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All would now be known as GC with a number. For instance, the Radio Officer would be a GC10, as would be an executive officer. This also brought about new pay scales with a GC10 on the top rate getting £14387 per annum, however, if you remained in the union you were not assimilated into the new structure and remained as a Radio Officer with a top pay of £13068 per annum. Was this the stick or the carrot being shown to the union members? Whichever it was, it didn't work. I was determined to remain in the union.
During this period of time I attended numerous meetings of the CSU, mainly as a delegate, but some as a guest. I was also privileged to be invited as a guest to a number of Trade Union Congress meetings. At all of these meetings I had to use my annual leave entitlement.
In May 1987 the Branch Chairman resigned and I was asked to take over as chairman which I was quite happy to do, however in July an event took place which led to me resigning from the CSU.
A rally was taking place in Cheltenham which I was expected to attend as Branch Chairman. I duly attended this function, willingly using my annual leave to do so but when I put in a claim to the union section secretary for the necessary expense that I had incurred was surprised and annoyed to receive a communication from him saying that the claim was being rejected as it had not been approved beforehand, and that a bus had been laid on from York.
When I got in touch with him, I told him in no uncertain terms that I shouldn't have needed any authorisation as I was the Branch Chairman and that the bus from York was over forty miles from Scarborough. I also told him that I wanted an apology from him with the cheque and if I didn't I was resigning as chairman of the branch. I also got in touch with the General Secretary of the CSU (John Sheldon), told him what had happened and said that if I didn't receive an apology from the section secretary (Hugh Lanning) within the next week I was going to resign from the union as I couldn't work without trusting the person or persons that I was working with.