GPMU

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GPMU

A number of factors explain the creation of the GPMU in September 1991. First, there was the need for the print unions to speak with a single voice to the TUC and the Labour Party if they were to influence the content of legislation repealing the anti-union laws introduced by the 1980s Conservative Governments. Second, both the NGA and SOGAT recognised the advent of the Single European Market in 1993 offered multi-national companies the option to establish plants and/or transfer production to areas where wages were low and unions and labour market regulation weak.

Third, the ability to speak with one voice to the decision-making institutions of the European Union, to EU-wide print and paper union bodies and the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) was necessary if the social dimensions of the single market were to be influenced.

Four, in the 1980s the implementation of new technology, anti-union legislation and the changed economic circumstances resulting from increased international competition shifted the balance of bargaining power very much towards the print employer. If the NGA and SOGAT remained separate the employers would use this increased bargaining power to undermine the employment conditions of print workers.

A further pressure bringing the GPMU into being was the implementation of significant technological change based on the use of computers in general print and newspapers which led to inter-union disputes between NGA and SOGAT with, on occasions, each union “colluding” with the employer to undermine the interests of the other. Both unions realised that to continue in this way would only enhance employer interests.

In November 2004 the GPMU transferred its members into AMICUS to become the Graphical, Paper and Media Sector of that union in which it had full autonomy for industrial matters. AMICUS members employed in print, publishing, packaging, paper and media industries such as engineers, electricians, process and publishing workers transferred from their current sector to the Graphical, Paper and Media Sector. In 2007, AMICUS and the Transport and General Workers Union merged to form Unite – The Union which has a Graphical, Paper and Media Sector, which also takes into membership TGWU members employed in the GPMU Sector`.

Support Us: There are a number of ways you can help to support us. You can donate online. You can join the Library as an individual member and get your union branch to affiliate. If you are a retired or working print worker and would like to volunteer to take groups around the Collection, you can apply here to join our panel of volunteers.
Order your brochure: The Printers’ Collection was launched in February 2009 by Derek Simpson, joint general secretary of UNITE. To mark the opening a full-colour and richly illustrated 64-page brochure has been published. It is available here priced £5.
Share Memories: We are preparing an online book of memories of print workers. You may want to share with us your experience of being an apprentice, of your working life or activity as a trade unionist. If so, please write here and we will include all or parts of it in the forthcoming section.
Donate Items: Unite the union - graphical, paper and media section has kindly donated a substantial part of its collection of print ephemera, memorabilia and records in the Printers’ Collection. But some of our best and most surprising items have been donated by individuals or local union chapels and branches. If you have a print related item, which, you believe, would be of interest to others and you wish to donate it or simply loan it, to the Collection include a short description of it here.

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