Gerry Morrissey

BRITISH ENTERTAINMENT HISTORY PROJECT INTERVIEW No 0735.

Gerry Morrissey [GM] interviewed by Roy Lockett [RL] 

 

NB This is a transcript of the full 3-part interview, numbered as 1A, 1B, 2 and 3. The time codes in this section refer to Part 1 A. and cover pages 1 – 16inc.

 

Roy Lockett:

0:00 

Okay. The copyright of this recording is vested in the British Entertainment History Project. The name of the interview is GM:, and he's the General Secretary of BECTU. He was the General Secretary BECTU, and is now the joint general secretary.

Gerry Morrissey:

No. I'm the head of BECTU, the Head of BECTU. Yeah. Yeah.

RL: 

0:23 

Well, let's get [clear] actually, so Gerry is the head of BECTU within the Prospect union.

GM: That's correct.

RL: Okay, fine. My name is Roy Lockett. I'm the interviewer, and the date today is the 16th. Thanks very much. Well, Gerry, well, you, as you think you've had 40 years of at the coal face now. So there's a lot to cover. Can we just start by you telling us something about Ireland. I know you were born and educated in Ireland.

GM:   0:53 

Yeah, I was born in Tipperary town, brought up in a little village outside Tipperary town called Galbally, G-A-L- B- A- double L-Y. My dad was a trade unionist, and not a trade union official, but he worked in Creamery, and he was a member, an active rep for the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. And my mother was a publican, but during one of the many recessions we had in Ireland, pubs in villages didn't make a lot of money, so she effectively ended up a housewife, and he carried on working in the creamery until he got made redundant just around the same time my mum died in-

RL: Which was?

GM: 1983. Yeah, so I'm the eldest of five. Got three brothers, and the youngest [sibling] is the sister so and yep. So I went to the local primary school, then I went to the Christian Brothers in Tipperary … town which was a grammar school, and I was just in and out, obviously, every day on the bus. Did well there for a few years and but the Christian brothers at that time knew had a reputation for being relatively doing me violence, totally deserved.  [laughter] And when I was 16, I ran away from the Christian brothers and came to London, and I've been here ever since.

RL: 2:25 

Oh, that's fascinating. You ran away.

GM:  Yes.

RL: Because- I thought that was extraordinary, because the figures show that you left school in ’76 , you left Ireland in ‘76 and you actually joined the BBC in 1976 and I thought that was a kind of an extraordinary boast, but never any thought then of university or staying on?

GM:   2:44 

No, I didn't finish it because you mean I’d had enough of the of the Christian Brothers, but obviously at that time, it's probably difficult to explain that thing: So in my primary school, there was about 25 of us in the class. And you mean, you had to sit exams, to go there, and I was one of only two who went there. So my mother is proud of me getting to the Christian Brothers. She'd be less proud of me running away. You mean, from the Christian Brothers. So, you mean, so that was it. You mean, obviously afterwards, I regretted that. But yeah, so I ran away from the Christian Brothers, and because my uncle had a pub in the town as well, I used to help out my uncle. And obviously I was unhappy for that last year or so with the Christian brothers. And people used to come back from London and that, from holidays and that in the summer, and I picked up bits of information from them, and kind of worked out a plan and disappeared.

RL:  3:49 

And you didn't tell your family.

GM: No, no.

RL: So you went on your [own] yeah? was there violence against you really quite serious then?

GM:   3:59 

It depends. If you talking about getting hit over the head, the chair, the head with a chair? Yes, you mean, yeah, you were expected… it. You me and that, and I didn't like it, and I pushed back as well, so that didn't help [between] you and me.

RL:  4:16 

But your dad, then was a big influence on you in terms of development of your politics and your trade unionism?

GM:   4:25 

Yes about [that.] I think, well, they, we, never had much money. There was five of us, yeah, in two rooms, and plus my parents and that. And so it was all about, in our house, it was about fairness which has kind of gone through my life, about, you must be fair with people that we've all- there's always people we prefer more than other people, but you must treat everybody fairly. So I've always passionately believed that, and hopefully did that while I was in charge of the union and in different senior positions.

But, so, my dad always understood [between] you me that he got his money from the creamery. That's what paid the bills and everything else. Yes, but he wasn't, at the same time, he was prepared to stand up. There were strikes there to make sure that the farmers and the others didn’t take liberties with the workers. So that kind of left the mark on me that that's the right thing to do. So it was a subconscious thing, and in Ireland at that time.

So I was born in 1960 April the 12th, 1960 and in that time, I have memories in February. I hate February, [between] you and me. Lots of family died in February, and things I also had memories of being dragged out to… IRA memorials … where, I’d several grand-uncles’ names would be called out and shots would be fired and I would be absolutely freezing! It was a Republican, Republican family, but there was also a split inside that between [the] de Valeras and Collins’s.[ Éamon de Valera and Michael Collins, two rivals in the Irish Republican movement. DS] And our family was a very staunch Collins house, all right, so And literally, used to have to sit on my dad and my uncles when the Gaelic Games would come onto the television, and de Valera would have been dragged out, blind as he was at that stage, and, stop me if I'm rambling. And so basically, yeah, so we were very much a Collins house without me at that stage, knowing the full history of the Collins de Valera thing, etc,

RL:  6:24 

But you were raised with the stories of the IRA and the Civil War.

GM:   6:28 

And yeah, all of that, yeah, all of that, yeah, it was definitely a - the area coming from a Tipperary town, Sean Breen, all of that is a very Republican area.

RL:  6:39 

Right. What about - so this will sound like a daft question, but I've always thought that you, clearly you raised Republican, but why, how were your Labour Party politics shaped?

GM:   6:53 

That was shaped, that was shaped over here, [between] you and me, because even to this day, you mean, I find it difficult to understand where the politics in Ireland are because the Labour Party in Ireland is the toffs party. So in my lifetime, they have never formed a government. I don't think they ever have you me. But in my time, they've been in coalitions with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil and they fall down on de Valera and Collins’ sides as well. So … that was the type of So, so, and I don't think, like the trade union type of stuff, voting labour, yes, was not … as significant in Ireland, much more, much more stuff was around … the splits with inside the Republicans.

RL:  7:42 

That's fascinating. So you came here as a rebellious teenager too?

GM:   7:45 

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

RL: Did you have family here?

GM:  No, I had nobody here. I had nobody here. So basically –

RL: What was the grand plan then?

GM: But a grand plan was, is that … I had about 25 pounds which I'd saved because I was working in pubs and things. Even a pub, - I'm a non drinker,-  but pubs have been involved in my life for a long time. Broke up initially, didn't give it up because they couldn't make enough of money in there, but then always helping out at my uncle's pub, etc. And I just decided, oh, I don't want to go to Dublin, and if I'm going to run away, if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it properly. And I'd obviously picked up this information. And one of the things I picked up was, you can come to London, you can get a live-in job in a pub, so that then gives you time, a roof over your head, to find your way. And I had the name of the Shamrock Agency on the Holloway Road. So from my very early days, I was quite close to the Arsenal and so basically, so anyway, with this money, I went off to school that day, but I had my clothes packed in a bag. I had other clothes I'd taken out, but you're still talking about two pairs of trousers and a couple of shirts, nothing of any significance in the locker in the school.

And then I went to Limerick Junction, which is the train station outside Tipperary town that goes straight through to Dún Laoghaire Pier. And I bought a single ticket on the boat to Holyhead. Came up on the train from Holyhead to Euston. Arrived at Euston at about six o'clock in the morning. Pitch dark, walked outside, thought hmm, go back until it brightens up and … that was it.

And then I made my way down.  It's funny now when I think about it, made my way down to the Shamrock agent. I looked at the Underground map. And I can honestly say I'm a terrible map reader generally, but the Underground map, I was able to comprehend and understand straight away, it made absolute sense to me. So anyway, I went down to the whole went down to Archway, walked down to the to the Shamrock agency. In my - whether I'm right or not, I can’t [say] but in my memory, it's still about halfway down the Holloway Road, and I told him I wanted a live-in job. I had to persuade him I was 18, which I did, but obviously I had plenty of pub experience, etc, so, but I had, I insisted it had to be live-in, because I knew I didn't have enough money. I'd nowhere to stay. Didn't want to sleep out, etc. And the first pub they sent … me for an interview, don't forget, … I've come from the butt of a mountain in Ireland so the first pub they sent me for an interview was the Prince of Wales in Brixton, which was a bit of a culture shock when I walked in. [laughs]

Anyway, I didn't get it, sure. You mean, you mean there was literally, to my memory, was literally walking into just a bar full of black faces. I mean, I remember it being quite busy, even though it must have been quite early in the day. I didn't get that job. I didn't get that job, and now, I'm beginning to panic a little bit because we're now in the afternoon time, so I'll go back to the Shamrock Agency, and they send me to a pub called The George on Fulham Broadway, right alongside the Fire Brigade station there. And I got that job, and I started that day. And so that was the beginning of it.

RL: Wow. What a fantastic story.

GM:   11:21 

I should say I did ring home and tell my parents where I was.

RL: And how did they react to your –

GM: Very badly, they said- very bad, my mum, I'm the eldest, so you're obviously - my mom was very, very upset. So I’ve always felt guilty, if I’m being honest about it. And my dad came over to persuade me to go back.... And that didn't work. So, I stayed, and that was it.

RL:  11:45 

So, that was a huge change for you. Was it very difficult for you to adapt? Was it painful?

GM:   11:51 

No it wasn't. I think between you and me, no, it wasn't. I think I was always meant to live in a city. I was. And as I said, I was one of five. I had an aunt who had some money and was married to a farmer outside. And all my brothers used to go to this farm. I think I went there for two hours and I went, “I don't want this.” I did not want this. I think I was always born to be with pavements.

RL:  12:15 

I always assume that you, sort of, you'd got, become, involved with National Hunt racing when you lived in Ireland.

GM:   12:23 

I did, yeah, because my dad used to have a bet. He used to go to the races. There's about three, four, five, racecourses within 10 miles of our house… jump racing, and it's built into me. Cheltenham and all of that was kind of built into to the thing. But obviously at that time, it wasn’t top of my agenda. So, yes, about, so, yeah, that was it, so. And it wasn't long from there, I ended up with the BBC.

RL:  12:48 

And That's the interesting thing. Why the BBC? I mean, well, if this one decision that shaped your entire life.

GM:   12:53 

Yeah.

RL: So this was that decision.

GM: Yeah. So I have to say, and I've always said this, you need luck and you need … things fall in places for you. So I was working in this pub, and I must have had quite a rebellious stage in me. But anyway, I've always believed whatever job you do, you do the best of your ability, and conscientiously. So I was setting up this pub and working there and everything else. And there was I can’t [recall] there was two or three other bar staff there, but I was the only live-in one. And the guy who was an Irish bloke who owned the pub or managed the pub, was a bit of a dog, really… but I couldn't rock it too much. I had nowhere to go.

RL: What, was he a disciplinarian or just unfair really?

GM: No, just, yeah, just unfair generally but anyway so I didn't take to him very well, but I told you, just find your feet and everything else. And I was there for about two months, and I used to get up in the mornings, like two or three mornings a week for the deliveries coming in, and then I put the deliveries into the cage, etc…. like the stuff in the basement and the cellars, all the cages and things. And I do all that on my own.

Anyway, one day I got the stuff in, l go upstairs, you made your own breakfast, and I made some toast and tea and whatever, and then went back down and put everything into the cage. And that night, I always remember this, he said to me “This morning, you couldn't - Have you. You couldn't possibly, put all that stuff in the cage before you had your breakfast.” And I went, “Well, I didn't, I brought it all in, made sure it was under lock and key, then I had my breakfast, and went back and do it.” “Now, that's not good enough. I want you to put it in the thing.”. And I went, “I've been mistaking you. I didn't know you were paying me for this.” Right? So he went “Well, I'm not.” … But anyway, because you kind of do this out of - because you're live-in Barman and you just did it, so he kind of left a mark on me. ‘I owe you one.’ So anyway, I had a complete coincidence. Don't take this the wrong way.

But being a 16-year old in London, on your own, nobody with you, you had to have your wits around you. It, and I had it in my mind… you got to watch out for perverts and everything else in the thing. So don't get it the wrong way.

But anyway, because the pubs were busy, because in that time, the pubs were not open all day. They used to open up until about three o'clock, close and then open up again about half past five in the evenings or something. And the weekends was obviously the busiest. And in Fulham, on the Saturday, Fulham [Football club] would be at home. The following Saturday, Chelsea would be at home. So, you never got a weekend off hardly, once in a blue moon. So you got a day off in the middle of the week. And when I got the day off, I'd go off and explore different bits of London. So on this day, I was in -  just off of Oxford Street. On my day off, I go down, I'm wandering round. So I'm wandering down Mortimer street, and I wanted to get out of the pub. I didn't like this bloke, so I just get up, had some grub, get out of the pub. And I don't want to be there, because if somebody doesn't turn up for work, I'll be asked to work as well. So I was gone early, and I'm down, walking around Oxford Street, half the places not open. I walked down the Holloway Road [I think Gerry has confused the road names. DS] Straight opposite the Middlesex Hospital at that time was an employment office. The government DOE. [Department of Employment]  

And I went in. I was looking at the jobs on there, etc. [indicates]

And the next thing is, I get a tap on the shoulder and a guy called Jim Norton, he must be dead by now. Scotsman. Anyway, he said to me, “Do you want the job at the BBC son?”

RL:  16:24 

Was he working there?

GM:   16:25 

No, he was working at the BBC, right? So he said, “Do you want the job at the BBC? Son, it's only for one day.” And I went – immediately my head went, this is a pervert, right? So anyway, I said something at the time, I gave him some short shrift, yeah. And he went, “No, no, no, no, you got me wrong, son, you got me wrong.” Dragged me up to the counter, and the woman said, “No, no, Mr. Norton is legitimate. He comes here. He hires casuals for the BBC.” So I went to the BBC. I said, “Fine, okay.” [I] walk around the Broadcasting House. And it was for one day. It was a Friday, one day. No it was a Wednesday, it was one day. So he says to me, “a couple of people off sick.” It's some big catering stores, and they used to do all the staff, literally for half of the London ones [buildings] some Television Centre, but most of the Broadcasting House, and it was basically packing stuff, stock, checking, adding stuff up. And… I was always numerate with figures and stuff like that. So anyway, did all of this and things like that.

RL:  17:27 

I always thought you learned that from national [hunt], yeah, totalling up the odds.

GM:   17:31 

Maths was one of the subjects. I was good at at school and things like that. So anyway, … so they were, they were, obviously, they said, “Well do you want to come back tomorrow?” And I went, “No, no, I can’t come back tomorrow. [Between] you [and] me, today is my day off.” … And they paid me cash. They paid me cash for the day. Can't remember how much it was, etc, anyway. And he said, “No, no, no, this could you mean - can you come back tomorrow?” And this was going through my head and things, and he went, “Well, even in a couple of days.” I said, “Well, I can't really, I said, because I'm a live-in barman, and I've got nowhere to stay, etc, etc.” And he said, “Oh, well, BBC [make a] recommendation of hostels.” And there was a hostel in Camden. And I went, “Okay, let me think about it.” But I didn't have long to think about it. And I said, “Okay, I'll come back tomorrow.” I made the decision, went back to the pub, got all my stuff, and told the bloke to go stick himself, yeah, [laughter] so anyway, and then went to the hostel, checked in there, started in the BBC, and I was there for 11 years.

RL:  That's amazing.

GM: So they gave me a full time contract.

RL:  And the job was?[DS1] 

GM:  I started off as basically catering assistant in the stores. I never worked in, in the, in the thing. I did, days and things, yeah, yeah,

RL: Broadcasting.

GM:  Nothing, no, never, nothing like that and so…  within a very short period, within about six to nine months, I was second in charge of the store I was running, we were probably doing, thinking about it now, at the time must be £50,000 worth of stock in and out a week.

 

RL: So how many staff under you then?

GM: There was about eight staff altogether … and that there was a guy, an Italian guy, and this guy, Jim. Jim was back over the whole lot of it, right? And my name is Gerard, G,E,R,A,R,D, you with me, Morrissey. So he said to me, the first day I was there, and I'm don't forget, I'm only there for a day. He says to me, [stutters] J,J, Jared, he couldn't pronounce it. He couldn't pronounce he's from Dundee. No offense anybody from Dundee. So anyway, he says, he says, “We'll call you Gary, yeah.” And I thought, ‘I’m only here for a day. You can call me whatever I [sic] like.’ So anyway, it was after I'd been there for about four or five weeks. “Gary. Gary, Gary.” This was everybody, all the chefs. “Gary!” anyway, so then I ended up playing [along] for, and I just carried on, because obviously nobody would take any notice. You had to go downstairs collect your wages every week: G. Morrissey.

RL: Yeah.

GM: My pass said, Gerard Morrissey right. just call me that. Finally, I'm playing football in the tournament out at Motspur Park for the BBC, yeah. ”Gary.” “Hang on a second. My name's not Gary, right?” So anyway in the end to kind of make everybody happy. I said “You can call me Gerry then”, and that was it, and that's how it happened. So, so I was the, basically, I was the number two to him in the in the stores, getting all this, all the orders together, putting in orders with catering companies like, tinned stuff, fresh stuff, bread, deliver, so I used to start at half past five every morning, and I was effectively finished, my shifts finished at about half past two, three o'clock, and I stayed doing that. And so when I got involved in the union, then was about- go on.

RL:  21:01 

I was going to ask you about that. How did you get, when did you get involved, involved in the union? How did you - were you recruited by someone who was an individual member?

GM:   21:07 

No, Christina, Christina, no Christina Driver, yeah, who we know, and Christina, you remember Christina, don't you?

RL: Yes, yeah.

GM: Anyway, Christina was the official for all this, what was then called the Central Services areas: catering, security, cleaning, building engineering.

RL: Was that a kind of blue-collar area?

GM: Yes, it was a blue-collar area, and she was the official for that area. And because of my principle and everything, the minute I went there, I was, I said, “What's the union here, right?” And they said “The Association of Broadcasting Staff.” So, I thought, ‘that's a staff Association.’ Even then I was, I was aware,

RL: You were aware of it.

GM: You know, I was aware. I was quite aware everything. And I thought ‘it's a bit, mmm” I joined it because obviously it's the recognised union, and there was a branch in catering, and the guy who was the pastry chef, a fellow called Dave Smith, he was the Branch Secretary. I was a member, I wasn't involved, but within a year, they had this big - so in the BBC at the time, you had three sets of conditions. You had monthly paid conditions, weekly paid conditions and catering conditions. And I don't need to tell you which one was at the bottom!

GM:  22.20

So anyway, the General Secretary of the union was Tony Hearn, and they, he used to get involved, him, and Paddy Leach used to get heavily involved in the negotiations with the BBC, etc. And I wouldn't, I didn't, know anything at all about,

RL: [Inaudible]

GM: No, no, no, the National Office, no. But in the kind of, the weekly paid conditions would be reviewed as part of the National T's and C's [Terms & Conditions] anyway, a proposal came out there. We did a job evaluation of all of the grades right; now to tell you know, I was even- by this, by this stage, I had a bed-sit, yes, back on the Holloway Road, at a bed-sit. And even I was struggling to just live, yeah. So I used to work four nights a week at the Cock in Holloway Road, a pub which is now called Nambucca, yes. So I worked four nights a week, and there used to be packed pubs with music and all the other stuff.

So anyway, they did this grading review. I was in the union. I wasn't an activist or anything. The grading review came out, and only two people in the whole of catering lost out, me and the head waitress. I could not, I can’t tell you, the anger and [I] was [asking] how can a union do a deal where somebody loses money?

RL: Yeah!

GM: I just couldn't get it.

23.39

And Christina had meetings, everything else. I was at these meetings. I was like, nobody gave, I was firing it up. … In the end Christina, and I always remember, set up a meeting, and she said, “I'm really sorry.” She said, “I can't help you any further. There's no more procedure.” “What are you talking about? Nobody's taken money off of me. And I ain’t having this.” So anyway, she set up a meeting with the General Secretary, which was Hearn, you know, I can remember this, to this day. and two lay members. One of them was Eric Stoves, and the other one was Derek Cutler. And they sat there, and there was a

RL: Derek…. The engineer.

GM: Derek yes, in Bristol, anyway. And they sat across the table from me. They went through and explained how job evaluation [worked], I presume, I didn't hear any of this. All I heard was the pay cut and things, anyway, I got stuck into him and to give him his due, Tony Hearn the General Secretary bluffed me out, because he came around the table and he says to me, “There's only one thing, son that's going to satisfy you. Put it there.” [Points to his jaw] He did. He did! Yeah, it went through my mind, I have to say anyway. And I didn't. And I said to him, “ I'm not letting this stop. This isn't finished.” And I walked out and went back, and I thought,’ right, I'm gonna have to take this anyway.’

GM: 24.53 

And I ended up having to do more pub shifts to make up for the pay cut. And then I went, I spoke to the head chef, the pastry chef who was the Branch Secretary. And I said, “Listen, this isn't right.” I've now read all the terms and conditions. Not only did we get less pay, we get less holidays, we get less- we're in the same pension scheme, but we get less conditions when everything is compared to everybody else. How can that be right? Anyway? He said, “Now, well, that's the way it is.” and all the other stuff. And I said, “Well, let's, let's sort this out.” He said, “Well, there's only ten of us in the union.” So I said, “Well, we can sort that out for a start.”

GM:  25.25

And so I went on to, I got elected on, literally, come on, yes to the Branch Committee. And within one year, recruited 1000 members, and we had 1000 people.

RL: You must have put yourself around. That must be a world record.

GM: Now, I went around every single catering operation in London, because at that time, there was Bush House down on The Strand; Television Centre, Wood Lane, where the thing was broadcast.

RL: You did all this in your own time of course?

GM: I did all this in my own time. Yeah, yeah. Well, no, no I had no facility time, because I was just a local rep. But I used to start at half five in the morning, because I used to have to get all the deliveries in, right? So I was finished work by three o'clock. So I'd go around, talk to everybody, explain to them, and I worked out, and I'd got an agreement from Hearn and everybody else, that if the union got - the branch got stronger, we could put in a new claim[?]. So that was it, and that was the start of it. And over a period of five to six years from there, not only, we expanded it out to be a Central London Services branch, and we ended up being the top, biggest branch in the ABS, [Association of Broadcasting and Allied Staffs] because we got all the security in, we got all the cleaning in, the engineers in. So I'm not saying there was a grand plan here, but in my mind, I knew the more of you are in, is the strongest, yes. So, we had all the claim in, everything was in and Christina was involved in it, then Paddy Leach got involved in it, and I knew the members would follow me. And I was doing meetings in central London with seven, 800 people in there. They had never seen this in the ABS and anyway-

RL: [You’re] Not even a full-time official?

GM: No And so anyway, so basically, the negotiations broke down.

27.08

The union's annual conference was in Blackpool, and I was a delegate from our branch, and the NEC met the day before, and there was a request for strike action, right, over this and it was rejected. Paddy Leach basically did a job on us, because he'd obviously had a chat with Roger Chase, who was then the director of HR. [Human Resources] So it was rejected. Now, Tony Lennon was around at this stage. He was on a release at the BBC and Television Centre, and to be there, but by then I was on Subdivision so I knew how the union operated, yes. So anyway, I always -

[RL in background but inaudible]

GM: Yeah, and I still say yeah, all it is, but catering was right at the bottom, and obviously the Union did not want us going on strike. So anyway, I moved a proposition that we were allowed to strike, etc, and things, but I knew tactically in my own mind that I needed to keep my strong guns for the right of reply.

RL: Yeah.

GM: Right, because they would come up with all the reasons, etc, all the things I've done for many years now, myself on the other side! But anyway, so the arguments came out about why we couldn't catering couldn't go on strike because we had a National Agreement…. with this, and it would untangle things, but we'll do our best for the lads and etc anyway.

GM:  28.28

But I always remember, and to this day, I still think it probably one of the best speeches I ever made, that when I came back in, I went “So we are not allowed to go on strike. The Executive Committee will not allow us to go on strike because we're 80% ethnic minority, which they were, all the Tea, the Tea ladies, all the others serving behind, they're all …. and because we're catering, right? But if I was an outside broadcast engineer, we wouldn't be even having that debate. If I was a cameraman, we wouldn't be having this debate. So either you become a union today and you support us or we will find somewhere else. And I came off the podium to a standing ovation and won the vote. [They] came back and things, and him and Paddy and all of them, and Tony Lennon was closer with them than I was. He was all union and I was, … I was regarded as being very much a hot head, which I probably was, anyway.

RL: And seceding from the union and going elsewhere…

GM:  29.23

Yeah, so anyway. And they said to me, well, and the person that did take me under my wing then was Ernie Johnson. Yeah, right, yes. Ernie was a national officer at the time, and he was to calm me down, but he's saying, “You're right.”

RL: Ernie Johnson was kind of Revolutionary Socialist.

GM:  He was, yeah, so, and they used to come and talk to me and say, “Son, you can’t play… like this and things. You mean you can't beat everybody up.” But we got on well, he and I did. I went to all his training courses, and we did all the stuff, and I had some facility time by now, very little, but I had some. And so the big crunch came. And that there was improvement.

RL: And Ernie was the guy who supported you.

GM: Ernie was the officer who supported me. Christina was supporting me … but she was very loyal to the to the team, to the management and things like that. So anyway, but the big crunch came, so there was no agreement.

GM:  30.16

After about several months of talks, etc. At that stage, you did not have to run a ballot for strike action, so on the first day I got all the committees together, all the chefs, everybody together, and I said, “Right, we're going to cause chaos,” right? There was a big French tasting food day coming up. All the hobnobs were in. Everything else. Norman Tebbit was in, right? So I said, “What we're going to do is, we're all going to come to work as normal that day. We're going to fire up all of the fryers, everything else,” because the way they work on the cooking thing, even though I was never a cook or anything like that, but I was, the stores are, right in the middle of the kitchen. They're in the base, they're all over. People trusted me, and I said, “If we stick together, we'll get better conditions, better pay out of this, but we've got to stick together.” So people said, “Yeah, okay.” People were nervous. [Between] you [and] me, I remember having to ring up … some senior person in the Jehovah Witnesses, because there was a huge number of the black ladies in there who were in the Jehovah Witnesses, and they told me that it was against their religion, that they couldn't go on strike. So then I rang him up and explained… that if they didn't go on strike, they wouldn't have any jobs, and therefore they wouldn't be able to support the religion, etc.

[They laugh]

RL: The Jesuit mind there!

GM: They gave, they gave them the go ahead. And so anyway, so the thing was, we went. So, I always remember the guy that was like the Deputy Head of Catering was a fellow called Lawrence Smith, and he'd come from one of the big car plants around Oxford and everything else. And they'd obviously twigged that we were up to something. And I could see that they twigged because there was so many managers around this day and everything else. And it wasn't just because of who was in the building, etc.

GM:  32.00

 So, I said, “Just fire all of everything up. They're going to come in. Don't worry about it when we walk out, because we have the right to walk out anytime. When we walk out, they're all going to come in.” My point, everybody was worried about is, will they sack us? And I went,” No, they won't sack us, because if they sack us, then the union has to do something at a bigger level.” Yes. So many people, and so we walked out on the thing, but all the burners were switched on earlier on, and then switched off about an hour and a half before we went out. So they're still bubbling. So when you put the food in, it looks like it's cooked, but it's not cooked, right?

RL: [laughing] So: sabotage.

End of Part 1A

PART 1B NB Timecodes from here onwards until page 31 refer to interview Part 1B only.

GM:   0:00 

So anyway, we went out on strike. We [were] only out for like six or seven hours, something like that. Anyway, some people in there, like studio managers and all this, who I knew over the years of just being in there for that period, came back to me and said, “There's chaos upstairs. All the people are going back with their food, all of the other staff.” So anyway, so goes back in later that evening, back into work, and this Lauren Smith, who was about… at the time, even I was about 9 stone, 9 ½ stone wet. He was about 19 stone. He threw himself at me. He literally lunged at me because they were, they were made to look prats….Because  they went in saying, we've got all this covered, etc, all of a sudden, this has now gone to the director-

RL:  Chaos.

GM: Chaos. It's now gone to the director of HR, and the team. And Paddy Leach brought me into the negotiations because I hadn't been involved…

RL:  0:57 

He threw himself at you!

GM: 0:58 

 Yes, because there was a load of silver tables. And he went, "That was outrageous. All the motor car industry unions I met, nobody ever did that to me." And I went, "Well you get used to it because there's more of it coming."

And then he just threw himself at me across a table in there. Yeah, I was a bit, I was a bit faster than him at the time, anyway,

So that all of that passed by and we had negotiations. Nothing happened. And then Paddy involved me for the first time. Somebody must have made a decision, let's bring him into the tent. Yes. So they brought me into the negotiations with Roger Chase, yeah, who was then the Deputy Head of HR for the whole of the BBC. And when I went through the unfairness I could see the look in his eye that he thought there is something to this, and they did make some significant moves, but then they came out, they said, “Right, here is a proposal.” which is meeting most of the stuff we want, but we're going to outsource the following Departments.

RL: 1:55 

Outsource the departments?

GM:   1:56 

Yes.

RL:  1:56 

So, what, a reduction in staffing?

GM:   1:59 

Yes, there would be sackings [?]. So, basically, my job was staying in. All the waitresses would be outsourced. So we would get those from an agency. I'm doing this a bit from memory round the Department: the catering assistants who served the food and that, they would all be outsourced. The chefs and hospitality would stay in. So, half of the union membership would have lost their jobs because there was no TUPE then [Transfer Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations. DS] or anything. So obviously I went back and said that was totally unacceptable. Yeah, we weren't going to do it… but under no circumstances was I allowing them now to take the offer off the table that we had got, which effectively got rid of catering conditions. We all went on to the weekly paid conditions. So, it was quite a big jump up. But we had to stick together so they gave notice about when they were tendering for the companies coming in, all this was going on. So we called, we went out on  strike.

RL:  2:55 

What year was this?

GM:   2:56 

This would been… 1979

RL: Right.

GM:  By now, by 79-80 Yes.

 So then we went out on strike again. And then I thought because I noticed that we never got it. So anyway, I phoned round the news desks. This was something the union obviously never did, they never helped me with anyway. But anyway, I phone around the news desk to tell them about this, and they said [there were] some juicy bits. Now, with my job, I knew how much they spent on hospitality every year. I knew how much they spent on wine, how much they spent on food. So we I got all these posters done, which were only done with marker pen, and there was nothing printed or anything, and we're out on strike, and everybody's in their uniforms, and it was front page of what was then the Evening News in London and the other ones like that.

And … I was back in negotiations the following day, and all the privatisations were taken off the table, and didn't happen. Eventually, happened in - after I'd left - about 1990 so we kept it off for a long time, So we had a very, very strong branch. And there was obviously a feeling then on the union side, because of the number of people we'd recruited and everything because we weren't really accepted in for a long time, that actually this had to be recognised. And the ABS used to do an award at their conference every year called the Leslie Littlewood Trophy. Did you hear about this?

RL:  4:26 

Leslie Littlewood-

GM: Had been the General Secretary before Hearn.

GM:   4:30 

Yes. And anyway, we won the award. I collected that on behalf of the branch.  I'll always remember his speech, going, “I’m pleased to present this award. But I have to say, what is this union coming to?” Honestly, I couldn't believe it. We’re the Catering Branch. And I'm thinking, I can't hit an old man myself. Anyway, so I just accepted the award, gracefully, and moved on. But I did think it was a bit crap and that.

So anyway, so then I just got more and more involved in the Union locally. And then Andy moved into television. I was in radio, don't forget. So then they set up a Radio subdivision committee and a Television subdivision [committee]. So in the radio one would be studio managers, producers, directors, all of the other…

RL: Technical staff?

GM: Everybody, yes, or anything that was radio. So there was Radio and Television. And Tony Lennon was Vice-chair of the Television Subdivision. And there was a guy called Andy Stewart, who was a scene shifter whose son went on to play professional football, called Paul Stewart. He was the Chair. There was- and the radio one came up and I put myself forward for election. There was about six or seven candidates. One of them was Sue Harris. I won the election. So, I went on full, I officially could have had full-time release. I never actually took it, because I told you, know what I can do it.

So I did a deal with them where I would come in at half past five every morning, work through till mid-day, and then go and do union work after that. And that kind of kept me in touch with my members and everything else. So: and then Ernie Johnson, he didn't tell me, which would have been helpful.

So by now I've ended up getting, which was quite difficult for a single bloke, but I ended up getting a council flat in Camden that was in Albany Street. I was happy there, etc. And then a letter comes in the post, and I was offered the place at Ruskin, right? [Ruskin College, specialised in higher education for those without many or any formal qualifications. DS] And it was Ernie Johnson that put me forward.

RL:  6:40 

You didn’t go to Ruskin.

GM:   6:41 

 I didn't go to Ruskin, right? So I was offered the place of Ruskin, and Andy had put me forward, supported by John Fray and both of them were Ruskin's, [Ruskin graduates] I think. And so I went to see Ernie and said, “I'm not going to take it,” right? And I said two things. “One, I'm heavily involved in the Union, and I want to stay involved in the union.” And I also began to think actually, maybe, I have got enough about me to be a full time official. 

RL: Yes.

GM: Right? And if I leave, then I'm forgotten about, and the BBC will certainly never employ me again, even though I never did anything wrong as an employee. They're unlikely to employ me again, so I'm out of the frame. And secondly is I've now got, for the first time since I've been in London, I've got a stable flat and home. So I turned it down, and I carried on for another couple of years, and then I applied for two or three union jobs, but the union never employed people from inside. There were always people from outside. So the only the last person who was actually employed from inside the membership before me was actually Roger Bolton.

RL: Yeah.

GM: And there was an 11year gap between him being employed and me being employed.

RL: So was that policy then?

GM: It wasn't a policy. It just, I think, Hearn didn't want it, and I think I'll explain in a second where some of that may have come from. So, so I told myself, I applied for a job with the RCN because I like nurses. But I didn't get that and a couple [of others], so I told myself I'm gonna have to do something. So I did a two year Diploma in Labour Studies.

RL:  8:29 

Who did you do that with? 

GM:   8:30 

It was then called the Poly[technic] of Central London. It's now called Westminster Central London. [Actually University of Westminster. DS] Don't make any jokes, anyway, it wasn't the best. Let's put it that way. But it gave you a sheet of paper, and if I tell you that, one of the tutors on it was Marilyn Goodman,

 

RL: Wow!

GM: Who I later, we later worked with, yeah, anyway, and another guy in the BBC did it as well, who's still an activist in the union called Brian Mack. Yeah, yeah. He's still around. He's, he's the Chair of the, sorry, he's the Chair of the Outside Broadcast, Radio Outside Broadcast Branch, yes. So he went. So anyway, so while I was doing that, we built up a really strong radio subdivision, if I give you an idea of the people who were on there, who then became so Luke Crawley, who went on to become AGS [Assistant General Secretary] here, Sue Harris who came on to work for the NUJ and for BECTU, ACTT and Beta. B

Brian who stayed as a regular member, a woman called Carrie Bates who went on to work for another union. Julie Lawrence, who now works at the TUC, used to work at Equity. So… from a lay members committee, we built up a strong [one] so we did a lot of big stuff there….Chris Storey, who is actually- check him out on the thing [internet]. He was the Director of HR for radio. Later turned out to be the MI5 man in the BBC. I did a lot of business with him. A lot of business with him. And the biggest, the single biggest thing I did, which was about 18 months before I left, I'd finished my course, no jobs had come up. I'd kind of thought ‘I will wait.’ By which time I'd made friends with lots of the officials on the ABS side: Ernie, Roger, Christina, Brian Marsh, yes, all of these people who said, “You should be given a job, but Hearn won't want it”

RL:  10:34 

Were people like the Deputy General Secretary Paddy Leach, saying that as well?

GM:   10:38 

No not at that time. To be fair, he didn't. He was very close with Tony Lennon, and he was encouraging Tony, but Tony didn't want to be a full time official. That was, yeah. I mean…

RL:  10:48 

Tony that was subsequently the President.

GM:   10:52 

He was subsequently, yeah, he was the President. He was the President. When I became Vice President. He was an engineer in outside broadcast, television, outside broadcast, and we, and him and I were on the NEC together. Oh… if I go through the whole trade union, I probably worked longer with him than anybody else … because if you go back through all of that period. But anyway, the biggest thing we dealt with, which will jog your memory on this now, which was about-  I got my Diploma and that, no jobs were coming up. I carried on working. I'd given up working in the pubs, and I was working at weekends on the race courses for book makers.

RL: That's where the legendary chalking up,..

GM: Yeah. So I was working with them at the weekends because catering, even though - so the difference was, you know, I can't believe the exact amount of money, but Tony and I ended up on full time release, but it was based on your average earnings. So Tony would have been on three times the money I would have been on, because [of] the average earnings for his department compared to my department. Yes. So, so anyway, the big thing came up, I had the diploma and everything else, was there was an outbreak of Legionella. I don't know if you remember that in the [BBC] there was Legionnaires disease.

RL: I remember Harry Leach [?] being very much involved in that.

GM: Yeah. Well, I was, I was, I was very heavily involved in that. Yeah, right. So, and I remember-

RL:  So, what happened exactly, in that sorry, where was it discovered first?

GM: Right? Well, so, the things that always stick in my mind, so is, well, you know where it comes from. It's from the filters, the water things and that. And an outside company was doing it, and they obviously hadn't been cleaning it properly. And if you walk around the corner, Broadcasting House heading to Regent's Park, the first street on your right, walking down, is Hallam Street, and there's a big car park there, and the filters and the fan comes out onto there. So you could often be walking past there in 25 degrees, and the ground would be wet, right? Because it'd be coming out from above. So that's probably where it came from.

RL: Yeah.

GM: But anyway, so on the Friday… that the outbreak happened because the outbreak happened on the weekend. You don't know, again. So: on the Friday, I was … in the lift that there's a small building next to Broadcasting House still there, called Brock house, B,R,O,C,K, and HR a lot of HR used to be in there.

So I was in and out [of] there all the time representing people, disciplinaries, grievance, etc. And there was a category of staff called House Foreman. So they were effectively facility managers, right? And there was one of them called Jim. Now, at the time, I was about 25, 26 and I said, “Jim, you're retiring soon.” because they were all in my branch.

RL: So this is 10 years then?

GM: I, Yeah, coming up, yeah, yeah, yes. I mean, I was there 10 years, yeah, so. So I said, “Jim, you're due [to] retire, soon”. And he said, “Gerry, tonight's my leaving do.” Now, I've never been a drinker. I was always on the spot, so I didn't, on this occasion come to the club, have a drink, the BBC club. [I think he invited Gerry to his leaving do. DS] So anyway, I didn't, but I wished him well and everything else. And he died on Sunday. He was one of the first with the Legionella, right? So I was in the lift with him. On the Friday evening. There was a security guard who was then on Marylebone High Street … who I knew quite well, and went to see him. And even he came back, I think.

But anyway, basically three, I think it was three people died, one member of staff, which was Jim, a milliner, who was at the other side of Oxford Street and at third person. And when it broke out, it was a bank holiday weekend, and it was a disgraceful behaviour between the BBC and the public services, Westminster Council, because they didn't want the shopping in Oxford Street to be affected. So they announced that they'd been an outbreak of Legionella, but they said the outbreak finished at the BBC end of Regent Street and didn't reach Oxford Street. So people were safe to come to Piccadilly Circus, all the way up; until about a week later, when the milliner was found to have died. Yeah, and he, they tracked him, and he had never come this side of Oxford Street. He was at the other side. So they lied.

 And it was, there was, a major inquiry. I'm not saying it was a public inquiry. I gave evidence in the House of Commons. It was the first time I ever gave evidence. And was a guy at the time who was a complete wimp called Douglas Davis, who's a very senior HR manager there. And as I was in Westminster with Paddy Leach, and Paddy and I, relationship by this stage is quite good, and Paddy was heavily involved and him and I were giving evidence. And he pulled me to but to one side, Douglas Davis, and said, “People who come here and slag off the BBC have no future” right?

RL: [laughs cynically] Intimidating.

GM: Yeah…. and I went, “Douglas, I don't see my future with the BBC, but I do see myself telling the truth.” Between you and me and that was it. And I gave the evidence. Lots…I, I'm doing this from memory now, definitely senior peoples’ heads rolled in the BBC, people whose jobs were to check the, what this, the outsource companies, were doing, etc. We had lots of insurance claims on behalf of people who were ill, so the effects went on for it. But I think the way I conducted myself during that convinced a number of people, including Paddy Leach, that actually I wasn't a hot - I wasn't just a hot head.

 

RL: Yes, yeah.

GM: So in a year after that, so that must have been… ’86, ‘87. So in ‘88 and National Officers job came up in the union. And I did think I was in a strong position. A lot of people applied. It was in theatres. So it was covering theatres.

There was only one official in theatres at the time called Paul Bromley, yes, yeah, but we are now BETA. [Broadcasting and Entertainment Trades Alliance. DS] ABS [Association of Broadcasting & Allied Staffs.] had amalgamated.

RL: [inaudible] Okay, sorry, I didn’t want to interrupt your narrative. [querying the union details]

GM: Okay, sorry, yeah, so basics, sorry, I should have said, so in I was elected on to the ABS Executive Committee about three years, two years before they were before they amalgamated with NATTKE, yes. [National Association of Theatrical, Television and Kine Employees. DS]

But then the first Executive Committee was an appointed executive. It was x number from each one, yes, and Hearn and others picked them. And I wasn't picked, right? So I wasn't one of the chosen ones to go on there. So I was off the Executive for a year, right? The following year, there was the first ever postal election, and I headed the poll right and got back on to the Executive Committee and that, and then the legionnaire stuff and all that happened subsequently to that. So,… so that that was my introduction with NATTKE. So where I was in the BBC, had little crossover with NATTKE. There was no NATTKE in radio. There was some NATTKE in Television Centre. So: Tony Lennon had some contact with NATTKE, yeah, but I had no contact with them about-

RL:  18:15 

Can I just say a word about NATTKE?  NATTKE was a union primarily for craft workers in the industry, yeah?

GM:   18:26 

Theatre, film and television, yeah, yeah, yeah.

RL:  18:27 

People of that kind, they were rooted in the theatre sector.

GM:   18:34 

 Yes, yes.

RL:  18:39 

In the West End. And in cinemas. So for the first time, he took the BBC union out of the BBC and extended it into these other sectors. And that was a big change.

GM:   18:48 

That was a big change, yeah,

RL:  18:49 

It was a big change because it was different kind of union, yes, a different kind of –

GM: 18.54

More industrial, yeah.

RL:  18:55 

And culture, but, and then you came in and the A&E sector was an enormous, important part of NATTKE organisation, and you went for a job in that area, yes?

GM:   19:11 

Yes …. One of the things that's worth saying about that is, if we're doing this, doing, to do it honestly, as I want to do and everything else. So during my days for counselling, I mean, I think it was about two, two and a half years on the executive, the BETA Executive, for the ABS -NATTKE one after the election, and we used to have our election and we used to have our executive meetings at the Courtlands Hotel in Hove, right, and you went down on a Saturday night, and they meet…  on the Sunday. This was during the same time as the Wapping strikes. So actually, every Saturday night, Tony Lennon and I and a few others used to be at Wapping right. The General Secretary of NATTKE, who was the joint General Secretary of BETA, was a guy called John Wilson. Them. Now, John Wilson was elected on a communist ticket, even I found this out afterwards, but anyway, he was anything other than a communist in the sense of his behaviour. And I used to remember very well him taunting us on a Sunday saying “I got my copy of the Times.”

RL: Yes.

GM: Because he knew where we were on Saturday night, and even if he had to get an old copy out, he would do it just to taunt us, so anyway, so that's just kind of a side thing. So I did this-

RL:  20:31 

[inaudible] political position, yeah, complete opposition to that.

GM:   20:35 

Of course, totally Yeah, and it was, and so I knew the theatre people, obviously from the Executive Committee and liked them individually. I have to say… that I thought their staff and the people I knew there were a lot less professional than the ABS people in their behaviours and everything.

RL: And had you got the job at this point.

GM: No, no, no, I was on the Executive Committee.

RL: You were familiar with them.

GM: I was familiar because I was on the Executive I was meeting the likes of Finer, [?] Bromley.

RL:  21:01 

Were you aware how bad it actually was? [inaudible] found out. The kind of the shambles that description, yeah, corruption, and so on and so forth.

GM:   21:14 

Yeah. So I had no idea that. And when I applied for the job the likes of Ernie Johnson, Brian Marsh, and that said to me, “Listen, you've got a great chance of getting this job, but you … need to remember, you're going in here with a bunch of bastards.” That's what they said. …They'll try and stitch you up and all of the other stuff.” But I was probably arrogant or whatever, and so I went for it.

But anyway, so it wasn't, it wasn't clean cut. So the interview panel on the day I went for the job was Tony Hearn, General Secretary, Wilson is now retired by now. Tony Hearn. Winnie Lowe,[?] from Tyne Tees Television, who was the treasurer, Derek Cutler, who was the same Derek Cutler I met many years previously. He was the President, and Tony Lennon, who was the Vice President anyway, and on that interview panel, the likes of Willy Donaghy went for the job. Brian Mack went for the job. Don’t think Luke went for that job.

RL: So these are all paid officials, subsequently, yeah.

GM: In the union. Stiff competition anyway, the result was that night, I'd agreed to meet Tony Lennon in the Green Man pub, he would tell me what happened, just off of Berwick Street. Anyway so the result was that there'd been no decision. It was going to the Executive Committee the following Sunday.

RL: That's because committee was split?

 

GM: Split, yeah, so Derek Cutler and Tony Lennon voted for me, Tony Hearn and Winnie Lowe voted for a woman called Pippa, I don't know- can’t remember her second name, and she was a graduate from university or something. Didn't have kind of the hands-on experience, but obviously had better education than I had. And so they were split. It was a 50/50 split. And as I said, nobody had come in for the lay membership since Roger, which was 11 years previously.

RL:  23:02 

But the thing that had changed now was that NATTKE coming, and NATTKE used to recruit from its own.

GM: It did.

RL: There was a rule about not recruiting from your own staff. But the new union was different.

GM:   23:10 

So anyway, when it came up with the Executive Committee, I went to the Executive Committee, but when that item came up, I obviously left the room. And it took about 45 minutes. And then when I came back in Derek Cutler said to me, “Gerry, I'm pleased to tell you, you've got the job.” And it was, at the time, it was called Industrial Officer. It's the same as a National Officer now. Industrial Officer. I said, “Fine,” and thanked them and that. And obviously that was my last Executive. I found out subsequently that during the discussion, Tony Hearn, the then General Secretary, said, “We can't appoint Gerry. He's too political. He won't stop playing politics in the Union, and therefore we shouldn't.” Right? And so I had to move a number of the Executive that way.

He then tried to appeal to the theatre people by saying, “Okay, I know he wasn't on the shortlist of two, but let's give the job to Willy Donaghy.” Willy turned out to be one of my best mates, yeah.

RL: And he became the official, yeah, for theatres.

GM: Yeah. And only retired 18 months, two years ago anyway, so, but the Executive didn't go [for that]. It went to a vote, and I won the vote, and then I started, and we were based on 181 Wardour Street, so I was the first official to come into the NATTKE area-

RL:  24:32 

Can you say something about what it was like in that sector?

GM: Right? Yes.

RL: Your, reputation, yeah, and among the other officials and among members, which was already quite strong, was, was eventually strengthened by your record, wasn't it?

GM:   24:49 

Yes, it was. I didn't feel, I think it's kind of the confidence of youth or whatever it was. I didn't, I didn't feel any trepidation. I didn't have a family. I had the flat in Camden. I was paying rent…. I didn't have, I didn't feel under any pressure. So, basically, but I knew that, obviously, I knew that the General Secretary didn't want me, and I had to watch my p's and q's. So the first thing he did was obviously, to, try and unstable [destabilise] me a bit. He called me in said, “You do know I didn't want you son.” And I went, “That's fine.” [laughs] And then he said, and in addition to this, you're also going to be the officer in the Equality Committee, and I'll be watching all of your notes and everything else.” But the guy that was the chair of the Equality Committee was a guy called Dave Allenby, who was a very decent man. And he was an engineer in radio and a polio victim, etc. And he went, “Don't worry about it, Gerry, we’ll look after that. You do the industrial stuff.” So we met. I turned up there for a couple of hours, and that was it and thankfully, somebody called Jane Pool [?] turned up, and I didn't need to do that anymore.

But so what I do remember was the first day turning up to work. So all the ABS people were on one side of the building, the Noel Street. You remember the 181 building at the Noel Street? It was an ex-bank, an old bank, on the Noel Street side of the building, and all the NATTKE people were at the other side. And I was next to a guy called Barry Quinton who was next to the thing. And the senior official, my boss at the time, didn't last long, was a fellow called Bill Bovey right, who was not based in London. He was based up in Nottingham, but there was literally

RL:  26:33 

Bill Bovey was the man who legendarily sold knickers in the market, yes,

GM:   26:35 

Yeah, but NATTKE had a different reputation…... So anyway, so Paul Bromley was in an office, then Barry Quinton, then me, then Finer, Roland Johnson, and then there was finance and all the others. And underneath was Sharon Elliott, and she was in there just, had just been appointed before me in Comms, [Communications] about six, nine months before me, yes, as a Press Officer, so

RL:  27:05 

But you were isolated in there?

GM:   27:07 

Well, but I didn't even, as I said, I felt nothing. All I remembered well was going to, I used to go to lunch with Brian and the others at a cafe around the corner, but the first day I turned up … don't forget, there's no mobile phones, computers or anything in those days. And Barry Quinton, who, to be honest, he'd admit himself, I don’t think he was cut out… for the front line of trade union activity, and he, I remember him on the phone going, “Bill, he's turned up.” I'll always remember that anyway. So I got on with it. And I was initially covering the West End theatres.

RL: Yeah.

GM: And I went round every theatre.

RL:  27:43 

So can you say what, what the sector was like? Describe it.

GM:   27:47 

So, the sector right? So…  it was theatres. I wasn't covering cinemas and Bill Bovey and some of the others used to cover that. So I covered theatres, and I was covering West End theatres and the English National Opera and the National Theatre, which was still talking about the strike, from the Laurence Olivier days, the NATTKE strike, yes. And people were very thing [sic] there, the union's reputation was pretty low, I have to say, for doing bad deals, not turning up to meetings, which seemed to be a very regular occurrence. So, I went round all the West End theatres and said-

RL: There was no confidence in the union.

GM: There was no confidence in the union. I said, “Listen …. give me a chance. We do this, etc.” And we had a collective agreement with- which was then called SWET. S,W,E,T, Society of West End Theatres, now called SALT, Society of London Theatres, yes, anyway, and I knew that the first negotiation would be… the making of me or the breaking of me in there. And I was never afraid of work, right? And the pay rates were days [?] but there was people working in huge shows. There was automation coming in. There was no extra money. So I dreamt up this thing that still goes on to this day, called pre-production meeting. So I said, “Well, what we should have is, is a pre-production meeting. And every pre-production meeting, we get extra money for wearing blacks, [Stage Blacks] wearing costumes, doing this.” And everybody, older reps kept saying “They'll never do it, they'll never do it, …pay it.” And it was a guy called Rupert Rhymes ,who was-  remember the name? He was the head of SALT UK TMA [Theatrical Management Association. DS] at the time.

So I went into the negotiations. And obviously I was different from their point of view. I'm not saying I was any better than anyone else, but obviously I was active in the negotiations, etc. The talks broke down, right? I did a number of meetings in the West End, but I’d twigged that our lot wouldn't stand up to a stiff wind. I mean they had no history of this, etc. But at the same time, [between] you and me, if I roll over now, I'm just going to leave another one of these unfinished. So anyway, I went back to what I did in the BBC and thought ‘let's see if we can use the press here.’ So I met a guy, met this bloke… for lunch called Robin Stringer, who was then the media correspondent for The Standard. And then there was a guy with him, Brian Attwood, who ended up being the editor of The Stage. And I said to them, “This is going to be the biggest thing that hit the West End. My members are rattling their cages. Can't wait to get at them, etc.” I can't remember what was the top shows at the time, but these are the shows that are going on, etc. And we're going to do this anyway.

End of Part 1B

Gerry Morrissey: Part 2

NB Time codes refer to Part 2 of the interview as far as page 60 of this transcript.

RL:  0:00 

What were you going to do specifically?

GM:   0:02 

Well, what I could do and what I wanted to do were two different things.  But what I said to him was, "We will be looking at closing the West End down". So anyway, the front page of the Evening Standard was West End About To Go Dark.

RL: Yes.

GM: Right. So I'm absolutely chuffed to bits with myself thinking this will have them on the ropes. Turned up to work the next day, only to be brought into a formal hearing by Hearn for bringing the, for damaging the union's reputation-. I went, "No", So anyway, so we had a, we had a very fiery relationship.

RL:  0:37 

I know you had a bad relationship with Hearn.

GM:   0:39 

So Hearn said, so he just said, and I just said, "Listen, this is dead simple."Don't forget, I'm still only been in the job, probably this stage, nine months, a year. But I was confirmed in post. You got confirmed within six months. So I was confirmed in post, and I said, "I think what I'm doing is right. I'm representing the members. They'll support the thing,” I said, "but if you think it's wrong, I'll tell you what I'll do.” Because we used to have to write up these immaculate reports and send them through copies, duplicates and all the other stuff, and they go to the Executive I said, "Why don't I write the report for the Executive Committee? You send it to the Executive Committee, and then if the Executive Committee say I'm wrong, then obviously I'll carry out the instruction of the Executive Committee. He was going absolutely apeshit, but I just stuck to my guns.  And in the end he backed off, right? So we went in to the negotiations, a guy, another name from at the moment, they still broke down. And then finally they caved in and gave us the pre-production meetings. Anyway-

RL:  1:40 

Which then meant that they had to bargain with you about what would justify extra payments on that production. So you effectively raised the earnings on that production.

GM:   1:49 

Well it did that. It did that. But the other thing it did was - because obviously I was conscious of the fact I needed to grow the membership. I cannot tell you what the membership was when I went in. I just can't remember, yes, but I know it was pretty low, and it was very much like the HO [Head Office?] Well, there was three branches in there, in the West End at the time, which made no sense, Heads of Departments, Daymen, which was your permanent staff below the Heads of Departments and Performance staff, which were effectively your casuals. So that divided the union.

So I said to them, “You've got to have one branch.”  And there was people resistant to this. There was a huge one on the H O D side. There was a huge Mason [masonic] element, which I'd never come across before.  But eventually they trusted me, and we went for one branch and that made us stronger, because [previously] the employer was able to play one branch off against the other. So anyway, the other thing the pre-production meeting gave us was: I would turn up to the theatre, Drury Lane or something, where the permanent staff backstage would be no more than six or eight, but the total number of people on there working could be 150 because you've got all the performance staff coming in. Obviously check- off used to happen. They paid the subs, by DAS [Debt Arrangement Scheme?] for the permanent staff, but the casual staff used to have to pay stamps and all this other stuff. And of course, they were in and out of the Union, not in, etc, by actually going along there and doing a pre-production meeting. I used to say, "Right, we're not deciding how much we're going to ask for. There'll be a meeting of the entire crew. So I used to get a half an hour, half an hour paid time before and say, "Right, this is what we're doing. This is our claim. We're going to go for this right?” And of course, I joined everybody up there and then. Right now it was very time consuming, because I had to do it all. My aim was to try and get the reps to do it themselves, which a few them did for a while.

RL:  3:43 

So recruitment was central to your strategy?

GM:   3:45 

Absolutely, to me from back from the BBC days, if you haven't got members with you, you can't even bluff them. Yes, you had to have the team. So basically this allowed us, and we built the West End membership up well. And it was a guy called Peter Roberts, who you must have met.  He was very heavily involved in training with CC skills, and that. He was a Mason, and he was the chief negotiator at the time for Society of London Theatres. He was working for Delfont Mackintosh. Him and I did not get on. We mellowed in recent years, but we did not get on. And he, they, worked out after about nine months, twelve months, that at the next negotiation, they wanted to get rid of pre -production meetings. It was costing them too much, because, I mean, on average, I remember adding on about £30 - £35 a week onto people's wages.

RL:  4:39 

And the wages would have been what?

GM:   4:42 

Probably about, probably about: HODs - eight, nine grand a year, yeah, ten grand, maybe most, yeah. So a big, big proportion of it, and so there was huge resistance to it.

RL: A big slice.

GM: A big slice, yeah. And you did have to, you did have to stand up to these, a lot of these producers, the [Bill] Kenwrights of this world, everything else you really, that's when I first met Tudor Gates, [BEHP Interview No 0528] because he was involved with things.

RL: Tudor Gates subsequently turned out to be a President of ACTT

GM: And a Vice President,

RL:  5:15 

Who we haven't got to yet, but yeah, and a Vice President of the new union; He was a writer, a film writer.

GM:   5:20 

But  some of the people my side of the fence didn't like him. I always liked him. Not because he was a "Gooner," [A supporter of Arsenal Football Club. DS] but I always liked him. But anyway, the, so he was anyway, So a funny story in the middle of all this was what I was doing a pre-production meeting for Half a Sixpence. Tommy Steele at the London Palladium, and the name of the producer, it'll come to me now, just told we were talking it through anyway, Fielding, Harold Fielding, Harold Fielding. Famous Producer. Right now I wouldn't have known that Harold Fielding was 35 or 95 or whether he was six foot or five foot.  I knew the name. I'd never met him. Anyway, my co-colleague at the time, Paul Bromley, was working with me, didn't have a great attendance record, in and out, etc, so I was only supposed to be covering London, but I used to then gradually get dragged out. So anyway, I put this thing in. We'd had meetings with lower down people than Harold Fielding, etc. And basically, I got, by this stage, I become very adept at getting stuff into the Standard and the Stage. And it was "Song of Sixpence [sic] is in jeopardy." And of course, what that immediately done is-

RL: Half A Sixpence.

GM: What it meant was immediately, was that the ticket sales went down because people didn't want to buy tickets if they weren't sure the show was going on.

So I was at the Harlow Playhouse doing a meeting, and our Branch Secretary there was working in marketing or whatever, and I'd just finished something. She goes -she knew everybody. " Gerry, there's a phone call from [sic] you. It's Harold Fielding." I went, "Okay," and picks up the phone. He goes, "Morrissey?". I went, "Yep", "Harold Fielding, here, I'm gonna make you the best offer you've ever had. I'm gonna allow you to keep your legs now you're gonna fuck off and leave my production alone.” Right? So I went, "Okay". So I said, 'Are you in the theatre tonight? Yeah? So he said "Yes".

RL: It’s like America, it’s like the mafia.

GM: Anyway, I finished a meeting at Harlow, comes back into Liverpool Street. I  mean it's seven o'clock now, something like this in the evening, so I've long finished work officially. I come over to the Palladium, goes into the stage door. And I said, "I'm here to see Harold Fielding, right?" So, I goes upstairs. Harold Fielding has got two sticks. He's about 80 so he couldn't break an egg never mind my leg. Anyway, so I just said, "Listen, I ain't going anywhere. I ain't being intimidated by you or any of the other stuff and that. And the next thing, he said "Hang on." He brought Tommy Steele in. So anyway, I've given him all of this thing there on the rap, bang, bang, bang, with the team. And all I remember Tommy Steele saying is, "You can't speak to Mr. Fielding like that." And I went "I just did” Anyway, he said "We're not reaching an agreement. Find something else to do with your night, because you won't be watching this show, right?” I walked out. I've gone straight out onto the back of Great Marlborough Street, and he opens the windows. And whatever money we were looking for, call it £30, I can't remember, and I've got the HOD, saying to me, "God Gerry, we're going to be in trouble here". And I went, "Now, sit tight, sit tight," but go back out onto Marlborough Street. He opens out the window. He goes, "You can have your money, you Irish bastard, but you're banned from the Palladium" [Much laughter] And I always remember that. So anyway, they made a decision.

RL:  8:46 

Wonderful story.

GM:  8:47 

They made a decision that actually they were going to, they had to stop the pre-production meeting. It was driving their costs too high. So they kind of got all their producers and everyone together. Now, if my members couldn't stand up to the stiff wind, they couldn't stick together, because they were all putting big money in. Even to this day, there is only 15% of Western theatres shows that go in, that make a profit, right? Most of the money is coming in from ‘angels’ in the city, who are investing some money in there, etc, and having a go. So the idea of any kind of industrial action, etc, I knew was difficult. So the threat was always a lot worse than the bite, yes. So anyway, we had the thing, and Peter Roberts was absolutely adamant that the pre-production meetings finishes, etc. So, the talks kind of broke down. We had more meetings in the diary. And there was a guy working as a journalist. You'll know his name at Thames Television at the time, called Marc Wadsworth

RL:  9:47 

Yes, yes, right,

GM:   9:48 

Fairly famous now, with the being expelled from the Labour Party, etc. Janice Turner, our friend, works with him on the Black Members Committee, et cetera. Marc was a young, fiery journalist at Thames Television at the time, and I did a couple of bits and pieces with him. And Chess was opening at the Prince Edward Theatre on Old Compton Street, and Peter Roberts was responsible for getting this show on. …This was the biggest show coming into the West End at that time. And I said to Marc, I said, “Talks have broken down. We're going to target Chess right? So how about that for your London News thing?” So he went off, spoke to whoever. He says, “Yes, we're on but they want to do an interview with you outside the theatre.”  I'm fine. So, my office was, by now we're in 111, [Wardour Street.] I walk across to Old Compton Street. I walks down to Old Compton Street, meet him, we're doing an interview. I'm standing in there pointing at the theatre. Peter Roberts walks along. You could literally see his legs go weak in the middle of the   street on Old Compton Street, … Anyway, the next thing was a phone call came through, and the pre-production, we withdraw any proposals, and the pre-production meetings exist to this day. So anyway, so that's a long-winded way around it.

But anyway, so the shows, the West End theatre shows, … well, the membership went up. And it was still me and Paul Bromley in there. And so I was then asked to do, and cover, regional theatres, right? And, and that's between you me –

RL: You weren't yet a supervisory official?

GM: No, I was, I became a supervisory official on them just after amalgamation, soon after amalgamation, and so [they] asked me to cover regional theatres. I was still working through to Bill Bovey, yes, in the thing so. But … he was wary and kept away and I knew of his reputation, and wanted to have nothing to do with him, really.

But anyway, I got this message from [Tony]Hearn to say that there was a serious dispute at the Alhambra in Bradford, and I had to go up there. And he'd made arrangements for me to meet Bill, and Bill would be sitting as you are as I head in. I've never been to Bradford in my life. So anyway, when as I get to the theatre, there's a cafe inside the theatre, Bill would be waiting there for me to give me my instructions. Okay, we'll see how that goes. And so anyway, I turned up to Bradford, went into the Alhambra. Bill is sitting in the front. And Bill goes [gesture below camera shot] - now, Bill had a reputation, as Roy said earlier, for like selling knickers out of backs of cars and markets and lots of other different things. And he also had a poor reputation with our members, whether it was rightly around for selling them out and being more wanting to keep the theatres happy rather than the members happy. So I met this manager, a woman manager, with Bill, and Bill said, “Right, what do you want?” So she said, “This is what I want. This…” which was basically capitulation by the Union. So I said, “Can I have a minute?” took Bill to one side, I went, “Bill, why are we asking her what she wants? Should we not be talking to our members?” “No, no, we're going to go and tell our members.” And I went, “You're on your own, mate, you're on your own. I ain't going to do this.” right? So, he said, “Well, I'm going to do it then.” So he went with the management.

 I went round to [the] stage door, met the members. Had to win their confidence in a very short period of time. And they started telling me and one of the guys, then, when he came to the meeting and there is Bill sitting there and saying, “This is going to happen, etc,” – now, there's a lot of money in things called ‘Get outs.’ So the show goes into the theatre, low paid people again, but, when they get the show out on the Saturday night, at that time, they were on about £100 for three hours, which was literally their wages for the whole week. Yeah, and we’ve still got ‘get outs’, to this day in there. So this was a big thing, and she was trying to bring outside crews in to do it, etc. So I was opposing. Bill was saying, “No, the managers have the right to manage. This is their right”, all of the other stuff. So we had two union officials at opposite end of the table….which was embarrassing?

RL: I’ve never heard of that happening!

GM: I'm trying to-, yeah, no, it happened. So anyway, and one of the guys said, very quiet. He goes, “I remember you.” to Bovey. “I remember you. Palace Theatre in Manchester.” I always remember this. He said, “You brought in the scab crew that night.” “No, I didn't.” “You did. You brought them in. I saw you dropping them off. I've been thinking here, where did I remember you from?” Right? Bill denied it. I have no idea whether it's true or not.

The meeting fell into complete disrepute. I knew what was going to be coming the next day, right? More meetings would happen. All right. So anyway, give Hearn his due, he goes, “What happened at Bradford?” So I told him. So he says, “Well, he said, sometimes we have [inaudible]” and I said, “Listen, I don't want to get into that.” I said, “But Bill is not playing the agenda we would want him to play.” And Hearn said, “Well, how do we do this then?”  And I said, “Well, I'll go back and sort it out myself.” And he went, “Okay.” So I went back, got it all sorted out, then started in [on] a few more other ones. Then I can't remember where it was. I think it was Leicester or somewhere. Bill and I crossed again. And at this stage, Bill wrote a report that I had to be moved out of theatres.

RL: Yeah.

GM: Right. So the report came in to Hearn and, and I'm going, “I ain't going anywhere,” right? So I'll, between you and me, I said “Bill wants to be very careful where he goes, because if I write a report for the executive committee, starting with Bradford and everywhere else, and bearing in mind the likes of Turlough MacDaid [BEHP Interview No 379] and all these people who were on there who had no time for Bill.

RL:  15:39 

Turlough MacDaid was a very fiery Scotsman, Treasurer of the Union, very radical, very left, very fierce man, yes, wasn’t he?

GM:   15:47 

And none of these people had any time for Bill. So Hearn knew that if a report came from anybody against Bill, yes, never mind a report coming from me against Bill, yes, then Bill was toast. So there was a deal done then: I was still not a supervisory official. Bill would drop any responsibilities for theatres and just concentrate on cinemas. And I would do theatres and things. And that was it.

RL: So, there's a huge tranche of additional work.

GM: Huge tranche, no extra staff, etc. And then I said … I can't remember what was the catalyst of this. I think it must have been illnesses or something else. But Paul Bromley was off again, and I'm saying, “Listen, the membership is growing, etc.” … I was putting in horrendous hours. “I do need some help in here.” Yes. So anyway, job got advertised. Willie Donaghy went for the job. Luke Crawley went for the job. Either of those I would have been very happy with. Neither got the job. The job went to a woman called Caroline Simpson, yeah, who ended up later marrying Paul Bromley, etc. And anyway, she still works at Unite to this day. She was fine. I don't think she was cut out for this area and the things. But anyway, it allowed me anyway, to do a bit more and get some more stuff done. And again, then I looked at -  so the West End theatres agreement, in my view, was fairly solid then. To be fair to NATTKE, they looked after the national houses, the Royal Opera House, the English National Opera, National Theatre, and the Royal Shakespeare Company. So I didn't have to do a huge amount to begin with those, but with those, with the West End theatres that have fallen in-

RL: Commercial [theatres].

 

GM: They had fallen into disrepute and the regional theatres- So to give you an idea of this, you're talking about 300+ theatres around the UK going from like Caerphilly village hall with 20 seats to the Playhouse in Edinburgh with nearly 3000 seats. So obviously you can't do them all. Some of them only have volunteers. And so we went in for the big ones, the touring houses and the big producing houses like the Leicester Haymarket and Derby Playhouse and all the others.

But even then, no matter where you go to you can still only cover one city in a day. You can’t do Manchester in the day, and somewhere you can really, realistically only just do it. And again, that's where my kind of relationship with the press, which I've tried to keep going through the years, worked in my favour. So, with Brian Atwood, who is the-

RL: The Stage.

GM: Working at The Stage. Later became the editor there. I used to give him stories, industrial stories, sometimes other stories etc. For 12 weeks in a row, I had the front page of The Stage, and that. And what that meant was where all outside around the country …  my formula for them was, you've got a minimum terms agreement. Now you'll be familiar with this from PACT. You've got a minimum terms agreement, and obviously it's on an ability to pay. So the pay rates, the conditions, are very close to everybody working on them, but the pay rate will be focused towards the bottom end, because there's no point putting in the pay rates they can afford in Edinburgh, because nobody else will be able to afford those. So how do we go on and build on this? … The committee, the Regional Committee, was basically in total disrepute. There was literally Willie Donaghy, and that was it, Turlough, who was -in all my life, he never worked there. He was in the theatre's area.

RL: He was an electrician.

GM: He was an electrician, yeah. And so it was building up. So I told [them], “Well, the way to do this is, this is a minimum terms agreement. Let's build house agreements on top of it.” So, if you've got money in hand, so we ended up, I ended up with about 40-odd House Agreements. And again, pretty much, … nothing spectacular about this, plenty of grafts. But you know me, I did exactly the same thing that I did in the West End. I used to say, to people there. “Do you want a house agreement?” I’d go through the accounts and the finances and say, “Right, they can afford to pay a bit more, etc. Okay, I'll come up from London. You put every- you tell me, doesn't bother to me. But at seven o'clock at night, at seven o'clock in the morning, I'll be there. And what I want you to do, as the Chief Electrician, Master Carpenter, whatever is get everybody there, box office, usherettes, everybody there, and then I talk them through, and I would say, “Here's what I want to go into a House Agreement. You tell me what you want in there, etc, and give me- trust me. Join the Union for six months, if at the end of six months you think I did a shoddy deal, then you can resign.”

And actually we built it up. And that's where… overall… the membership across theatre at the time, if the NATTKE figures were right, was over, it was about just under 2000 members. And I left it in [hesitates] 1995 or 7… I can't remember which one it was anyway. And we had, we were over 8000. We’d built all of that.

RL:  Yeah…that's an extraordinary achievement.

GM: Yeah? Ah, but the thing I'm most proud of is, again, that is that the officials, the lay members, that came through that: So, Paul McManus, were we happy to have him yeah.

RL: He was Scottish?

GM: He still is, yeah. He was the Deputy Head of Stage at the Kings [Theatre] in Glasgow. Now that was a massive dispute. And if you want to talk about disputes later that involved Neil Kinnock and everybody else, then I'm happy that's one of the biggest ones. Yeah. And Paul, so Paul was one of our reps, Trish Lavelle, yeah, who worked at the Leicester Haymarket. Her husband, Pete Martin.

RL:  21:32 

Trish became a full time official.

GM:   21:33 

Yeah and she's Head of Communications for the CWU, sorry, Head of Training for the CWU, Sorry, head of training. Pete's a lecturer at Ruskin College. Willie was a supervisory official. Willie Donaghy a supervisory official in the union. Paul is the National Officer for us in Scotland. Now, several, several union officials, came out of that committee… so we had a -

RL:  22:02 

One member [?] who knew what happened, and was familiar with everything. Then what he said, and I never heard him use excessive language like he said, the members fell in love with him, you know, so at the end of the day you could do no wrong. But I mean, you grafted for that.

GM:   22:15 

Oh, yeah… And the other thing was, what I twigged was, coming out of the BBC, say whatever you say about the BBC, they're relatively professional in what they're doing. So within about 15 minutes, I worked out that these theatre managers had no idea what they were doing. Yes, right? But the single biggest thing is, and I've never abused it, because actually, the number of strikes we had were minimal [was] they had a perishable product if we were on strike at the BBC, before we had an effect, with the exception of News like EastEnders and everything else, they would have three, four weeks of that in the tank at that time. Yeah, so before you could actually take, have, any effect in the, in the broadcasting areas, you'd have to be out on strike for a while, while in theatres if they lose the production tonight, they never get that back. That money is gone. So anyways, and as I said, I stayed there until, [I] became a supervisor official, and stayed there till either ‘95 or ’97.

RL:  22:15 

Sure. Could we just say something about, really, about before we kind of leave that side of the BBC although you did, of course, come back.

GM: I came back to the BBC, yeah.

RL: Well, what about that term? Sort of central theme [about] the militancy: did the militancy of the ABS build up as the threats from the BBC and activities like yours within the union become stronger and stronger?

GM:   23:37 

Yeah it wasn't down to people like me. I think the biggest single thing that changed the thing the BBC was the membership. There was - they brought in.  The BBC was a job for life.

RL:  23:46 

Yeah, I was about to say that: it was staff cuts, this long programme of staff cuts got fiercer and fiercer.

GM:  Exactly.

RL: And dominated the BBC and union relationship for the next 20 years.

GM:   23:57 

Yes, because the first one was called Black Spot, and that was before I left the BBC, just before I left, literally the year I left, and that was cuts in Engineering.

Now, if you went through the BBC, senior management across the piece, engineering is integral inside. I mean, engineering people are very senior in there. And the idea of chopping your own you hurt the BBC, so that changed the relationship. And the union just became, people became more militant, yeah. And it was very sad during then: I said to you a few years after I’d left they outsourced catering, security and cleaning, yes, and the security guards. To a lot of people -to me, it wasn't, it was their social life as well. They'd be at work all day. They'd go to the BBC Club, which had reduced drinks prices and everything else. They'd stay there all evening, the whole- everything there. I was never like that in the BBC because I did the union work, but when I finished, I wanted to go and do my own thing. I played football. I played squash, all of the other stuff, and I wanted to do my own thing. But people used to live in the clubs, and when they then privatised it all, people didn't just lose their jobs. They lost their social life.

RL: The cultural impact.

GM:  And we-  and a security guard. committed suicide. He couldn't cope with it and, so I think it was that, the beginning of all those rounds of job cuts that forced the union into a more militant stand in the BBC.

RL:  25:26 

There was that rising militancy: disputes in ‘78, ‘83, ‘86,’88 and it got fiercer and fiercer.

GM: Yes,

RL: And the other signs of that growing militancy. Well, ABS had never traditionally been kind of a left-wing union, but suddenly we find about the time of NATTKE that they are moving, that they introduced, to everyone's astonishment, the ABS backed a boycott on South African production,

GM: Yes.

RL: And banned it. And did it fairly effectively, yeah. Everyone was astonished. That was a sign of that militancy yeah. Where did that come from? That South Africa decision was most welcome, but it wasn't characteristic of the ABS.

GM:   26:03 

I can't remember who'd got it through, but I do remember my branch, because obviously they used to bring BBC, used to buy oranges and all the other stuff, which used to come in from South Africa, and we’d boycott it. All this, there’d be big disputes with the BBC about it. It came through a Conference proposition. And I think it was people like the Brian Macks of this world who were very involved in kind of international politics.

RL: Anti-apartheid.

GM: Yes, anti-apartheid, and I mean other stuff as well. Anti-apartheid politics. And that, that boycott came through them, and was a number of branches from radio and television, I can't remember who was the main branch that was responsible, that got it through Conference. And then a few years later, when I was working in theatres, P W de Klerk [I think he means P W Botha who supported apartheid and is mixing him up with F W de Klerk, who did not. DS] came to London. He was in London, and Lloyd Webber invited him to see Les Miserables. And the union was so integral then, sorry, so involved in the anti-apartheid boycott, the theatre members and myself, we organised it that we wouldn't go to work if he was in the audience and they had to, yeah, they uninvited him. Yeah, they uninvited him on the night. So, Lloyd Webber had invited him, but they uninvited him on the night.

So, they did stuff in the BBC, there's no question, and it went out from there.

RL: But it was a sign of the increasing militancy.

GM: That’s why we affiliated to the Labour Party. Yeah.

RL:  27:29 

I was about to say that. And at the same time, something you'd never done before, you never supported, you had never been affiliated with Labour, always been very careful to keep it at arm’s length. Bit like Prospect now, but we'll come to that, and suddenly you affiliate to the Labour Party. So, you amalgamate with NATTKE, you affiliate to the Labour Party, and re-introduce the boycott. And it's a huge drive, and this is a transformation in the union.

GM:   27:53 

And it's fair to say that the drive for affiliation to the Labour Party came from NATTKE. No question about that, to be fair, that was driven by the likes of Vincent Finer, Freddie Fabian, Freddie White, the ITV branches inside ITV and, there was a bit of caution even among some of our branches. But in the end, the more militant branches in the BBC did support it. But if that was that was actually driven by NATTKE.

RL:  28:25 

Did people say that you're always more interested in going to the Labour Party Conference than you were the TUC [Trades Union Congress]?

GM:   28:30 

Yeah. Always, always, I haven't been to the TUC conference since I've been a full time official.

RL:  28:41 

That’s extraordinary. I'm not sure if I should be, you know, be-  I feel like a Victorian Governor. [Saying] “Gosh, that's appalling.” You know, why did you, why did you, boycott it effectively?

GM:   28:50  Well, in terms of the days in the end, just before I became a full time official, because I was on the NEC, and I've been elected, so I saw the Bill Jordans, and the [Arthur] Scargill’s things and everything else, but I'd gone enough times to see that all it was doing was-  I believe in action. I don't believe in passing. And I've never done …with, as a rule, passing a motion and then putting it in a filing cabinet. Yes, you're going to do something with it. And the TUC continually passed motions and never did anything with them, right? And even I’d moved, I've spoken at the TUC, moved motions, etc, yes. So therefore, there was nothing in it while the Labour Party, I just felt, now this is obviously pre the [Tony] Blair days, yes, but him again, in a different way afterwards. So pre- the Blair days, I could see where actually you can have an effect here. If you can network with people, you can get a motion onto the order paper. You can get this as policy. So, I fought with a number of other unions and got Chris Smith … to adopt  statutory funding of theatres.

RL: Yes.

GM: and that was for the election, the ‘92 election, that [Neil] Kinnock lost. Unfortunately, when they won it in ‘97 it was off the bloody manifesto, but he was in there. And it's still to this day, there is no statutory funding of theatres, which is a huge problem for regional theatres now.

RL:  30:10 

So you saw it as being more instrumental and effective, effective way of achieving change.

GM:   30:16 

It was about change. So the TUC to me, was, to be honest, was this, and still is a social gathering. And [gestures] we won't beat our wives? Well, yes, of course, It wasn't [doing]. It was just passing propositions, the same one, year in, year out. It took a whole week out, and I just thought, ‘no’, so when I was Deputy, after you retired, when I was Deputy General Secretary, Roger and I had an arrangement which wasn't written in any paper or anything, he did the TUC, and I did the Labour Party. And then when I became General Secretary, I carried on doing the Labour Party, and Luke [Crawley] and Martin used to rotate the TUC, yeah. … So, I've done the, with the exception of the first year we affiliated, yeah, I never missed the Labour Party Conference until we disaffiliated.

RL:  31:09  Right, right. Can we say, you mentioned Roger again. You had a very, and it was conspicuous, it was very important. You had a very strong relationship with Roger Bolton, didn't you?

 

GM: Yes.

RL: Throughout your time was a kind of bond of trust and loyalty there, yeah, and of working together, acted together. And as he became more significant inside the Union, as it were, you became more significant as well. What was it? Where did that come from, that particular, close, relationship which was so important in the development of the Union?

GM:   31:38 

Well: so I knew Roger in the BBC, yes, but not as well as I knew the likes of Ernie Johnson or Brian Marsh, because when Roger was in the BBC, he, after he was out in local radio for a large part of it, which is not something I would be getting that much involved with, and commercial radio, and then he came back in to become the Officer at Television Centre. So then I knew him, and there was a couple of disputes, etc, when I … actually got to know Roger after I became well, after I became a National Official, because Hearn used to go to Roger, … and Roger was supposed to be a calming influence on me, on some of the things. And between you and me, we just built up a friendship of trust and things, and we both believed the direction that the union should be going in relation to growing [un]like Tony Hearn. Between you and me, no bones about this. He believed there was, there was no such thing as recruitment, that you could never recruit people into the Union. He openly said this. He said people either instinctively wanted to be in the union or they didn't, right? Roger didn't believe that, and I didn't believe that, but actually people who were more-what’s the best way to put this?-  who were less keen on getting their hands [dirty], not everybody likes recruiting, yes, less keen on getting their hands dirty etc. were happy to go along and take a lead from him. Yes.

So Roger and I were involved in that. So we just build up a friendship that just grew out of that. And it was trust in that. And the first big test that came along, and it was Hearn, the legislation came in where you had to elect your General Secretaries, and this was before we amalgamated with ACTT, and Hearn was up for election and Vincent Finer and a woman called Laurie Wallace, both NATTKE officials ran against him because Hearn had done nothing to endear himself to the membership. All of a sudden, he's at risk, right? I built up a strong base inside theatres, and Roger, at this stage, was now the Supervisory Official in the BBC Division. Yes, I was a National Officer in theatres, but I was the most significant official in there. And so Hearn needed Roger and my help, but he went to Roger. He didn't come to me.

RL: Yeah,

GM: Right. And then Roger met and I said, “Fine”, obviously we didn't want Vincent Finer as General Secretary, etc. And so we worked on his campaign, and that together. So we just kind of built up a friendship through that. When he became General Secretary.

RL:  34:18 

So… it really sort of blossomed when you supported Hearn for the General etc, or the renewal of his General Secretaryship.

GM:   34:25  

Yeah, first time he was ever elected as General Secretary, yes. And then we worked together on that, etc. And then we worked together so where the full- time officials of the ABS, and the full-time officials of the ABS who went into BETA had never had a history of getting involved in the politics of the Union. Like Brian Marsh is a very close friend of mine, and he would still disagree, to me to this day that, in his view, full time officials have no business in getting involved in the politics of union. Right.

The NATTKE officials. As we know, got heavily involved in the politics of the Union. And to be fair, the likes of Vincent Finer and [inaudible] then used to run rings around them, through the Shops [local union groupings. DS] and all the other stuff. And it was Roger and I then who started the fight back on that.

RL: Yeah. 35.14

GM: And so that's where we’d build it up. So we build up. But I had bases of reps in theatres, Roger had a base of reps in the BBC. I persuaded Roger, we've got to use these reps to be influential at Conference. Now, Roger was wary to begin with because he had a young family, oh yeah, and he was wary of Hearn etc on that, but he agreed. And so we build up, so we build up a base of the thing… but he was, one of the first tests was fully and strangely, as it happened, was Heam's re-election. Yeah, so in a sense, Roger felt comfortable using the BBC battalion of reps on that, because obviously it's supporting Hearn.

RL: It wasn't a dangerous initiative.

GM:  it wasn't a dangerous initiative, exactly. And because I always remember leaving 111 Wardour Street one night, and Hearn had been – between you and me, Hearn used to drink a lot, yes.

RL: Absolutely.

 

GM: And he was leaving, he was going out to the pub. He'd been there during the day, and I'm walking, he goes, “Gerry, Gerry, you and I never got on … I'm really grateful, Rogers telling me about all the work you're doing, but I just want to know, why are you supporting me?” And I went “You misunderstood this, Tony, I'm not supporting you. I'm opposing Vincent!” Yes.

[They laugh]

RL:  36:36 

That's very cool.

GM:   36:37 

But it was true. It was true. So-

RL:  36:41 

You talked a bit about recruitment, then it was quite interesting, wasn't it? I mean, did you inside the BBC, despite the fact you had almost exclusive access to organising recruitment there, although ACTT always tried to get organised inside the BBC, they did never really succeed. But you know, did you ever have more than 50% of the member of the staff, there? I always thought it was about 40%, I think.

GM:   37:03 

I don't think we've ever had over 50% No, no, because I think there was -

RL:  37:08 

it's totally different from the old ACTT, where they had a Closed Shop, yeah, but you had to be in the union, yeah?

GM:   37:15 

No totally. And actually, I think, I mean,… you came from the ACTT side. So ACTT was more political. Was a much stronger union than the ABS or BETA. But I think, you might think this is unfair, when the Closed Shop got abolished, yes, the ACTT struggled more to connect with the workforce-

RL: [interrupts] Oh, absolutely, yeah.

GM: - the members. I think.

RL:  37:40 

There are problems with it. [Closed Shop] It can make you lazy.

GM:   37:41 

Yeah, exactly that. And NATTKE had Closed Shops in bits and places as well. So the ABS never had that, but never had over 50% so…, the ABS, had strong areas. So, my area, which I kind of made strong in a sense.

RL: That was weekly pay.

GM: That was weekly paid, that was a weak area before we came along and organised it all. But the strong areas were, Engineering, very strong; Outside Broadcast, Post Production and Studios, yes. So the production grades like Assistant Producers, Producers, Researchers. They were weak. They were very weak. The administration area is really weak, Research and all of that stuff and audience staff was strong for a while, when there was a woman called Anne  Rawcliffe King in there, yeah, but … basically the union organised and that even then, if I look at it, … recruitment was only, I mean the Union was very much around Hearn. Hearn was the union intellectual, yes, writing good papers, doing all the other stuff. It wasn't the roll your sleeve up, job up, yes, and take it on in this sense. So, they did not see the strength in collective bargaining. They placed a huge amount on a cosy relationship with the BBC. And actually, I was quite young at that time. It was only afterwards I picked up our relationship to keep the ACTT out,

RL:  39:11 

Sure, absolutely. Well, it's also true that you didn't really have an ABS agreement. All you had was the was the regs, you know, the terms and conditions the BBC, which you could kind of influence and argue about. Unlike the ACTT, which had separate agreements for a whole range of employees i.e. laboratory, ITV, commercial radio -

GM:   39:36 

They only had, basically, there was two. They had the agreement with the BBC and with the old Independent Broadcasting Authority, which is now Ofcom. [Office of Communications]

RL: The transmitters.

GM: Not the, no, the transmitters were inside the BBC, at this time… they [Ofcom] were the regulator, right, the old ITC.

RL:  39:53 

Yeah. Also you had the staff in the ITA in my day.

GM:   39:55 

Yeah, that's right. So they were. In there. And Roger, first, John was obviously organising a local radio commercial, local radio, so him and John Foster did that, and they were very close. I mean, John Foster was then an official at the NUJ, [National Union of Journalists] later became General Secretary at the NUJ, but so the union, so I, I think I could safely say that there's never been a time when you had over 50% membership.

RL:  40:23 

No, no, that's interesting. That's interesting. So should we move on? And then suddenly, what year was it that you finally, after some false starts yeah, we saw the moves towards amalgamation. Finally, we achieved amalgamation?

GM:   40:41 

I was a lay member when it failed. Yeah, the first time, which would have been about eight-, mid-80s, that's it. Yeah, that was when it failed. And I did know some ACTT key people who I kept in touch with for political reasons. So, yeah, so I've always known Phil Hooley, [BEHP Interview No 628] yeah, and Jack Amos, [BEHP Interview No 481] God, rest his soul.

RL: Yes, yes.

GM: So there was a group, and we used to meet.

RL:  41:01 

We finally amalgamated in 1990 Yes, gave us for the first time … gave us a union which covered the entire industry.

GM: Yes.

RL: Covered ITV, covered the film industry. Covered the film laboratories, theatres, cinemas, and it covered broadcasting-

GM: [Inaudible]

RL: 41.21

-and the whole radio sector. And we had finally, because we were, we were often arguing with the same employers over the same tables,.

GM: Exactly.

RL: About the same agreement, but arguing separately.

GM: Exactly, yeah.

 

RL: Well, how did you feel about that finally achievement of that single union?

GM:   41:32 

Well, I liked it. I was in favour. So I was at the time of amalgamation, I was the Shop Steward on behalf of the BETA staff. Yeah, right. You were probably sitting the other side table, because Jenny Woodley was the ACTT, yeah, one and somebody, Andy Egan, right, Dinah [Caine] was also involved with ACTT so, and Dinah was involved with Andy and things. Andy and I hit it off band we got on really well during and, you know, friends always after that. There was a bit of tension around during those negotiations around the terms and conditions and everything else, tense discussions with Dinah and others about… which conditions, which jobs, and everything else. So there was a bit of friction between the staff of the ACTT…

RL:  42:18 

That’s always true: for the two existing staffs to come together and merge.

GM: Politically-

RL: There's always rivalry and insecurity.

GM:   42:23  Politically, I was always convinced about the merger, and if I had ever one regret, you always have, at least, that it is I've always would have liked to have seen the federation of entertainment unions. Yeah, but … it never, never happened, but I was always convinced about that; obviously I had to fight our corner, because when we, when it amalgamated, even though I built the theatre membership up, yeah, it was still seen as a poor relation, because the members of staff, the members of the Union, were lower paid, yes, and there was arguments about it. So politically I was convinced.

RL: But it was about status, as well, wasn’t it?

GM: It was about status, yeah. And so then there was, so ‘91 was when I became a Supervisory Official, yeah. Roger was BBC.

RL:  43:14 

Yeah, yes. And that was a year after.

GM: 43:18 That was a year after amalgamation.

RL:  43:20 

Yeah, so then you left A and E. [Acts & Entertainment Division]

GM:   43:23 

Not in ’91. No I stayed, yeah, I only became, only left A and E when Roger become General Secretary.

RL: Oh, that was what, ‘93 or something?

GM: ’95. ‘95 Yeah.

RL: Sorry. sorry, yeah.

GM: So, no, I stayed in A and E till then. So basically, there was four Supervisory Officials, two from the old BETA side, yeah, and two from the ACTT.

RL:  Yeah.

GM: So it was Rawcliffe King, yeah, and who's the other one then? Roger was BBC. Rawcliffe King was independent broadcasting. Oh. Marilyn Goodman, yeah. Marilyn Goodman from London production Division, and I, and I was for the Acts and Entertainment Division. You looked after Regional Production division as Deputy General Secretary, didn't you?

RL: Yeah.

GM: Yeah. So, so that was it. And I stayed there. I stayed with A and E until Roger became General Secretary.

RL:  44:20 

That’s right, Yes, yeah. So when and then, …. Tony Hearn took over after a year as the General Secretary, yes, yeah, across the whole house, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was there for two or three years.

GM:   44:34 

He was there for four years, three or four years, I think ‘99 at least three was it? Yeah? ‘95 I think. Yeah, he was, yeah, definitely.

RL:  44:44 

And then when he went, then we had another election.

GM: Yes.

RL: And Roger was elected, yeah, General Secretary, yeah. And then your good friend Roger brought you back into the BBC.

GM: No, Christine-

RL: Is that still wrong?

GM:   44:57 

That’s still wrong.

RL: I'm sorry about that, yeah.

GM: So, Chris. I- Roger asked me to go back into the BBC, yeah. And I said I felt it was still unfinished business in A and E, and I preferred to stay there. So, Christina Driver became Supervisory Official in the BBC.

RL: Right.

GM: 45.13 Right. Then there was industrial problems about 18 months, two years later, yeah. And Christina and I swapped, right?

RL: Right.

GM: So Christina had a period when she was off sick for a few months, and I became the Supervisory Official in the BBC, yeah, and Christina became the Supervisory Official in A and E.

RL:  45:36 

So what was it like going back into the BBC? I mean, the problems about staffing were getting worse and worse.

GM:   45:43 

That was, that was, yeah, I felt in myself that I’d done as much as I could do at that stage in the A and E. Yes. Theatre members, in particular, are always so smart. I loved my time working with them. I should say, one of the big things I found different when I went in there is I actually found the theatre, the theatre members, to be more politically aware than the BBC members, right? So you could walk around areas in the BBC and there'd be people reading The Sun, and you would have to convince them, etc. You go into literally nine out of 10 crew rooms, and people were reading the Guardian, yeah. So, I always found they were more politically aware, so I've always had a soft spot for the thing.

So, I left there with a bit of a heavy heart and, and I didn't do it for ambitious reasons or anything else. Roger said Christina was a friend, and there'd been a fairly big dispute inside the BBC, and Christina had a really difficult time in there with that, and then she’d had a period of ill health after that. And I met her, and … Roger had asked me again to go back into the BBC, and I did not want to do anything that would undermine Christina. So I met Christina, and she said, “If it can be arranged, I would like to do a swap with you,” yeah. So that's what we did, right? So I went back into the BBC.

RL: And what was that like to go back?

GM: That was, again, it took a while just to get a little bit used to it and everything else. And there was obviously a lot of people trying to, between you and me, lay down, who's in charge here, etc, like Tony, as President at the time. So: there's a bit of shuffling around and all the other stuff. What happened again is, I think I was quite lucky. There was a proposal from BBC management to break up, basically our heartland in there, Studios, Outside Broadcast, Post- production into a company and limited company called BBC Resources limited, That, set up by a guy called Rob Lynch, a Scottish bloke who had this great idea that they were going to win something like 15% of the commercials market and they got literally nothing. Anyway the result of that was we, were very worried that this would be separate pension schemes, separate terms and conditions, outside the annual pay, etc.

And the BBC wouldn't give us any assurances on that. I can't remember how long I was in. … Certainly within a year, I did the tours around all of the places, and we called a strike, and we had a national BBC strike, and it was really, really successful, very successful. We pulled everything off the air, took the NUJ with us, but again, the [BBC] Resources Limited thing was the main issue for me, but that wasn't an issue for the NUJ. So obviously I had to make sure that the dispute was wider than that, even though that was my main objective, to get the assurances there.

So we put it about pay, pay progression, there was enough stuff to bring the NUJ and Unite - Amicus they were called then -, in with us, yes, and we had a successful dispute. Chris Smith was Secretary of State, and we were in constant touch with him, and we went to ACAS, [Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service] and it was my longest session at ACAS as an official ever. And Margaret Salmon was then the director of HR at the BBC, she said to her chauffeur, who was a union member, “Don't go anywhere. We won't be long.” And we were there for 36 hours, and we got the agreement and Resources never left. The terms and conditions never moved away from anybody in the BBC. So they stayed in the BBC pension scheme. They stayed …they became a separate company, but their terms and conditions continued to be linked with the BBC, right? So that was a big victory for us. And obviously, because I led that dispute, and because I led the talks at ACAS, that kind of-

RL:  49:49 

[interrupts] Was that the time of Producer Choice [An internal trading system at the BBC. DS] as well?

GM: Producer Choice was part of that thing, but that was always a bit more nebulous yes to get. But the Resources issue the terms- and part of that we got. Prior to this the BBC was part of like, the Civil Service pay structure. So used to have increments, so they abolished that, and so people had nothing. So, excuse me, so during the ACAS night, we got what was called the ‘growth in the job’, which was still there up until the new agreement I've just done this year, [2018], which is the 110/115% so people progressed through the grade for six years. So that brought back an element of progression that they never had before.

RL: Yes.

GM: So…so in a sense, that kind of brought me back in. So I stayed there, then until your retirement.

RL: Right?

GM: I did a period for about a year, 18 months, Anne Rawcliffe King left, and I did Supervisory Official of both the BBC and independent broadcasting. Yeah, but then I packed that in after a year, and Sharon became the supervisor. David and Sharon.

RL:  50:58 

I’m not wrong about this, in 1999 you became Assistant General Secretary,

GM:   51:03 

Because that's when you retired.

RL: 51.05

Yes, yes, and I knew I had to get something right

GM:   51:07 

Yes, I did, yeah. And so I was looking after BBC, independent broadcasting and the Arts and Entertainment Division.

RL:  51:15 

So that was a big step up from being a supervisory official.

GM: It was.

RL: Because you were effectively controlling all across…

GM:   51:21 

All of the three areas. Yeah. And I had, yeah, the three Supervisory Officials then I had, were Christina, who retired about a year later and got replaced by Luke; Sharon, in independent broadcasting; and Willie, Willie Donaghy who taken over.

 

RL:  51:42 So: you had a close team of people who'd worked with you in the past. Yes, yeah.

GM:   51:47 

So we had a good… a really good team … and that's where I introduced annual recruitment plans. Yeah, … where each division had to lay out measurements of what they wanted to achieve, recruit, organise, but… it took years and years, and it wasn't a huge thing. So Marilyn [Goodman] was. Marilyn was my equivalent, I think at the time, wasn't she?

RL: Yes.

GM: Yeah, your job got split into two. And so, yeah, so, so it was, it was a different responsibility because of managing staff and things, yeah, but actually, in the sense of the industrial work, which is the stuff that's always made me tick, really, it wasn't that different … so I carried on. I've still carried on to this day, leading the BBC pay negotiations.

RL:  52:39 

I do say that you, that you love negotiation.

GM:  I do.

RL: That you love being at the coalface. And some guys, people even say maybe spend more time on strategy than you do, just doing during all that coalface. So I'm not saying that, but it's, but you love it, and you find it hard to step away from.

GM:   52:57 

Yeah I do and I never, Roger and I differed in that sense. I think Roger was a very able negotiator when he was in the BBC, but when he became General Secretary, it was like, he threw his tools in the bin. And, Roger stayed here. He was here every day, where I probably make it into the office, even now, twice a week.

RL:  53:19 

He was a little bit, very much an administrative man, yes, administer the NEC in the documentation. And all of that, and kept a weather eye on things.

GM:   53:27 Yeah, he did all of that. Yeah, so-

RL: But by and large, he left a lot to you, didn’t he?

GM: With the industrial stuff and with the staffing and all of that stuff. Yeah. But I think in a way, we played to each other strengths there. Yeah, a funny story on that was when Roger was off sick, for about a year, and I was kind of acting, Martin [Spence], and I was sharing him between us, and we used to spend a whole Sunday. Well, you must remember this, Roy? Yeah, we used to spend a whole Sunday at the Executive Committee… and a lot of it was just wasteful. with applications from …the ministers from Middlesbrough-

RL:  54:05 

The best thing for me was going for an Indian lunch…

GM: 54.09

Exactly so. But the whole load of it was dross, wasn't it? Absolutely dross, anyway, so… when Roger was off sick, if a letter came in looking for money and stuff, unless he was linked with the trade union movement or whatever, I put it in the bin and everything. Roger comes back from being off ill, yeah, back for about a year. And he, after, he then took back over everything, and then one day, said I was coming into work. And he goes, “Come here a minute.” He goes, “People have been saying to me that since while I was off, every Executive Committee was finished by lunchtime.” and I went, “Yeah.” and he was, “I know you speak faster than I do, but how?” and I go, “Roger, you put every piece of paper that crosses your desk in front of the NEC”, because he's covering his ass on every single thing. And he goes “What do you do?” And I said, “Well, I bought an extra bin.” We got two bins. [They laugh] Anyway, and he, anyway, Roger went back to his ways, and we carried on The Executive.

RL:  55:11 

Say what you like about us, but he wanted, he did believe the membership should see everything. And decide.

GM: Yes, yeah, absolutely, yeah, he would do.

RL: He was very forensic, every document, line by line.

GM:   55:23 

Yeah. And the thing –

RL: He was the opposite of you?

GM: Yeah, absolutely. And so in that sense, I didn't, because the thing was, somebody writes to us and look, I'm looking for £5000. We have no intention of giving them five pence. So why waste 15 minutes of a Sunday discussing in the evening?

RL:  55:41 

So then, in fact, after he came back, then eventually, Roger suffered cancer, yeah, and eventually he died. So, it's a very close friend of yours, very impactful his death is a loss [?].

GM:   55:55 It did…. I remember those days, you know. And obviously, Roger was ill for about two years, really. Yeah,

RL:  56:01 

And you effectively ran the union, didn’t you?

GM:   56:05 

I did yeah. I wasn't acting up officially, [it was] Martin and I, but I think Martin would say he did, yeah,… but I wanted to be respectful, obviously. And I never changed anything, apart from obviously making the meetings a bit shorter, yes. And I consulted Roger about things, and I used to go and see him at least once a week and things. … And, yeah, it was heartbreaking, because what Roger fought very, very hard to keep the pension scheme, because we had a lot of difficulties, as you remember, and he was and he was adamant that he was going to retire.

RL: Yeah.

GM: And I had no, I even said to him the year or two before he got ill, “Why don't you go for another five years?”

RL: Yeah.

GM: I had no, I had a good working relationship with him. I was happy with the job… I had no great desire to be General Secretary, then I didn't have to be then. People might not believe that, but that's true. And Roger said, “No, I'm retiring. I've got things me and Elaine want to do.” … So to me, it was heartbreaking that he got to 59 years of age. He had a BBC pension waiting for him at 60. He had the union pension waiting for him at 60, and he died at 59.

RL: Sure.

GM: So that was it. And we had Roger’s funeral one day, and then we had Spencer's daughter's funeral the next day. So that time was a really difficult period.

RL:  57:31 

So that was what, what date: 2001?

GM:   57:35 

That was no, ‘7, 2007. Yeah.

RL:  57:42 

2007. And then: You stood for election as General Secretary.

GM:   57:46 

Coronation, I didn't [inaudible]

RL:  57:49   

Elected anyway, elected or chosen, accepted without demur, as it were, yes, as General Secretary. So, there you are after 29 years in the Union, and you're at the top.

GM:   58:03 

Not 29 years as a full time official, 29 years in total, yeah, as a member, yeah.

RL: Yeah, joined in ’76.

GM: Well, obviously I was very proud and honoured … because it's my union, the union I joined, the only union I've been in, really, in the UK. Yes, apart from being a member of staff, with T and G [Transport & General Workers Union] and GMB later… yeah and it was, I mean, I felt a duty and an obligation to make sure the union was as healthy and… as strong as possible. Yeah.

END OF PART 2 OF THE INTERVIEW.

Gerry Morrissey Part 3

 

NB The time codes from here refer to Part 3 of the interview until the end on page 98.

RL  0:00 

So what were you when? So you are, you're, you're at the top. Now, of this union, which now, it incorporates NATTKE, ACTT, ABS. It spreads across the entire industry. It's a whole, it's a big, powerful outfit. Now,

GM: Yeah.

RL: That you're at the top, you know –

GM: Yeah.

RL: The membership-

GM: Yeah.

RL:  -is fairly strong in permanent employed areas.

GM: Fairly strong, yeah.

RL: So, all of that, what were your, what were your priorities? What, what, did you think: now I am going to check my priorities are going to be as follows,  what were the priorities and what were the challenges did you think?

GM   0:41 

Right? So there were three priorities for me in a sense. One was I had little to no knowledge of the freelance sector, yeah, right. Hands up on that. And so I wanted to understand that a lot better, etc. So that was a kind of a personal challenge. Overall, is I wanted the union, I wanted the members of the union to be proud of the union, right? And the only way that was going to happen was by making sure that we were strong in negotiations and we were as strong as possible. I wanted to put recruitment and organising at the heart of everything the union did, and I wanted to make sure we were as financially sound as possible, right? So that was, again, no master plan. Basically, I want us to be viable, and I want, but I wanted us to be able to compete at the workplace. I wanted us to be the main union in the, in the media and entertainment sector. I wanted us to be leading negotiations for the FVU [Film & Video Umbrella]. I wanted us to be powerful and be able to stand up to our, for our members, wherever they were, and that we would just build, the union would grow and build. So that was really it. And I thought, if I can do that, that would be it. The challenge was, the biggest challenge was financial, right?

RL: Mm.

GM:   1:58 

No fault of Roger's or anybody else's. Basically, we had a, you know, we had a pension scheme. That was a drain, and continued throughout my 10 years as General Secretary, is a drain on the union. More and more of the what we had-

RL: The Union’s assets.

 

GM: Assets, what the, well, the contributions in, yeah-

RL: It's resource based.

 

GM: The money coming in. [Between] you and me, we were putting in a greater proportion every single year, … of that going in, and that restricted our ability to employ people to organise, etc. That was a huge issue. And I had to take a lot of risks and challenges to get around that. Yeah, so that was the biggest thing. So my mind was always on that. And if anything ever frustrated me it was that, because it was the one thing that was out of my control, right? Because if there was a negotiation, and if there was… we had challenges where people had made mistakes, which … I don't want to go into, but put the union's future at risk. Yes, I could do something about that. I could go in and talk to the employers. I could smooth [things over], there were things I could do.

With the pension scheme, I felt impotent because, I mean, it was done on what I still say to this day, on mythical figures [gestures plucking something from the air] on what people will live to in 40 years time, on what bond rates will be in 20 years time. I mean, really…. Really hard to put your hands around. It's really frustrating that this thing that was a huge drain on our resources, there was little I could do. So it wasn't a matter of closing because, this came up …because the union was number one. So if, if the answer to this was close the final salary pension scheme of the defined benefit, right? So what you've got to remember is that when I joined the Union, we were in, my pension scheme was a 40th 1/40th, ACTT was 1/30th it's yeah, yes. Now today I'm on 1/80 right? So … really, really slashed, yes, despite slashing the benefits we're putting, we put in more money than we've ever put in. Yes, yeah, right.

GM:   4:06 

And if I investigated it, and don't forget, you know, we were very active in pensions, both at the BBC, the Arts Council, … some people like yourself, very active in training, other people on health and safety. I was always very active in pensions, yeah, so I was getting huge amounts of free advice because of the people I was mixing with, yes, for the Union, and so closing the pension scheme wasn't even an option. Wouldn't save us any money, right? Because you still had built up this huge bloody debt because of the way it was calculated and everything else. So I always felt … totally frustrated by that.

That was the single biggest challenge. And then the other thing, then is, is bringing the staff, with you, bringing the workforce, with, then you can have a vision of recruiting and organising and doing all the other stuff and you obviously have to generalise here. But in a sense, [between] you [and] me, I think I did bring the staff [with me]. I think I might not have found a solution for the pension scheme. I didn't ,yes, but in relation to convincing the staff that this union is something to be proud of, yes, that we even we need to go out and we've got to give it that extra bit, whether it's in the film studios, whether it's in the team, and we did that, and I think doing that was … basically what I tell Prospect every day, which is, you're there for those staff when you need them…

RL:  5:27 

Sure, sure. What about part- ? We'll come back to, yeah, perhaps, yeah,

GM:  5:33 

Of course, yeah.

RL:  5:35 

So it was, there was the move here, wasn't there too, the move to Clapham?

GM:   5:40 

That was before my time-

RL: Oh, that was before you. Well, when I said before I was General Secretary, yeah,

RL:  5:45 

So were you involved in that?

GM   5:47 

Very little, very, very little involved in that. And I think … Roger did a job on me, on that, to be fair.

RL: 5:56 

In what sense?

GM:  5:57 

Well, I was not, I'm a North London lad, and I liked working in the West End and Wardour Street and everything else. Roger had mooted a couple of times before … about buildings, because he lived out in Woking  and Sandra, his PA,  and later my PA lived in South London, and  he said, “We could get building on and go.” We don't want to go South London. We're in the middle of the entertainment industry. We've got to do something here, etc. So I was actually on holidays when this came up. And I'd come back from holidays, and that weekend, Roger rang me at home and said, “We really do have to get rid of Wardour Street,” etc, and that.

RL:  6:41 

And that was primarily a financial decision?

GM:  6:43 

Well, there's two reasons. One is…  you were there with us. We never spent a penny in that building, did we? We spent, we never, the year, … you were there a lot more than I was. I don't think I never saw anybody with a paint can. [laughs] So we never, in a sense, it got into such a dilapidated state. Yes we had the problem with it. And so the issue was we had to do so much work with the building, we would have had to borrow money.

RL: Yeah.

GM: Right. We, because of the pension scheme, we didn't have the money to borrow to pay loans.

RL: Yes.

GM: Right. And so we didn't. So therefore it was looking at other buildings. I just didn't feel we should be going south. Yeah, right, etc. Roger said he’d seen this building, right?

So I'll just take two minutes and tell the story. So he said, “We've seen this building in South London.” He rang me [at] the weekend, when I got back from leave, -“seen this building in South London.” And he said,” I know, before you say anything” he said, “Just come and have a look at it. Just come and have a look at it,” etc. And I said, “Okay.” And so I went. We came and had a look at it. There was a housing association in here, etc.

Roger was very keen that I wouldn't leave the union. I wasn't thinking of leaving the union. I just didn't think, you know, I talked I was - my daughter had been quite ill, yes, and I had moved out to Finchley, … and this was like an hour, well, an hour and a half each way. So it puts it on top of the day and everything else. And Roger said, “Well, you don't need to come to the office. You're always out doing negotiations, [and] everything else.” But obviously I knew that actually, if this becomes our office, it's going to become our office permanently. It's not going to be … but I felt … so during the debate at the NEC, I stayed out of it, really, because my heart wasn't in Clapham. My heart wasn't in this building, but it was Roger’s proposal, and if the members pushed back, they pushed back. Now a few people even pushed back, like Peter Cox, etc. Actually Tudor, even though he was as enshrined in the West End as I was, he didn't push back.

RL: Tudor? Owned a club in the West End!

GM: I know, yeah.

GM:  8:48 

So the thing was so, so it went through the NEC. But what people don't remember when I show people around this building is we put in an offer for this building, and then it got down to a short list of BECTU and a property developer, and both of us had put in bids of £2.3 million, exactly the same. They came back and said, "Can you put in a higher bid, or can you … tell us how flexible you are with us moving because we haven't got a place to move [to].”

 Now, I remember distinctly saying to Roger, we, both of us, knew we could, we had no more money to put in. That was all we could put in. And we were doing this on the back of we hope we can sell Wardour Street. We think we got this. So anyway, to cut a long story short, we put in 2.3 is our maximum, but we can give you a year to move out right. … The property developer was obviously borrowing money, or whatever, the way they were doing it, and they wanted in now, so they went in with a slightly higher bid, but wanted him out in three months or something. Yeah, so we got it right. The property developer who, Tim was his first name and he drove up from Cornwall. He came to see Roger and I and he made the union in writing an official offer of £100,000 pounds to pull out. Right?

RL: I didn’t know that.

GM: Yeah, yeah. So I remember saying to Roger, he can blow us out of the water financially here, because if he puts in another couple of hundred thousand, the Housing Association are going to have to go with this. … So we had, we worked out a plan and we'd get this guy, Tim, in.

GM:   10:37 

We pretended that we were interested in this offer, asked him to go away and consider whether he could improve it, right? But what he needed to know was that we were a membership-based organisation, and therefore unions take their time: due diligence, Finance and General Purposes Committee, executives, etc. So he, he fell in and went along with this. And by which time, we got to all the committees, we'd signed a contract. Yes, right. So we didn't give him time to, we got, we got out. He didn't get a chance to put in a higher offer. So we bought the building. When we bought the building, he came back to see us in a matter of weeks, and he said to us, “Actually, it's not the building itself I'm interested in so much. It's the land at the back.”

RL: Yeah.

GM: So outside here, if you look at the left, all those houses where that land… was our land. We sold them that. Yeah, we sold them that. The conference room that's here, [gestures] they broke through there to get into the back.

GM:  11:41 

 And then next door, and then build that conference room for the space we lost, yes, and we got a million pounds for that. Plus, I think it was 3% or something of the sales of the houses.

RL: Yes.

GM: However, when Roger then went off ill and the sales of the houses, the property developers sold it on to an Indian company. We had a huge problem with the Indian company. I was going toe to toe with them, day by day, for the way they used to behave with parking stuff and everything else. And I went to Roger, and I said to Roger, “We've got no chance of getting this 3%. We've got no chance of getting it. “So he said, “What do you think?” Now, obviously, Roger had cancer, he’s trying to pull it through. I said, “Well, they've asked to rent the car park spaces, right? And obviously these houses are going to be worth a lot more money with car park spaces, right? Why don't we tell them, No, we're not giving them, renting any car park spaces to them.”  But then we eventually rented to them, but on the basis-

RL: The 3%.

GM:  -That we want the 3% up front, and that's what we did, and we got another 150 grand [£150,000] for that. So we've effectively bought this [gestures] for 950 grand [£950,000].

RL: A snip, a real coup.

GM: Yes, yeah, right, but the, but the difficulty we still had in the middle of that, people will forget is the recession blew up and we couldn't sell Wardour Street and Hutchinson, Morrison, Childs, who were the estate agents, who I have to say, you know, I never…. openly say this. Peter Hutchinson had a very for a public-school boy, he had a great relationship with Roger [Bolton]. He had an awful relationship with me, right? Because he was basically saying, “Oh, forget this people, nothing was happening. Nothing was moving on Wardour Street.” And I could see we're now about to get into a position where we're going to have serious financial problems. We were paying kind of bridging loans, yes. So I had an agreement at the time, in the BBC with Land Securities Trillium, and they were building, doing the new rebuild of Broadcasting House and everywhere else. And I had a very good relationship with them. So I went to see them, and I said, “Listen, I need a favour.” And they said, “What is it?” and I said, “I need you to sell this building in Wardour Street.” And they sold it in two weeks.

GM:   14:05 

Yeah, so, but we were, we were in a real-

RL:  14:08  Your instincts are sound and you are sure-footed, aren’t you?  …You got in a kind of an area which a lot of people would be very reluctant to get involved in, wheeling and dealing with Indian property companies, …the BBC, accelerating the sale, you know.

GM:  14:20 

Well, I mean, the finances were always a challenge. They were a challenge when you were there.

RL: Yeah, absolutely they were.

GM: We had the challenges and things too. So prior to me becoming General Secretary, you knew me in the latter days of Hearn. So that was that whole operation. Well, it was a success in the sense of … we left them all, let's be clear. We left a more prestigious building in Wardour Street, moved into this building here, which meets our needs and everything else, and we've done it without any debt, and we put a bit of money into the bank.

RL: Yes, well, that's a success.

GM: That was a success yeah. The biggest challenge is going through the whole lot of that, then, financially, was the pension scheme?

RL:  14:58 

Yeah, no, I understand that there. Yeah. So, so … well, I was, what I do want to ask you about before we come back to the building. Yeah, the pension scheme is still a problem and becomes a very important issue in relation to Prospect, obviously, but we keep, if we can come back to that, you know, pretty much one of the other key things that you talked about being challenges was the fact that you hadn't worked with freelancers before.

GM: Yeah,

RL: You'd always work with kind of permanently employed people, yes, yeah. And suddenly you’re in ACTT and, like, two thirds of the union is freelance, yeah? And you then go into that steep learning curve about that, people say about you at that time, and freelancing that you looked into it, they say you're intellectually curious as well. You're interested in finding out.

GM: Yeah.

RL: Yeah, and freelancing, you say you had that, but they - and they say that you got it. You got the difference, you understood the difference, and began to be able to use and work in this wholly new area. What was the whole experience like for you with freelancing? What did you learn and what did you hope to learn?

GM:  16:11 

Right. So the first thing to say is my perceptions were totally wrong. Yes, because my perception was as freelance, I'm an industrial official. I'll always hear, and therefore, I needed members with me. And if we're going to get the employer to move, we need to do this. And I couldn't see as individual freelancers how we could collectively be able to do that. However, I have to say I had a wonderful right hand, nothing but huge admiration for Martin Spence. Right? So Martin-

RL: Martin was the AGS [Assistant General Secretary].

GM: Martin was AGS, yes. So I had two to AGS then, at this stage, Martin and Luke, yes. I knew the BBC A and IB side inside out.

RL: Martin had come from the old ACTT so he knew about it.

GM: …Yes. So I said Martin was in there. He was doing it. We talked it through. Obviously, we had the public liability insurance, which is a huge recruitment tool. We built on that in many ways. But to be fair, Roger, Tudor, yourself, you're the people that brought that in, yes, and that, that has been the major recruitment tool we had in the freelance thing. So my main thing was to go in there and learn what's happening, what jobs they did do, commercials, television, etc. Where's the strengths and weaknesses, where, and where can I use my skills to help them? Right? And so I think it would be fair to say is that people looked upon the Union for the public liability insurance, training, etc, yes, monies owed, yes, they didn't look at the Union as we can build collective agreements, yeah. So I thought, right-well-

RL:  17:48 

Well the collective agreement had stymied the negotiations for some years, for years, yeah,

GM:   17:52 Well, yeah.

RL: In the film industry I mean.

GM: And I have to say, I took a look at PACT, [Producers Alliance for Cinema & Television] and I thought they weren’t up to much. And I worked out, especially

RL: PACT were the Employers Association, yes.

GM:  And independent television, right? And in independent television, they were representative of the employers’ production, in the producers in independent television, they were not representative of the film industry, because 80 odd percent of the monies coming into the film industry, and it is higher now, came from US inward production. And there was only two of those companies, and only one for years, who were members of PACT, so basically, in my view, the tail was wagging the dog here, yes? In the sense, that the UK film companies were the ones that were telling PACT what to do, etc, which was why … our members, were working predominantly at the top end for the US studios, right? And if we reached agreements there that were based upon the monies and the conditions they were actually getting in US studios, the British companies wouldn't live with it. Couldn't live with it.

So they stopped PACT from ever doing deals with us, right? But I thought one of the things was to look at the areas, for example, BBC drama and that had got, that was predominantly, freelance, right? So I pulled a number of the branches together with Martin, with Tom Bell, and said to them, “Right, let me open the door for you inside the BBC. Let me get in and see [if we] can we do it?” And it took us about 18 months, two years, but we signed, probably, the first freelance agreement with the BBC covering TV, and Drama-

RL: It was a real break-through moment. that was a breakthrough.

GM: And we set up a procedure in that where, if we could demonstrate 35% of the Freelancers working in the genre for a year, yes, then we got recognition. So, we had the ability to expand that out into shining floors and other stuff like that. So that was a breakthrough there. Then obviously a big issue then was the feature film negotiations that had gone on for a number of, for a long time. I don't think Martin and I ever had a cross word between us, but tactically, we would disagree. Yes? Martin, I accept was my intellectual superior… but on a negotiating point of view, [between] you and me, Martin and Tom had done the initial agreement with PACT, yes. And I said, Martin, we're going to have a problem getting this through the members. Because what was clear to me, because by then I'd been around all the, you know, I'd become very regular with the grips [technicians], with the sparks [electricians]. The kind of core? Yeah…..

RL:  20:39 

Yeah. I was going to ask, because there's a really tough set of groups out there, the grips, the sparks, yeah,

GM:   20:45 

Yeah. And so I got on very well with all of them, yes, … but they did not, it was very clear to me that they did not understand the subtleties of what Martin was trying to do:  with this is a minimum term, right? You have the ability to be able to grow onto that so people like Nick Ray from the grips, who's still on the Executive and who's a very nice man and mild mannered compared to most of the other grips and things yes, he was going, “This is a £50 a bloody day pay cut for me!” And I could see the arguments weren’t getting over, yes. And then that's when I said to Martin, “Listen, we can do this, mate. We can do this. Yes. We can do an agreement on minimum rates.” So there was a big one-day conference set up at a hotel down in Euston, and [John] McVay spoke at it, and I spoke at it, and all the branches were there-

RL:  21:40 

McVay was still Chief Executive of PACT, which was the building boys. [?]

GM:  21:44 

So I don't think there was any bond: him, and I, did not, do not get on, right?

RL: You didn’t?

GM: No, no. So he was very much for taking, we had a heated meeting, but I definitely won over the union branches in the room, not just the usual ones, but hair, makeup, costume and wardrobe, why should people be doing prep and wrap for nothing? And I could see there was no agreement here, so I told [him]  I’m going to wind the troops up and so, so that worked in a sense, but it meant another year goes by, we didn't get an agreement. So, now, I'm in discussions with Prospect as well, looking at this, but I get a phone call from Amanda Nevill, head of the BFI

GM:  22:26 

on behalf of the film, British Film Commission, who've had, who've all been under instruction from the DCMS [Dept of Culture, Media & Sport] to get agreement, because what had come in from America and everything else, that this is beginning to turn into a Wild West, because we what we had is, we had two or three films where the electricians and the grips either…  separately or collectively, refused directly.

RL: Holding them to ransom.

GM: Holding them to ransom, right? So anyway and so straight after, like the fourth of January. So we got -…  they asked me to attend a meeting with the British Film Commission, with Amanda Nevill and with McVay. So the first day - so it went on. We had three meetings. Martin knew all about it. The first day was McVay and I just kicking lumps out of each other, and him basically saying, “[The] union can't deliver anything. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” And Martin and Tom got this agreement. They don't say no.

The members didn't reject it. We never put it to ballot. I've refused to do this. “I'm the General Secretary of the Union, and I'm saying we're not going to ballot.” Right! End of. Right? So he was demanding it went to ballot, and we said “No” Because it's going to lose, because if it goes to ballot, it’s going out with a recommendation to reject, because people don't get this. So, and so that's when I then proposed to them. “Let's forget money, right?” We've got our rate cards. We can live on our rate cards. Let's agree the conditions, right? But no more free “prep and wrap” [Work carried out before and after a production on a daily basis], no more all the other stuff. Let's agree the thing. And we agree that now Martin had retired, then as we come into that, Spencer then comes in to take over as the AGS in there.

And Spencer's done a wonderful job in the negotiations, etc.

RL: That’s Spencer MacDonald, yeah.

GM: Sorry, yes, yeah. So basically we ended up, we ended up and what we've got now is a Terms and Conditions agreement that everybody abides by to the last letter, but the pay rates are still the rate cards.

RL: What happened to holiday rates? If I could just ask you?

GM: The holiday [rate] yes. So the basic, most of the branches add on 12 and a half or 10 point day or some sort of figure on to their rate cards-

RL: 24:45 

For holiday, for holiday. Yes, but is there anything in the book about holidays?

GM:   24:50 

It's-

RL: I'm sorry, because there's always an enormous problem.

GM: It wasn't enormous, it's not the problem anymore. It's recognised in there that … people are entitled to their holiday, and that either people take the holiday or they get it onto their monies. Yet, in reality, people always put it onto their monies. That was a win.

RL:  25:09 

Well that was a huge win. To crack a holiday problem if you crack a holiday credit problem, yeah, that was a bone of evil contention.

GM:   25:16 

That has been cracked. So the problems that, the two big problems we had in the negotiations. One was prep and wrap, right? So if you're in electrics, your prep and wrap, or in cameras, your prep and wrap, to be fair, is 15 minutes. Yes, turn around.  If you're in costume and wardrobe, it can be hours. Two hours before, an hour getting away stuff afterwards, and all of that was on ‘free’.

Now in the new agreement, I'm really pleased. And those departments have grown, those branches have really grown. All prep and wrap is now paid. So that was a win. The second thing then, and this is still a slight bone of contention, is that the overtime rates were flat rates. So in other words, you got paid £50 an hour, about after a certain time, £35 an hour before that time. However, because of the rate cards and the American coming in, we've been able to drive the rates up.

RL: Yes.

 

GM:  And £35 an hour, and £50 an hour, in some cases, is less than single time.

RL: Yes.

GM: However, for the runners, [entry level role in the industry] and that, it's a huge amount of money, and they're on the lower rates, yes. However, our key activists were at the top end, yes, and we voted to go on to time and a half. So most of our members are gaining but we have got a position now that we're trying to address where the runners and that are losing out on that, because, in the past, now they're getting time and a half, but time and a half is less than 50 pounds an hour.

RL: Yeah.

GM: Right. So we're trying to address that now by dealing with the basic pay rates themselves.

RL:  26:50 

The rates themselves, you're kind of, you're leaving to the branches themselves.

GM:   26:56 

Yeah, we have set up, we've set up a position where we've given the branches, the craft branches in London, regional follow on the coat-tails, the branches in London, which proposed for-

RL: Sound, camera…

GM: -All of those, do it with their own, they set their own rates. But we've got to clear it right…  and it's and it's based against contracts. So in other words, they can't just pick a rate out of the air. It's got to be substantiated by this is what's been paid on a number of films, plus 2% plus 3% Yeah.

RL: And that’s working?

GM: And that is definitely working, yes.

RL: So that’s a huge advance.

 

GM: And so that's working, and what it has done, you know, I take no credit for this. It's Spencer, Paul Evans and the team up there.

There are other departments, like location managers and all of these who had no real big history with the union, yes, who have now seen how it's working for the craft department. Yeah, and they've all got on the back of it. So we've now got rate counts for an awful lot more departments than we've ever had before.

RL: Has that had an impact on recruitment?

GM: Yeah, London production division is nearly 11,000.

RL: Wow.

GM: And last Friday-

RL:  28:06 

And that's risen from what? From eight I suppose?

GM:   28:09 

Yeah I would have said it was less than eight when I became General [Secretary]. I'm not taking any credit for this. Let's be clear, it's Martin and it's Spencer, Tom, all of these people. But yet, that's gone from about 8,000 to 11,000 during my period and regional production, which was under 3,000 is now nearly 6000 right? Yeah. And … so those numbers going up. So to give you an idea-

RL:  28:31 

So: your criteria, because they are your current criteria, are recruitment and strength.

GM:   28:35 

Well last week … the thing is as long as I can remember, I go back so when we amalgamated ACTT and BETA as you'd expect, everybody inflates their figures and everything else. And there was a number of people that were dual.

RL: Yes.

GM: But all BECTU certainly during Roger’s time and my time, our membership is always somewhere between 23 and 26,000.

RL: Yup, yup.

GM:   28:57  Last week, the all BECTU divisions went over 30,000 for the first time in 20 odd years. So … that's a nice one to go out on.

RL:  29:08 

It is. You can leave with your head held high. I think on that basis. I'm really pleased to hear it as well mate. It's been a very problematic area for us for donkey’s years. So maybe we should get back to Prospect now.

GM:   29:21 

Yeah, yeah.

RL:  29:27 

So, two years ago, what 2016?

GM:   29:29 

Yes, yeah.

RL:  29:33 

BECTU went further, so, into an amalgamation, a different kind of amalgamation,

GM: Yeah.

RL: With Prospect, which was by and large, the telecommunication engineers’ union, organised within BT and areas, wasn't it?

GM:  29:47 

Erm, No, the biggest, widest membership is civil service, energy, electric, you know, in managerial and across those but Connect, who was a separate, independent union, if you remember, with Simon Petch. And then, yes, he died, like a couple of weeks ago. You saw that. Anyway, he they were, they went into Prospect about five or six years ago, right? And that's where the BT bit came of it.

RL: 30:16 

I always think …. Prospect was BT. But of course, no, it wasn't. Your correction is salutary.

GM:   30:21 

No, no, no, it's named the biggest number of members in Prospect, the BT people are in BECTU, the biggest member[ship] in Prospect before we come in. So we are now by far the biggest sector in Prospect. But before then, it was the Civil Service followed by energy.

RL: So how big was it, Prospect?

GM:  So before we went in, it had 116,000 members of that 116,000 there is 20,000 retired members, but they're not retired. So if you're a retired member of BECTU, you don't pay any subs. We don't count you.

RL: Yeah.

GM:  Yeah. In Prospect, they pay an annual fee, and they have decisions. They can participate in Conference up to a certain percentage of the overall vote. It's quite, yeah. So if you take away their retired members, … there’s about late 80s, 90,000 members,

RL:  31:09 

Sure. But it does mean that, unlike all the other amalgamations it’s with a

much bigger union.

GM:   31:13 

and one outside of our sector, yes, yeah,

RL:  31:16 

Outside of our sector also kind of non-political, because they have never had a Labour party affiliation, for example.

GM: No.

RL: Nor have they had a particularly militant reputation. It's part of the Civil Service element, I think so. And here we have you organising BECTU, which has a reputation for effective recruitment, for facing up to difficult employers, for concluding effective negotiation: militancy effectively against the union, which is the antithesis of that in a way. Now, why did we do it? Why did we go from here to there?

GM:   31:55 

Right. So: we didn't need to do it. So, I wrote a paper. So, it's back to the pension scheme. So, I wrote a paper about two years previously for the Executive Committee, yes, saying to the Executive Committee, right, here's where we are. Right? We've got to a stage where our membership… is static around the 25, 26,000, our ability to- we've got an ageing workforce. If I'm honest, I said this even unofficial-wise, where, our sickness levels went up.

We haven't got the wherewithal to recruit more people so, but basically, we, in order to go out, and organise and recruit. So, for example, we ran a massive recruitment campaign in Sky in 2003, right? With the exception of Sharon Elliott and myself, all the others people on there were all volunteers.

RL: Yeah.

GM: Helping, right. Now, if we're then going to go in. So, for example, on the freelance side, I started doing work with live events. Yes? So initially I had 100 members in live events. I've now got 2000 members in live events, right? However, I didn't have any officials, and I didn't have any money to put in there, right? And I'm getting older, yes. And so the issue is… we need more resources in right? We've, you know, with the nicest respect in the world to my colleagues and everything else, as we get older, more bits fall off, right? And there's a number of officials who basically … are doing as well as they can.

RL: A succession strategy.

GM: We need a succession, and we needed fresh blood: that's the easiest way to do it right? And therefore that costs money, because you're going to have to pay people off, to go, yes, and you're going to have to recruit new people in, yeah, and train them and everything else.

Secondly, do we're doing this against the background that when I wrote this paper, we were looking at putting nearly £700,000 pounds of an income of just under £5 million into the pension scheme alone. That's not counting wages or anything else annually, right, with the predictions by the actuaries, and that it's going that way, [points upwards] right? I had lots of heated debates. [Between] you [and] me, where I held my own more than some of the others around with the pension ombudsman and regulators who, because I had two and a half million pounds in the bank, which we've never touched, yes, and I wanted to use that for restructuring and everything else, if we couldn't do anything else, and they wanted us to put it into the pension scheme, and I refused, right? And there was one very heated meeting where the BECTU trustees, which were Janice [Turner] and Tony Lennon,

GM:  34:30  Our advisors and everybody else, were literally saying to me, “Gerry, give them half the money. Give them half the money in there, and then we'll move along a bit.” I knew that putting, I knew enough about pensions that putting it in it's like throwing it into a dark hole.

RL: Yes.

GM: Equity did that, and they were back to the same thing. So we had a meeting with the regulators and that, and there was a woman sitting there. She was obviously in charge. The guy that was doing most of the talking is going, “This is unacceptable? Yes, you're putting in a significant amount but you've got this money. We want you to put this money in, not half of it, the whole lot of it in that will reduce the deficit, and you can still carry on paying half a million pounds or whatever.”

Now, what that would have meant was that if anything happened at the BBC or any one of our major employers caught a cold, the union was stuffed, because if we have a bit of a problem, we've at least got that money to give us 12 months to be able to work around them.

GM:   35:24 

We, just before we had that meeting, about six months before the pension regulator got in, got themselves a lot of public criticism in Parliament, because the Reader's Digest in the UK went bust, and they had been bullied by the regulator to putting in this money, then they hit a downturn, and they couldn't survive with it, right? And so the … whole lot went so anyway. So during this heated debate, I refused. I said, “This is the members money, and this is there when, if, the union needs it, and if we as a union run into difficult times, no union has gone bust, we will go to another TUC affiliated union, etc, who are not in that position.” So we're, we are paying the annual payments we made. I am not reducing down the overall indebtedness.

RL: Yes.

GM: So this guy was literally threatening and all the other stuff. And I said-

RL: [interrupts] What was he threatening you with?

GM:   36:15 

Well, basically they have the authority to be able to say that this scheme is a danger, and it's not viable, and therefore the union is trading insolvently, because if you actually took the value of the building and the money in the bank, it was less than the deficit, okay? And I said, “Well, you can do that. We employ 50 people, right? And you can try and drive us into this position, just like you drove the Reader's Digest into a position.”

[Laughs] anyway, all hell broke loose for about 10 minutes, and they left the room, and the woman who had never spoken through the whole lot, came back into the room and said, “We accept your proposal. We don't need you to put in a lump sum.” But it did mean that our contribution had to go up from 500,000 a year to over 600,000 a year, right? So more and more-

RL: Pressure.

GM: Pressure and the recruitment, anything we were gaining on recruitment was going into the pension scheme. And as I said, we had a number of good colleagues who were ageing, yes, and were just finding it harder, right? But, you know, we have to treat them respectfully, we couldn't say, “Oh, well, you've done your bit. Now bugger off!” Yes, we had to employ, you know, we would have had to treat them well, and then we've got, we need to employ fresh blood.

GM:   37:33 

So I wrote a paper for the NEC that showed how, here's how the union can survive for the next 10 years, if nothing bad happens, right? Brexit and all the other stuff. And, you know, the pension, but eventually you're going to end up in a position where the debt in the pension scheme is going to swamp the union. We've got no way around this bloody pension scheme. We’re stuck with it, and I think we're better off negotiating it from a position of strength, because at that time - and now - we're a growing union, we've got a surplus on our management accounts, but we have got a problem with our pension scheme, right? However, if you end up in a position where more and more of the money goes in and just to keep ourselves as an independent trade union, then our membership gets hit. Yes, we become less of an attractive option, and instead of you being able to dictate and determine your own future, you're effectively going to go wherever you're sent. So the Executive Committee agreed that we should write it for Conference. You were probably there. I wrote it for conference and said, “It's up to you,” right? And we should, which union should we talk to? Right? Obviously, my first instinct is we should be talking to the entertainment unions. … I knew their accounts-

RL: We are talking about Equity. Writers Guild?

GM:   38:49 

Well, the Writers Guild, nothing. But Equity, The MU [Musicians’ Union] and the NUJ [National Union of Journalists]. Yes, we got very close, as you know, to the NUJ one time. We've always had a bit of a fiery relationship with them.

GM:   39:01 

But to cut a long story short, every one of those have significant pension deficits. The NUJ [between] you [and] me, have gone through four or five major cuts. They had one official, they still have one official covering the whole of broadcasting, yeah, and their membership is going down.

Equity has had huge problems. They put, they borrowed money, put it all into the pension scheme thing, and like a black hole, it just swallowed it all up and the deficits back again.

MU, different story, because they closed their final salary pension scheme about 20 years ago and they have a money purchase scheme, right? But they're very reliant on the royalties coming out… from repeats, residuals, etc, and from my discussions with them, is they were very adamant that actually, they're a niche union. It's musicians, yes, and they didn't really want to extend out of that.

So therefore … I did speak to all the unions, but the conclusion was unions with two black holes in pensions, having the same amount of assets, getting one big black hole doesn't help us.

RL: Yeah. So what was the deal you do with Prospect?

 

GM: Well, first of all, before we had Prospect, so basically, was I wrote out three fundamental things that we needed to do in there: One is we had to protect BECTU’s identity, and that's been the single hardest thing to do. But BECTU must remain so therefore, wherever we go, it's got to be a federal structure, yeah.

Secondly, we must protect all the benefits of membership. Thirdly -, and as part of that, we've got to be given the resources to continue to grow the union. And the third issue, we must protect the jobs and the terms and conditions of all the staff, right? I had meetings with-  so obviously, in my view, and the Executive agreed that ruled out the big unions, the Unites, the Unisons and the GMBs, because you'd be kidding if you said you're going to keep your identity inside a million [member] union. Yeah, you're not going to keep it, yeah, look at UCAS and all the others. So the deal we did, which went out to every member, was, with Prospect. Is the BECTU would become a sector of Prospect would continue to be branded, marketed and knowing forever and a day as BECTU.

RL:  41:14 

This is this Maoist slogan that we now have: one union, two brands.

GM:   41:19 

Yes, that's it. Yeah, that's the one. And as part of that, I would take into BECTU, the BT people. So inside the BECTU sector now is 44,000 members.

So Prospect, as a whole, now has 140,000 members. 44,000 by far the biggest sector, easier, right? So the BT people are part of it. And so that was the first part the terms and conditions. And as you'd expect, in any negotiations, there was a lot of ups and downs and everything else. So for example, Connect, when they went in there, they did a deal, which is… everything stays in aspic for three years. After three years, the Prospect executive decides, I said, “We're not doing that” right. “We agree everything from day one or we don't come in,” right? We had extensive discussions with the CWU [Communications Workers Union], which would have been a lot easier for me, industrially and politically to deliver. But my view was that the CWU had serious financial problems coming down the road, and that's now been borne out by the cuts and the major - they're having a special conference about what their future is and everything else, right? So politically, I would have definitely preferred to have stayed in the Labour Party, but … my number one responsibility is to the future.

RL:  42:44 

Prospect says that one of our conditions is that there will be no affiliation.

GM:   42:48 

Yes. The only two conditions they laid down was we had to disaffiliate from CND [Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament} because of their energy members, and disaffiliate from the Labour Party. So those were their only two conditions. We got the agreement, the transfer of undertaking that came in. My job was effectively redundant. They wanted me to stay. I agreed to stay for a year. I've ended up staying for two years. So that was it.

RL:  43:19 

Was it difficult to sell? Inside the union.

GM:   43:25  Well, you've been involved in the conferences, you've seen them and everything else. I think I did the groundwork. I went to every single divisional committee. I went to any branch meetings. I was around all the committees three or four times. I went through the options. There was no hidden agenda. It was exactly as I've told you. There was nothing in it for me, because I'm going down status-wise and stuff like that. So, and some people saw, saw what it was, but one of the key issues in there, which is, I think the critical reason we've now gone to 30,000, I was allowed to use some of our reserves to volunteer, to give voluntary redundancy to people.

RL: Right.

GM: So some of our older officials, yeah, yeah, left on voluntary redundancy, I employed a load of new organising officials, every single one of them from the industry, three quarters of them female, right? And they've been a breath of fresh air. …They brought a new energy, everything else. They're running festivals for post production. They're running, Half Eye Shut [Eyes Half Shut] campaign on long hours. It's the energy we all had?

RL: Yes, that's right, yeah.

GM: And I think, and I think these are our future.

RL: And our pension is now safe.

GM: Our pension is safe … because it means Prospect has a deficit. Everybody's got a pension deficit. Yeah, but this gives you a ratio. So basically, as I explained to you earlier, BECTU, pension deficit was greater than our entire assets. All the pension deficit in Prospect comes to less than 20% of their entire assets, right?  So the issue is, the perception, which is not an untrue perception, which is the BECTU is a left-wing union, and Prospects are a right-wing union. That's it. But I've, you know, we've had loads of rows, as you would imagine, during the last two years. But we've held it, even this identity issue has been the big issue.

RL:  Sure.

GM: And we've held it.

RL:  45:25  Well, that's … encouraging Gerry to hear it, and interesting that you've kind of, that your obstinacy pulled [paid?] off as it were. It is the possibility of that rebirth.

GM:   45:38 

Don’t get me wrong, there's a lot - I felt sad about the fact of going into a non-entertainment union, yes, but as I said, we could equally have stayed as we are for another five years, maybe even 10 years. But I think what's most important is that we remain as a union, as a brand out there, an identity, and that's protected in this way. Now, obviously there are cultural differences with Prospect that we wouldn't be having with the NUJ or whatever, but… bringing our finances and the NUJ's together don't help.

RL:  46:13 

No. What most surprised you and what most disappointed you about the Prospect amalgamation?

GM:   46:19 

After we've gone in you mean, or doing it?

RL:  46:23 

Or have you described it fully anyway? I think.

GM:   46:25  I have fairly described this honestly. Okay, so I think the thing that surprised me the most is that I think Prospect is, I use the word is, you, and I've tried to change it is…  I think is a very inward-looking union. I think it's a union that's very much about officials leading it and you might say, “Gerry, you've been an official for a couple of years,” but … I think the union needs to be led by lay members. As an official of the union, I'm going to have my say, yeah, but I will respect the decisions of the lay members. I do think we're significantly different in that, so, for example a prime example is now, you know, the new membership counts. Sorry, the one union, two sorry, I’ve forgotten, already, [Roy prompts him]

GM:   47:16 

Two brands, yes. So we are doing a new membership count going out to all members, and that's what they wanted to put across the middle. And I would know, because that's us looking in, yeah, and I've, so, what I put across the middle is ‘Working For You’. Yeah, right, because I think it is about you, because… you and I … we may be interested in the internal union stuff, etc, but most of the members out there want to know that we're working for them. So that's the thing that has surprised me the most, and I think that's the biggest challenge that they've got. Right

RL:  47:48 

Right. Right back from your earliest days, as you spoke about earlier, and bargaining with the Jehovah's Witnesses on behalf of members of ethnic minorities-,

GM: As you have to.

RL:  You've always had an engagement, haven't you with BAME [Black, Asian and Minority Issues. Now seen as unfashionable as a term in some quarters.DS] issues, maximising opportunities, promotion, pay for people who come from those minorities. And clearly, in terms of the internal staff, from what you're saying, the internal staff of the Union has also reflected very much the issue of gender if you know what I mean. It's changed in that sense. How far do you think we've now come in relation to dealing with those issues, and how far is there still to go?

GM:   48:25 

As a trade union; as a union?

GM:   48:29  I think we've gone, I think we've come a long way with it, I think, and I honestly mean them both on the BECTU side, because actually it's my colleague Janice Turner who should take the greatest credit. I do think we've been at the forefront of even bringing BAME issues to the head in there. How [far to go]? So, I think we have made a lot of progress, but we've still got an awful lot to go. So we've got an initiative that's been going on for a couple of years with the employers called Project Diamond, which is about

48:56 

checking what percentage of people on productions, etc, are actually BAME and the employers do not want to give us the figures broken down on the show, by production basis. They want to do it generally, yes. So I think, we I think … at a higher level, there is greater visibility, etc. At a grassroots level, there's still a huge problem, and especially in the freelance areas on the films, because, whether it's in film or independent television, the company comes in, it hires the HOD, right? And they normally hire the HOD they'd worked with before, and the HOD then employs their deputies, gaffers, Best Boys, all the other stuff down the line, family and friends, and funnily enough, like recruits, like, yeah.

RL: Yeah.

GM: So there is, there is still a huge problem there with it. If I go, and it's not just on that side. Up until about two years ago, there was only two black faces on the technical crews at the Royal Opera House, probably out of 2- or 300 right? It's a little bit better, not hugely better. So I think, as an industry, and even technicians the unions still have a huge amount of way to go to reach out to the BAME community to say you've, … there is, there is opportunities here, but it's been the progress we've made has been slow. It's been, it’s settled in there, but I think there is still a built-in discrimination because of the way the-

RL:  50:30 

…racism out there, yeah, amongst… [inaudible]

GM:   50:35 

Yeah. I think, …  I think it's there. And I think until you look at the employment practices, you're never going to do it. So like I said, the HOD is employing everybody else, the you know, if the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, English National Opera, they're making, if you're going in there as a stagehand, etc, you're earning good money, … for that. However, how do you get started? You go in there as a Casual…

 

RL: 51.02 Has Prospect been concerned about this as an issue on their list of targets [?] – I’m not talking about us, but the other side.

GM :  51:12 

I think they are in the sense of they know it's an issue. Generally, I do believe our campaigning, and they recognise this, is much further ahead than theirs and the Prospect conference this year, the, most of the major contribution from BAME members came from BECTU.

RL: Yeah.

GM: So it's, it's,

RL: So we're changing their culture.

GM: We're changing their culture in that way as well. So I think we've got a huge amount [done], but I think it goes back to, in my view, goes back to, as I said the beginning. It's about fairness, and I do think there's built-in discrimination there in relation to race and thing, I mean, I was shocked when I came to London. I think it was the end of it, but I did, when I was doing my walking around on my days off, to see … rooms being let out where it says ‘No Irish or blacks need apply’, so that kind of leaves a mark on as well.

RL:  52:02 

In Brixton especially, okay, so that's [ok]. What about, there's been a great deal in the press lately about issues of equal pay, particularly at the moment of equal pay between senior women in broadcasting and men, you know. So there's a gender issue there. What do you about that situation we've got there? Are we making progress?

GM:   52:20 

I think we're making progress, but I think there's a lot more to be done. Again, the BBC took a huge amount of stick for theirs, because they came out first. Yes, however, if you look at the figures at Sky, ITV, etc, they're worse than the BBC, right?

GM:   52:38  So, what happened, I think, over the last 20 years was almost a kind of a confidentiality around pay rates, right? And what also happened was the end of the rate for the job, yeah;  so I'm a great believer in the rate for the job, if you can do the job, you get paid. If you can't do the job, you shouldn't be there, right? And you should get paid that rate, whether you're black, blue, yellow or whatever, and whether you're a man or a woman. But when you've got these, and we have it in the BBC, we've now got rid of it, where you've got pay bands that are £20,000 from the bottom to the top, and it's at the discretion of your manager where you are in that pay range. Then you're going to get inconsistencies, and you're going to get discrimination, whether that discrimination is deliberate or not. You are just going to get it right. So I think, so that, to me, is [wrong] . And then there was always the situation in the last 20 years or so where employers would say, “Right, … there's a pay increase, this is what you're getting. Can you make sure you keep this to yourself?”

RL: Yeah.

GM: [DS2] So there was no transparency in the process, and the BBC have taken the brunt of that, and they're obviously done it, but I don't believe the employers have engaged in this willingly. I think they've obviously known because of what the government's come out with…  that they've got to make movement. But bonuses, etc, even last week, I put out a press release: BBC Studios, which does all the production end, there was a 40% difference between employers and male bonuses and female bonuses.

RL:   54:10 Right.  Gotcha. I think that's … really interesting in terms of the structure.

Another major issue, which is kind of down the years, has been at the heart of the BBC has been the issue of BBC Resources and the licence fee.

GM: Yup.

RL: And that's been a kind of political hot potato, yeah, which the union has had to engage with, and you, in particular, yes, had to engage with over what, 30 years then, yeah, I suppose.

GM: Yeah.

RL: Talk about that. Talk about what that kind of political engagement was like. Talk about the successes, the failures.

GM:   54:38 

Well I've dealt with five different Director Generals over the period. They're all different… even Alasdair Milne when I was a lay member in there. So my involvement with him was fairly minimal, like, I mean, it was me being in there with the likes of Paddy Leach and everything else, but he was engaging etcetera. I felt that he passionately believed about the BBC, but quite clearly did not get the support from the BBC Trust. And it was worth noting that actually, forget the recent one like Mark Thompson and Greg Dyke, and more recent, but of all the previous Director Generals, he's the only one who's never made it into the House of Lords or got a knighthood, and I'm fairly confident that was down to his Vice-chair, to the most active member of the Board at the time, [William] Rees-Mogg, right?

Interestingly, now, Rees-Mogg’s son [Jacob] is coming up against Alasdair Milne's son, [Seumas] who's obviously the Head of Press for Jeremy Corbyn.

RL: That's fascinating!

GM: 55.44 Yeah.

RL: History is repeating itself.

GM: History is repeating itself with the sons. So I told you, here’s the thing, … we've always, well, we've had two issues with, you know, politically, the governments, especially Tory governments, have not been committed to the licence fee. Do not like the BBC, but know that they couldn't abolish it, right? What they've done is tried to starve the BBC of resources.

So the licence fee had been frozen for five years until last year, and now it's going up by CPI. [Consumer Price Index] However …  they're now having to pick up the costs of the World Service, S4C and most damagingly of all, the free TV licences to the over 75’s. Now that… in my view, as somebody who's absolutely passionate about the BBC, this is the biggest challenge the BBC have ever had. I think that the current Director General of the BBC, who I've got a very good working relationship with, Tony Hall, who spoke at the union’s conference this year, I worked with him at the Royal Opera House, I worked with him when he was Head of News. I think he genuinely believes in public service, full stop. I equally think that he's committed to working with trade unions. Look at the books he wrote about the NUM [National Union of Mineworkers] and everything else. So I think he's very, so [a] very good relationship there.

However, he knows I've been critical of the deal they currently did. They got bullied by [George] Osborne [former Chancellor of the Exchequer] and then to agreeing that they would take on the TV licence costs for the over 75’s. It's an ageing population by the BBC own estimation, by 2020 when they pick up the full cost, they now pick up part of the cost, another payout next year and the whole lot in 2020, that's £800 million. That's 20% of the BBC’s entire income. There is absolutely no way whatsoever that the BBC can manage … with 20% less. So services have got to be cut for the BBC, both Tony Hall, Greg Dyke, Mark Thompson, all of those, were got into this position with the Government, where they tried to call their bluff and said, “Something will have to go.” And when the Governments have said, “No, we're not giving you any more money. We're not giving you an increase in the licence fee.” They backed back, and they just made internal cuts.

I've been openly [saying] that that's a mistake, because if they come out and say, “Right, we can no longer afford … BBC Two. So BBC Two is closing in 12 months’ time.” There would be a public campaign. “The BBC is no longer going to fund the World Service.” There would be a public campaign.

Outside of the NHS the BBC, I think, is the most cherished organisation in the country, and I don't think they've got the confidence; the management haven't got their own confidence in there. But something's got to happen with this over 75’s.

Now the BBC is relying, and I think mistakenly relying on the fact that in 2020 when they take on the full cost at that stage, they get the policy. So the policy is currently with the Government. It goes to the BBC in 2020 so the BBC then, what are their choices? Their choices are to say, “We will no longer give free TV licences to the over 75’s.” Now, I don't see that happening. You can see the Daily Mail headlines already, can't you? Yeah, ‘BBC attacks our pensioners.’ The very best they can do is to restrict the free TV licences to over 75’s who are living on their own. Yes, so in other words, they're not living in a granny flat or something else, but that would only save 20% of the £800 million. So I think they've got a huge challenge there, and somebody in the BBC, one day soon, is going to have no choice but to confront the Government. I don't think the BBC should have anything to do with the delivery of welfare payments, because this is a welfare payment. This has got nothing at all to do with a public service broadcaster, what, why? And they're going to get the policy, so, effectively, they're going to be managing a welfare payment. And I think it's absolutely ludicrous, and I think it's going-

RL:  59:55 

Do you think they’ll have the capacity or the will to resist it.

GM: Well, they should have resisted it in the negotiations two years ago.

I think now they're going to have no choice, only to make cuts, and it's got to be a cut in service. Now, if you go back five or six years, seven years ago, … [Radio] 6 Music, right? When the campaign was [about the] closing of that, let's be honest, I never bloody heard of 6 Music before that. Most people didn't, but there was such a big campaign, yet it actually, even 6 Music listeners win through it.

So, I think people are prepared to pay more for the BBC, but I do believe that the BBC management have to show some leadership, and at the moment, they haven't done that on this issue, and I think they'll be forced to do it

RL:  1:00:40 

Sure, so have we got a bit longer? [Querying duration of interview]

GM: Yeah, Yeah.

RL: So fascinating to listen to. … I wondered about, I wonder about the future too, in the sense that the whole environment of our industries is changing. It's been globalised. We have organisations like Netflix, Amazon, organisations of that kind now have the turnover of nations as it were, and are investing enormously in new production, and high-end production often. So: all of these new platforms emerging, or these sets of these global employers, how should, how have we reacted to those changes in our industry, and what do you see as the future?

GM:   1:01:30 

Right. So, that's a big question.

RL: Slightly more than two minutes!

GM: Well I think we've reacted. I think we've reacted to the changes in the sense, the best way we can help. But I think what we're now looking at is, let me talk to you about what's going on.

We're now looking collectively at stuff. So, for example, the single biggest thing that has happened in a long time, has happened in the last week. So: Sky is no more. Comcast have bought Sky, right? So, for somebody who campaigned against Rupert Murdoch down, at Wapping, etc, it's a happy day, yes, but I mean back in 19, back in 2002, 2003 … we got, enough of members, over 10% of the membership inside Sky to go to a statutory recognition ballot. Right? I was up and down to Scotland, to the call centres, literally every week with Sharon, down to Osterley and everything else. And under that procedure, we had the right to address the staff. And during that staff [meeting], it was clear that, you know me, I couldn't say we were going to win the vote, but we were going to get very close to winning recognition at Sky. Then Murdoch announced a statement that if the staff vote for union recognition, he will consider moving all the call centres to India.

Now, there was more people at that time working in the call centres than there was in all of the production side. We lost the vote. Right, since then, we've been in and out doing representational cases. So as well as being General Secretary of BECTU, I've had the honour of being the President of UNI MEI. I've stopped now just in the last couple of weeks, but I've been a President of that for eight years, and during that, … I built up a good relationship with some of the companies.

RL:  1:03:30  Let me just say that UNI MEI is the International Organisation of trade unions in the audio visual and cultural sector. So we have representatives from Germany, from Italy, from America, from every area, and they've come together now, well, they've been together for 60 years, but it's now more powerful than it's ever been. And never more needed in a sense because you need a global response. And that’s a global challenge.

GM:   1:03:50

…. And basically that, we need a global response to them, right? And the two, the biggest relationship we had to have is with our sister union in North America, IATSE, [International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees] right? And I think we built on that. Roger had a reasonable relationship, [Alan] Sapper [BEHP Interview No 150], yourself. And I think we build on that on a practical level, yes, in there. So we now do talks with Disney. We do talks with Comcast.

So as part of this, when Comcast showed an interest, so Comcast is Universal Studios, NBC, all of those, it’s endless. So basically, they came to us and said, “We want to work with the unions.” So I pulled all the UK entertainment unions together, and we've been talking to Comcast. So yesterday, hot off the press, Comcast have allowed us to be able to say publicly, I've been meeting them in Paris and everywhere for the last nine months, is that we will now be putting out a leaflet to all of our members of Sky this week that we're in negotiations …with Comcast.

RL:  1:05:06 

What an extraordinary thing. That’s an astonishing outcome.

GM: Yeah.

RL: From that original position with Sky, yeah. Now the company is doing this, yeah.

GM:   1:05:12 

So, they're talking right now. We want access. They don't want to go that far yet. They want to look under the bonnet, see what the company is like and all of the other stuff. But the fact that they are prepared to go public and say we're in talks, yes, and we're leading those talks. So yesterday, BECTU with Prospect, Mike Clancy was there. I led a negotiation with the senior vice -president of Comcast and their people, MU, Musicians Union, Equity, NUJ etc. We're running campaigns down there. It's going to go on for some time. We've hired an organising official three days a week just to work on this campaign. And it's a game changer. It's not just a game changer in the industry as a whole, because that's the one bit - Roy appreciates this- that actually the union has never had a penetration or a presence.

Yes, now we've got a chance to do it, right. Now it's coming to the end of my working life when we get in there, but I have agreed, on a voluntary basis with Prospect that I will carry on managing the relationship with Comcast until we've secured hopefully, … proper agreements and arrangements at Sky. Now, to me, that is where the industry is heading. It's more though. So you ask yourself, you if you looked at that bidding process, Comcast paid way over the odds, all the people are saying they paid …  just over £17 a share, when Fox, the next bidder, was under £15 a share, right? And I think it's partly because they recognised that they also need to be more global, right? They lost 300,000 customers in North America last year, right? I do think things are changing there. And I think if you mentioned Netflix and Amazon and that, I think that's the next big change. … I think satellite, for example, is now…  is coming to its end, and I think more and more stuff will be coming –

RL: Through those platforms.

GM:  Through the internet platforms. Yes. Now on the technical side, I don't think that's a huge challenge to us, in my view. And I could be wrong on this. I think we've got to chase the content. Yes, content is the king. Yeah. And if we've got the people who are making the content, whether that's on television, film, theatre, whatever,

RL: Well, they are investing in, almost [entirely] in content.

GM: Yeah, they are investing in content. If you look back to ITV and that, ITV, went through a number of years under Charles Allen’s leadership, when they actually invested nothing in content, right? They're now investing an awful lot more very good TV dramas, the studios are full up, etc. We’ve got to, we can't kid ourselves, and one of the reasons for that is definitely the tax breaks that was brought in by George Osborne. But on top of that, is that we've got very good technical crews here. We've got very good facilities here. Brexit is an unknown to this, because if tomorrow morning, and I cannot believe this is going to happen, but if tomorrow morning, we end up in a position where you need a visa to go to France and Germany… that would have a real detrimental effect. That would put people off from here.

RL:  1:08:32  You wrote recently about Brexit? Yeah, yeah. About the threat it posed.

GM:   1:08:35 

Yeah and we're looking at running a conference with Comcast in the West End before this Christmas right, on Brexit. Yeah, so we're just trying to get a date from the Comcast people.

RL:  1:08:48 

So it does sound as, what about internationally? Are we working effectively …  internationally with the French, the Italian, the Germans, because in the past, one of the great battles was against the attacks on public service broadcasting.

GM: Yes,

 

RL: Inside Europe, yeah, where do you think the focus is going to be now?

GM:   1:09:05 

I think, to be fair, is there is still … that, there is, and this is also a difference between BECTU and Prospect. BECTU to yourself and to others, embraced internationalism, international trade unionism. I don't get that feeling in Prospect. … It's just, it isn't there to that extent, or any extent.

GM:   1:09:26 

The public service broadcasting? I think it's felt, certainly inside Europe and that, that battle has been won.

RL: Yes, yes. I think so.

GM: I think the battle now that is going on are the ones around copyright, the one about repeats residuals. … More those ones, yes, rather than it.  Our relationships with the unions is very good, but … I'd be kidding myself if I said to you, they're based on anything other than fraternity.

RL: Fraternity.

GM:   1:09:56 

Yeah, yeah. The ones that's based on a bit more than fraternity is with America, because we're fraternity human

GM:   1:10:09  So anyway, so the ones with the North, with IATSE and with the Writers Guild and the Directors Guild in America and Canada, we're all dealing with the same employers.

RL: Mm.

GM: Now, interestingly, with the Comcast one, one of the things I'm trying to do in the last few weeks is get the beginning of a Works Council set up with, because Comcast Sky has an involvement in Germany and in Italy. So, … now, obviously we could be out of it in March next year if Brexit even goes through in its current form, but effectively, that's another mechanism for us to be able to be talking together.

RL: Interesting, yeah.

GM:   1:10:47 

And so North America and that, it's, it's real…. like the big theatre companies here, like ATG, [Ambassadors Theatre Group] have now bought venues in New York, Washington, etc. So we're educating them about who they're dealing with. Equally the Universal Studios, the Warners and all the Marvels, all of those over here, we worked with them on this, so we've got a lot in common, and keep talking to each other.

RL:  1:11:15 

Right. So we've covered Uni Mai, and we we've talked about Brexit as well, and we clearly still have the union federations across the industry.

GM: Yeah, we've got very strong in this country.

RL: So, you say that, and that's very encouraging for the future.

As one of the most successful trade union leaders in recent decades-

GM: Thank you.

RL: -as measured by any, by recruitment, by success, by new agreements, and by growth, I mean a period of, and being one of my successful trade unions in a period of dramatic technical, economic and cultural change.

Do you have a message for potential trade unions of the future, on the value of trade union membership and organisation. I mean, do you, is there something? Is there something you can encapsulate what you think you've learned in this industry as the lesson to potential trade unions and workers of the future?

GM:   1:12:14 

I think I've been privileged to work with the union for this long, but I think in the sense of passing a message, I think, is it's about belief, belief in collectivism … It's not about the individual. … I hated everything that [Margaret] Thatcher just stood for, because it was all about the individual, and it was all about greed. This is about collectivism, and I think we've demonstrated and it is we, as a union, before me, with me, and hopefully after me, is that if we can organise freelancers to act collectively and reach agreement, and … force those agreements and everything else, then in other workplaces around the place where … that isn't even the biggest challenge, we must be able to do that. And there is no other vehicle in civil society, in my view, that' as strong as trade unionism for being able to pull people together, stop discrimination and be able to improve the worth of the individual.

RL:  1:13:16 

Right? So finally, finally, apart from watching Arsenal and the National Hunt racing do you have any plans for the future?

GM:   1:13:28 

My number one priority is to stay away from cliffs, right? [Roy laughs] Because everybody who asks me what I'm going to do, people say to me and I say, “I haven't got any plans whatsoever,” get a bit fitter, go back to the gym, maybe do a bit of squash and stuff. And everybody says, “Oh, you'll fall off the cliff.” [Roy laughs again] So I'm going to stay well away from cliffs. But actually, watching, watching the Arsenal, doing a bit more racing.

GM:   1:13:57 

To be honest. You know, since, so since I arrived in London, I haven't had more, I've never had more than two weeks off, right? And so what I want to do is, obviously spend some time with my family, but also, I want to have some time for myself.

RL: Yes.

GM:   1:14:14 

But I'll always be linked with the movement. And I think on a voluntary thing, sometime in the future, I'd like, there's two things. One is, I'd like to do something with homeless people. I think that's a blight on society. And the second thing is about the BBC.

RL: Mm.

GM: 1:14:36 So if there was a proper campaigning group around the future of the BBC, rather than the people, rather than campaigning groups who just want to hear the sound of their own voice, then I'd be interested in getting involved.

RL:  1:14:44 

I mean there’s the Campaigns for Press and Broadcasting Freedom.

GM:  1:14:47 

We did. and I do think, yes, it was, but I do think, like a lot of these campaigning groups, all of them actually, they all have a natural lifespan, yeah. And I think the CBPF did a great. Job. But I think it recognised that it had gone beyond that. And I think if you look at the where we live in the moment with social media and campaigns running like this, I think that it's something like that the BBC needs, yes. at the time, and there's going to be a time of crisis coming up … sometime soon in the BBC because of that.

And I think something new that's set up [just] for that, not to last for 20 years or anything like that, but just to kind of focus on the ‘Beeb’, focused on making sure public service broadcasting matters. Because, just finishing on that thing, you and me, we've both been involved in broadcasting and things for a long time. I remember going to give evidence when the BBC had a proposal to set up BBC Three, BBC Four, and there was a room full - I was in a room on my own, giving evidence supporting it, and there was a room full of people led by Sky, ITV, and everybody else who were opposing it. What I thought was very interesting, sorry,[ sips water]  in the latest consultation a couple of years ago on the BBC licence fee, that actually the Murdoch press and all of them, none of them, made a submission to actually [have a] say in the licence fee, right, which they've been doing for years. And I think the reason for that is, is that they're comfortable with the tactic of actually just starving the BBC of resources.

You just got to look at sports … to see where I'm coming from. Yeah. So because …. Fifteen, twenty years ago, … all these great-  the race [racing] lobbies, all of these people were writing articles about the licence fee is dead, etc, right? And Sky and all of the others were in there trying to do everything they can to kill it, right? They don't want to kill it anymore, right? They think it's exactly where they want it to be. It's a licence fee that is so little, it restricts what the BBC is able to do. And if you look at sport as a prime example, …. the amount of half-popular sports, football, cricket, rugby, etc, that's on terrestrial television is minimal. And the BBC are doing their best to promote minority sport, don't they? Yeah … and so therefore, from their, from the commercial broadcasters’ point of view, the BBC is no longer a threat to their business in that way. And I think with a newer audience and the younger people, and the research showing that actually there's less people engaging with the BBC, the BBC needs an injection into the licence fee. And I think they're misguided if they don't believe they would get public support. You're getting all of the radio channels, plus the TV channels, plus Local radios, everything else, for £3 a week. Yeah, and people are paying £60, £70, a month to Sky. So!

RL:  1:17:58 

Well, we look forward to your seeing establishing that new organisation and if I'm still around, I'll join. Lots of us will.

GM: Good!

RL: [They shake hands, partially off-camera] Thanks very much. Is there anything which we haven't mentioned, which you would like to say something about? I mean, we touched on [most things]. I think we've covered the field.

GM:   1:18:14 

I think we've covered everything. Thanks very much.

RL:  1:18:17 

It’s definitely been privileged to listen to you. Thank you. Really enjoyed it.

GM:   1:18:22 

Thank you. Sorry if I rambled on too long.

RL:  1:18:23 

Coherent and clear. Thank you very much. Brilliant. Yeah, most grateful to you. Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Edited by David Sharp.

 [DS1]

 [DS2]