Hands up For TUC Unemployed Workers Centres

Hands up For TUC Unemployed Workers Centres

Support your local TUC Unemployed Workers Centre.

The TUC Unemployed Workers' Centres have been in existence for 30 years. They were a response by the trade union movement to the growing level of unemployment in the late 1970s.It is a tribute to their resilience, skill, hard work, and effective grassroots support that Centres have survived and are again proving a necessity in this current turbulent period.

The reasons why the Centres were set up have not gone away. The fight for full employment, against poverty and for social justice is as important today as it was in the 1980s. Job insecurity remains a key feature of the modern world of work. Unemployment remains a trade union issue, affecting people whether they are in work or not. Unemployment is still the greatest cause of poverty and permeates through all aspects of our communities. The policies and budget cuts of the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition have brought this back into sharp focus with a return to Victorian values - the survival of the fittest and weakest to the wall - masked as self-help, volunteerism and the Big Society.

The trade union movement is being asked to do more to support TUC Unemployed Workers Centres through developing greater involvement by union branches and local trades union councils in existing UWCs.

It is vital though that we develop new centres, both to support trade union members whose jobs are under threat and to ensure that unemployed workers are connected to trade unions, that trade unions are seen as relevant to them as they are to working people so that when they do return to work the union is there as well.

Click on this PDF link http://www.tuc.org.uk/extras/Hands_Up_for_UWCs.pdf to find out more about TUC Unemployed Workers Centre and how you and your union can help support and develop the centres.