we meet here in the beautiful Winter Gardens, where so many generations of this wonderful family of ours have met before, I think about the generations that will follow. I think about the future members who have yet to step into the world of work. I think about the future activists who will shape our Union and about the person, who may well be sitting in this room who will one day stand here as your General Secretary. And I think that although one glass ceiling may have been smashed last July, my job is to make sure that we keep on smashing glass ceilings, so that our union is truly representative, so that nobody is held back, so that we don't just do what we've always done and get what we've always got.

“My promise to all of you and to those Usdaw members of the future, is that this is not the end of a journey, it's the start of one. It might not be an easy journey, 
but we will take it together, step by step. Because leadership isn’t about titles to me. It’s about stepping up. We need people who know what real work looks like, who will continue to lead in the dark times as well as the good. So together we look towards a bigger, better and brighter future. I look forward to sharing this next step with a fantastic, positive, first conference.”