Adventures of an activist called Tom

Michael McGahey

As STUC Congress approaches I always reflect on the characters of the past and the bits of fun I remember in or around the movement over the years. So sit back and enjoy some unashamed name-dropping from a back-office publicist who happened to be in the right place at the right time – from time to time.
Not strictly the STUC but let's start with the biggest first. 1993, Glasgow, pissing rain. Thousands welcome Nelson Mandela. A chance meeting with Lothian Region convener Keith Geddes and UNISON general secretary Alan Jinkinson led to me being in the line-up to meet Mandela. I was in a red nylon hoodie and soaked to the skin.

I’ll never forget Mandela’s moving words, full of political significance, as he shook my hand. “You are very wet”, he said.

Vote of thanks: Mike Kirby STUC President 2012

What can we say about Mike Kirby?

Or as we affectionately know him in UNISON – The Prince of Darkness.

The STUC must be the only organisation that has the namesake of a Japanese Anime cartoon character as its President. I quote from Wikipaedia...

Reclaiming the referendum

Gordon Mckay

We need to recognise the "Scottish or British?" debate as the blind alley it is. Instead we should be articulating the Scotland we want to see, writes UNISON Scotland NEC member Gordon Mckay in the Morning Star on the day UNISON’s Scottish Council ran workshops on that very issue. http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/117784 

UNISON’s role in the constitutional convention that created devolution and the Scottish Parliament was significant. It is also significant that it was a Parliament that was created and not an ‘assembly’. A settlement where everything was devolved except for key reserved powers, rather than the other way around.