Last weekend we attended the Midlands TUC awards dinner to celebrate one of our amazing Community reps.
Paul Lockwood won a Highly Commended award for his efforts on the Euro Car Parts recognition campaign.
Paul drove Community’s long standing campaign for union recognition at Euro Car Parts in Tamworth. His efforts in organising the workforce to not only overwhelmingly support a workplace petition, but to then vote for union recognition, gave the workers the union recognition that they have waited the best part of a decade for.
This campaign started in 2014. Over the years that followed, Community built membership and had a recognition application rejected. The union was in a stalemate with the company, and it seemed that formal recognition for these workers was unachievable. Paul saw that the campaign needed to be driven from inside the workplace if it was ever going to succeed, and he started talking to Community regional officials and workplace colleagues about what could be achieved. When Paul asked for another try for union recognition he managed to get over 500 signatures on a workplace petition in a matter of days – this gave everyone the belief that Community could win this campaign.
A CAC application followed and a campaign to achieve the 40% turnout threshold was successful with 52% of the bargaining unit voting. There were over 360 votes in support of union recognition with only 11 people voting ‘No’.
Gavin Miller, National Secretary for the Midlands said:
“We are delighted to see Paul receiving this richly deserved national recognition from the TUC for his work at Euro Car Parts.
“Paul and his rep team’s tireless efforts over many years have provided Community members at the business with a voice and a platform which we hope will last for generations of workers to come.
“Here at Community we pay tribute to Paul for all the work he has done – his practical, values-driven approach is exactly what good trade unionism is all about.”
© Community Trade Union 2026
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