Lessons of past and present to face today’s union challenges
by Nancy Kelly
Organising, history of unions, law and campaigning were
all part of a recent pilot course giving activists the tools
to face the challenges to public services.
Provisionally entitled ‘Trade Unions and Politics’, the
course was a great success with all who attended feeding
back comments like, ‘Every UNISON Steward should go on this
course’, ‘Very enjoyable’ ‘Incredibly interesting’, ‘Renewed
my enthusiasm’.
The course was run by Jim Burnett, Stephen Smellie and
Nancy Kelly and encouraged delegates to share their own
experiences.
We asked people to bring with them books, posters, badges
etc and created an exhibition space to share all these.
Over the weekend we covered many issues including ‘The
history of Trade Unions in the Public Sector’, ‘Women Workers
in Trade Unions’, ‘Trade Unions and the Law’ (a session
facilitated by Suzanne Craig, Legal Officer).
We came bang up to date with a session on how to campaign
on immediate issues affecting members, with a briefing from
Dave Watson on the union’s Political funds and how we lobby
and campaign with decision makers at local, national and
international level.
Having identified that privatisation was a big issue for
everyone we held a mock radio debate and phone-in ‘Call
Kaye’ where delegates took on the roles of those making
decisions and those affected by them.
We even worked through Saturday night when Stephen Low
(Policy Officer) gave an after dinner talk (with audio clips
from the speakers themselves) about the UCS work-in. As
the event took place just a few days after the death of
Jimmy Reid it proved very topical in a way we had not planned.
The L&O Committee are certain that these discussions are
now essential given the scale of attacks on the public sector
and we will certainly be running another one at Regional
level. It might also be suitable to run a shortened version
for branches and we will be looking at that too.
So watch this space and if anyone can think of a better
name for the course we would be delighted to hear it!
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