UnionBook 2.0 Launched

Colleagues,

Our friends at LabourStart have worked hard on improving the glitches and problems in the first version of UnionBook and are proud to announce the launch of UnionBook 2.0.

I have copied and pasted below a text from Eric Lee on Wednesday. Please visit the new site, register, and this this facility, not FaceBook, for all of your online networking, particularly that which is TU related. Thanks. Ian

The current version of UnionBook - the social network for trade unionists established in late 2008 - is costly, clunky and ineffective. It's been buggy and very hard to fix.
At the LabourStart conference in Canada last month we talked about ways to improve it.

Today I'm proud to anounce the launch of UnionBook 2.0.

The features available are better than what we currently offer. It is much easier to fix, configure and add things to. It also looks a lot better.

But we need to test it in practice, to see if we can get a Facebook-like experience for UnionBook.

Please sign up for an account today here and then take the new UnionBook out for a test drive:

post your photos, videos and music
join existing groups and create new ones
add comments to other people's content
add events to our online labour calendar
post entries to your blog
update your status
make friends
use the online chat to talk with other trade unionists online
invite friends and fellow union members to sign up too
send us your questions, comments, and suggestions - use the special group called "UnionBook Help and Support Network" to do so

In joining the new UnionBook, you'll be helping us create a powerful tool, an online global community of trade unionists. And I hope you'll also have fun doing so.

Thanks very much!

Eric Lee

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Protecting Jobs from 'Flexibility'

Colleagues,

I have today submitted, with my colleague Judith Jackson at the GFTU, a proposal to fund a multilateral European project that seeks to encourage trade unions and employers to increase their use of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms (ADR) as a measure to, amongst other elements, safeguard jobs in the context of the global economic downturn.

For those interested in ADR I would strongly encourage you to review the definitive range of resources available at the wed-sites of the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO) and the European Foundation for the Improvement of Working Lives (Eurofound). You can reach both (as well as the sites monitoring European trends on workplace restructuring and employment conditions) at: www.eurofound.europa.eu/

In preparing the submission, and scanning the European industrial relations horizon, its clear that we are in the midst of intense reform of employment and labour market practices that indicate a critical impact on the functioning of trade unionism on all strategic fronts.

In the UK in particular the zeal to dismantle workplace and employment safeguards provides a useful snapshot of wider European policy (not least in the guise of 'flexicurity). Whilst it is clear that trade unions seek to safeguard employment, as in the successful outcome of the BAA talks at ACAS this week, the degree to which bodies like the CBI and IoD seek dislodge employment security, under the guise of employer flexibility, should start to ring alarm bells for workers in all sectors and most workplaces.

In one of many similar demands the CBI is demanding that industrial action ballots and redundancy notification periods are drastically changed in such a way that workers' attempts to respond via industrial action to potentially job losses is reduced to such a degree that it challenges basic notions of social justice: http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/eiro/2010/07/articles/uk1007039i.htm

Clearly the coalition government favours these clamours, not least as a way to bulldozer through mass job loss in the public sector with little real threat of industrial action as an impediment to their neo-liberal agenda.

With even bodies like the CIPD however suggesting that too rapid a scale of reform increasing the likelihood of workplace unrest and industrial action, it is no surprise then that ADR is seen as a way to address European workplace restructuring that is taking place as a direct result of the global economic downturn. The worry however, in the context of the UK at least, is that models of ADR from across the EU rest on relatively neutral state inteference in the employment relationship - not so in the UK.

So, as employer's organisations continue to demand legal reforms that diminish the workplace bargaining status of trade unions on what practical basis can trade unions respond - particularly if the status and legitimacy of trade unionism finds no favour with the current government?

I welcome your contributions.

Ian

Won in 60 Seconds

Colleagues,

Am now back, and partially refreshed, from a fantastic break in France.

Whilst ploughing my way through the huge pile of e-mails that have stacked up whilst I was away I have found a shameless plug from a UNISON colleague to vote for his region's video entry into this year's TUC 60 second video competition.

Is 60 seconds of video format enough to win over new union members?

You be the judge (literally) and have a look at the entries:

http://www.tuc60seconds.org.uk/

Any thoughts/comments on the quality/impact/etc. of the submissions will be welcome.

Cheers

Ian

Migrant Labour in Times of Crisis

Colleagues,

Can I encourage you all to download and read the latest edition of CLR-News produced by the European Institute for Construction Labour Research:

http://www.clr-news.org/CLR-News/CLR%20News%202-2010.pdf

The Institute comprises a dynamic, authoritative cooperative network of researchers and trade union officers at European level directly engaged in research and trade union activity across the EU.

I was particularly interested in a comment in the latest CLR News (entitled Migrant Workers in a Time of Crisis) which came out of a seminar held in May earlier this year called The economic crisis: a disaster for trade unions or an opportunity for revitalisation?

Ultimately the seminar suggested that the context of the global recession (particular within construction) created relatively greater opportunity for mobilisation and revitalisation.

A suggestion for this conclusion came from the following notion:
Social protest movements have historically intensified at the beginning of an economic upturn, when people realise there are problems with distribution as a result of the inadequacy of the political leadership. Therefore, there is a vital role for trade unions to be involved, and the French are typically exemplary in terms of organising protest movements. (p.60)

An interesting point I thought however, what I remain to feel confident about is the strategic response of the UK labour movement in particular to what is emerging, day-by-day, as a frontal, ideologically-driven assault on not just the public sector, but also trade union rights.

If we are to see a greater propensity for the UK labour movement to engage in what we know are social movements I am very interested in what will act as the drivers and catalysts for this, particularly in the way that we engage with (or construct) a wideranging public resenment toward the fiscal review of public expenditure, with mobilising activity allied to the labour movement.

So, my question generally is, if we agree with the assertion from the CLR seminar, from where does the activity arise that creates the social movement protests to the Con-Dem-induced crisis emerging across the UK?

Ian

I am away on holiday to France from 25th July (a country that knows how to organise a strike!) and won't be back until 8th August.

Critical Pedagogy as Trade Union Strategy

Colleagues,

I've just been reviewing the July edition of The Shop Steward, journal of COSATU, and have been struck, as always, by the dominant theme of political education and consciousness raising as a critical feature of trade union organising strategy.

See the latest edition of the journal and archive to later editions here: http://www.cosatu.org.za/list.php?type=Shopsteward#

I've been fortunate over the years to work closely with a number of South African trade unionsists and have been conscious of the extent to which trade union education and political education are synonymous in that country in a way that it no longer is in the UK.

On the COSATU web-site there is a link to the distinct philosophy that underpins the Congress's educational strategy. COSATU places its approach within the context of 'critical pedagogy'. The Wikipedia link provides a definition:

"Habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional clichés, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal consequences of any action, event, object, process, organization, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass media, or discourse."

This pedagogy (approach to teaching) is a core feature of COSATU's political and industrial and I was interested in the way that this feature in two new developments.

The first was in the wording (see p48 of the journal) of a declaration from a mass education conference hosted by COSATU in April and bringing together over 200 community, trade union and political organisations. The event sought to the COSATU 10th Congress Mandate:

(i) to deepen ideological work on a mass base through mass political education and the development of alternative consciousness,
(ii) to advance a programme for transformation of South Africa and the world we live in; and
(iii) for an organisational development and building programme responsive to new realities, and able to build community participation and leadership as part of ensuring maximum unity of the working class.

In order to achieve this, the conference adopted the following declaration:

During the week of 13 – 16 April 2010, we, over 200 delegates from trade unions, labour service organisations and community organisations met in Johannesburg to assess the momentum of class struggle in order to initiate and plan a strong mass education campaign whose primary aim is to raise class consciousness and develop alternative forms of knowledge and struggle in order to build working class power.

The second phenomenon of a deeply politically entrenched attitide to trade union education (see p.47) is in the launch of the SACP/NEWAHU Chris Hani Brigade. The initiative seeks to draw trade union activists into the role of political commisars in the image of the murdered political activist Chris Hani:

The union’s primary aim is to establish a team of national commissars who will continue with the struggle by actively working and educating our society about the socialist principles
that were championed by Cde Hani. These commissars will then in turn, run a similar programme in their respective provinces, supported and guided by the national office.

The educational programme for those selected includes:

1. Introduction to Marxist Theory
2. Introduction to Political Economy
3. The National Democratic Revolution and the struggle for Socialism – what role for trade unions?
4. Capitalism, Patriarchy and women oppression
5. Working Class internationalism
6. Political Economy of Health and Education

As I reflected on just two examples of educational activity of COSATU I pondered the vital role of trade union education in the UK as a direct response to the deeply reactionary political agenda of the coalition.

I know and understand that we cannot simply replicate in the UK the political philisophy of marketedly different economic and political contexts however, what I anxiously wait to see in the UK is the development of a dynamic, rigorous, sophisticated response to the continuity of a neo-liberal agenda that seeks to initially undermine, but ultimately smash trade union organisation as we know it.

The education of trade union activists can and should play a part in such a strategy and I welcome comments on whether, if it all you agree with anything said here and, if yes, what this educational agenda would comprise, and what it would seek to achieve.

Ian

Congratulations!

Colleagues,

Just wanted to write a note of thanks to all of the current international labour and trade union studies MA students at Ruskin, who have this week completed the Herculean task of getting their dissertations researched, written, and in the for the deadline of 30th June - all 20,000 words!

It has been a true privilege to have worked with these brothers and sisters over their 2 years at Ruskin and I do wish them well in their future work in support of the global trade union movement.

Just so you can put a name to a face they are:

Seated from left: Walton Pantland, Sue Ledwith (previous co-ordinator of MA programme), some odd Mancunian fellah and Carol Jess.

Standing from left: Rick Cottam, Anthony Foster and Linda Delgado.

I am sure these fine trade unionists will now have a well-earned, long summer break!

Cheers

Ian

International Organising Strategies

Colleagues,

Just a brief report on a weekend spent amongst a wide-ranging, inspiring group of friends and colleagues.

From Friday to Saturday lunchtime I joined an eminent group of trade unionist activists, researchers and academics to form a rountable on international trade union organising strategies as part of the Northern College Social Forum.

Pictured left (speaking to group) is Keith Hodgson (REO for UNISON Northern Region)
who focused on the work of the Cuban Medical Brigades as part of a strategy to engage younger workers with trade union activity. We also heard from Mary Compton (past President of the NUT and now a divisional secretary) the driving force behind the webs-site http://www.teachersolidarity.com/blog/index.php which documents the global neo-liberal assault on teachers and on teaching trade unions - well worth checking on month-by-month.

We were joined also by the well-respected writer on labour and trade union issues Celia Mather who, amongst a strong body of work particularly on organising workers in the informal economy, was reporting on the work she had completed just this week with a global group of trade unions and NGOS representing domestic workers who had achieved the momentous goal of negotiating an ILO core labour standard on the rights of domestic workers.

There is some background information from the ILO on the plight of domestic workers here:
http://www.ilo.org/global/About_the_ILO/Media_and_public_information/Feature_stories/lang--en/WCMS_140916/index.htm

More important however, is the web-site of the global group behind this drive:
http://www.domesticworkerrights.org/?q=node/13

It was also great to see and hear from a good friend, Ian Fitzgerald of Northumbria University. Ian is widely respected across the labour movement for his analysis of the relative strengths and weaknesses of trade union organising strategy following A8 accession, and in particular of Polish migration to the UK.

It was a pity to see the end of the rountable not least as, for a small group, the breadth and depth of experience and knowledge was phenomenal.

I did have to leave however, as in the afternoon I had the opportunity to join an equally well-respected body of speakers at an event that forms part of Co-ops Fortnight.

The event, at Methodist Central Hall (Westminster) was one of many and titled Co-operatives and Trade Unions: Working Towards a Common End. The event was chaired by Dan Whittle (Director of Unions21 - seated on right side of screen). I spoke of recent developments within the UK and US labour movements that suggested incremental steps towards greater degrees of forms of employee ownership.

I was pleased that we were joined by a good friend James Stribley (GMB Regional Convenor South Yorkshire - seated to my right) who spoke of the fantastic achievement of a group of GMB members who had been made redundant by Remploy but who have formed a co-operative (with the backing of the GMB) and who are baseed in York.

A key feature of the workshop was a presenatation by Stirling Smith (Co-operative College - standing) on the ILO core convention of the role of co-operatives within economic development and the valuable role of the convention in securing workers' rights and enabling greater degrees of mobilisation and collectivisation by workers, particlarly those in the informal economy in developing countries.

The last piece of news I want to report on is an event at Northern College that was running simultaneously to the Social Forum.

Given Northern's place in the history of the UK labour movement, and in particular of the mining communities of South Yorkshire, I was really pleased to see that the College was the venue for the 25th anniversary conference of the 84/85 miners' strike. The event 25 Years on – Reflections on the Miners Strike of 1984/85 was being run by a number of Northern Staff who were ex-miners. More details at:
http://www.northern.ac.uk/doc/events/25_Year_on_Northern_College_Conference_June_19_2010.pdf

I was really pleased a good friend at Northern, Phil Fitzpatrick, ex-miner turned librarian (now there's a great story!) on the reception desk for the event.

As ever Phil was able to coin a perfect phrase to match the mood of the event, when he suggested that, as a result of the Tories (with Lib Dem connivance) being back in power, the miners were once again grouping and coming together at Northern - did David Cameron know?

What a lot to pack into a weekend but still I was able, surrounded by women and men connected to trade unionism locally, nationally and globally, to witness events that mark our history and spell out our future.

Any comments welcome.

Cheers!

Ian