Labour Research July 2015

Union news

GMB leader

Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB general union, is to be knighted for “services to trade unions”.

The news came just after Kenny told the GMB’s annual congress that he might be retiring as general secretary. A GMB leadership election is due later this year under the five-year rule.

In an emotional speech at the end of congress, Kenny said he could not “in all honesty, go into an election knowing that I cannot fulfil five years of office”.

However, Kenny, who has been in post since 2006, has changed his mind on this subject before: in 2012 he announced he would go but changed his mind a few months later.

http://www.leftfutures.org/2015/06/paul-kenny-a-hard-act-to-follow