On Friday January 16th Jerry Hicks learned that he
had enough nominations to stand as candidate in the election for the Unite
Amicus General Secretary. Jerry spoke of his great pleasure and pride at
having received official notification.
He
received nominations from as far afield as the Shetlands to the Isle of Wight,
from East Anglia to the North West, from Swansea to Carlow. Support has been
received from all points of the compass, from every region and sector of the
union.
It represents an
incredible achievement. The scale of recognition by way of support has
without any question or doubt vindicated the decision to challenge Derek
Simpson’s right to remain in office for 8 years without holding an
election.
It was inevitable that he had the
hardest task given that all the other candidates our senior officials of the
union. It is worth remembering that when he launched the legal challenge
everyone said he had no chance of success. How wrong they were.
Then it was said he would not secure
enough nominations to be on the ballot paper, yet he is already in front of
Reuter and Faircloth and within touching distance of Simpson and Coyne. Indeed
when Simpson himself won the election in 2002 against Ken Jackson he was much further
behind at this stage.
This is still very much David versus
Goliath and, whilst it’s been a while since Jerry read the bible, he recalls
that David won that encounter as well. Another example would be Mark Serwotka (PCS),
who was a part time clerk in an office and went on to win: so could Jerry
Hicks.
At the time of the initial challenge
back in May of this year not one of the other candidates
was either brave enough or willing to come out in support of the
action. Now they all say how many problems the Union faces. Not one of them
however said anything about these matters prior to Jerry Hicks being
successful in forcing the election. That begs the question of
their judgement.
Jerry Hicks said today “We are at a
crossroads in our relationship with the government, with the employers, and
between the union and its members. With this challenge comes an opportunity and has the potential of
being the single biggest change not just within the union, but also in the
union’s relationship with the New Labour government”.
Jerry Hicks has also been highly
critical as to the wages of the General Secretary. In marked contrast to the
other candidate recently he wrote that, ‘Fat cats’ in the city are despised,
why have a ‘Fat cat’ General Secretary in our union with wages of £126,939, a
free car and a virtually free £1million house forever, a lifestyle nothing like
that of our members. The other candidates would continue with these
arrangements. He is determined that this should end and If elected he would
only take the average wage of a skilled worker. This is certain to strike a
cord during times of wage squeeze and job losses.
