Sunday 15 November 2009

Strengthening Black Worker's Self-Organisation

Colleagues,

Just back from a brilliant few days with a fantastic group of UNISON reps who were attending the West Midlands Black Members' Self-Organised Group Weekend School in Birmingham.

Everyone who attended launched themselves straight into the core theme of the weekend which was a focus on how to develop and run short workshops aimed at organising black workers.

This was definitely one of those weekends where trade union reps left with a sense of both achievment and also a strong urgency to get things done.

I was keen to capture some of this focus and energy by putting a few of the pictures from the weekend school onto the blog.

The outcomes from this weekend go forward to the groups AGM at the end of the month and all being well during 2010 small groups of black activists will start to run branch-based educational workshops that will continue to build on black worker's self-organisation within UNISON.

Many thanks to all of the reps who attended the weekend school and to Pearline Parker-Loney who is the group's support officer and regional officer with UNISON in the West Midlands.

Cheers!

Ian












2 comments:

Jas said...

Ian,

Looks like a fantastic event - do you have to be a UNISON member to come along or can other reps from other unions join in?

Jas

Ian Manborde said...

Hi Jas,

Many thanks for replying to the posted item.

You do have to be a UNISON member, sorry - which union are you?

The forum I reported on for black UNISON members who are UNISON's West Midlands region.

The group is very welcoming and I'm sure that they would extend an invite to a black activist from a different union.

Please let me have your e-mail address Jas and I'll forward it to the group's chair.

Cheers

Ian