Biographies
David Begg is General Secretary, Irish Congress of Trade Unions. He became General
Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions in 2001. For five years prior to that he was
Chief Executive of Concern Worldwide, an international humanitarian organisation working in
27 countries and with offices in Dublin, London, Belfast, New York and Chicago. He is also a
Director of the Central Bank (since 1995), a Governor of the Irish Times Trust, Chairperson of
the Democracy Commission, a member of the National Economic and Social Council (NESC),
and of the Advisory Board of Development Co-operation Ireland. He also sits on the Executive
Committee of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).
Siân Cartwright is Head of Learning Services at Wales TUC. A committed trade unionist and
graduate of Cardiff University, Siân has worked in education most of her adult life and has
lectured in both the Higher and Further education sectors. Formerly Head of Education and
Training at ASLEF, she returned to her home city of Cardiff 2 years ago to take up her post at
Wales TUC.
Stephen Cavalier is Chief Executive of Thompsons, the trade union, employment rights and
personal injury law firm. During his 21 years at Thompsons he has represented trade unions
and their members in many leading cases, industrial campaigns and disputes. He has acted as
an expert witness to the European Parliament, was Chair of the Industrial Law Society and has
pursued successful cases for unions to the European Court of Justice and the European Court
of Human Rights.
Andrew Davies AM is Minister for Finance and Public Service Delivery in the Welsh Assembly
Government. With a background in education and the private sector, Andrew Davies was
elected as the Assembly Member for Swansea West in May 1999. He is a former member of
the Wales Labour Party Executive Committee and was a regional official with the Welsh Labour
Party in the 1980s. He has served as a member of the Cabinet since the Assembly inception in
May 1999.
Jeff Evans is Wales Senior National Officer for the Public and Commercial Services Union
(PCS), the largest civil service union. Married with 2 children and living in Llantwit Major, he
was educated at Swansea University and recently completed the TUC Leadership Programme.
A committed supporter of devolution, he has been a strong advocate of social dialogue as a
means of improving public services in Wales. He is a member of the WTUC General Council
and Executive.
Allan Garley, is Regional Secretary of the GMB Britain’s General Union, South Western
Region, Cardiff and has held this role since 1996. Allan Garley is a member of the Wales TUC
General Council, Wales TUC Executive Committee and Wales TUC Manufacturing Forum. He
is also a member of the British TUC General Council, British TUC European Network and
British TUC Unionlearn Board. He sits on the Wales Co-operative Management Board and the
Business Partnership Council. He is the Treasurer of the Wales TUC and Treasurer of Wales
TULO. Allan Garley has a passionate interest in Public Procurement and is a member of the
Business Procurement Supported Task Force, Supported Business Sub Group, Welsh
Manufacturing Forum and Wales Initiative for Procurement Partnership.
Vaughan Gething is a partner with trade union firm Thompsons Solicitors where he is an
employment lawyer. He is currently a Labour Councillor representing Butetown on Cardiff
Council. He is an active GMB member and the current Wales TUC Vice-President
Edmund Heery is Professor of Employment Relations at Cardiff Business School and joint
director of the Centre for Global Labour Research. He has written widely on trade unions and
industrial relations and has served as an adviser to the TUC on union organizing. He is editor
of Sage Handbook of Industrial Relations to be published this year and is currently engaged in
research on the role of single issue and campaigning organizations in supporting people at
work.
Ruth Jones studied physiotherapy in Cardiff and then after qualifying worked in several of the
Cardiff hospitals. She then moved to Dorset to continue working as a physiotherapist and there
she embarked on a trade union pathway by becoming the local health and safety rep. She then
moved to Gwent and worked in various hospital and community settings. Here she became a
local CSP rep, moving on to become the Welsh regional rep and sitting on the NEC of the CSP
until the present time. She was prominent in the campaign to affiliate the CSP to the TUC,
which was achieved in 1993. She is a long-standing member of the WTUC General Council
and WTUC Executive Committee.
Philip Kelly is Assistant Secretary General in charge of Public Service Modernisation and
Social Partnership (Pay and Industrial Relations) in the Department of the Taoiseach,
Government of the Republic of Ireland - a position he has held since 2001. Working in the
Department of the Taoiseach since 1993, he has worked on Financial Services and Economic
policy co-ordination and from 1997 to 2000 was head of EU and International Affairs Division in
the Department. Prior to serving in the Department, he worked on energy, education and
taxation policy in the Public Expenditure and Budget and Economic Divisions of the
Department of Finance from 1986 to 1993.
Caroline Lloyd is a senior lecturer in the Cardiff School of Social Sciences and is a senior
research fellow at the ESRC centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance
(SKOPE). She has published widely on the inter-relationships between competitive strategy,
labour markets, work organisation and skills. Recent research includes a major US-European
collaborative project on low waged work funded by the Russell Sage Foundation and an
exploration of the challenges faced by trade unions in the light of developments in UK skills
policy.
Rhodri Morgan AM is First Minister for Wales. He was elected to Parliament in 1987 but
decided not to stand again in the General Election in June 2001. During his time as a MP, he
was Chairman of the House of Commons Select Committee on Public Administration (199799). He served as the Opposition Front Bench Spokesman on Energy (1988-92) and Welsh
Affairs (1992-97). He was elected as the Assembly Member for Cardiff West in 1999 and was
appointed as the Assembly Secretary for Economic Development and European Affairs. He
was appointed First Secretary of the National Assembly in February 2000 and retained
responsibility for Economic Development matters until October 2000. The title of his office
changed to First Minister in October 2000, an office he retained following the 2003 election. He
was appointed First Minister by the Queen following the elections in May 2007.
Paul O’Shea is currently Welsh Regional Secretary for UNISON Cymru/Wales and has
occupied this position since March 2002. He was Regional Secretary for UNISON’S South
West Region from 1998 until 2002. UNISON Cymru/Wales represents 100,000 members and
Paul manages over 70 staff based in UNISON’s offices in Cardiff, Swansea and Colwyn Bay.
Paul was educated at Tredegar Grammar School and Manchester University where he studied
Politics and Social Science. He worked in the Lord Chancellors Office in the House of Lords
before moving to the DTI Company Fraud Investigation Branch. Following that, Paul spent five
years working for the Swansea City Council where he became active in NALGO. He took up
an appointment as a member of NALGO’S staff in 1980 and has worked in a number of regions
as well as at national level.
Graham Smith is Regional Officer for UNITE. Graham has been full time union officer for 17
years. Member of the Labour Party Executive and Treasurer of the Welsh Labour Party.
Graham is also secretary of the Welsh Region of TULO. Before becoming a full-time union
officer Graham workers for 20 years as electrician in the health service.
Grahame Smith is General Secretary of the Scottish TUC. Grahame joined the STUC in 1986
as an Assistant Secretary with responsibility for Health and Social Services and Education and
Training matters. He was appointed as the STUC’s Deputy General Secretary in 1996. In that
role he headed the STUC’s Policy and Campaigns Department and had specific responsibility
for the STUC’s work on lifelong learning and public services.
Grahame led the establishment of the STUC Lifelong Learning Unit; the STUC Skills & Lifelong
Learning Team and the Ministerial Trade Union Working Party on Lifelong Learning, of which
he is a member. He is a member of the Scottish Union Learning Fund Advisory Committee and
the Scottish Executive’s Lifelong Learning Forum. Appointed in December 2007 as a
Commissioner for the UK Commission for Employment and Skills
Cath Speight became an AEU shop steward 28yrs ago. Cath has been an officer of the union
since 1998 initially as a Regional/Recruitment Officer then Regional Officer with the AEEU.
In 2002 she became National Equalities Officer in the AEEU. In 2004 she became the Amicus
Regional Secretary and now in the latest merger she became the National Political Officer for
Wales. She is also Vice-Chair of the Labour Party National Executive.
Mike Sullivan is Professor of Policy Analysis at Swansea University. He is a specialist in the
politics of public policy and has research interests spanning devolution and public policy, the
Labour Party and Social Policy and the relationship between changing notions of social
democracy, devolution and social policy. He is currently seconded (80%) to the Welsh
Assembly Government as a Special Adviser to the First Minister on public service delivery and
social Policy.
Paul Teague is a Professor at Queen’s University Belfast. He holds the Martin Naughton Chair
of Management at the School of Management and Economics. He has written widely on the
theme of the employment relations consequences of deeper European integration. He has
also written on social partnership and labour market performance. More recently he has added
the theme of New Forms of Dispute Resolution to his research interests and has just completed
a monograph on the topic.
Alun Thomas is Interim Special Political Advisor to the Equality and Human Rights
Commission in Wales. Previously, he spent eleven years in London firstly as an MP’s
researcher and then as UK Parliamentary Officer for the Royal National Institute for the Blind.
Between 2000 and 2007, he was Head of Public Affairs at the Disability Rights Commission in
Wales.
Derek Walker is Head of Policy and Campaigns at the Wales TUC. Previously Derek worked
as policy and public affairs officer at Stonewall Cymru. Derek has also worked as a local
government policy officer in Brussels and London. Derek is an associate member of the Board
of the Wales Council for Voluntary Action and a Board member of the Wales Social Partners
Unit. He has also been an advisor to the National Assembly’s Equality of Opportunity
Committee.