Star date: 18th January 2020

ILL HEALTH LEADS SALFORD TRADE UNIONIST TO RETIRE

Alec McFadden, Manager of the Salford Unemployed and Community Resource Centre for 24 years, has retired due to ill health. Alec, who also led projects including the Salford Prison Project and the Breakfast Club for local homeless people, says he will continue to "fulfil my desire and need to change and improve society..."

Full details here...

"...Together we always worked hard and effectively to protect the working class of Salford and beyond...."

Well known trade unionist and socialist, Alec McFadden, has decided to retire from his post of Manager of the Salford Unemployed and Community Resource Centre after a whopping 24 years.

The Centre, on Liverpool Street in Eccles, was created to help working class people with everything from debt to workplace disputes to benefit advice, and has recently expanded to include the acclaimed Salford Prison Project and the Breakfast Club for the homeless, which provides meals, clothes, health treatments and more.

"I suffered a heart attack in London in May 2019, while attending a national conference, representing the Centre and after an emergency heart operation I spent 13 days in Barts NHS Hospital in London" Alec writes in a letter to colleagues "Without a doubt the NHS doctors and nursing staff saved my life. I am now on prescription drugs for the rest of my life and under instructions to avoid stress, anxiety and conflict in my working life, which is very difficult in the job in the Centre."

After various treatments, including at Salford Royal Hospital, Alec returned to work at the Centre but has since found it difficult to continue...

"It's now clear that I will not make a complete and full recovery" he adds "I am going to be 74 years old in February and myself and my children would like to see me able to live another twenty years and like my father who died two years ago who lived to 94 years of age .

"All my children and my medical advisors say I must put my health and myself first and that the time has come to stop work and retire" he explains "A number of comrades and friends have died recently in their 70's, and I am determined to continue living. So retirement it will be..."

"I loved and enjoyed the work, the constant challenges to defend and represent our many vulnerable clients, and the working relationship and comradely relationship with my colleagues" he states "So many highs and successes and, of course, a few lows because of polices of Tory Government; but together we always worked hard and effectively to protect the working class of Salford and beyond."

Alec says that he will continue to live in Salford and hopes to take part in none pressure activities which "will help and relax me and fulfil my desire and need to change and improve society..."