Sharpening the appeal of unions to traditionally under-represented groups of workers?

As promised, I said that I would talk about one of the objectives that was set by the TUC’s New Unionism Task Group (NUTG):

“Sharpen the appeal of unions to traditionally under-represented groups of workers: women, young workers, workers from black and ethnic-minority backgrounds and those at the fringes of the labour market for whom trade unionism appeared to have little or no relevance.”

Young Rosie Leads The Way...

My partner told me that a couple of months ago, a gay lad of 18, who had only just joined the union at the call-centre approached him and asked:

“How do I become a union rep?”

Jimmy, as my boyfriend shall be aka, lit up and said “Come this way”. The local union committee was full, elections were due, but there’s always room for new activists, he explained. The project he gave the keen whippersnapper was to survey his fellow young agency workers and find out about their issues. Arising from that was this article on a blog and for the local newsletter:

http://callcentreworker.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/working-with-nl-recruitment/

Jimmy is proud of what he and fellow union activists have achieved.

One the best achievements as far as he was concerned was when the committee was elected in 2009, out of 9 officers and committee members:

• 5 were under the age of 30 (55.6%)
• 4 were women (44.4%)
• 4 were black or asian (44.4%)

More importantly, all were there because they had proved themselves as advocates for the union, had recruited members, had written articles for bulletins, had petitioned for more pay or to defend sacked colleagues, built and came to union meetings, etc

Politically, 4 described themselves as Labour supporters, 2 described themselves as revolutionaries, at least one other had been around the revolutionary left in their youth, and one had been on many demonstrations over the past 25 years, but was disillusioned and spent more of his time reading 9/11 conspiracy theories and attacking the union for its engagement strategy with the local works council.

What was the attitude of the union branch, one of the largest and richest branches in the union with more than 3,500 members.

Well, lets start with the make-up of the CWU Capital Branch:

The branch committee, such that it is, is made up of around 30 officers.

• There are no non-recognised or non-BT members on the committee, despite the fact that 30% of the CWU’s membership is made up of workers that do not work for BT.
• There are 4 women on the officers’ committee (13.3%)
• There is one black woman on the committee (3.3%)
• There is not a single person on the committee under the age of 30 (the current youth officer has now breached that particular landmark)

My guess is that this is the story in union branch after union branch around the unions and around country bar the odd decent exception.

Jimmy tried to get the new young activist (lets call him Dai) to the CWU activists conference.

http://callcentreworker.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/combative-spirit-as-cwu-activists-meet/

This request was turned down by the union branch and this decision was confirmed by the National Organiser on the basis that Dai had only just joined the union and had not as yet paid any subs. Jimmy was not best pleased, he felt that this was a mistake.

However he relayed the decision to the disappointed Dai.

Dai was then contacted and taken for a drink by the youth officer. This is the first time that a branch officer had contacted anyone active in the union at the call-centre, apart from Jimmy.

Dai was happy that the youth officer said that he would develop Dai to take over as the new youth officer. Jimmy was again not pleased. There were many activists under the age of 30, including the former local chair and a young man, just 20 now, who had been recruiting workers to the union over the past few years, ever since he joined the union.

Our union branches need to change. They need to be fit for purpose. Far too many are not, and in this particular objective, despite a plethora of opportunities, our movement is still failing.