Open Letter to Mick Hildreth

 Dear Mick

I have in the past raised my concern over the changes that have been made within the Brighton and Hove taxi branch and how those changes were made.
Non taxi brief holders and taxi office staff have been separated from the taxi and private hire drivers to separate branches. This has never been explained as why this has happened. The changes and rules seem to me to have been altered to exclude non brief holders from voting at the meetings.
The GMB constitution clearly states in
Rule 5 Membership:

1 the GMB is an open and democratic organisation
When you changed the taxi branch in Brighton, where was the open and democratic consultation or a vote taken? There as far as I can ascertain no meetings with the members of the branch to discuss the proposed changes, it just happened. In my opinion this was far from democratic or open.
Basically you have done exactly what the bosses would do and brought in new rules to suit yourselves, this is not what a union is about.

When Jon Smith stood for chairperson this year, you did not send  out notifications of the election, when it was, who was standing and who wanted to stand. You said at the last meeting I attended, that you had changed mobiles and lost some phone numbers and addresses. As branch secretary you could and should have all members addresses on a database and not only on your phone. I know that the local GMB office has a list of members, as so do the Chessington office, I checked with them.
I cannot see how Jon Smith was returned unopposed when I would have stood against him, but like many others never got the chance even to vote because of a changed mobile. This election was not democratic, open or fair and quite possibly illegal .

I believe that the problem lies with the amount of GMB members Brighton and Hove Streamline Taxis have,  and how their vote can influence others. It was never a problem when I recruited them into the GMB. If this is the case, then instead of changing rules why didn’t you do a GMB membership recruitment drive instead?

I find the changes you have made go against the whole purpose of the GMB and its rules.

This really is a disappointment to me and many other members

 Regards

James Wright