Union leader woos 'greedy bastards'
Edmonds calls for new partnership with bosses
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Your support makes all the difference.THE UNION boss who attacked company directors as "greedy bastards" last year will say this week that employers have not been so friendly towards the unions for 20 years.
John Edmonds, general secretary of the GMB, last year labelled executive pay as "the politics of the pig trough".
But tomorrow, in his keynote address to his union's annual congress, he will pay tribute to the growing number of employers who have developed a "real sense of partnership with the trade unions".
"The industrial relations climate is now altogether more positive for the trade unions than at any time in the last 20 years," Mr Edmonds will say. "There is no doubt that a real sense of partnership is beginning to emerge."
He adds: "Employers are increasingly recognising the value of establishing effective working relationships with trade unions."
Mr Edmonds' new conciliatory stance follows a spate of voluntary union recognition agreements signed between private companies and the 700,000 strong GMB.
More than 50 new agreements with employers, including Group 4, the controversial security firm which escorts prisoners to and from court, have been signed in the last 18 months.
Mr Edmonds outraged ministers at last year's TUC congress in Blackpool by saying: "A company director who takes a pay rise of pounds 50,000 when the rest of the workforce is getting a few hundred is not part of some general trend. He is a greedy bastard."
Boardroom and senior management pay is continuing to rise dramatically in Britain - company directors have seen average earnings rise 21 per cent in the last 12 months.
Mr Edmonds will criticise bullying employers who continue to treat their workforce badly, in his Blackpool address.
But he is also expected to pay tribute to the many bosses who have established partnerships with unions, and to point out that business and the unions can help one another on issues such as new labour laws.
Mr Edmonds' softer stance is designed to convince business that union links can be beneficial and that antagonism is not always the best option.
Mr Edmonds is expected to criticise the Government for laws penalising low-paid people. He is expected to single out for criticism the minimum wage, which he believes was brought in at too low a level.
But he will finish by saying that the Labour government has had a profoundly positive effect on industrial relations, reflected in the growing number of union recognition agreements since Tony Blair came to power.
"Even before the Employment Relations Bill becomes law, the Fairness at Work legislation is already helping to improve the climate of industrial relations in this country," said a GMB spokesman.
Mr Edmonds has not completely abandoned his previous stance. Last week, in a debate between him and CBI chief Sir Clive Thompson, he refused to fully retract his "greedy bastard" accusation, criticising executives for awarding themselves pay rises when their companies were not performing.
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