Liked £10,000 a Year Man
Socialist Press1976 1976-08-11Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 11 →
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Building trade employers were so grateful to former T&GWU national building secretary Leslie Kemp for his cooperation over the years that they have taken' an initiative to establish a testimonial fund in his honour to finance the training of young people.
This was revealed last week by Jack Jones, T&GWU General Secretary, who attempted •to answer press revelations (reported in Socialist Press) that Kemp, after premature retirement from his fulltime union job through "ill health" was taking on a number of other jobs giving an income of over £10,000 per year.
Jones' statement vigorously denied that the T&GWU itself had had any part or influence securing numbers of part-time government appointments for Kemp, whose new jobs include posts on two neighbouring towns' development corporations.
Kemp: himself arrogantly hits back at those who had exposed his lucrative 'retirement' prospects, pointing out that in his opinion he was well worth the money.
He told reporters that he had been advised that he should give up his full-time union position because of the "strain that goes with being a union national secretary"
It is not known whether the T&GWU's building group membership, thousands of whom already face unemployment as a result of the policies of Jones, Kemp and the bareaucratically run the union and of appointed officials who support the anti-working class policies of the Labour government, would endorse Kemp's view that he is "worth" £10,000 a year or that he was worth his hefty salary as a T&GWU national official.
What is clear is that Kemp, as a ralued and long-standing friend 01 the emplovers has built a comfortable position for himself by resting on the back of the labour movement.
The struggle for the regular election of all officials, for them to be accountable to their membership and for them to be paid no more than the average wage of their members must clearly be stepped up within the T&GWU to drive out such careerist elements and pave the way for principled leadership.
All union officials must be forced to declare their other sources of income and be subject to scrutiny by branches and stewards Jones