Execellent speech here by Richard Trumka on why unions in the US need to take on those who say they aren’t going to vote for Obama because he’s black.
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We’ve confirmed a few more speakers for the TUC’s ‘Building Stronger Unions’ conference on 14 October, including Jack Dromey, DGS of UNITE and Christine Hardacre, regional director, Community.
On top of the speakers, workshops, lunchtime theatre session, interactive electronic polling session and a chance for you to immortalise your thoughts on how best we can ‘Build Stronger unions’, there’ll be an evening reception to mark 10 years of the TUC Organising Academy. That’s a lot of stuff for one day!
You can read more about the event - and sign up to attend - here.
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On my way up to Darlington to spend the day with colleagues in the Northern TUC, reviewing the work they are doing on organising. The regional TUC has done some fantastic work in recent years, much of it focussed on community organising and reaching out to support and work with vulnerable workers.
Interesting (well sort of) facts about union membership in the North East:
I’m really pleased that this year to support their organising work the Northern TUC is again sponsoring a TUC Academy Organiser, Daniel Krzyszczaka , who used to be a GMB activist in Gala Casinos.
’Daniel kicked started off his work with trade unions by joining the GMB, feeling that becoming a member would be the best general protection for himself as a worker. Whilst working for Gala Casino’s Daniel became a shop steward and began the long process of getting recognised trade union status. Through being a young member activist he was fortunate to be one of 44 British young trade unionist as a delegation to Cuba in April. He feels that it was this that inspired and spurred him on to work in trade unions including working with the community to create the first Newcastle Polish Mayday.’
You can read more about the rest of this years Academy Organisers here.
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Although during the primary season you could see many placards declaring the allegiance of a number of unions “for Hillary”, now that we are less than 40 days away from the US Presidential election, unions are now full square behind Barack Obama and are set to play a crucial role in getting out key voters.
Although Bill Clinton’s successful run for the White House in 1992 was based around the contention that amongst all of the issues “it’s the economy, stupid” that mattered, 16 years later and in the midst of the continuing culture wars in the US, things aren’t quite so simple anymore. A combination of the rise of the religious right and the disillusion of many middle (working) class Americans towards politicians (there’s a link between the two) means that the votes of a significant number of voters who based on their social class would be regarded as natural Democratic Party voters, cant be taken for granted, with many putting single (wedge) issues such as abortion, “gay marriage”, race or gun rights ahead of their own economic interests.
This article in todays New York Times describes the efforts of US unions in getting out the vote for Obama and vote first and foremost on the basis of their wallets.
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My last post ended with me asking if people could think of a more unlikely hotbed of trade unionism than Eton College. Heres a contender - the Church of England - another centuries old pillar of the English establishment that seems to have fallen to the brothers and sisters .
The thought of a load of Vicars getting organised may at first glance seem a bit comical (cue feeble puns about the trade union movement being a ‘broad church’) , but the situation that Revd. Mark Sharpe found himself placed is no laughing matter. According to UNITE,
“During his three-year tenure [as Rector of Teme Valley South in Worcestershire], Unite member Revd. Sharpe said that he has been subjected to constant verbal abuse; had his pet dog killed; and faeces smeared on his car and the tyres slashed. He lives in a vicarage infested by mice and frogs, with dangerous heating and electrical systems and where deadly asbestos has been found.”
Unlike many workers faced with this set of appalling circumstances Revd Sharpe couldn’t force his employers to intervene because according to the Church of England, he was employed by ‘god’ rather than the Church. God may be many things to many people, but according to the law of the land he is not an employer, and therefore his ‘workers’ are denied access to basic employment rights.
Now, however, it would seem that things are about to change. In a landmark case the Church has agreed that Revd Sharpe has the ’status of worker’ meaning that,
“Should Revd. Sharpe’s case be upheld after any appeal, it will mean that ministers across the UK will be subject to legislation covering: health & safety, the national minimum wage, paid holidays, ‘whistle-blowing’, anti-discrimination, paid holidays, family-friendly flexible working policies, the working time directive, and unlawful deduction of wages.”
This case marks an important step in a long campaign waged by UNITE. Rachel Maskell - UNITE’s officer for the voluntary sector ( and an ex-Academy Organiser, natch) - has predicted the case could mean the biggest shake up for Ministers since the reformation.
Of course the relationship between faith and unions is not a new one; the TUC for example has long had a close working relationship with the Methodist Church - namecheck for George Loveless - (which does some interesting work with workplace chaplains), and more recently the Muslim Council of Britain. But hopefully this success will have a real impact upon those ‘working’ for faith groups. ‘Vocation’ and occupation are, for many of those working for faith groups, hard to separate and UNITE certainly hopes the case will make a difference for the estimated 2,500 ministers, rabbis. imams and clergy throughout Britain that it represents.
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Interesting comment from Will Hutton here in which amongst other things he calls for future corporate borrowers from banks that have been bailed out by government to be obliged to recognise unions.
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The TUC and the two Polish trade union confederations, Solidarnosc and OPZZ, have signed an agreement to work closely to help and support Polish workers in the UK.
The agreement commits parties to encouraging workers from both Poland and the Uk to joining a union of the country that they are working in and represents a continuation of links between the TUC, UK unions and unions in Poland that have been developed ovber the last 4 years. In 2005, a Polish organiser from Solidarnosc worked on a project in the TUCs North West region linking Polish workers to UK unions and also attended Organising Academy training.
Additional details of the agreement can be found here.
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Back Row left to right: Neil Singh (CWU) Richard Edwards (PCS) Sam Harrison (NASUWT) Robert Goddard (Wales TUC) Pavel Krajca (CWU)
Middle Row left to right: Joanna Sinclair (EIS) Sarah Connolly (CWU) Kath Clarke (NASUWT) Daniel Krzyszczak (TUC Northern Region)
Front Row left to right then centre: Nell Andrew (NUT) Lizzie Woods (PCS) Rachel Hanson (Community) Ryan Slaughter (Community) Margaret Wotherspoon (Community)
All 14 of this year’s sponsored trainees attended their induction at Congress House earlier this week and were given the opportunity to find out more about the exciting skills, techniques and strategies they will learn as well as some of the challenges they will come up against….
I also ran a concurrent session for their coaches over the year and for the first time brought them all together for specific sessions on the second day.
All of my colleagues on the National Organising and Recruitment Team were involved in running sessions with both the organisers and their coaches: Tom Mellish, Organising Policy Officer (Health & Safety), Carl Roper, National Consultancy and Training Officer (Organising) and Paul Nowak, National Organiser.
In addition to the Organising Academy induction, there was also a briefing being run by my colleague, Carl Roper for all the tutors involved in the exciting new Activist Academy - pilots starting soon!
We also spent alot of time finalising arrangements for our International Conference – Building Stronger Unions: Organising the Future, 14 October 2008 in Congress House.
For more information on all of our programmes, conferences and courses, please visit www.tuc.org.uk/organisation
As usual, an incredibly busy week for the ORT team!
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Good article in the FT today, reporting that three TUC affiliated unions (the ATL, NASUWT & NUT) have secured union recognition from United Church Schools Trust, one of the largest providers of private education in the country. The article reports on the ‘growing power of trade unions’ within the sector, an important step forward because while 95% of teachers in state schools are union members, only around a half of their counterparts in the private and independent sector hold a union card.
The article reports that unions have even managed to get a foothold in ‘Dave’s’ alma mater. Organising Academy t-shirt for the person who can come up with an even more unlikely hotbed of trade unionism!
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The papers were full of speculation yesterday about the impact of the HBOS/Lloyds TSB merger on jobs - with some (usually anonymous) analysts claiming up to 40,000 could face redundancy. The true figure will hopefully be less than this, but whatever the finally tally its pretty sickening that HBOS/Lloyds TSB staff - most of whom are not financial masters of the universe - are having to pay the price for the accumulated greed and incompetence of the speculators here and on Wall Street.
The unions representing staff in the two companies have made it clear they’ll resist compulsory redundancies and will be seeking talks with Lloyds TSB about job security (see here and here). HBOS had a pretty unique relationship with Accord and UNITE because it was (as far as I know) the only FTSE 100 company to have a stated objective to increase union density (to at least 70%) amongst its workforce. Whether these arrangements will carry over into the new merged set-up will, I suppose, remain to be seen, but I am sure both unions will be working flat-out to try and make sure staff are treated with fairness and respect during what must be an incredibly worrying time for everyone involved.
One thing that has struck me about the events of the last few days is how the news has focused almost exclusively on the ‘big numbers’ - £50bn wiped off London shares, FTSE 100 down by more than 200 points, 26,000 Lehman staff losing their jobs etc etc - and virtually nothing on the real impact on all these figures on real people’s lives. The few times this has been mentioned the stories have been about high earning bankers having to take their kids out of fee paying schools or sell their second or third homes. While I wouldn’t want to diminish anyone’s loss, this pre-occupation with the impact of the current crisis on a relatively small group of people, is in danger of trivialising its impact on tens of thousands of people from call centre workers to office cleaners whose incomes are also under threat. It seems that even in the midst of a global crisis, a few columnists are pre-occupied with the lives of the (now not so) rich and infamous.
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