A friend on FB asked Friday morning what things are people proud of doing. It's not how I tend to think about things, but I then realised there was something.
Back in the early 90s I was appointed Chief Electrician at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff. That's the person in charge of the lighting and sound department, btw.
So the venue said it was signed up to the union agreement but they'd been illegally stopping the staff from joining, which I only found out when one of the stage crew commented about their excessive hours.
Within an hour of my handing out membership forms I was called to the venue director's office and asked to resign (which I wanted to do anyway as I found I didn't like Cardiff much). I negotiated a 'leave immediately' fee equal to two months' salary (which was how long I'd been there), said my goodbyes, and departed. By the time I'd got back to my nearby digs to collect my stuff my partner had come down from London and we went off to Edinburgh for the weekend.
The following week I went to the BECTU (union) head office, chatted to Gerry with all the details, and he sorted it all out. The Sherman became a properly unionised house and I went back to London — a great result all around!