Organising and rising to the challenge across Scotland
by John Stevenson
UNISON activists are rising to the challenge as a new organising
energy leads to events across the country looking at new
ways to involve members and activists and get out the message
that there is an alternative to the ConDem ideological offensive.
UNISON Scotland’s Learning and Organising Committee’s seminar
this weekend generated new ideas for engaging activists
and bringing them together in an ‘Organising and Campaigning
Festival’ weekend comprising short and linked modules on
trade union history, political education, campaigning, media,
new media and organising.
They plan to jointly work with Communications and Campaigns
colleagues and tap into the huge range of skills and knowledge
from lay and full time officers across the Region. Giving
activists the tools for the job is a key part of organising.
“We don’t need to re-invent the wheel”, said Scotland L&O
chair Jim Burnett.
“Across the union people are coming up with fantastic work.
We need to learn from that, pull the resources together
and find new ways of involving activists and members”.
Plans for the event will include excerpts from inspirational
speeches by great figures like Jimmy Reid. Edinburgh City,
where the Council is facing cuts of over £90 million, is
an example where a branch is focussing on organising.
Pulling together ideas from work done by East Midlands
on the budget, the STUC campaign, special Scottish Committee
and Communications Committee events, along with work from
the branch’s local activists, it had a successful branch
committee event using an organising pack and powerpoint.
This is now being used by stewards at local meetings, building
towards a major activists’ organising event next month.
See the pack at www.unison-edinburgh.org.uk/publicworks/
Other branches including Aberdeenshire www.aberdeenshireunison.com
and South Lanarkshire, are running ‘there is an alternative’
initiatives. An anti-cuts alliance in conjunction with the
Trades Union Council and the PCS union has been set up in
Edinburgh and Glasgow City Branch has held its latest in
a series of ‘Defend Glasgow Services’ public meeting
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