GMB Connect Magazine December 2017 December 2017 | Page 10

Pace Setters Award
Tolpuddle Martyrs
CONGRATULATIONS MICHAEL LEWIS
Congratulations to Michael Lewis GMB member, wheelchair user and ex Remploy
worker for achieving one of his goals in life and being successfully awarded the 2017
ACS Pacesetters Achievements Award.
There are only 20 successful candidates put forward to win an award for whole of
the UK for their exceptional services within the security industries, Mike won his
award for keeping 100% compliance records along with data controlling of day to day
operational work within the workplace.
Very well done to Mike, said
Joe Smith Branch Secretary at
Wigan 187 Branch.
Members from all over the GMB North West & Irish Region attend the annual Tolpuddle Martyrs
Festival and this year was no different. The Martyrs, made criminals for forming a trade union, have a
very special place in the history of our movement.
As the sun rose on 24th February 1834, Dorset farm labourer George Loveless set off to work, saying
goodbye to his wife Betsy and their three children. They were not to meet alone again for three years,
for as he left his cottage in the rural village of Tolpuddle, the 37-year-old was served with a warrant for
his arrest.
Loveless and five fellow workers – his brother James, James
Hammett, James Brine, Thomas Standfield and Thomas’s son
John – were charged with having taken an illegal oath. But their
real crime in the eyes of the establishment was to have formed
a trade union to protest about their meagre pay of six shillings a
week – the equivalent of 30p in today’s money and the third wage
cut in as many years.
Mike worked for Remploy from 2004 and was TUPE’d over to a security company
in 2013 when the final closure of Remploy took place. Mike is site supervisor and
with support from his team, West Lancashire Borough Council, and employer he has
gone on from strength to strength.
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For more details see their website
http://www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk/story
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