1. Jennifer Formby is a British trade unionist and political figure who served as General Secretary of the Labour Party from 2018 to 2020.
17 Facts About Jennie Formby
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Jennie Formby was previously political director and south-east England regional secretary for Unite the Union.
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Jennie Formby grew up with an older brother and sister in Malta, Bath and Salisbury.
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Jennie Formby went to Bath High School for Girls then St Helen and St Katharine boarding school in Abingdon, paid for by the Royal Navy from the age of 14.
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Jennie Formby left school with 10 O levels and 3 A levels, but chose not to go to university.
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Jennie Formby became a trade unionist when she began her working life in Salisbury at the bookmakers William Hill in the late 1970s, and became a branch secretary in Unite's predecessor, the Transport and General Workers' Union.
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Jennie Formby later worked for BOC in Southampton, where she became a union shop steward.
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Jennie Formby became a Transport and General Workers' Union regional officer in 1988.
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Jennie Formby represented a Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust nurse in a ground-breaking employment tribunal case in 2004, where the black nurse suffered racial discrimination by being banned from caring for a white baby.
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Jennie Formby became the union's national officer for the food, drink and tobacco sector in 2004.
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In March 2016, Jennie Formby moved to the post of regional secretary in south-east England.
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Since late 2011, Jennie Formby had been a member of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party.
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In February 2018, Jennie Formby announced she was a candidate to become General Secretary of the Labour Party, shortly after the incumbent, Iain McNicol, resigned.
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Jennie Formby resigned on 4 May 2020, a month following the election of Keir Starmer as new Labour leader, saying "now we have a new leadership team it is the right time to step down".
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In June 2024, Jennie Formby publicly stated that she will be voting for the Green Party in the 2024 UK general election.
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Jennie Formby married Freddie Formby in 2000 and the couple had two children together and adopted a third.
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In March 2019, Jennie Formby announced that she was to undergo treatment for breast cancer.