About Billy Hayes and this weblog
The position I hold is General Secretary (GS) of the Communication Workers Union (CWU). The CWU is the seventh largest union in Britain with almost 270,000 members.
I was born in Liverpool. After leaving school, I became an apprentice fitter welder for a number of years. I then went on to work at John West Foods.Then I took a six-month break 'doing a Jack Kerouac' around Europe before joining the Post Office as a postman.
1992 I was voted onto the National Executive Council of the union,four months later I was elected a national officer representing delivery staff and cleaners together with other groups.I took the place of Alan Johnson - who had been elected General Secretary of the CWU.In 1997 Alan became the MP for Kingston upon Hull and Hessle and a Minister and is now Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and a member of the cabinet. After nine years as Assistant Secretary of the Outdoor Department, I was elected GS in 2001 to succeed Derek Hodgson who had retired.
The CWU has two industrial sections which have autonomy on industrial issues, so my colleague Dave Ward is responsible for postal issues and my colleague Jeannie Drake is responsible for telecommunications and financial services issues. This means that, as General Secretary I support Dave and Jeannie on those issues. I represent the union in the CWU relations with the Labour Party and the Government,on the Trades Union General Council and at international level on Union Network International.
I'm 52 and married to Dian who used to work for BT as a Commercial Officer and be a union representative. We have two children, Niall (five) and Melissa (three). We live in South London.
