What a great way to start the week, donation of monies, sleeping bags and bags of toiletries from @GMBNWI for @WaltonValeShop ! Solidarity not Charity ! @deniseNWI @st3_whit @LivEchonews @MetroMayorSteve

Thanks to everyone for their kind words about my appointment as the new government's Prisons, Probation and Parole Minister. It's a real privilege and I'm looking forward to improving the system for hard-working staff, turning more lives around and cutting crime.

A great success for our members working at Sapphire as we resecure recognition! 🙌🎉 After being derecognised in 2019, our Regional Organiser @st3_whit has worked with representatives and members at the company to become recognised once again. This has been a difficult process given the nature of the work is subcontracted. Nonetheless, recognition has once again opened the door to expanding our union by recruiting more members and getting the best possible pay, terms and conditions for them. Currently we are the only recognised union. ✊ Paul Thompson, GMB Workplace Representative said: "In November 2020 we were TUPEd from Amey to Sapphire, and given there was no recognition at this point in time lots of GMB members decided to leave the union. Lockdown did not help the situation, as communication between members and the company became extremely difficult, and redundancies were being made. "Around the same time we got a new Organiser, Steven Whittle, who contacted me to discuss getting recognition back. He and his team began visiting Sapphire members which was very helpful and got the ball rolling on resecuring recognition. "Since then the journey to recognition has not been easy. Sapphire brought in a lot of new policies and procedures that were not in our interest, from video monitoring to further redundancies, but we have persisted and finally turned a corner. "Over the years Steven has been a brilliant commentator with our members and me. We have now got recognition back thanks to the hard work that he and his team have done. The membership has now started to go up. I think this is a new beginning for the GMB within Sapphire, and I have already noticed that some managers have a new relationship with me, and I think this is because they realise that GMB work hard to resolve issues and not create them. "The hard work starts now. "Once again a big thank you to Steven and his team for all the hard work that they have done on behalf of us all." #makeworkbetter 💪

Biggest polluter United Utilities made profits last year of £227mn but paid shareholders paid £339mn in dividends. It has paid shareholders £1.22billion over last four years, a quarter billion pounds more than its £969mn profits. Wants to raise prices 25%

173 Gas Branch in Belfast for the May Day Event. @deniseNWI @GMB_union_NWI @neilsmithgmb @st3_whit