Just a quick reminder that this summer school is taking place and that there are now only 2 places left, with organisers from a number of affiliates in the UK and also from Canada and USA joining us there will be plenty of opportunity for discussion and debate around strategic campaigning in the current economic climate. 

All those taking part will have the opportunity to work on a strategic camapign plan from developing a company profile to building coalitions through to identifying and applying leverage.

If you are interested in taking part then visit http://www.tuc.org.uk/events/detail.cfm?event=3103

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Posted on May 29th, 2009 by Liz filed under: Union organising

A strategy for trade unions and arts and culture could not be far away, artists, trade unionists and relevant organisations met yesterday to discuss an art and culture strategy for the TUC, all agreeing that this is an important area of trade union work. The trade unions have always had a long history of engagement in the arts both representing artists in their struggle but also utilising the arts to spread the trade union message to a wider audience.

We were pleased to hear from Martin Brown, assistant general secretary of Equity  who spoke passionately about the issues faced by workers in the sector (and they represent more than just actors you know!); and also speaking on behalf of the Federation of entertainment unions as a whole. We also heard more from Platform as in previous blogs but also from various other art groups such as Banner  , Bridging Arts and Electric Picnic.

Two strands emerged, firstly how can we work with arts and culture mediums to reach the next generation of trade unionists/support our campaigns and secondly how can we directly recruit and organise arts workers. These were discussed to varying degrees by the wide range of union and organisations represented there including: Unite, BECTU , PCS, Prospect, Work Foundation, Bridging Arts, Musicians Unions, NUT, NASUWT, NUJ, Young Foundation, Stinkywinkles and Street-Performer.

We also heard from Megan Dobney of SERTUC and Paul Nowak of TUC on initiatives including the Black history celebrations and the evaluation of the Liverpool Capital of Culture report.  

We were pleased to welcome the Arts council and CCSkills to the seminar and we are pleased that we have the opportunity to develop these relationships further.

We will now be looking forward to looking at the further development of this key area of trade union work. So watch this space…..

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Posted on May 29th, 2009 by Anna filed under: Union news

• Art gets Active!
  (tags: art culture organising unions PCS)
• Stewart Acuff: 4AM: 24-Hour Vigil in Little Rock
  (tags: unions organising US AFL-CIO)

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Posted on May 28th, 2009 by StrongerUnions filed under: Web links

• 'Union Revitalisation in Advanced Economies: Assessing the Contribution of Union Organising'
  On June 2 the TUC and Palgrave Macmillan will be hosting a small event to help launch 'Union Revitalisation in Advanced Economies: Assessing the Contribution of Union Organising', a new book edited by Gregor Gall.
  (tags: organising unions)

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Posted on May 27th, 2009 by StrongerUnions filed under: Web links

Tomorrow the TUC are holding an Arts and Culture Seminar, the aims of which are to look at an arts and culture stategy for the TUC. To inform this work we are looking forward to welcoming artists from a range of areas to hear about their work and also the trade unions that work with them. One of the artists that will be presenting is Jane Trowell of Platform of London. I was researching Platform over the weekend (online) and i was interested to read more about Platforms latest project ‘the Desk killer’. It was particularly relevant to me at the time i was with my partner and his father Gavin Konstam who is a playwrite (and of Jewish decent) and whom lost three quarters of their family to the Holocaust, we were discussing the work of Platform and the often facelessness of corporations and linking this to the Holocaust (for example the fact that an insurance company actually insured the gas chambers) much of which is encapsulated in Platforms work the Desk Killer, drawing parallels with corporations today. Are people working within corporations aware of the impact that their work can have on the lives of others? When they look at spreadsheets are they aware of the human face behind the statistics? Check out their work at Platform

I’ll let you know how the seminar goes!

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Posted on May 26th, 2009 by Anna filed under: Union news

General Secretary of AUEW-TASS from 1974 to 1988, Ken Gill then became joint General Secretary with Clive Jenkins of MSF, after it was formed from the merger of TASS and ASTMS. He retired in 1992.

He was President of the TUC in 1986, and was well known as a talented caricaturist, particularly of his fellow union leaders.

TUC General Secretary, Brendan Barber, said, ‘Ken Gill was a big figure in the trade union movement, during turbulent times. Always a champion of the left he fought his corner with a steely integrity. He was a great internationalist and anti-racism campaigner’

More bio details at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Gill

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Posted on May 26th, 2009 by Anna filed under: Union news

Since Barack Obama’s victory in last year’s US Presidential Election, there’s been a rush by a number of organisations to identify the silver bullet of the Obama campaign  – what was it that lead to his victory and what can we in the UK learn from it?

Obviously UK unions have been amongst these organisations and those involved in and concerned with union organising strategies have paid particular attention to how the campaign appeared to be able to enthuse and mobilise so many volunteers, many of whom (both young and old) we were told were getting involved in political campaigning for the first time.

Quite a bit of the analysis of how this was achieved has focussed on the campaign’s use of new technology and in particular social networking sites including Obama’s own version ‘MyBo’.  But as someone interested in how we in the trade union movement can get more people involved in the activity of their respective unions, I was struck by a chapter in the recently published Fabian Society book ‘The Change we Need: Lessons for Britain from Obama’s victory’.

The chapter, titled ‘Respect, empower and include’: the new model army’ written by Karin Christiansen and Marcus Roberts describes the campaigns approach to volunteers and activists.  It describes how the campaign initially identified volunteers, then put them to work and kept them motivated.  Throughout all of this there was an emphasis on keeping square pegs in square holes – allowing people to do things they had an interest in or a particular talent for, rather than forcing them to do a list of pre-ordained tasks.  Motivation was achieved by traditional methods such as regular encouragement and thanks and also by making sure that volunteers understood where their efforts fitted into the campaign as a whole.  Attention was also paid to ensuring that volunteers had the right resources in sufficient quantities.

Obviously none of this partcularly new to the way well run union branches and campaigns operate but I think that the trick for us is making sure that such approaches become more widely practised. 

You can download the entire book here.

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Posted on May 18th, 2009 by Carl Roper filed under: Union news