General Secretary re-elected

Roger Bolton, BECTU's current General Secretary, has been re-elected for a second five year term by a ballot of members.

Roger Bolton won the election with two thirds of the 7,775 votes returned, beating the only other candidate, Vincent Feiner, a former paid official of BECTU.

The ballot, which closed on May 5, was carried out in accordance with UK labour laws which require that all union General Secretaries should be subject to periodic re-election, and Mr.Bolton's next five-year term of office will commence on November 1 1998. Prior to his first election success in 1993, he was employed by BECTU as a supervisory official.

Several members were not included in the ballot, either because their home addresses were not correctly registered with the union, or because their subscriptions were not up to date, but the turnout of those who received ballot forms was nearly 29%. This level of participation compares well with previous election ballots in BECTU, and is roughly in line with the average turnout for most UK unions.

Under BECTU's rules the General Secretary is responsible for day to day running of the union, but remains directly accountable to the elected Executive Committee and Annual Conference.