Members of UNISON regional learning and organising committees and education staff from regions and national got together with NEC members in Birmingham for the annual education forum last weekend. They heard the latest on the future of funding for activist education: in short, from January there is no funding for any course which is not on the Qualification Credit Framework. This has meant that 16 out of 37 Trade Union qualifications are no longer funded, and short courses (under 30 hours) won’t be funded at all.
Learning & organising Services (LAOS) and Regional Education Officers have been working to reorganise how reps training is delivered - there are going to be quite a few challenges, with more changes to come in the next year when we find out what the Tories are proposing. Participants also heard about the new 5 day organising steward course which will be available from January.
Alongside an introduction to mapping, recruitment and casework, the course will also introduce issues around protecting public services, myth busting and organising campaigns against cuts, as well as embedding ideas we've learnt from the 3 companies campaign about organising techniques.
UNISON head of utilities Mike Jeram made a keynote speech on defending public services and taking forward conference motions on activists education.
The weekend also included workshops on the new political education project, which will support Million Voices by encouraging political activity and promoting the message that there is an alternative to the cuts; the Hidden Workforce Project, which focuses on recruiting and organising the hidden workforce of workers unnoticed by colleagues - often female, young, low paid, working for private sector employers, with English is their second language; and finally the 3 Companies Project, which has had great successes recruiting and organising in Compass, Sodexho and Aramark using methods such as Anger, Hope, Action - turning fear into anger, despondence intohope and apathy into action.
