Retirement speech UNISON Edinburgh AGM 2019

Can I just say thank you to a few people who have been important to me since I first became a branch officer in NALGO in 1982.

I need to mention figures like John Wilson, NUPE branch secretary that went on to be Depute Lord Provost.

And Rab Amos who became active in UNISON but who I first met working to support him and his comrades in the NUM during the miners' strike of 1984/85.

From huge figures like Michael McGahey who I never managed to persuade I wasn't called Tom.

From Alex Kitson and Rodney Bickerstaffe who I was proud to call friends.

And one of the most enduring and inspirational friendships with Denis Goldberg – sentenced at the same trial as Nelson Mandela -  spent 22 years in jail for fighting Apartheid and came out the other end with huge dignity, conviction and enormous fun. Denis has visited the branch many times over the years and I send him our warmest greetings tonight as he faces considerable ill health in his 85th year.

In the branch, I have to mention the staff. Monica, Eileen, Julie, Nicky. They have stuck by us for well over 25 years and for some this is the one and only job they have had. In many ways, as officers change, they are the one constant in the branch.

The late John Mulgrew and John Ross. Huge influencies. Prone to chaos at times but solid commitment to the members and huge friends you could rely on.

Lynn Williams who represented social work through the discredited Caleb Ness inquiry and managed the hugely difficult merger that created Children and Families. So much hard work behind the scenes that went unnoticed.

Barbara Foubister, Agnes Petkevicius, Evie Hanlon, and all the other nursery nurses who took a year long programme of strike action with such great inventiveness in 2004. It was an honour to negotiate on your behalf and you won a historic victory.

The people who delivered on stopping the biggest ever planned privatisation of council services in 2011 – victory important not just for this branch but for the whole of Scotland. The work of Peter Hunter, of Duncan Smith with community groups and Kevin Duguid and the rest of the team that told the council “Our City’s Not For Sale”.

Our voluntary sector worker Amanda Kerr. A steward I think from the age of 17 in the old Edinburgh District branch and branch secretary of this branch until recently – and a much treasured pal.

Dougie Black who was this branch's first secretary and went on to lead local government negotiations in Scotland.

And our current crew. Tom Connolly who has picked up so many challenges since being thrust into the role of secretary and who hasn't shirked any of them. Gerry Stovin who did such amazing work through the crisis in his department. Ian Mullen who has grasped health and safety - and the rest of the team and conveners for standing up to the mark and for all the committed work you do.

To Kirsten for standing up to the mark as President and making no fuss at all when she found there were no presidential robes.

Because there always has been someone to stand up to the mark and I believe there always will be. We are all replaceable and so we should be. As Michael McGahey said, we are a movement, not a monument.

And to you all that turn out to these meetings. Thank you because you are the life blood of the union.

When the non-members sneer, remind yourselves that you are part of the movement that for over 100 years has consistently stood up for fairness and justice in the workplace, the council, the country and internationally.

You are part of the movement that first stood up against fascism. That first that stood up for equality. The constant position of working as 'us' – as opposed to 'me' – as the politics of greed, privilege, and hate rise around us these days.

You are in the movement that will stand by your colleagues and not freeload off them. That dares to think that together we can actually make things better. And not just for us, for our colleagues in South Africa in the past and in Palestine now.

A movement that is not afraid to challenge inequality at home, or international right-wing knee jerks about a groomed teenage girl in Syria, or an engineered crisis in Venezuela.

Justice in the workplace and across society suffers when people do nothing. Joining a union is doing something, getting active in your union is doing even more.

This union has given me purpose, comradeship, quite a lot of fun and laughs and a real education. It has given me far more than I have been able to give it and I am grateful.

Thank you all so much and all power to the branch in the future.