ORGANISING ACADEMY

As we all know, there are a multitude of factors that make the current world of work a ‘difficult climate’ in which to organise so perhaps the sub-zero first week for us 2010 trainees was fitting.

Difficulty in getting anywhere has characterised the first week as well getting used to working from home. Sorting out a working area at home and hours of work that suit both the placement’s requirements as well as my own personal strengths will be very important, lest I find myself never ‘off-duty’.

I’ve also been on the phone speaking to students and Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) about  the ATL offer and ensuring we are able to represent them by understanding the issues that concern them. Facebook and Twitter sites have also formed part of the approach to organising.

This coming week will see we two ATL Academy Organisers get inducted at the union head office and go out meeting people at student events, before meeting the whole organising team for a couple of days towards the end of the week. Let’s hope it thaws out a bit more by then.

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Well my first week has been and gone and it feels about time for the first blog entry!

Seeing as I’ll be working on the Vulnerable Workers Project I thought I’d explain a little about what we mean by vulnerable workers and what the trade union movement has been doing about the problem so far.

The TUC’s Commission on Vulnerable Employment (CoVE) defines Vulnerable Work as:

“Precarious work that places people at risk of continuing poverty and injustice resulting from an imbalance of power in the employer-worker relationship.”

If you’ve ever had a minimum or low waged job, particularly through an agency, as a temp or on a zero hour’s contract, working from home or working cash in hand then it’s very likely that you will have been a vulnerable worker.  And you’d be in good company: One in five workers are!

Unsurprisingly enough, the commission found that vulnerable workers were more likely to be women, from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, disabled or migrant workers. This reflects the structural inequalities in society.

More information, including a very informative and readable short report can be found here: http://vulnerableworkers.org.uk/  What particularly struck me about the report were varied and sensitive personal stories which show very starkly the effect that vulnerable working can have on an individual’s well being, mental health and family life.

In the worst case scenario, of course, vulnerable working can cost people their lives; a reality starkly demonstrated by the tragic death of 23 Chinese Cockle pickers at Morecambe Bay in 2004: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Morecambe_Bay_cockling_disaster

By now, the sharper among you will have noted that an “imbalance of power in the employer-worker relationship” is not a  foregone conclusion in any line of work  and that working relationships can be “rebalanced” in favour of the worker if enough people join, and are active in, a trade union.  It will not surprise you, then, that the majority of “vulnerable” work is un-unionised.

CoVE put this down to (among other factors), a failure of trade unions to organise. A particular example is that in workplaces which contract out some aspects of their business, workers who are not directly employed may not be approached to join a union.

There are plenty of good examples of trade unions meeting these challenges. The CoVe short report cites, for example, Unison’s Overseas Nurses Network, the GMB’s project workers who combine organising with ESOL (English as a Second Language) provision and Unite’s involvement with the Justice for Cleaners campaign. This involved organising and negotiation but also demonstrations, media work and a partnership with that mighty powerhouse of community organisation: London Citizens. http://www.londoncitizens.org.uk

I’d also recommend the piece on the GMB’s Polish Workers Branch in Southampton which can be found here: http://www.nosweat.org.uk/node/124 . What I particularly liked about this piece is that it provides a no nonsense account of each step taken towards the eventual formation of the branch, and shows the commitment and work needed to achieve eventual success.

What all these examples have in common is that an innovative and creative approach has been taken, focusing on the difficulties faced by workers and finding practical ways in which the unions can bring collective action to bear on them.

At this point you may well be asking yourself what your humble blogger is proposing to do towards all this great work:

I’ve been put to work on a brand spanking new pilot project funded by the Union Modernisation Fund and run by the South East Region Trades Union Congress (SERTUC). You can check us out here:  http://www.tuc.org.uk/tuc/regions_info_southeast.cfm. A complete plan is in the offing but the intention of the project is improve support for vulnerable workers in London region by working with trade unions branches, community groups and existing networks.

The details will no doubt become clear in time and I’ll fill you in with further info as I have it! In the meantime I find myself busy enough just finding my way around the idiosyncratic Congress House, (my exciting new workplace), meeting people, remembering and failing to remember names and making myself useful (I hope!) around the SERTUC office.

I’m very much looking forward to posting again so stick around for an enlightening and entertaining account of my adventures and misadventures over the coming year!

Ellenor Hutson

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Chris is originally from a small town in South Wales, where he worked as a Liaison Officer for the local authority, providing Disabled Facility grants for children, the elderly and young adults.

He was a steward with Unison for 14 months, before becoming an officer and taking up the position of Joint Trade Union Convenor covering all four trade unions within the authority (UCAT, UNITE, GMB & UNISON) for the Welsh Housing Quality Standard.

He thoroughly enjoyed his time within the UNISON branch and cannot thank them enough for providing him with the training and skills to get him where he is today, so a big thank you to UNISON for that!!

He found the recruitment process very demanding and on regular occasions was totally out of his comfort zone, he felt he dealt with the recruitment challenges well and was over the moon when he achieved a place as an Academy Organiser 2010. He would highly recommend the process to anybody who wants to become seriously involved in the trade union movement.

He aspires to be the best he can be and wants to establish himself within the TUC and his sponsoring Union, he wants to promote the importance of organising and the need for Trade Unions to be active in the current climate.

He feels that due to economic downturn, trade unions are going to be at the forefront of many work related issues in the next 18/24 months.

Public service budgets are looking to be cut back and due to the lack of financial resources available, workforces are going to be squeezed in all areas.

He states “in the near future, I feel there will be a surge on Union resources, from individuals and organisations, struggling to cope with economic meltdown. However, if we all pull in the same direction, we organise efficiently and effectively and we work alongside the expertise and togetherness that trade unions provide, I feel that we can weather any storm that is put in our path”

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Jennifer Larbie

22

NUT Organiser

 In March 2008, I was elected President of University of Birmingham Guild of students (2008-2009). My biggest achievement in this role was fighting and winning a campaign to reduce the cost of printing on campus, now saving the student body thousands of this academic year. Till this day I still get face book messages from students thanking me for highlighting the issue of hidden course costs and going a long way to alleviating the cost of being a student. It was my year as a sabbatical in the student movement that cemented my interest in getting involved in the trade union movement.

The role of President of the student union role exposed me to the importance of collectivism, unionism and renewed my energy to be part of the new politics of change. I studied politics as my degree and had some fantastic lecturers, who taught me to be critical of the change brought about by neo liberal economic policies in this country and all across the world. They were 100% right. As I embark on a career in the trade union movement in the a climate where people are losing their homes, jobs and a sense of security and trust in government, I realise our work in the movement has never been more imperative.

As an Academy Organiser, I would like to make a long lasting contribution within the NUT. I would very much like to assist the union in, recruitment developing policy and future campaigns. The process of gaining my position within the Organising Academy as having been particularly vigorous and generally hard work! I am clearly extremely proud to be a part of building the trade union movement and feel particularly at home in my academy class with other politically likeminded people.

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Tracey is sponsored by the CWU.

 Background: Tracey was a student at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, where her degree involved Honours work in Linguistics and Sociolinguistics.  She was introduced to the work of Noam Chomsky, whose social and political writings were an inspiration.  

After a year in the NHS, she went on to do postgraduate work in Linguistics at University College London. Her work involved the analysis of speech in working class communities.

In 2001 she started at Royal Mail and drove 7.5 tonne lorries as the only female driver at West London Mail Centre. 

Rapidly involved in union work she was appointed IR rep and branch lead union learning rep, setting up a workplace learning centre at Paddington.  She fought a protracted – and Tracey says heroic – case against Royal Mail to defend the statutory rights of union learning reps who required release time to perform agreed duties.

For the last 2 years she has been South East Regional Project Worker for the CWU Education and Training Department helping CWU branches set up their own learning projects.

Organising Academy Selection Process: Described by Tracey as “a rigorous, challenging and comprehensive process”, she is proud to have survived and to be a member of this year’s intake.

 Motivation:  Tracey believes that trade unions are the only organisations that exist to substantially challenge and constrain employers and to empower working people, and that they are fundamental to any democracy. 

What she says is that if trade unions are weakened, democracy is weakened; and if trade unions are threatened, democracy is threatened.  As Tracey is a democrat, she believes in the trade union movement. 

She is absolutely committed to the defence of working people, waged and unwaged, in their daily struggle against private interests.

Aspirations: Tracey hopes to play her part in creating a new, dynamic, and authentic trade union movement true to the best history and traditions of trade unionism.  She says that people should be beating at the door to join a union, and anything less means that we have work to do.  

Interests:  all things Chinese – including Soup Noodle at the Magic Wok. She has already begun the long process of learning to speak, read and write Mandarin.  

Union Membership: CWU and GMB

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Ellenor Hutson is 30 years old and is sponsored by South East Region TUC to work on a project to Organise Vulnerable Workers, funded by the Union Modernisation Fund.

She has previously worked as a Welfare Benefits Advisor at Kilburn Citizens Advice Bureau where she was also the union rep for Unite. Ellenor has also been active in the London Coalition Against Poverty, organising in the community around issues of welfare and housing rights.

Ellenor found the selection procedure oddly reminiscent of the Apprentice and X Factor and is amazed and overjoyed to have made it through “the final round” and into the Organiser Academy. She is looking forward to getting stuck into organising Vulnerable Workers in London and feels privileged to have the opportunity to be organising full time.

Ellenor hopes to assist workers to build and maintain strong organisation and to win tangible victories. She would also like to improve her own practice and in particular to learn a more structured and effective approach to organising.

Ellenor lives in London with her housemate and dog. Her favourite food is steak and chips (preferably with a pint) and she is currently expanding her musical tastes with the help of Spotify. Her current new passion is electro-folk band Tunng.

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Dave Condliffe lives in Brown Edge, Stoke on Trent.

He has been active in the Communication Workers Union since 1988 at Burslem Delivery office where he joined as a postal worker.  Since then he has served the union as an Industrial Relations Rep, Union Learning Rep and Branch Officer at Midlands No 7 Branch.

He has worked for the CWU direct since 2006, working as a Regional Project Worker for the Midlands, assisting branches to set up learning centres in workplaces and the community including a boxing club, a Sikh temple and the mighty Port Vale football club who he also supports!

He is also involved in the Burslem Twelve Campaign which campaigns for justice for twelve sacked reps and activists.

So far he has enjoyed the selection process and interviews and feels that the process was rigorous and well thought out, additionally he is very proud to have got through it.

In the short term Dave aims to build relationships and organising structures with branches, empower reps and activists to fill the needs of both members and recruit new members.

Dave feels that postal workers never fail to surprise in their level of solidarity and fighting spirit and feels ultimately privileged to continue working for the CWU.

Dave’s favourite food is bacon and cheese oatcakes.  He loves Indie music, especially Florence and the Machine and the Pixies.

His favourite place, other than Brown Edge and Burslem (!), is Laos.

He is currently studying for an MA at Keele University.

Dave is grateful to the TUC and CWU, without whose sponsorship he would not have this opportunity today and is an advocate of a ‘strong workplace voice building strong unions’.

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After leaving school Ben spent a few years working in a variety of jobs. This included numerous bad experiences working as an agency worker. These experiences of the world of work shaped his decision to take a degree in Politics at Leeds Metropolitan University and to write his dissertation on Agency Workers. During this time he secured a 1 year internship with the TUC which he really enjoyed, and taught him a great deal about the issues facing UK trade unions today. This was followed by a post working as a project worker for unionlearn in Yorkshire and the Humber. Ben has found his experience so far of the TUC Organising Academy to be “interesting and different”.

Ben’s aspirations are to learn more about organising in a formal way and he is looking forward to learning as much as possible about organising in the education sector with ATL and gaining an invaluable experience during his Organising Academy year.

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This blog is under new management! We’d like to welcome the next intake of trainees on the TUC Organising Academy programme. You’ll start seeing posts here from our new colleagues now, and can use the blog to keep up with their journey throughout 2010. We’ve a great bunch on board this year, so here’s wishing everyone a blogtastic year with the Academy.

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Sian has worked across the public, private and voluntary sectors. She has always been involved in trade unions and she has been a regular attendee at the Tolpuddle Martyrs Rally.

Sian became aware of the Organising model during her time as a PCS Branch Organiser at the Electoral Commission. She believes in empowering members rather than handing them everything on a plate. She is committed to challenging stereotypes and is looking forward to incorporating this into her role as Academy Organiser.

With a background in campaigning, Sian has taken an active role as workplace rep for Unite. She has also worked as a campaigns officer for CND.

Sian is looking forward to being involved in the engagement and recruitment of members. Talking with members was common in her rep role and she believes this quality and experience will help her achieve her goals as an Academy Organiser.

When asked about the recruitment process, Sian agreed that it was a “full on” experience and at the end of the assessment centre it felt a bit like an X-Factor audition when being told that she was “through to the next round.” However, having said this, she felt that the whole recruitment process was very supportive.

Sian is looking forward to getting stuck in with recruiting new members and activists during her placement with NUT. She eagerly wants to have a positive impact on the trade union movement.

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