Graphical, Paper and Media Union | |
 | |
| Merged into | Amicus |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1991 |
| Dissolved | 2005 |
| Headquarters | 63-67 Bromham Road, Bedford |
| Location | |
Members | 282,000 (1991 [1] ) |
Key people | Tony Dubbins, General Secretary |
| Affiliations | TUC |
| Website | www |
The Graphical, Paper and Media Union (GPMU) was a trade union in the United Kingdom and Ireland between 1991 and 2005.
The GPMU was formed from the merger of SOGAT and the National Graphical Association (NGA) and claimed to be the world's largest media union, having over 200,000 members working in the print, publishing, paper, IT and media industries.
The general secretaries of both predecessor unions stood in the GPMU leadership election, with an agreement that the loser would become Deputy General Secretary. Tony Dubbins of the NGA narrowly defeated Brenda Dean of SOGAT, by 78,654 votes to 72,657. [2] Dubbins served as general secretary throughout the GPMU's existence, but Dean stood down after one year ; [3] in 1994, Tony Burke became Deputy General Secretary. The first General President was Bryn Griffith, former General President of the NGA, who defeated Danny Sergeant of SOGAT. [2] Griffith was succeeded by Doug Douglas, following a controversial High Court case, when the union tried to ignore the ballot result in 1995.
Facing a decline in membership, in February 2004, GPMU opened merger negotiations with the skilled engineering, manufacturing and white collar union Amicus. In August 2004, results of a ballot of all members were released, showing 86% of members in favour of merger. The formal merger took place in early 2005, (at the same time the finance union UNIFI joined Amicus) and GPMU became the semi-autonomous Graphical, Paper and Media sector of Amicus. Tony Dubbins became the Deputy General Secretary of Amicus and Tony Burke became Assistant General Secretary of Amicus. Tony Dubbins was also the union's political head and Chair of TULO. He retired to Spain in October, 2008.
Amicus merged with the Transport & General Workers Union in May 2007 to form Unite the Union. [4] The GPM sector of Amicus become the Graphical, Paper & Media sector of Unite the Union. [5]
Tony Burke became the Assistant General Secretary of Unite responsible for the union's manufacturing section.
In 2014 faced with major changes to the print, communications and the media industries, the Unite sectors GPM merged with Information, Technology and Communications sector to form the GPM ITC sector, [6] currently known as the GPM & IT sector. [7]
A permanent display of memorabilia and the history of the print and papermaking unions of the UK and Ireland is housed at the Marx Memorial Library in Clerkenwell, London.
The union sponsored several Parliamentary candidates, many of whom won election. All such sponsorship arrangements ended in 1995, when the Labour Party changed its rules. [8] [9]
| Election | Constituency | Candidate | Votes | Percentage | Position |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 general election | Bradford North | Terry Rooney | 23,420 | 47.8 | 1 |
| Clackmannan | Martin O'Neill | 18,829 | 49.1 | 1 | |
| Leeds North East | Fabian Hamilton | 18,218 | 36.8 | 2 | |
| Leicester South | Jim Marshall | 27,934 | 52.3 | 1 | |
| Manchester Central | Bob Litherland | 23,336 | 72.7 | 1 | |
| Newham North East | Ron Leighton | 20,952 | 58.3 | 1 | |
| Stretford | Tony Lloyd | 22,300 | 59.6 | 1 | |
| 1994 by-election | Bradford South | Gerry Sutcliffe | 17,014 | 55.3 | 1 |
Anthony Woodley, Baron Woodley is a British trade unionist who was the Joint-General Secretary of Unite, a union formed through the merger of Amicus and the Transport and General Workers' Union, from 2007 to 2011. Despite stepping down as Joint-General Secretary, he remained as the Head of Organising for Unite until December 2013 and is still a consultant to the union. He was previously the General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers union (T&G) from 2004 to 2007.
Derek Simpson is a British trade unionist who was the Joint-General Secretary of the UK's biggest private-sector trade union, Unite, from 2007 until 2010. He was previously the General Secretary of Amicus from 2002 until its merger with the Transport and General Workers' Union to form Unite in 2007.
Unity Gazette is a broad left caucus group in the Amicus trade union in the United Kingdom. It includes activists from the former Manufacturing, Science and Finance (MSF) and Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union (AEEU) trade unions which merged to form Amicus. The broad left of AEEU was also known as Unity Gazette or Engineering Gazette. Recent mergers between Amicus and UNIFI and GPMU have resulted in new members from those unions.
The Transport and General Workers' Union was one of the largest general trade unions in the United Kingdom and Ireland—where it was known as the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers' Union (ATGWU)—with 900,000 members.
Gerard Sutcliffe is a British Labour Party politician who was Member of Parliament (MP) for Bradford South from 1994 to 2015. He was the Minister for Sport and Tourism in the Brown Government.
The Broadcasting, Entertainment, Communications and Theatre Union (BECTU), formerly the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union, became a sector of the Prospect trade union in the United Kingdom on 1 January 2017 following the merger of BECTU with Prospect. It has approximately 40,000 members who work in broadcasting, film, theatre, IT, telecoms, entertainment, leisure and interactive media.
The Society of Graphical and Allied Trades (SOGAT) was a British trade union in the printing industry.
The National Graphical Association (NGA) was a trade union representing typographers and related workers in the United Kingdom.
Sir Kenneth Joseph Jackson was a British trade unionist who was the General Secretary of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union (AEEU) from 1995 until that union's merger with the Manufacturing Science and Finance (MSF) union to form Amicus in 2001. He subsequently became one of the Joint General Secretaries (JGS) of Amicus.
Brenda Dean, Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, was a British trade unionist and Labour Party politician. As general secretary of SOGAT from 1985 until 1991, she was "the first woman elected to head a major industrial trade union."
The Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union, known as the EETPU, was a British trade union formed in 1968 as a union for electricians and plumbers, which went through three mergers from 1992 to now be part of Unite the Union.
Tony Dubbins was a prominent British trade unionist until his retirement from Unite in 2008.
Gail Cartmail is an Assistant General Secretary (AGS) at the trade union Unite and also a member of the Trades Union Congress' (TUC) Executive Committee and General Council.
Amicus was the United Kingdom's second-largest trade union, and the largest private sector union, formed by the merger of Manufacturing Science and Finance and the AEEU, agreed in 2001, and two smaller unions, UNIFI and the GPMU. Amicus also organised in both parts of Ireland and was affiliated to the UK Trades Union Congress, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Scottish Trades Union Congress.
Unite the Union, commonly known as Unite, is a British and Irish trade union which was formed on 1 May 2007 by the merger of Amicus and the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU). Along with Unison, Unite is one of the two largest trade unions in the UK, with over 1.2 million members in construction, manufacturing, transport, logistics and other sectors. The general secretary of Unite is Sharon Graham, who was elected on 25 August 2021 with 46,696 votes on a turnout of 124,127, with her term beginning on 26 August 2021.
The Society of Lithographic Artists, Designers and Engravers (SLADE) was a British trade union representing workers in the printing industry.
The National Union of Wallcoverings, Decorative and Allied Trades (NUWDAT) was an industrial union representing workers connected with the manufacture of wallpaper in the United Kingdom.
The Printing and Kindred Trades Federation (P&KTF) was a trade union federation in the United Kingdom.
Owen O'Brien was a British trade union leader.
Tony Burke was a British full time trade union official in the print unions, the NGA and GPMU, Amicus and retired in 2022 as an Assistant General Secretary of Unite the Union in the UK and Ireland.
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