General Council Report 2022
5.1 Introduction
We’ve continued to develop the TUC as we returned to office working. But we’ve delivered differently and against a backdrop of continued uncertainty. And we’ve used new campaigning and communications techniques to reach more people with our message and provide a stronger voice for workers.
5.2 Our people, learning and development
We can only fulfil our important mission if our people are happy and able to deliver. The pandemic tested us all and we continue to support staff as we adapt to new ways of working.
We worked closely with staff and reps to review flexible working at the TUC and co-designed a piloted return to the office. We also reviewed options for more flexible working in office-based jobs.
We progressed our inclusion project by carrying out a listening exercise with our Black and minority ethnic (BME) staff and reflecting on changes required to make our organisation truly inclusive. Early changes include providing a development course for BME staff and their line managers while we consider further action so all staff, including BME staff, feel included, recognised and valued and are experiencing recruitment, promotion and development opportunities at the TUC.
All of this work is aligned with the Anti-Racism Task Force to share good practice and learn from others. We agreed a new sexual harassment policy and are adopting best practice as outlined in the TUC sexual harassment toolkit. A staff survey will help shape new work to make improvements to staff learning and development.
We continue to look carefully at vacancies as they arise, reshaping or moving posts to best meet the demands on the TUC but have thankfully avoided redundancies this year.
We have had some turnover among senior regional staff. We welcomed Liz Blackshaw as new regional secretary of Northern Region and James McKenna as the TUC's regional secretary in the North West.
We wish all our leavers well for the future.
5.3 IT strategy and information services
The IT team focused on bedding in a new IT services supplier at significant saving, and has been spending time making sure our systems, including those supporting hybrid meetings, were fit for the return to offices. We strengthened our internal communications, building on past developments. And we progressed actions to improve our information security.
The information line supported nearly 4,600 public enquiries in 2021, of which 61 per cent were from people who wanted to know how to join a trade union.
5.4 Congress House – managing our estates
We seek to make the best possible use of Congress House and were pleased to fill one of the few remaining empty areas this year, following a number of departures related to the pandemic. We have progressed a programme of works to update systems and made some significant repairs.
5.5 Congress Centre – a valued venue
Over the years, the TUC and our affiliates have enjoyed the wide range of meetings, conferences and events facilities hosted by Congress Centre. We were very happy to reopen our doors when lockdown ended, and work has been building up steadily, welcoming old faces and new. A consultant-led review of Congress Centre looked at prevailing market conditions and benchmarked us with good practice competitors and gave us pointers to improve our position. We remain positive about the future.
5.6 Congress awards
Congress Award for Youth
Lewis Akers Nationwide Group Staff Union
Health and Safety Rep Award
Jamie McGovern Communication Workers Union
Organising Award
Bella Fashola National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers
Women’s Gold Badge
Carol Sewell UNISON
Union Learning Rep Award
Kathryn Williams Unite
5.7 Innovative campaigning and communications
We have secured consistent and high-profile media coverage for the movement over the last year. Our media team has helped amplify union campaigns and victories – including P&O, the rail strikes and Deliveroo.
Social media
The TUC’s social media accounts have seen massive growth in the last year. Our Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have all seen increases in reach, engagement and followers, with our Twitter page achieving over 48 million impressions, and over 20,000 more followers.
In February, we launched our TikTok platform, which has quickly gained almost 60,000 followers. Our TikTok video content has received over 13 million views, bringing our message to a new audience.
Megaphone campaigns
The TUC digital campaigns platform Megaphone has now collected more than 1,000,000 signatures, been used by 24 unions and hosted 398 campaigns and has an email list of 311,367 active supporters. We continue to develop the functionality of the platform to best support union campaigning and organising, to complement traditional approaches.
In addition to online petitions, our Write to a Decision Maker feature, which allows supporters to email management directly, has been heavily utilised recently as a way of adding pressure in disputes.
Our events and map tool has also been useful, supporting activists to lead or attend station leafletting events at 130 different railway stations in the weeks leading up to the We Demand Better demonstration.
TUC Digital Lab
The TUC’s Digital Lab project continues to grow in reach, networking leaders and practitioners across TUC affiliate unions to explore areas of best practice in digital change for unions.
Following a programme of research on responses to the post-pandemic environment for unions, the Digital Lab published its Adapting to the New Normal for Trade Unions report just before Congress 2021. The challenges identified in the report have provided scope for events and pilot work with affiliate unions over 2021/22. This has included research into good practice in inclusivity for online union branch events with Equity, and research with Accord into the potential for tech tools to support reps.
A new series of briefing and discussion events for union leaders has been developed and, in support of the Organising Pledge, a new digital organising bootcamp series supported a cohort of organisers from across TUC affiliates to explore new techniques in using online to drive offline organising.
Continuing to support affiliates on benchmarking around digital capacity, the Digital Lab published reports on best practice in using mobile to support unions, and in improving unions’ use of web search optimisation to get our messages to a wider audience.
The Digital Lab collaboration with development cooperative Join Together launched its new joining service for unions (jointogether.online), working initially with BFAWU, WGGB and CWU. The new service is a flexible framework for building best practice online joining processes for unions, ensuring potential members are not lost unnecessarily. The project also aims to improve new member onboarding, and member retention.
TUC Trades Union Communications Awards
This year we celebrated the 44th awards. Seventeen unions took part in the competition with a total of 49 entries – showcasing a variety of high-quality communications from across the union movement.
The judges were: Chris McLaughlin, Tribune editor-at-large; Ellie Gellard, strategic director at 38 Degrees; and the TUC’s own Anneliese Midgley.
The awards ceremony will take place on 1 September.
Details of the winners are embargoed until 2 September.
5.8 Conferences and equalities
Black Workers Conference
The theme for the Conference was Organising for Equality. The Conference featured a panel debate on Immigration, Asylum and the Hostile Environment. Delegates took part in workshops that were facilitated by the TUC Anti-Racism Task Force and discussed a new manifesto for Black workers. Two Future of Organising online events were held. The first was organised with Gal Dem and discussed Fighting Back: the Future of Anti-racism. The second was organised with the Ella Baker School of Organising on Getting Your Workplace Strike Ready.
LGBT+ Conference
The theme of the LGBT+ Conference 2022 was Proud To Be Union. Delegates discussed 50 years of Pride, closing the LGBT+ pay gap, and ending homophobia, biphobia and transphobia at work. The conference heard from leading activists including Dr Lady Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, founder of UK Black Pride, Andrew Lumsden, veteran of the Gay Liberation Front, and Nadia Whittome MP.
Women’s Conference
The theme of TUC Women’s Conference 2022 was Justice, Safety, Equality. Women across our movement debated more than 40 resolutions covering trade unions leading to end gender-based abuse, women’s health and safety in the workplace, bargaining for women’s rights and representation, and standing in solidarity with our international sisters. Conference ran three panel sessions, hearing from trade union leaders and activists on bargaining priorities for the trade union movement, Black women at work and in trade unions, and our international panel of women mobilising in the state, street, and workplace.
Disabled Workers Conference
At the Disabled Workers Conference 2022 delegates called for a reform of social security, access to work and the economy, to ensure a decent standard of living for all disabled workers. Conference noted that disabled people were hit hard by the pandemic; 6 in 10 Covid-19 deaths were disabled people. Vicky Foxcroft, shadow minister for disabled people, addressed the conference.
Young Workers Conference
The Young Workers Conference returned to being an in-person event this year, with around 100 attendees enjoying powerful debates on a range of important issues including pay, the cost of living, mental health and the impact Covid-19 has had on the lives of young people. Frances O’Grady, Taiwo Owatemi MP and Naomi Pohl were among the many speakers at conference, talking about how young trade unionists can respond to challenges facing workers and the movement.
Trades Councils Conference
Around 60 delegates met for an in-person conference in Leicester. Key debates included the ongoing campaign to end fire-and-rehire, with great contributions from Trevor Stephens, Community convenor at Clarks in Somerset, and Barry Gardiner MP. The conference debated workplace organising, hearing about the excellent Leicester garment workers’ initiative led by TUC Midlands.
5.9 TUC Library
Located at London Metropolitan University, the TUC library collection provides a wide range of resources on both the history and the current activities of trade unions, industrial relations, labour history and adult education.
Six exhibitions are currently available to loan, the latest on the life of Mary Macarthur. The others are on: the history of young workers; 150 years of the TUC; the 1984/85 miners’ strike; the Russian Revolution; and American and British labour relations.
Our educational history websites – The Union Makes Us Strong, Workers’ War, Winning Equal Pay and Britain at Work – contain image archives and oral history and can all be accessed from www.unionhistory.info
TUC Library can be found on social media at:
blogs.londonmet.ac.uk/ tuc-library
facebook.com/tuclibrary
pinterest.co.uk/tuc_library
twitter.com/TUC_Library
Enquiries, visits and inductions are very welcome and can be organised through Jeff Howarth at:
London Metropolitan University The Wash Houses Old Castle Street London E1 7NT tuclib@londonmet.ac.uk 020 7320 3516
5.10 TUC Education
TUC Education provides unions and their workplace reps with high-quality training that enables them to organise, campaign and represent members collectively and individually. Our training is delivered in classrooms via our partnerships with FE colleges in England and Scotland and also online via digital platforms and webinars. We want to deliver our training to reps in whatever way they find most accessible and useful, whether that is in a classroom, online or a combination of both.
In 2021, TUC Education had partnership agreements with 18 FE colleges in England and Scotland, which ensure delivery of NOCN-accredited training via the TUC’s core course programme and union courses that are mapped to the TUC Passport to Progress accreditation framework.
Details of the full TUC Education offer to unions and reps can be found at tuc.org.uk/training
Online training and support for union reps
Between January and December 2021, TUC Education trained 912 union reps via its learning platforms. This comprised 65 separate cohorts that included reps from various affiliates. This figure does not include courses delivered by trade union studies centres in Wales and Scotland and by colleges that used non- TUC hosted platforms, were delivered face to face, or the short course programme.
Our most popular courses were Union Reps Stage 1 and Certificate in Employment Law. The impact of coronavirus throughout 2021 continued to have a significant effect on the numbers of reps accessing tutor-facilitated accredited training programmes. Overall, course numbers were marginally up on the previous year. The union learning programme has seen a significant fall in numbers following the end of the Union Learning Fund.
The number of college providers remained stable but low. The anticipated return to fully face-to-face learning did not materialise as expected, with many colleges choosing to continue to deliver the 10- day course programme using video technology. Although some colleges reported healthy learner numbers, many smaller trade union studies units struggled to recruit reps and ran courses with small class sizes. It appears that reps are still finding it difficult to access union training due to barriers such as geography, caring responsibilities, and time commitments. Coupled with the pandemic restrictions, increased flexibility is necessary.
During 2022, we plan to revise and relaunch our online flexible course programme. A decision had been made to temporarily restrict access to this content to support the college programme.
The reintroduction of the online training programme in 2022 will provide reps with increased flexibility and accessibility. Plans are underway to develop a complementary online programme that will provide reps with regionally based networking and peer support opportunities. It is intended that these plans will benefit from the same advantages recorded in our expanding webinar and e-learning programme.
Webinars
During 2021, TUC Education ran a total of 13 webinars. There were 12,566 registrations with an average registration rate per event of 967, an increase of 65 per cent on 2020 figures.
As in 2020, the highest-performing webinars this year focused on core employment rights and health and safety issues. The GDPR essentials webinar proved to be the best attended, as the still relatively new legislation posed issues for many reps. The other big hitters were familiar territory for many reps: unfair dismissal, disciplinary and grievance, and mental health. Covid-related topics still proved popular, although the expectation is that this will drop during 2022.
Representatives from a wide range of unions continue to attend our webinars, with evidence that reps from smaller unions are more likely to take advantage of the flexibility and convenience of the training offered.
Webinar participants that provided feedback expressed their satisfaction with the content and the delivery, which received an average 4.69 out of 5 approval rating. Over 70 per cent gave the webinars a 5-star rating and 95 per cent either ‘strongly agreed’ or ‘agreed’ that attending the webinar would make them a better rep.
Following feedback, a series of minor improvements was introduced to the format and registration process for each webinar. The tweaks have helped to enhance the overall learning experience and helped increase the number of new viewers.
The webinars are now viewed as being a key part of TUC Education’s training offer. TUC webinars have a regular following but are also introduced to new reps as part of their initial training. The webinars have helped develop a greater sense of community among their attendees. TUC Education plans to exploit this by developing opportunities for regular viewers to attend training days in person. These will allow reps to network, learn, and extend the idea of a community of practice.
Interactive guides
TUC Education has expanded its range of short, interactive learning modules. Over the course of 2021, the e-guides were viewed by over 10,000 reps. Seven new interactive guides were developed during 2021 (see table, above left).
The learning modules created at the height of the pandemic in 2020 continued to prove popular (see table, above centre).
Over 4,500 reps accessed other pre-existing e-learning content via the TUC Education learning platform. Popular modules included the suite of modules on health and safety and organising with 404, and talking about the union with 275.
Organising training for reps
In February 2021, TUC Education introduced new self-paced, asynchronous, and self-directed learning modules on union organising for union reps. The aim of the new modules was to give union reps a greater understanding of union organising and its benefits for workers and unions.
The new online learning modules present the skills and knowledge reps need to:
- increase the number of workers joining their workplace union
- encourage members to play an active role in their union and get involved in campaign
- design successful campaigns that will improve the working lives of their colleagues.
Each of the new organising modules is short, interactive, accessible and user-friendly. Each module functions as a discrete piece of content as well as forming part of a self-directed online series. Content was piloted with a small group of volunteers from the TUC’s Young Workers Forum. The content was well received and following some minor amendments was rolled out to a wider audience during the early part of the year.
To date, 576 reps have accessed the learning content. Feedback from both participants and union education officers has been extremely positive.
Digital training support for affiliates
TUC Education has provided bespoke support to individual affiliates in developing their own online training. Over the year we have worked with Unite’s South West region to develop online versions of its core training courses.
We worked with UNISON nationally on organising and union learning reps training, and have developed online versions of a range of courses for UCU that trained over 750 reps.
Organising Academy
The TUC Organising Academy offers organising training to union officers, organisers and other staff involved in supporting union organising campaigns. The Academy is run in partnership with The Manchester College. In the academic year 2021/22 the Organising Academy trained 36 union officers, 25 from NEU and 11 from HCSA.
Leading Change Programme
The TUC’s Leading Change Programme returned in 2021 and the programme ran with 18 participants representing CWU, FDA, GMB, HCSA, NASUWT, Nautilus International, NEU, PCS and UCU.
5.11 Work supported by the TUC Educational Trust
In February 2022, TUC Education received a grant from the TUC Educational Trust to support the development of educational opportunities, training and support for union members, reps and workers.
Specific outcomes will include new online health and safety materials and others that support the work of the TUC’s Anti-Racism Task Force.
5.12 TUC finances
The annual statement of accounts and balance sheet as at 31 December 2021 is set out in Appendix 3. It shows a total surplus across all funds of £19.004m, including asset revaluations and FRS102 pension accounting adjustments. The pandemic meant big variances to our income and expenditure from budget in another difficult year for financial management. The operating surplus on ordinary activities of £11,000 comprises surpluses of £466,000 and £49,000 and deficits of £362,000 and £142,000 on the administration and development, unionlearn and Congress House dilapidations funds respectively.
5.13 Development fund
In 2021, 10 per cent of the affiliation fee was allocated to the development fund, alongside some external funding, and was used to promote new work (including on Covid-related campaigning) and General Council initiatives to meet the following strategic goals:
- use exceptional campaigning, policy development and influencing to improve the lives of people at work
- lead and support the trade union movement to organise and represent working people now and in the future
- increase public understanding of how unions work
- ensure the TUC’s operations provide good governance and sustainable commercial activities.
The development fund, representing all non-unionlearn externally funded projects together with projects funded by the affiliation fee, showed an operating surplus of £49,000.
5.14 Statement of accounts
The administration fund (covering day-to-day office running expenses and staff costs) produced a surplus on ordinary activities of £466,000. We lost income from our Congress Centre and Congress House letting activity, but gained income because of claims from the job retention scheme and again made savings on expenditure from online meetings (including Congress) and other savings. The unionlearn fund produced a deficit of £362,000 and all funds due to the funder have now been repaid. The development fund is shown above, while during the year £142,000 of expenditure was incurred on the dilapidations fund.
During 2021 our calculated FRS102 pension scheme position moved from a £4,913,000 surplus to £21,262,000. This positive movement of £16,349,000 together with the operating surplus of £11,000, the gain of £458,000 on the sale of investments, deferred tax and revaluation gain of £2,186,000 has increased the funds of the TUC from £74,905,000 to £93,909,000.
5.15 Prospects and developments
A budget for the 2022 administration fund has been agreed by the General Council. This showed a projected surplus of £238,630 but, as this represents only 1.37 per cent of projected expenditure, considerable effort will be required to deliver it.
The General Council approved a three pence (1.0 per cent) increase in the affiliation fee to £3.04 pence for 2022. In July the General Council agreed that the TUC would effectively freeze affiliation fees for 2022/23 in advance of any review of TUC services and support to unions by an incoming general secretary.
The TUC has retained its Fair Tax accreditation.
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