Since the May 2025 All Members Meeting, GMTU has elected an interim committee which has been elected to put in place better safeguarding, sexual misconduct and complaints policies and structures.
This followed a period where members and others who had been affected felt let down by the way that a sexual violence allegation about one of our members was handled.
The May 2025 AMM voted to dissolve the committee and other decision-making bodies that had been handling the issue. A week later, a small interim committee was elected in a contested election in which all members had a vote. Committee members were encouraged to explain why they were qualified for the roles they were taking, and to explain their proposed next steps. The elected committee were:
- Kate Bradley (Chair)
- Rich Goulding (Secretary)
- Níall Glynn (Treasurer)
- Béicí Ní Mhaoilearna (Communications)
- Oluwatayo Adewole (Committee Member)
- Clare Calvert (Committee Member)
The mandate of the interim committee is to write policies and propose structures that would embed a survivor-centred feminist and anti-oppression politics into our processes so that we become a more transparent, more accountable and more democratic union, and so that our members can be safe and comfortable engaging in the union without fear of harm or abuse. We think this will make us stronger in our housing organising too, as it will ensure we have more stable foundations and can focus on supporting tenants and homeless people.
The interim committee’s term will last until the end of September at the latest. We will be going through this process in three phases:
- Listening phase. We are carrying out 1-2-1s, accepting written comments, and will be holding a meeting on 23/07/25 for all members to talk about what needs to change about the union and its processes. This phase will end by the end of July.
- Writing and editing. This is when we will be writing and workshopping policies with members and others. This process should end in early September.
- Voting and AGM. We will put our findings and suggested new policies to the membership for a vote in late September. We will build towards bringing in a diverse and representative new committee that can pick up our housing organising and move things forward.
We welcome contact from members but also from external organisations or individuals who may have been affected by the last year about what went wrong, or who may wish to feed into our processes to create better policy and structures. We welcome examples of good practice and advice from other movement groups who may have learned from similar experiences. You can get in touch with us collectively by emailing committee@tenantsunion.org.uk, or you can email Kate at chair@tenantsunion.org.uk or Rich at secretary@tenantsunion.org.uk.
In Solidarity,
GMTU Interim Committee
