The TUC gets its first female leader!
Jul. 10th, 2012 12:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magog_83Another step forward for women today with the announcement that Frances O'Grady is to be the new General Secretary of the TUC (Trade Union Congress - the umbrella organisation for the Trade Union movement) here in the UK.
This is the first time that a woman has been head of the TUC since its creation in the 1860s. According to the press release, Ms. O'Grady's grandfather was a founder member of the Transport and General Worker's Union in Ireland, and her father was a shop steward for British Leyland - so it sounds like she has the trade union movement in her blood. After graduating from Manchester University (incidentally, Manchester was the site of the first ever TUC meeting), she was active in various unions before she started working for the TUC in the mid-1990s and was appointed Deputy General Secretary in 2003 (the first woman to be appointed to the role). Since Deputy General Secretaries are expected to move on to the top job in the TUC, it was widely assumed she would take over, but it still had to be put to discussion.
Here she is in 2009 talking about why she considers herself left-wing...
I want a more equal and democratic society. I believe that no one is "born to rule" and that everyone should pay fair taxes. It is not natural or inevitable that half the world goes hungry; that the freedom of markets trumps protection of the planet; or that citizens' rights come second to those of corporations. I think governments can and must intervene in the market, and that common ownership has a role to play. I cherish the creation of public space and services, especially health, housing and the comprehensive education system which dared to give so many of us ideas "above our station". And I know that, because the relationship between employers and workers is a fundamentally unequal one, strong trade unions are an essential force for fairness in any healthy democracy.
Congratulations to her! I look forward to seeing those on the Right try to use their usual trade union or shrill feminist stereotypes against someone who is, by the accounts of those who work with her, friendly, charming and yet extremely persistent and with a 'backbone of iron' (my dad's observation).
This is the first time that a woman has been head of the TUC since its creation in the 1860s. According to the press release, Ms. O'Grady's grandfather was a founder member of the Transport and General Worker's Union in Ireland, and her father was a shop steward for British Leyland - so it sounds like she has the trade union movement in her blood. After graduating from Manchester University (incidentally, Manchester was the site of the first ever TUC meeting), she was active in various unions before she started working for the TUC in the mid-1990s and was appointed Deputy General Secretary in 2003 (the first woman to be appointed to the role). Since Deputy General Secretaries are expected to move on to the top job in the TUC, it was widely assumed she would take over, but it still had to be put to discussion.
Here she is in 2009 talking about why she considers herself left-wing...
I want a more equal and democratic society. I believe that no one is "born to rule" and that everyone should pay fair taxes. It is not natural or inevitable that half the world goes hungry; that the freedom of markets trumps protection of the planet; or that citizens' rights come second to those of corporations. I think governments can and must intervene in the market, and that common ownership has a role to play. I cherish the creation of public space and services, especially health, housing and the comprehensive education system which dared to give so many of us ideas "above our station". And I know that, because the relationship between employers and workers is a fundamentally unequal one, strong trade unions are an essential force for fairness in any healthy democracy.
Congratulations to her! I look forward to seeing those on the Right try to use their usual trade union or shrill feminist stereotypes against someone who is, by the accounts of those who work with her, friendly, charming and yet extremely persistent and with a 'backbone of iron' (my dad's observation).
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-07-10 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-10 04:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-10 05:42 pm (UTC)*copies/pastes*
no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 05:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 06:21 pm (UTC)