Key messages

All publications, presentations and training recommended must contain the following key messages:

  1. The main cause of our current decline is internal not external. The answer to membership decline lies in our hands but we need to change how we work.
  2. Our job is not to manage the decline of the GMB – but to take whatever steps are necessary to halt it and reverse it.
  3. We must be clear about what works and what does not work in recruitment. We can identify and eradicate failed recruitment and organising practice from our past.
  4. To turn membership decline around we need to focus on workplace organisation. Increasing the activity of our membership and giving them a role in building the GMB where they work, mobilising our reps to recruit and organise.
  5. Increase Officer resources spent on recruitment and organisation – but direct and target them much more effectively and with much more discipline.
  6. Fewer targets more effectively organised.
  7. A bigger role in servicing and organising in the workplace for our Reps will be required. New and coherent training and education will be required to equip them with the skills they need.
  8. Focus on consolidating membership in existing sites rather than Greenfield. Adopt a systematic approach to consolidation work and ensure all Officers and Reps are briefed on what works.
  9. Expect every aspect of the GMB operation to make a contribution to membership growth.
  10. Focus on sustained growth rather than competitive sales culture. Integrate recruitment and organising work with industrial issues and workplace organisation.  We must end destructive competition on recruitment performance between Officers and offices.
  11. We should go out of our way to include Reps, members and potential members in our organising and servicing work. We must guard unconsciously displacing Reps or encouraging dependency on full time Officials.