Hello I'm Krestey Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1992,

and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a trade unionist. His background and upbringing, Glasgow Working Class,

may not be unusual for such a man, but his approach to his work is little short of revolutionary.

After a youthful flirtation with communism he deserted the party and turned to labour.

He rose from shop steward to full-time union official.

Now the leader of one of the biggest unions in Britain, he argues that the TUC must undergo

radical change if it's to have an effective future.

But how, he wrote recently, do you turn a cart horse into a thoroughbred? He is the General Secretary of the

Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union, Gavin Laird. It's phrases like

that, of course, Gavin, the TUC as cart horse, which do a little for your popularity among the brothers

isn't it? Indeed much less than popular over the years but it's reassuring

that recently we had the director general the

CBI something I advocated six years ago to address the to

to address the TUC that's indicative of the change that would be

unheard of a few years ago we've got guys and women who just a few short years ago were telling me, and rather

unfortunate terms that I didn't reflect the best interests of working men and women, who

are now singing the same song that I've been

singing for a number of years and that's reassuring. But what what does it do if it is

a cart horse? I mean the days of flying pickets and closed shops and single union agreement

opposition is gone away. What does it still do in your view that is

...