GMB’s grand claims were so much hot air
Just over 18 months ago, the GMB union rose to its full height and declared an “official trade dispute” between pubco tenants and their landlords such as Punch and Enterprise.
Some thought this amounted to a marketing drive to recruit new members and that the GMB was talking nonsense claiming it could represent self-employed licensees.
In February 2010 it announced 18 roadshows across the country for tied tenants. I attended one and there was dangerous talk of tenants mounting some kind of collective action, like turning off their Brulines beer monitoring equipment. In March 2010, the union mounted a lobby at Westminster and claimed it was “standing up to pubcos and the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA)”.
The GMB issued a press release in which it stated: “The House of Commons BEC report identified (a) total inequality of bargaining power between pubcos and lessees as part of the problem in (this) industry.
“This is the vacuum that GMB is filling. No amount of bluster or bullying will stop GMB in this and the courts, not the BBPA, will determine how tied tenants can exercise their rights in a trade dispute.”
The passage of 18 months provides a perspective on the GMB’s grand claims. Has the union’s interest in the industry been maintained? Or does the flurry of activity in early 2010 look like show-boating, an opportunistic recruitment grab?
It looks to me like the GMB has lost interest and moved on. Its website makes no mention of the tenant/landlord campaign. Its current three campaigns look like flavour-of-the-moment stuff — Southern Cross, Remploy and academy schools.
The GMB has issued 699 press releases since the start of January 2010. Last year, 34 of its 425 press releases related to aspects of the pubco/tenant relationship, around 8%. The activity was front-loaded with 26 of the 34 press releases being released between January and September — the latter month was a high point of activity with no fewer than seven public utterances. And then the GMB’s interest seemed to tail off.
In 2011, there have been just six press releases from the GMB — that’s under 2% of the 275 press releases issued so far this year. The content this year has been largely confined to two subjects — the demerger of Punch and falling beer sales and the extent to which the tie is to blame.
The last thing we heard from the union in press-release form was in very early May — for the best part of four months now the GMB seems to have had nothing public to say. (You’d have thought the resumed Business, Innovation & Skills Committee inquiry in June and July would have prompted some sort of public GMB comment — but there was nothing.)
Throughout early 2010, the union was promising lessees far more than it could deliver within the law. Unforgivably, it was encouraging lessees to think about taking action that would have ended up in possible forfeiture of their leases.
It’s not known how many tenants paid to join the GMB on the back of its big claims. But for those that did, there’s a case for asking for your money back.
