I am writing to let you know about the outcome of our recent meeting with Permira, one of the leading private equity firms which own the AA.

As you know GMB has campaigned hard to get national attention for the impact of private equity firms on great British companies, and we finally brought Permira to the negotiating table.

At that meeting Paul Maloney and myself bought all of our concerns about the situation at the AA to the attention of Permira, and we had some firm and constructive discussions.

One of the areas of discussion was the issue of re-recognition of the GMB at the AA, so that we can effectively engage management in discussion about our members concerns. As a result of that discussion we agreed to a confidential verification process, whereby an entirely independent third party (suggested by Mr Buffini) - the TUC - will verify that we have sufficient GMB members within the AA to warrant re-recognition of our Union.

I wanted to explain to you how that process will work and assure you that the information will remain absolutely confidential between ourselves and the TUC - it will never be seen by the employers. The GMB is going to supply a list with very limited details to the TUC, and the TUC is going to randomly telephone some of those members to confirm that they are genuine GMB members. I would ask that if you hear from the TUC you let them know that you are a GMB member.

This process will fully comply with the Data Protection Act, and I want to assure you again that the details supplied will be extremely limited and will remain absolutely private between ourselves and the TUC.

As soon as the process is complete, we are assured that Permira will recommend to the Board that the AA recognise the GMB, and we can get to work engaging management in discussions regarding concerns raised by our members.

If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact me or Paul Maloney on 020 8397 8881.

Best wishes

Yours fraternally


PAUL KENNY
General Secretary