Tracey Bent
Tracey is sponsored by the CWU.
Background: Tracey was a student at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, where her degree involved Honours work in Linguistics and Sociolinguistics. She was introduced to the work of Noam Chomsky, whose social and political writings were an inspiration.
After a year in the NHS, she went on to do postgraduate work in Linguistics at University College London. Her work involved the analysis of speech in working class communities.
In 2001 she started at Royal Mail and drove 7.5 tonne lorries as the only female driver at West London Mail Centre.
Rapidly involved in union work she was appointed IR rep and branch lead union learning rep, setting up a workplace learning centre at Paddington. She fought a protracted – and Tracey says heroic – case against Royal Mail to defend the statutory rights of union learning reps who required release time to perform agreed duties.
For the last 2 years she has been South East Regional Project Worker for the CWU Education and Training Department helping CWU branches set up their own learning projects.
Organising Academy Selection Process: Described by Tracey as “a rigorous, challenging and comprehensive process”, she is proud to have survived and to be a member of this year’s intake.
Motivation: Tracey believes that trade unions are the only organisations that exist to substantially challenge and constrain employers and to empower working people, and that they are fundamental to any democracy.
What she says is that if trade unions are weakened, democracy is weakened; and if trade unions are threatened, democracy is threatened. As Tracey is a democrat, she believes in the trade union movement.
She is absolutely committed to the defence of working people, waged and unwaged, in their daily struggle against private interests.
Aspirations: Tracey hopes to play her part in creating a new, dynamic, and authentic trade union movement true to the best history and traditions of trade unionism. She says that people should be beating at the door to join a union, and anything less means that we have work to do.
Interests: all things Chinese – including Soup Noodle at the Magic Wok. She has already begun the long process of learning to speak, read and write Mandarin.
Union Membership: CWU and GMB
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