Why?

http://www.allposters.com/-sp/A-Garland-for-May-Day-1895-Posters_i1864412_.htm

This link takes you to Walter Crane's "Garland for the Workers" which expresses some of the hopes which I think our movement was created to keep alive.

In the next few days and weeks I shall seek re-election as a UNISON Branch Secretary, and in the next few weeks and months I shall seek re-election to our National Executive.

It all begs the question.

"Why?"

Why would anyone give their time, their life, their career in this way?

That's easy to answer. 

It is a great honour to be a trade union representative - and our movement is humanity's only hope that our future may be better than our past.

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After a generation in which the tide of reaction has risen to engulf us, now - more than ever - is the time for us to stand firm.

Like any good union rep, I know that I should say that I do all this for our members - but like any honest parent, I know that the truth is that I do all this for my children.

I did not grow up expecting to live in an England in which "pound shop Enoch Powells" and their Poujadiste hangers-on won support. My parents' generation bequeathed a better world to their children - but we seem to be offering something worse to those who will come after us.

‎So I think it's fairly obvious why anyone, given the chance, might try to do their best for the trade union movement - in the (perhaps forlorn) hope that we can turn the tide.

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the EE network.