Transport and General Workers' Union

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"T&G" redirects here. For other uses, see T&G (disambiguation).

**T&G**

Transport and General Workers' Union
Founded	1922
Date dissolved	1 May 2007
Merged into	Unite
Members	800,000 (2006)
Country	United Kingdom, Ireland
Affiliation	TUC, STUC
Key people	Tony Woodley, general secretary
Office location	London, England
Website	www.tgwu.org.uk

Transport and General Workers' Union central office

Front door of the central office

The Transport and General Workers' Union, also known as the TGWU and the T&G, was one of the largest general trade unions in the United Kingdom and Ireland - where it was known as the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers' Union (ATGWU) - with 900,000 members (and was once the largest trade union in the world). It was founded in 1922, and its final general secretary was Tony Woodley.

In 2007 it merged with Amicus to form Unite.

1 Campaigning
2 History
3 Recent controversy
4 The future
5 Affiliations
6 General Secretaries
7 Amalgamations
8 See also
9 External links

[edit] Campaigning

On May 25, 2005, the TGWU called the Government's plans for a British national identity card 'an enormous, costly and unnecessary diversion' despite their General Secretary and other representatives supporting its inclusion in the Labour Party's 2005 manifesto.

The union spearheaded the campaign for the registration of Gangmasters in the UK, sponsoring an Act of Parliament which received the Royal Assent on 8th July 2004. [1]

In a similar vein the union is campaigning for the offence of corporate killing to be incorporated into UK law. Such a law would ensure that:

Fines imposed on convicted companies are far more punitive. Low fines will not act as a proper deterrent.
If convicted of a health and safety offence, company directors should face imprisonment
Robust legislation that would establish the crime of corporate killing in law, and ensure that company directors have a duty to safeguard the safety of their workers and the public [2]

[edit] History

At the time of its creation in 1922, the TGWU was the largest and most ambitious amalgamation brought about within trade unionism. Its structure combined regional organisation, based on Districts and Areas, with committee organisation by occupation, based on six broad Trade Groups. Trade groups are not closely linked to trades; they are elected by activists and may represent trades in clear-cut cases. Officials of the union are grouped by region, and may be asked to serve each or any trade group. The amalgamating unions were:

Docks Group

Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers' Union of Great Britain and Ireland
Labour Protection League (London, est. 1871)
National Amalgamated Coal Workers' Union of Inland and Seaborne Coal Workers (London, est. 1889)
National Amalgamated Labourers' Union of Great Britain and Ireland (Cardiff, est. 1889)
North of England Trimmers' and Teemers' Association

Waterways Group

Amalgamated Society of Watermen, Lightermen and Bargemen

Administrative, Clerical and Supervisory Group noted for an enquiry by the Certification Office in 2006 into board members who had joined the union within six months of being elected to senior post

National Association of Ships' Clerks, Grain Weighers and Coalmeters
National Union of Docks, Wharves and Shipping Staffs

Passenger Services and Road Transport (Commercial) Groups

Amalgamated Association of Carters and Motormen (Leeds, est. 1916)
Amalgamated Carters, Lurrymen and Motormen's Union (Bolton, est. 1890)
Associated Horsemen's Union (Greenock, est. 1894)
National Union of Vehicle Workers
North of Scotland Horse and Motormen's Association (Dundee, 1911)
United Vehicle Workers

General Workers' Group

The Dundee Pilots was a trade union in the United Kingdom. It merged with the Transport and General Workers' Union in 1945. The Scottish Union of Dock Labourers and National Union of Dock, Riverside and General Workers in Great Britain and Ireland initially voted not to amalgamate, but joined before the end of 1922 nonetheless. The Greenock Sugar Porters' Union, Dundee Flax and Jute Stowers' Society, National Union of British Fishermen, and Belfast Breadservers' Association had also joined before the end of the year.

Several specialised unions have voted to merge with the TGWU since its inception, the most recent being the Community and Youth Workers' Union, whose members approved the merger on 13 September 2006, with the formal merger being approved by the Trades Union Certification Officer on 8 January 2007. For a full list, see the list of TGWU amalgamations.

[edit] Recent controversy

During the last two months of 2006, the TGWU came in for criticism from arms control campaigners and environmental economists for supporting arms company BAE Systems (for whom many TGWU members work) in their attempt to suspend the Serious Fraud Office investigation into their alleged slush fund operations and corrupt dealings with Saudi officials.^{[citation needed]} Further criticism in many branches centres on the quality of their human resources & legal service, sometimes funded on a collective conditional fee. [3] The union is not registered with the financial services authority for this main part of its work - only for selling other services - [4] and has no clear contract with members to provide help at work, tending towards oral advice relayed by volunteers [5]. Not all complaints of bad service have satisfied "disgruntled members" [6] as the union leadership calls them and the union's legal director spends a proportion of the legal budget contesting claims by members and ex-members. The TGWU leadership was subject to criticism by environmentalists for rejecting lobbying representations which would allegedly have demonstrated how their members' interests lay in the potential long-term contracts in an expanded low-carbon/alternative technology sector. TGWU leader Tony Woodley co-operated fully with Lord Pottinger in arguing for short-term contracts on Eurofighter aircraft purchases by Saudi Arabia and for their continued licensing.

[edit] The future

During 2005 discussions started between the TGWU, Amicus and the GMB about the possibility of merging the three unions into one organisation with potentially 2.5 million members covering almost every sector of the economy. On 14 June 2006 the GMB Conference voted not to continue with discussions although the other two unions are proceeding, with delegates approving the proposed 'Instrument of Amalgamation' at a special conference on December 18 2006. The ballot of both unions' membership during February and early March 2007, also approved the merger. The result of the ballot was announced on 2007-03-08: 86.4% of T&G members and 70.1% of Amicus members voted to support the merger, from a turnout of 27%. The press release announced that the resulting union had the working title "New Union" and the name would be decided by a ballot of the membership.[7] However, on 2007-04-02, The Times reported that the name Unite had been chosen.[8]

The Transport and General Workers' Union is now Organising for the Future by developing a strategy for growth. Nearly one hundred organisers plan to campaign in workplaces to build union power through collective strength and change the union from a servicing and declining union to an organising and growing one. The union has had as much success as other large unions in securing Union Modernisation Grants.

[edit] Affiliations

Regions - particularly Region One which covers London, the South East and Eastern England, also have a tradition of donating to other causes as do branch committees which control a substantial proportion of membership income.

[edit] General Secretaries

[edit] Amalgamations

The list of TGWU amalgamations highlights the scale of the TGWU policy of mergers, amalgamations and transfers of engagements which have contributed to its membership growth and the spread of its membership base.