Checklist for building a union in your workplace

The Red Pepper magazine has produced a useful list of steps for building a union at work. It properly emphasises the need to avoid a number of classic activist mistakes - don't rant at people, listen to them, don`t substitute yourself for the union, don`t go for the big unwinnable issues first and give others small tasks to do to build confidence. Although it assumes there is no union presence at the workplace already (which in the larger economy is more likely than not) much of the advice is appropriate to a unionised public sector workplace. It lists what is simply good practice:
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/Unionising-your-workplace/

Debunking the myths and stereotypes about welfare reform

Red Pepper cuts through the prejudices and propaganda deployed by the Con Dem's to justify the Coalition Government's brutal attack on state benefits. For example, the latest Department for Work and Pensions estimates show that in 2011/12 just 0.7 per cent of benefit expenditure was overpaid due to fraud, including a 2.8 per cent fraud rate for jobseeker’s allowance and a mere 0.3 per cent for incapacity benefits: http://www.redpepper.org.uk/mythbuster-welfare-reform/