The poll was conducted by recruitment consultants, Badenoch & Clark, of 1,000 private sector ‘office workers’. It found that around 55% opposed, with only 14% ‘strongly opposing’ the strikes. This figure increased for men over the age of 55 but younger workers and women seemed more sympathetic.

What this research tells us is:

• While there’s an entrenched minority strongly opposed, a bell curve analysis suggests that the vast majority occupy a centre ground where opinion can shift.
• 45% already do not describe themselves as opposed even moderately against the strikes.
• Only 1 in 10 women polled were strongly opposed.

Given that the poll was concentrated on those wokers you would anticipate to be least organised (white collar, private sector, service industry) and likely to be anti-union, these figures suggest that there is all to play for in the battle over public sector pensions.

On Monday, we learned about the RMT’s deal with Network Rail protecting their members from compulsory redundancies while delivering a very satisfactory pay rise.  All this in the face of a hostile employer, who let’s not forget attempted to use legal action to cow the union, and a transport industry threatened by cuts and job losses all round. 

Then today, we learned that Unite had reached a deal with Jaguar Land Rover keeping car production going at three major UK plants, protecting thousands of jobs at the plants and JLR’s supply chains and, again, delivering a decent pay rise.

In their separate ways, both deals show the lasting strength and relevance of trade unions and the massive role they have to play not only in supporting working people but also boosting jobs and growth.

The youth blog comes with a redesign, new functionalities such as Facebook and Twitter sharing as well as a special campaign section.

The brochure is a best practice guide on organising young people and is aimed at informing young people in trade unions about the wide range of work covered by trade unions at the international, regional and national level.

The brochure is available for download on the campaign section of the blog.

If you would like to receive printed copies for your union members, please contact me at mdykes@tuc.org.uk

Feel free to cut’n'paste to whatever social network sites you use.

Looking forward to getting the details of the campaign as the ITUC’s own youth officer, Phillipe Gousenberger, addresses the TUC Young Members Conference which takes place in Birmingham on 26th – 28th March.

Met some great union reps and officers, some of  them from the bakers’ union BFAWU who are organising the often low paid, part time and largely female workforce at Gregg’s.  

Two young women in particular from Gregg’s described the problems facing organising in that sector but also demonstrated that results can be achieved when its members themselves taking the lead in recruiting and organising and picking the issues to campaign on.

It was also interesting talking to representatives from the community and youth workers section of Unite.  Their point was that there’s plenty to be learned from youth work professionals on engaging young people.  There’s years of accumulated experience there.  Expertise that we haven’t been tapping into enough in the past. 

I think some further work with our youth worker colleagues is a must.

Youth unemployment stands at record levels, demand for apprenticeships and places in higher education is outstripping supply and too many young workers find themselves in low paid, low skilled, vulnerable jobs in the sharp end of our service industries.

As a response to this trade unions in the UK are uniting around the TUC’s Next Generation Campaign, making the case for a better deal for young people but also showing what role we can play in supporting, organising and developing young people at work and the wider community.

Unions are signing their names up to the Next Generation Accord which sets out our plans for tackling unemployment and vulnerable work among young people.

Contact mdykes@tuc.org.uk for more information.

Change in any organisation can be a painful process but what struck me at the event today was the real energy and appetite there was for having a proper look at what our unions are doing, how they represent, include and empower their members and the best ways to adapt and change to improve things.

And, yes, change has come and real progress made in a number of unions.  The CWU’s youth empowerment strategy and the NUT ‘Hearth’ project are just two dynamic ways unions have improved resources and given a voice to previously excluded members. 

For some more information on UMF projects, check out this report we have just jointly published with BIS.

Another thing that is striking is what a productive and value for money government initiative this has been.  For very little outlay, the government has enabled unions to improve services to potentially millions of members, enhancing the positive role that unions play in the workplace and supporting thousands of businesses across the UK.

If only some of the short sighted snipers among Tory ranks could remove their prejudices for a minute to grasp this.

I had the pleasure of spending a couple of days last week with David Begg and Jack O’Connor of ICTU who did a brilliant job in illustrating the devastating impact that Brian Cowen’s government is inflicting on working people and trade unions through its policy of immediate and severe cuts in public spending.

The current Irish government has wedded itself to deep public sector cuts, largely funded through attacks on public sector workers’ pay and pensions.   A move motivated, it seems, as much by an attempt to cut workers pay as a devaluation strategy as by deficit reduction.  All of this implemented with blanket support from a compliant media, implacably hostile to trade unions. 

According to ICTU this amounts to nothing less than “a savage attack on working people” which will “only stimulate unemployment”.

Through turning its back on dialogue with the Irish trade unions, the government has effectively brought to an end over 20 years of social partnership arrangements.   In the absence of partnership, ICTU’s strength must now be drawn exclusively from its campaigning and organising work.

Grim times but the ICTU leadership see opportunity in the situation, with campaigns there to be won.  We wish David and his colleagues all the best and hope that we continue to learn from each other as we potentially face similar challenges in coming years.

As you’d expect, it’s a mixed picture. 

Sadly, the problem of low membership among the young is common to nearly all European countries.  And, although low unionisation rates among young workers are not new from a historical perspective, union membership has been declining more rapidly among young workers.

However, as Kurt points out, the research also finds that young people “do certainly not disagree in principle with trade unions and there is reason to believe that there is an unsatisfied demand for unionism among young workers.”

 A finding that will be no surprise is that possibly the main reason for a low membership among young people was that there was no significant union presence in those sectors or employers where young people were concentrated.

 So what are union confederations doing about this?

 Well, nearly all of them now have youth representative structures in place, although the young members themselves often don’t have much of a voice at senior levels in the organisation.  And while most of the confederations are seen to be responsive to the needs of young members, activity on organising and recruitment is the weak link.

 “Among the youth representatives there is a demand for organising youth recruitment campaigns and an apparent belief in those campaigns as a channel for joining a union … Yet there is a clear mismatch between the perceived responsiveness of the ETUC national member organisations on recruiting and organising young workers and the priority that youth structures give to this.”

 Okay.  So what lessons are there for union confederations, the TUC being one of them, who want to support organising and recruitment campaigns among young people?  Among Kurt’s findings, there’s some really useful pointers for the TUC:

•  Frequent discussion with affiliated unions on recruitment and organising issues is linked to the effective organising of recruitment campaigns.
• Effective organising happens when young people are engaged at the earliest possible stage, when they enter the labour market, with a significant role for the union rep on the shop floor.
• Young workers should sample the benefits of union membership at an early stage.
• Youth representatives confirm the importance of union presence on the work floor as a channel to join the union. Union reps were the most important source of union recruitment, with work colleagues coming second.
• Youth recruitment campaigns should not differ from other campaigns in terms of the issues they raise since young workers are likely to be reached with a traditional union agenda.
• Several issues of concern are at play in youth recruitment campaigns but the ‘traditional’ union agenda (wages, job security and benefits) is dominant.
• Cooperation with student organisations and action groups for unemployed workers is considered helpful for recruiting young union members.

No major surprises there.  But it’s helpful endorsement for the TUC’s own plans to expand support for organising young workers through its Next Generation campaign.

Engaging young people as they enter the labour market is a key concern of ours, which is why we’re actively promoting support for apprentices, interns and Future Jobs Fund workers.

Working with student unions to promote trade unions among the increasing number of working students is an underused though possibly effective strategy.

But, ultimately, it’s about working with unions to stimulate organising activity around those key sectors where young people are present.  Watch this space …

This is, of course, a really good point.  Because no matter how informed a young person might be entering an internship, without an organised workplace and back up from their union, they might still find themselves isolated and open to exploitation.

So this is why the TUC is taking action in the following three ways:

First, providing more information materials on the rights of interns that can be used by union reps and interns alike.

Secondly, providing briefing and training sessions to union reps and officers, with a view to building their knowledge of and capacity to support interns in the workplace.

Thirdly, lobbying Government to work more effectively in enforcing the rights of interns.  There’s particular scope for Government interventions through the Graduate Talent Pool and the engagement of employers through the Backing Young Britain initiative for ensuring minimum standards for interns are upheld and enforced.

Of course, its the work our union reps do in the workplace that will make the most difference.  And that’s why the TUC and unions must work together to provide the support those reps need to support young people at work in these difficult times.