MNHQ - I hope you are going to release your own statement on GMB Union

[OvaHere]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3920159-GMB-Statement-on-transphobia?pg=2

I'm horrified how little their commitment to women's employment rights matter during a global pandemic. It smacks of paying lip service to something they clearly think so little of if it can be rescinded on the flimsiest of accusations.

It's a common theme for men to punish women as a class for the perceived transgressions of a few. Almost biblical and reminiscent of the 'original sin' narrative.

Not only are GMB Union withdrawing legal advice from women here who discuss feminism they are also withdrawing it from every demographic of women who use this site.

I'm truly appalled at this behaviour whilst the country is in crisis. I hope you push back officially against this. It goes way beyond a company that chooses not to advertise - it's the withdrawing of legal advice for women who 'might' have committed wrongthink.

Women in the C21 deserve better than this.

And workers do, too.

This is why so many of us are so angry: institutions that are supposed to represent us, act in our interests, derive power from acting in our name, are funded by us, are, in fact, staffed by people who really do despise us.

And I'll bet the average pay of GMB staff is higher than the average pay of the workers they are supposed to represent (and who are paying the salaries of the staff).

S, we're good enough to pay the wages - but actually too contemptible to actually talk to?

What an utter farce 2020 politics is.

Thank you MNHQ

@RowanMumsnet thank you for bringing us up to date. Also @JustineMumsnet - very good letter in response.

Can these people at GMB really not see the misogyny here? We face an unprecedented crisis, the worst economic downturn in over 100 years, already it's apparent that women are hugely disproportionately likely to be hit by this. The GMB had a chance to reach out to the women they could help, on the single biggest female-dominated website in the country. But they withdrew from this on the basis of a few tweets. While still continuing to use Twitter and Facebook which are absolute cess-pits of sexism, racism and vile views.

(I'm a single mum, currently negotiating a period of leave with work so I can home-school my son adequately, because he has special educational needs and so I need to be there to support him, not point him at the school's website and say get on with it. Negotiating what the terms and conditions of this leave could be are exactly the sort of things I could do with expert help on... but no, because I believe in biological reality and women's rights, apparently I'm not allowed expert help.)

Excellent letter.

The GMB is corrupt as hell. ime.

The internal payoffs are staggering, voting each other a financial package.

They re elected Tim Roache for Gen Sec, after stitching up a woman officer of 25 years who was to stand against him.

Then Roache suddenly retired with that whacking big pay out citing health grounds. ( See up thread). Although there was that investigation going on into his sexist and inappropriate behaviour.

Now " Dear John" is running the show.

That's what the membership fees of women cleaners who are union members goes on. Big pay offs for the menz.

Having a pop at MN, is their best chance at a smoke screen for all their internal shabby shennanigans.

( former Apex /GMB member)

I'm copying and pasting this from a post I made on an AIBU thread (slightly tangential to the main thread, but worth thinking about). The thread was started by a woman whose employer is now insisting everyone go back into the office, even though she's successfully worked-from-home up till now - and because she's not a keyworker, she can't send her children to school.

I think there's a wider issue here, and I bloody well hope some of the trade unions are keeping stats on this. All companies' turnover will have taken a hell of a hit. A lot of them will be wanting to lay off staff, but wondering how to do it without having to pay huge redundancies payments. If they can make it impossible for staff to continue to do the job by insisting they work in the office (knowing they have children) they can push a proportion of their employees into resigning.

I think it could (in some instances) be a form of constructive dismissal, and it will undoubtedly hit women disproportionately. But in the general chaos of the post-covid economic crash, I worry that there will be so much shit hitting the fan that no-one will have either the will or the necessary stats to join up the dots.

This is exactly the sort of thing the GMB should be following up on. But the GMB have decided they hate women.

@MNHQ I was wondering if you had any comment on the issue I touched on earlier in the thread. There seem to be a cohort of 'regular' posters intent on doing the TRAs work for them and calling out any trans related discussion as "transphobic" even when its patently clear that it's no such thing.