What is the leadership of the GMB up to now??

VINCE CABLE SHOULD NOT BE SPEAKING AT OUR CONGRESS 

 Some Brighton GMB members are quite correctly furious at this invite. Holly Smith of Brighton GMB union and Brighton Stop the Cuts writes regarding a protest this coming Monday against ConDem Business Secretary Vince Cable being invited to speak at the GMB's annual conference:

This Government has launched a massive attack on the trade union movement, public services, and working class people, and we are appalled that we should sit and take a lecture from one of the ConDem’s leading figures. When it was proposed that Cameron speak at the TUC Conference this rightly outraged the trade union movement and the furore eventually forced him to pull out.

Apart from the outright assaults on public sector jobs, pay, pensions, and terms and conditions, Business Secretary Cable and his cronies are proposing to water down workers’ rights by raising qualifying periods for employment tribunals to two years, are considering bringing in fees for a claim, and making first stage compulsory mediation with ACAS essential. This will deprive workers of the right to justice, and undermines the very role of trade unions in defending our members.

Having Cable on a platform is simply a publicity opportunity for a man whose Government is hell-bent on destroying our movement. Our Congress should be a platform for mobilising the co-ordinated fightback against the attacks on our jobs, pensions, services, and living standards. His speech at our Congress won’t be an opportunity to ‘have a dialogue’ with him, or ‘put our point of view’; it will just be a public platform for a member of the anti-worker Government to argue his case. Our union should be ‘putting our point of view’ to the Government by balloting our members who are facing attacks due to his Government’s austerity program.

Some GMB members will be boycotting this event and walking out, or holding placards to express our point of view. Please join us.

BrightonStopTheCuts@yahoogroups.co.uk

The GMB activists want to make it clear that they are protesting at Cable himself, and the Government he is part of, NOT the GMB or its members.