GMB: BII washing hands of Punch dispute

http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/news.ma/ViewArticle?R=84159

@David Wine - good post David but 'let Europe sort it out' is not enough. And as Steve Norton points out Fair Pint doesn;t do solicitors. We're a Campaign. We all work really hard in our spare time and more to put forward our own experience of pubco practices and to gather other people's stories and present them to interested outsiders in the hope that together we can effect the radical change that is needed in the pub industry.

An enormous amount of detailed verifiable evidence of pubco bad practice has to be put forward to UK regulatory bodies and to Europe before any of them begin to think about maybe even thinking about even beginning to sort it out. The status quo is still that pubcos are innocent until proven guilty; their base argument that 'it is not in our interests for our tenants to go out of business; we do everything we can to support them' gets them off most hooks without any supporting evidence other than a one line 'we're spending £1.2 million a month supporting our tenants'.

Without people like YOU, me, Steve Corbett, posters on this gforum and the other founders and front line active members of Fair Pint - like Dave Mountford for example - taking their time and energy voluntarily to drive home the truth about pubcos NOTHING will change unless the pubcos imploded one by one as a result of their own financial mismanagement.

GMB's involvement (and Unite's) on this level is invaluable to the industry moving forward. Some people criticise a situation where unions are getting involved with supporting employers (i.e. lessees and tenants of pubcos) when a union's natural ground is to represent and defend employees' rights. Well WE need all the help we can get and when GMB are prepared top say it like it is - people listen. GMB's does their own detailed research which tells them there is something very wrong with the set up of this industry. They are about fairness and stemming the abuse of power by corporate bodies to the detriment of individuals; they know what they are dealing with - bullies in playgrounds. That is why there is no pussyfooting around in their public statements.