General Council Report - Chapter 4
chapter 4 promoting trade unionism
- 4.1 Introduction
- 4.2 Promoting Trade Unionism Task Group
- 4.3 Unions and the Internet Conference
- 4.4 The New Unionism Project
- 4.5 Young people
4.1 Introduction
Trade unions, like all membership based organisations, need to recognise the central importance of recruiting new members if they are to avoid slipping into a cycle of decline. Over the past twenty years, despite a generally hostile legislative and economic climate, unions have made impressive efforts to recruit and retain members. They have also done much to meet the challenge of a rapidly changing workforce; as demonstrated by the growing numbers of women members and growth in the proportion of white-collar and professional workers within the trade union movement. Yet despite these efforts, this year overall TUC affiliated membership still showed a small decline, whilst figures based on the Labour Force Survey showed that unions only managed a small increase in membership.
The TUC has long recognised that whilst individuals join specific unions rather than the movement as a whole, there are a number of things which the national centre can do to assist in the promotion of trade unionism. The most important contribution is to demonstrate the value of trade unionism, through campaigning work and through pressure on government and employers organisations at national level. In addition the TUC has undertaken a number of co-ordinated initiatives designed to complement individual unions’ recruitment effort.
At their special meeting in October the General Council received a number of presentations on the them of ‘promoting trade unionism’ and following this, in December they established a Task Group. A summary of that Group’s work is set out below and a fuller report is to be presented to Congress in a separate document.
The New Unionism Task Group and the Organising Academy also provide specific help to unions and as the report in this chapter shows, over the past three years the Academy can claim credit for recruiting more than 30,000 new union members.
The final section of this chapter deals with the work with young people - the key area for the long-term growth of trade unionism.
4.2 Promoting Trade Unionism Task Group
Following discussions and presentations at their Special meeting held in October, the General Council decided to establish a Promoting Trade Unionism Task Group.
The group is chaired by the TUC President Bill Morris, and the following General Council members sit on the Task Group: Tony Burke, Bill Connor, John Edmonds, Ken Jackson, Jimmy Knapp, Mick Leahy, Roger Lyons, Gloria Mills, Dave Prentis, Maureen Rooney, Ed Sweeney and Tony Young.
The General Council is also extremely grateful to the four outside advisers who agreed to join the group. These are Will Hutton, the Director of the Industrial Society; Professor Richard Freeman of Harvard University and the London School of Economics; David Pitt-Watson, former finance director of the Labour Party and former management consultant; and Chris Powell of advertising agency BMP DDB Needham. Because of the desire to look closely at the recruitment of students and young people, the task group also co-opted Nadya Kassan and Mark Atkinson of the National Union of Students.
The Task Group is preparing a separate report for Congress on behalf of the General Council, so this report deals with its work programme rather than reporting the research it has commissioned and the initiatives it is considering.
At the group’s first meeting it was agreed to appoint a strategic communications agency to advise the Task Group. Their brief would be to conduct research and produce recommendations on how the modern trade union movement can position itself to attract new members and exert more influence, and to suggest initiatives that the TUC might take to win new members for unions with particular reference to using the internet to attract workers in the new economy and new graduates.
The office therefore arranged a competitive pitching process to allow the Task Group to select an agency. After visiting a number of agencies for initial presentations, three were selected for a first short list, with two agencies then selected to make presentations to the Task Group. This resulted in the Butterfield8 agency being appointed to advise the Task Group.
Their research and recommendations are set out in the separate report to Congress, and they will continue to provide advice up to the Special General Council meeting due to be held in October 2001.
The Task Group held five meetings between January and the 2001 Congress. As well as appointing Butterfield8 and receiving regular reports of their work and research that they commissioned, the Task Group has also received:
- A presentation from Professor Richard Freeman on the ‘What Workers Want’ survey he had commissioned in the US
- An analysis of union membership and organising trends from the Labour Force Survey and Workplace Employee Relations Survey from the TUC’s Economic and Social Affairs Department
- A presentation by Jeremy Waddington of Manchester School of Management at UMIST of his research into union membership trends.
- A presentation from 4u@work, a union-backed commercial service, offering union-style services to subscribers.
Butterfield8 presented their recommendations for three specific initiatives to the June Executive and General Council meetings. These are set out in more detail in the separate report, together with their recommendations on how unions should best position themselves to attract new members.
In brief the three recommendations were that the TUC should:
- set up with the NUS a service, largely delivered by the Internet, that would help students make the transition from college to work
- set up a web site aimed at everyone at work, but particularly those in ‘new economy’ workplaces. The web site would have three levels. The first would provide a range of free briefing materials not only on problems at work, but also how to get on at work. The second level would allow users to participate in a range of community features in return for registering with basic demographic data. The third level would provide a range of paid for work-related services.
- investigate the feasibility of working with advice agencies to provide a work related advice service primarily aimed at those without web access and working in the most vulnerable sectors of the economy where union membership is weak.
Each would be constructed in a way that would help unions recruit and provide organising leads, but would also avoid a ‘hard sell’ in order to attract users.
The General Council welcomed the report, while recognising that some of the proposals were both radical and controversial and would require consultation with affiliates, at Congress and beyond, before final decisions could be taken. A range of views were expressed about the different initiatives. Discussion focussed, in particular, on what services it would be appropriate to offer: while they needed to be attractive they should not add up to an alternative to union membership. It was also clear that the initiatives would need to be well resourced if they were to succeed.
4.3 Unions and the Internet Conference
Under the aegis of the Promoting Trade Unionism Task Group, a conference on Unions and the Internet was held at Congress House on May 12, which despite being held during the election campaign, on FA Cup Final day and in the middle of the first hot weather of the year, was well attended.
Advantage was taken of the presence in London of a number of international guests invited to a seminar on the same topic held the previous day also at Congress House and organised by the Centre for Economic Performance at the LSE, with TUC support.
The aim of the conference was two fold. The first aim was help national unions and union activists make the most of the Internet as an information, organisation and communications tool. The second was to provoke debate about how the spread of new technology and connectivity challenges the way that unions traditionally work and organise.
The choice of speakers reflected these two objectives, with contributors chosen, from both within and outside the trade union movement, to explore best practice and policy implications, with a strong emphasis on learning from international experience.
The speakers and topics covered included:
- Elaine Bernard, Executive Director of the Harvard Trade Union Programme from Harvard University, Margaret Manning from web design company The Reading Room and Kevin Lacroix, Executive Consultant for IBM on how the Internet is changing the way business and society function and how unions can respond to these developments.
- Roger Darlington of the CWU, Bill Thompson from Internet Magazine and Jeff Richardson of BT Openworld on the digital divide, following the resolution on this issue carried at the 2000 Congress.
- Nigel Stanley of the TUC, Professor Richard Freeman from Harvard University and Centre for Economic Performance at the LSE and Leslie Butterfield and Helen Edwards from Butterfield 8 on where next for unions on-line.
Workshops included sessions on member services, organising online, building international links, campaigning online, what makes for a good union web site, unions and online learning, supporting reps using the internet.
4.4 The New Unionism Project
The New Unionism Project has now entered its fourth year of development and has supported many trade unions on the journey towards growth and change. Much of the work of the project over the past year has concentrated on the internal union environment and organisational change needed for the trade union movement to grow. This has involved extending the focus beyond the role of dedicated organisers to looking at the contribution that all union officers and staff make to growth.
As reported to Congress last year, the project has also developed a more regional dimension to its work. Representatives of the project have attended numerous local events in the last year, taking the message of organising into the regions. Much of this work has been done through the support of graduates from the Organising Academy who have given up their time to support these events.
The project is sponsoring a student from Queen Mary’s College, part of the University of London, to look at the regional contribution to the organising agenda, based in the Southern and Eastern Regional TUC. The project hopes to learn from much of this research.
All TUC regions are being encouraged to consider new innovative and imaginative ways in which we can develop the message of trade unionism to groups currently under represented within trade union membership.
As last year, the project again collaborated with the Equal Rights Department in organising a trade union presence at the London Pride/Mardi Gras Event on Saturday 30 June. Twenty current and former academy organisers attended the event to seek signatures for a petition demanding new laws on rights for gay and lesbian people.
Organise 2000
In November 2000, around 300 union organisers, reps and full-time officers, along with academics and other commentators, gathered at Congress House to take part in Organise 2000. The theme of the conference was ‘New w ays to w in’, and the keynote speakers included the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, and Laurence Gold from the AFL-CIO. Delegates to the conference were able to participate in workshops which reviewed the impact of the machinery for statutory recognition, examined the union-busting tactics adopted by some employers towards union organising campaigns and discussed how new technology could be used to aid organising.
Ken Livingstone set out a commitment to work with unions in London while Laurence Gold discussed the legal obstacles that face unions in the United States and the way in which union-busters were able to make use of those. Other speakers at the conference included Barry Camfield, Assistant General Secretary of the TGWU, Leslie Manasseh, Director of Organisation at Connect, Jeremy Dear, NUJ National Organiser, Brendan Barber, TUC Deputy General Secretary and Frances O’Grady, Head of Organisation at the TUC. Tony Burke, Chair of the New Unionism task group chaired the conference.
New Unionism Task Group
General Council: Tony Burke (Chair), Bill Connor, Jimmy Knapp, Barry Camfield, Pat Hawkes, Ed Sweeney, Ged Nichols, Penny Holloway, Tony Young.
Unions: Allan Kerr (UNISON), Bill Walsh (MSF), Eddie Lynch (ISTC), Kevin Pass (ISTC), Doug Nicholls (CYWU), Paul Gates (KFAT), John Hannett (USDAW), Derek Install (GPMU), Hugh Lanning (PCS).
Co-optees: Martin Boyle (PCS), John Partridge (TGWU), Grace Mitchell (CWU), Ian McLaughlin (UNISON).
TUC Youth Forum: Dawn Campbell (GMB), Will Fiddock (UNISON).
Academic Adviser: Professor Ed Heery
TUC Staff: Brendan Barber, Frances O’Grady, Mike Connelly, Raj Jethwa, Linda Kelly, Hilary Oakley, Peter Purton, Louise Chinnery.
Research into the New Unionism Project has continued to be carried out by Professor Ed Heery and his team from the Cardiff Business School. They have kept the programme well informed of both new developments in the world of union organising in addition to giving a clearer picture of what unions in the UK are doing in the field of organising and recruitment. Over the past three years information has been collected on 126 campaigns from organisers involved in the Organising Academy. More specifically the data has been collected from 15 different unions and 79 academy organisers. The results are based on an annual survey of all academy organisers towards the completion of their first year. The survey complements the qualitative, case-study research that is now appearing and has itself been supplemented by an extensive programme of interviewing within the participating unions. The purpose is to provide a systematic account of both ‘greenfield’ and ‘in-fill’ organising and recruitment where there is a formal policy commitment within the unions involved to invest in organising. Much of the research has been devised to address the following six questions that feature predominantly in academic and policy debate over union organising:
- Where is organising directed?
- Who is involved in organising?
- How are the workers organised?
- What is union organising all about?
- How are employers responding to union organising campaigns?
- What influences the success of organising campaigns?
Organising Academy
Organising Academy Steering Group
General Council: Tony Burke (Chair), Ed Sweeney.
Unions: Bas Morris (NUKFAT), Martin Boyle (PCS), Bill Walsh (MSF), Paula Lanning (NATFHE), Leslie Manasseh (Connect), John Hannett (USDAW), Ian McLaughlin (UNISON), Allan Kerr (UNISON), Derek Install (GPMU), Kevin Pass (ISTC), Mark Holding (Connect), Alan Piper (Unifi), Tim Poil (NGSU)
Coaches: Sarah Jane Miller (TSSA), Andrew Harden (GPMU), Peter Ellis (GPMU), Christine Hardacre (ISTC), Heather Meldrum (ISTC), Alan Pottage (ISTC), Mike Jones (ISTC), Jane Holland (USDAW), Joanne McGuinness (USDAW), Sharon Hargraves (USDAW), Mick Brade (UNISON), Pete Lowe (UNISON), Glyn Hawker (UNISON), Ruth Smith (UNISON), Fiona Westwood (UNISON), Kevin Brandstatter (NGSU), Louisa Bull (GPMU), Davie Edmont (GPMU), Shirley Davies (PCS), Amanda Oates (PCS)
TUC staff: Brendan Barber, Mike Connelly, Frances O’Grady, Raj Jethwa, Linda Kelly, Louise Chinnery, Hilary Oakley, Liz Rees, Jackie Williams
Academic Adviser: Professor Ed Heery
The fourth intake of Academy Organisers started on the 30 April. This year 24 new organisers were recruited from a pool of 35. Since last Congress owing to increased demand, there was also an autumn intake in the third generation as indicated in last year’s report to Congress where four new organisers started at the beginning of December. This group was complemented with four CWU branch officials joining the academy training programme.
The Steering Group have explored how they can now meet all of the challenges mentioned in last year’s report, as recommended by the New Unionism Task Group and Steering Group and that of Motion 14, ‘Organising Academy’. This year a new sponsoring union the Nationwide Group Staff Union, joined the programme and the Transport Salaried Staffs Association resumed their participation.
Of the 31 Organisers recruited in April 2000, 11 have been offered and accepted additional one-year contracts with their sponsoring unions, two have been offered permanent contracts with their sponsoring union, six have moved to different unions as organisers on permanent contracts, nine have been offered and accepted a place on the Academy Graduate Programme which includes additional training as well as a new one-year contract and three have moved elsewhere out of the union movement to pursue other interests.
The independent evaluation of the third generation carried out by the Cardiff Business School has shown the contribution that the Academy has made to union growth. In year three it is estimated that the Academy has contributed directly and indirectly to the recruitment of almost 13,000 new union members and has helped establish membership for the first time in 153 new work sites. Over the last three years the overall contribution to recruitment, which the Academy has made, is estimated at approximately 31,000 new members.
The recruitment and selection process used by the Organising Academy is now being promoted to other unions as an effective methodology for the appointment of new organisers. This is being promoted through joint collaboration between the Academy and the TUC Management Services and Administration Department. In addition, it is anticipated that a joint video will be launched on how union supervisors give feedback to other staff within their organisation.
The Academy has continued to support unions’ internal development work, pursuing an organising agenda and has worked with a large number of unions in the provision of officer training in union organising.
4.5 Young people
Younger workers are often among the most vulnerable members of our society and looking after their interests has been a central feature of the TUC’s work over the last 12 months. A key part of this work has included examining ways of increasing the number of young workers in trade unions, from the current small proportion. The TUC’s priorities have been to focus on campaigns of relevance to young people and to look at ways of making trade unionism more responsive to the changes in the labour market for younger workers.
School age working
Composite 6 of the 2000 Congress, ‘Young People’, highlighted the problems experienced by many working schoolchildren and the weak provision of services for young people in general. The TUC commissioned a MORI survey which looked at the issues of school age working. The findings of the survey were published in the report Class Struggles, in March of this year. A key finding was that one in four children under the age of 13 admitted doing paid work either during term time or in their summer holidays. One in ten children with a job admitted to missing school in order to do work, with many children also working illegal hours.
Although one in ten schoolchildren reported earning more than £5 an hour, most are low paid. Around a third earn £2.50 an hour or less. Nearly one in five of those working in term time get less than £2.00 an hour. The findings of the survey show that working excessive hours is clearly having a damaging effect upon the performance of children in school. Over a quarter of children in work are either often or sometimes too tired to do homework or schoolwork because of their job.
A further concern to emerge from the survey was that some children might be working to supplement their families’ incomes. Many children work simply to earn the money necessary to keep up with the standard of living that most young people expect to have. In view of this, the TUC made the case for school age working to be looked at within the context of the Government’s overall strategy to tackle child poverty. The TUC called for more to be done to examine working patterns among children from poorer backgrounds to ensure that low family incomes are not the cause of their employment.
Many employers use school age children through ignorance of the law and the TUC has called for the guidance on this to be tightened up. The proposals put forward in Class Struggles included clarifying the law through a set of national guidelines and a government-sponsored publicity campaign to ensure employers understand their obligations and that parents, teachers and schoolchildren understand their rights. Information and training should also be provided for employers so that they are able to carry out risk assessments on children’s working environments and more resources should be allocated to local authorities for enforcement of the law, including spot checks on employers and creating designated staff with responsibility for working schoolchildren. The TUC also called for increased penalties for employers who knowingly break the law, including the possibility of prison sentences.
Minimum Wage Development Rate
Last year’s Congress called for the extension of the minimum wage adult rate to include everybody aged 18 or over, and the introduction of a minimum wage for 16 and 17 year olds based on a fixed percentage of the adult rate. In the last 12 months the Youth Forum has taken three specific steps to make the case for ending age discrimination in the minimum wage. In January the Youth Forum co-ordinated the sole presentation made to the Low Pay Commission on the issue of the development rate. The TUC was joined by the National Union of Students and by sixth-form students who presented evidence of low wages and long hours among their fellow 16 and 17 year olds. In regard to 16 and 17 year olds, the objective of the TUC continues to be that all 16 and 17 year olds should be in either full-time education or in some combination of work and training; but there is a recognition of the reality that many 16 and 17 year olds in further education are also in part-time employment. The Youth Forum made the case that they should not be exploited by employers as a cheap source of labour simply because they are not entitled to any sort of minimum pay. The Youth Forum’s evidence was also endorsed by the National Youth Agency.
The Forum also worked with the Scottish TUC to host a fringe meeting at the Labour Party’s Spring Conference in Glasgow entitled ‘Equal Wages for All Ages’. This meeting managed to attract a broad range of interest from young trade unionists, Party members and councillors and was addressed by representatives of the Scottish TUC, Labour Students and members of the TUC Youth Forum.
Westminster saw the Forum’s third step in its campaign for equality in the minimum wage, when Angela Smith MP used an adjournment debate to make the case for an equal minimum wage for younger workers. The TUC Youth Forum provided Angela Smith with both evidence about the impact of the development rate and with the views of young workers which she was able to use in conjunction with the views of young people she had gathered from her own constituency.
EC White Paper on Youth Policy
In February the TUC took part in a hearing on European youth policy organised by the European Commission, the European Youth Forum and the European Economic and Social Committee. The TUC Youth Forum was represented on the European TUC’s delegation to the hearing, which took views on the European Commission’s White Paper on Youth Policy. Organisations from across Europe were represented at this hearing, on behalf of interests as varied as young farmers, young entrepreneurs, the World Guide Association and a number of religious groupings. Given this wide range of interests, it was considered important that there was a strong trade union presence to make the case for more support for young people in work and those trying to find work.
In May there was concern expressed about the future of the White Paper. However, following effective lobbying from the ETUC Youth Committee and other youth organisations, the future of the White Paper has been assured.
Citizenship studies
One of the areas covered in the new emphasis on citizenship studies in the school curriculum is that of rights and responsibilities at work. This presents an important opportunity to reach schoolchildren who in the past would have had little understanding about the role of trade unions. The TUC is currently engaged in two initiatives regarding this subject. In September 2000 the Advisory Group for Citizenship for 16 to 19 year olds published a report recommending an entitlement to citizenship development for all 16 to 19 year olds in education and training. In response, the Secretary of State for Education and Employment asked the Learning and Skills Development Agency to manage a programme to provide experience of how citizenship might be developed for post-16 education and training. The TUC agreed to be one of the partners in a consortium led by the London Central Learning and Skills Council. The role of the consortium is to examine how young people can effectively develop citizenship skills within a wide range of education and training programmes. This is one of several projects that will be managed nationally over the next two years to provide models for developing citizenship skills that involve schools, colleges, employers and voluntary organisations.
The TUC is also updating A Better Way to Work, its resource pack for teachers, to take account of the introduction of citizenship. The pack was commissioned by the TUC four years ago and produced by SCIP and the Centre for Education and Industry at the University of Warwick. Production was overseen by a steering group of trade union officers. A Better Way to Work was designed to be an active learning pack, written for use with students aged between 14 and 19. The pack consists of activities and case studies on the role of trade unions, employment rights, and health and safety at work.
Students at work
Over the course of the year the TUC has continued to work closely with the National Union of Students (NUS). As last year, the NUS have agreed that every NUS membership card will carry the number of the TUC Know Your Rights line. Last year also saw the TUC Deputy General Secretary, Brendan Barber, address the NUS Annual Conference. The close working relationship between the NUS and the TUC was reaffirmed again this year when the General Secretary, John Monks, addressed its annual conference in April.
In addition to collaborating with the NUS, the TUC has also entered into discussions with the National Association of Student Employment Staff (NASES). This is the national body for those employed in ‘jobshops’, college or university-based employment agencies. The TUC established a dialogue with NASES on the importance of supporting agencies that provide responsible employment for students, especially in a climate of increasing student debt. The TUC also signalled its desire that students who find work through such employment service should be encouraged to join trade unions. This dialogue culminated in the TUC sending a speaker to address the NASES Annual Conference at the beginning of July.
2001 Youth Conference
Over 70 delegates attended this year’s Youth Conference at the end of March, entitled ‘Organising for the Future - A Young Voice in Every Workplace’. Delegates to the conference had the chance to take part in workshops discussing bullying and harassment, new technology, temporary workers and agency workers, and learning and basic skills. The workshops were designed to both raise awareness of key issues among younger workers and to develop campaigns based on these themes.
Delegates to the conference were addressed by the General Secretary. Other guest speakers included Jennette Arnold from the Greater London Assembly and Yvonne O’Callaghan from the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. In the context of race relations, the conference heard reports from the Stephen Lawrence Task Group and from Austrian trade unionist Martina Krichmayr on the political situation with the rise of the Freedom Party.
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