Shouting out worked for striking speech and language therapists

Written for PCS magazine VIEW 

Nobody considers taking strike action lightly - especially speech and language therapists in a deprived London Borough.

So it’s great to report that, against a background of local community support, a strike by a group of them has forced Southwark Council to re-consider its plans to cut essential services for vulnerable children. Those involved now hope it will encourage others facing cuts to stand up for jobs and services.

It takes at least four years training to become a speech and language therapist [SLT].  Their role is to assess and treat speech and communications problems in people of all ages. In Leeds Lindsay’s daughter is 17 and has benefited for more than a decade by having a “language therapist that sees her as an individual who needs help in breaking down the communication barriers that have threatened to isolate her.”

Intervention at an early age is vital as major studies have found that in ‘any primary school class there are at least 2 or 3 children whose speech development is a source of concern’ [1], a figure that rises to 50% in areas of social deprivation. [2]

Major parts of Southwark are amongst such areas. Lying 1.5 miles east of Charing Cross and fronting the River Thames it includes Bermondsey, the Borough, Peckham and Rotherhithe. All places where getting a good SLT can really make a difference to a child’s future. None of which would appear to have initially concerned Southwark councillor’s when late last year they announced they were cutting the funds they provided to Southwark Primary Care Trust [PCT] to pay for speech and language therapy for children.

It meant that from a total PCT staff team of 33 a third; including three SLT assistants faced the axe. With PCT management claiming the cuts had nothing to do with them a bunch of employees with little campaigning experience and no previous strike record had to decide if they wanted to resist such a devastating loss of jobs.

Being in a trade union, on this occasion UNITE, helped. Leaflets highlighting their case were quickly produced. Councillors were lobbied, but with few sounding sympathetic and final redundancy notices almost in the post it was agreed said Unite workplace rep Stephen Hack “to find out if the increasing anger was enough to produce a vote for strike action.” A ballot organised by the Electoral Reform Society demonstrated it was and February 3^rd was selected as the day to walk out.

The night before a well attended rally heard Unite general secretary Len McCluskey promise the union’s “full support” on grounds that “the government are attacking our welfare state and we now need to raise the consciousness of ordinary people. It is so important that your strike embraces this wider political context.”

On the day itself no-one crossed the picket line and passing members of the public saw for themselves how organised and determined the SLT team were to defend their jobs and the services they provide.

Just as importantly it would appear that local councillor’s also had to take notice of the fact the strikers had clearly garnered significant community support. Those with their hands on the budget were reminded of this fact via an online petition, not forgetting a stream of letters to the local papers backing the strikers. “We wanted to maintain the pressure in order to get them to reverse their decision” said Hack.

Which in early March is largely what Southwark Council agreed to do, restoring 70% of the original cuts and ensuring no-one was made compulsory redundant. Unite is also continuing to protect posts even when staff move on, the aim being to maintain service levels.

No wonder Stephen Hack is “proud of the fight we have waged. It wasn’t easy to take strike action. It was forced upon us, as it was the only way we could defend jobs and services. The council noticed what we were doing, listened to our reasoned arguments and had the good sense to change direction. We are pleased at the outcome.”

1. Lock study in 1994

2. 2008 Bercow Report. 

June 30th day of action

This is a slightly revised piece from the PCS magazine VIEW 

June 30^th and barring a dramatic change of heart by the government then not since 1926 could so many people be on strike.

The reason? Normally mild mannered public servants disgusted at being made to pay for a crisis they never caused. Going out the door won’t be easy and many will do so with a heavy heart. But what’s the alternative if you’re going to be asked to pay much more for a significantly reduced pension that isn’t going to allow for a few luxuries in later life? Pour into the pot cuts in services, wages rises well below inflation and large-scale job losses then no wonder people are angry.

So as 290,000 PCS members wait to see if the union’s annual conference will back the national executive’s plans for a ballot for strike action plans are being advanced by teachers, lecturers and health workers for action. If everything goes to plan then those right wing media critics and politicians who argued that the massive March 26^th TUC demo was a ‘one-off’ and that ‘unions are finished’ may find themselves realising, that unlike Liberal ‘leader’ Nick Clegg, ordinary people aren’t poodles when it comes to standing up to the Tories.

The National Union of Teachers [NUT] is the largest teachers’ union in Europe with close to 300,000 members. In April delegates to its conference backed a ballot for strike action in the summer term. The moves followed a series of unproductive meetings between the government and the TUC after the former announced without consulting teaching unions that it intended pushing up the retirement age to 68 and replacing final salary scheme with a career average one.

As each teacher will also be expected to contribute around £100 a month extra the fear according to Jim Taylor, a NUT rep in the northeast, is that “not only will older teachers lose out by a considerable sum when they retire but younger people who might previously have considered becoming teachers will now look elsewhere for a better paid job.

We need to send a clear message to Cameron, Osborne and the other millionaires making these decisions – that is why an overwhelming vote in favour of action is necessary.”

There are high hopes that the NUT will get one with Andy Willis, an elected lay official in Peterborough saying: “members feel the government hasn’t listened to our case and that the proposed changes are not based on economics but on ideology. NUT members will take action.”

If members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers join them it will represent the first strike in the union’s history.  If the ballot currently being organised indicates support the ATL has already said it will strike ‘towards the end of June and co-ordinate activities with the other education unions.’

Merton ATL branch secretary Catherine Garnett said “members wouldn’t consider taking strike action unless it’s over something that will have a detrimental effect on the profession as a whole. We feel it is going to stop young people entering it. The pensions have always been a draw as it’s not a profession you go into because you are going to earn a lot of money. ”

University College Union [UCU] members have recently lost two days pay when they took strike action in late March over changes in their pension scheme, a below inflation pay rise and compulsory redundancies. Nevertheless according to Pura Ariza, the secretary of Manchester Metropolitan University UCU branch, who was speaking in a personal capacity “people are prepared to take further action as long as it’s in conjunction with other union members.”

There’s a possibility that these might include the 28,000 in the National Association of Head Teachers [NAHT]. Radicals they most certainly are not but at it’s recent conference those present agreed to a motion that leaves the door open for a ballot on action ‘to defend pensions.’

The educators could be joined by NHS workers, showing the government’s plans are an attack on all public sector workers as in April Unite’s national health committee voted in favour of co-ordinating industrial action with other public sector unions on 30 June. 

Murdoch is Bad News - the Wapping Dispute book by John Lang and Graham Dodkins

Bad News - the Wapping Dispute

John Lang and Graham Dodkins

Illustrations - the late Tony Hall of Strike Graphics  

£15.000

Spokesman Books

As he also had the Tory Government, police and the whole state apparatus supporting him then standing up to one of the world’s most powerful men wasn’t easy. It’s therefore pleasing to read a book about the thousands of print workers who in the mid 1980s resisted Rupert Murdoch’s attacks on their jobs, wages, working conditions and trade union bargaining rights.

The miners’ strike of 1984-85 was still fresh in people’s minds when Murdoch moved against his London Fleet Street employees at the Times, Sunday Times, News of the World and the Sun. His motivation was simple - to maximise his profits.

The man who loved Maggie [Thatcher] prepared the ground well. Hiding exactly why he had purchased a new building at Wapping.

Then installing and testing, with the assistance of - to their eternal shame the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union - new machinery to ensure he could keep publishing when his employees were left with no alternative except to take strike action to defend themselves.

Within minutes of doing so, on January 24^th 1986, Murdoch had sacked all 5,500 of them including the Bad News authors. John Lang and Graham Dodkins were amongst 600 clerical workers dismissed, half of whom were women. The pair, using interviews they conducted during the industrial dispute that raged for the following 13 months, have done an excellent job in bringing to life the courage and dogged determination of those who fought for their jobs and trade union rights.

Doing so meant putting a picket on the Wapping plant. The hope was that those inside would join them once they’d heard how their actions were damaging fellow workers and their families. No one thought it was going to be easy. But what most hadn’t considered was just how hard the Metropolitan Police, with Thatcher’s full support, would make it and the book recalls how many print workers and their supporter’s were harassed, attacked and criminalised.

As Tony Benn writes in the foreword “I saw the police in action in a way that was violent and unjustified.”

The courts too were used against the strikers when their union, SOGAT [1], had its assets sequestrated. Funds for strike pay and campaigning activities were lost. Disturbingly too, in an industry where trade unionists at rival newspapers had historically shown solid support for one another this time there proved little appetite for a fight. Striker’s attempts to get their union to organise solidarity action failed. Meanwhile millions continued to buy Murdoch’s papers, a fact that often produced dismay when strikers’ saw someone reading a copy of the Sun.

At times it seemed that everything was against them, but the formation of dozens of support groups across Britain, thousands of invitations to speak at trade union meetings, huge collections and massive rallies that frequently hampered operations at Wapping showed that as long as the print workers’ battled on then there would be plenty to give them their unqualified support.

In the end it wasn’t enough. Redundancy money did little to cushion the blow, trade unions were wiped out at Wapping - even the EETPU’s scabbing didn’t get them a recognition agreement - and plenty hardly worked again. One local young lad was crushed to death under the wheels of a TNT lorry racing to deliver papers. No one was ever charged.

This then is no story with a happy ending. Yet even at the end the majority of striking clerical workers  couldn’t support a vote to call off the dispute with vast numbers abstaining. [2] And whilst no one liked losing there wasn’t anyone who regretted fighting for what should be everyone’s right - namely a decent paid job in a workplace where workers can join and be represented by a trade union.

“This is a book that should be very widely read as it is relevant to those in current struggle.” Tony Benn.

[1] SOGAT is now part of the Graphical, Paper and Media industrial sector inside UNITE. 

[2] When members of the TNL/NGN clerical chapels met on February 9th 1987 the vote to 'consider the dispute at an end' was accepted by 30 to 3 with an estimated two to three hundred abstaining. 

Without proper legal representation then asylum seekers would be mad not to 'disappear'

Justice 4 All - June 3^rd Day of Action

Much of today’s news [June 2nd 2011] has been dominated by attacks on people’s rights to seek asylum in Britain. It’s even claimed that a number who arrived from ‘holiday hotspots’ and ‘paradise places’ such as Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq and Zimbabwe have disappeared.  

Considering what damage the government did last year to deny many of them adequate legal representation they’d have been crazy not to. This previously unpublished piece [first written in January this year] examines how the government last year closed down the UK’s largest provider of legal advice to asylum seekers and other vulnerable migrants.

Unite members working with asylum seekers fear the loss of more than 300 jobs at their workplace will make it difficult for former clients to obtain the legal support they need. Without which the danger is vulnerable people could be forced to return to unsafe locations such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo and Somalia.

Established in 1992, Refugee and Migrant Justice [RMJ] was until June last year the UK’s largest specialist provider of legal advice to asylum seekers and other vulnerable migrants.

Working at the Charities offices in locations across the country were 340 dedicated staff with a strong commitment to human rights. All of which makes it even more disturbing to report that they were given less than a week’s notice to vacate the premises, sign on the dole and look for alternative employment.

Management it seemed, despite a recognition agreement with Unite, didn’t think it worthwhile telling them, until the very last minute, that they’d called in the administrators a few weeks earlier. The cause? A callous government who refused to advance an estimated £2 million in payments for cases that RMJ had been working on, sometimes for many years.

If however either their bosses or the Con-Dem’s felt they were going to quietly then Unite members at RMJ must have disappointed them. Within days the union was able to organise a noisy, well-attended demonstration in London outside the Ministry of Justice, funders of the Legal Services Commission [LSC] that commissioned RMJ’s work.

No one present really believed they could change the rules back to April 2009 when legal aid bills didn’t wait to get paid until cases had been resolved. RMJ had unsuccessfully sought a bridging loan as it waited for its payments but with 10,000 vulnerable people depending on its services there was according to Leeds employee and Unite representative Phil Sanderson “a feeling that the government would be prepared to work with RMJ to save it.”  That was certainly the hope of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who wrote to the Home Secretary Theresa May and Justice Secretary Ken Clarke about his concerns.

If they Tories did get the letter they and the Ministry of Justice weren’t listening. In fact it even took further appeal’s to ensure that asylum seekers cases files, which had subsequently been dumped in a warehouse, were returned to company’s offices for a skeleton staff to work on transferring them to new providers.

All of which meant a very sad end to Phil Sanderson’s four years at RMJ providing what he describes as an “essential service for people who needed representation during complex and often protracted cases that are difficult for them to follow and understand, especially as English isn’t their first language.”

But with so many newspapers casting doubt on asylum seekers claims then wasn’t he worried he might have been, in a period of rising unemployment, simply assisting people who should have had no reason to leave their own countries and come to settle in Britain?

It’s something he rejects saying: “You only have to look where people have risked everything to travel from - Somalia, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and the Congo. These are all locations of serious tension. In the latter over 5 million have been killed during the civil war.

My general overriding impression was that the vast majority of people I saw were fleeing persecution. Many had faced both physical and mental torture with serious bodily torture. The result was that post-traumatic stress disorder is common amongst asylum seekers and it would often be difficult to conduct an interview, as people would break down when asked to recall unpleasant incidents. As a caseworker I was there to help people accurately compile their story for the Home Office visits they were expected to make.”

It was a role that Andy Jones in London also undertook during his three years with RMJ. He found it a fulfilling but often highly frustrating one saying how he “couldn’t at times believe the Home Office had refused the claims of someone I felt had been persecuted in their own country. Challenging such routinely bad decisions requires good legal representation. Its something everyone deserves and without which an asylum seeker faces the terrifying prospect of being returned to places where they face possible persecution and in some cases certain death.”

It’s clearly something both Phil and Andy, rightly, want to prevent with the former saying: “Britain has a duty to maintain its honourable tradition of assisting people fleeing persecution. We live in a wealthy country that can afford to take what is a tiny % of the world’s refugees - for example there are three million refugees from Iraq in Syria and Jordan. People are coming from obvious danger areas including many trade unionists escaping because they are being persecuted for recruiting members. “

With the closure of RMJ many who needed its support are going to find it difficult to obtain even adequate legal representation. It’s believed the organisation had difficulty finding solicitors firms to take on all its cases when it closed and according to Andy “immigration is an area where many solicitors do bad jobs for their clients. Now that there is to be a fixed fee scheme for each case it will encourage some firms to take on lots of cases on which they will do very little work before closing them down in order to get paid. Many cases are complex and they won’t receive proper attention. “

Of course once they’d got started with their attacks on legal aid funding, by closing down RMJ and hitting the vulnerable people they worked so hard on behalf of, there has been no holding back by the Coalition Government. In the summer came the announcement that the LSC were to cut the number of firms able to offer legal aid from 2,400 to 1,300. Women experiencing domestic violence are amongst many groups that will suffer as a consequence.

Then in November Clarke told Parliament that legal aid in civil cases would be decimated with even some divorce cases and clinical negligence to be refused funding.

Clearly a system that recognises most ordinary people can’t afford to get them legal representation, and which was established as part of the search for a fairer society after the Second World War is something this government has no wish to defend. Which is why Unite is backing the Justice for All campaign established across the legal and advice sectors to ensure that everyone can access justice, no matter their personal circumstances.

Stop press - Unite is currently supporting close to 200 former RMJ members in their application to the Redundancy Payments Office for a protective award claim. This follows the charities failure to provide them with advance notice of their intention to make them redundant.

"I wasn't surprised" says care homes campaigner on Panorama programme

A former advocate for older people in care homes has said she was “not surprised” by the scenes of gratuitous violence on people with learning disabilities shown on last nights Panorama programme: Undercover care: The Abuse Exposed - the truth about carers out of control.

Gill Greaves established the charity Corral - Community of Oldham Relatives and Residents, Advocacy and Advice for Life [*] - over a decade ago after she was left angered by her mother’s treatment in an older people’s home.

Last night she sat down and watched Panorama at the end of which she was left distinctly unimpressed saying it “lacked analysis, failed to provide solutions, signpost families to support groups or raise the need for more rigorous staff training and decent pay rates.”

The programme lasted an hour and viewers watched some distressing scenes. Winterbourne View is a specialist residential hospital for people with learning disabilities and autism just outside Bristol.

It’s one of a number across the country run for profit by Castlebeck and a place doesn’t come cheap with fees of £3,500 a week charged. Not that the staff at the lower level see anything like such a sum with an average wage of £16,000 per annum.

Such a low wage though can’t be used as an excuse for what some of those at Winterbourne were shown doing - and so its good to know that in, at least, some cases their average wage looks like it will drop to about a tenner a week when they rightly get sent down.

Slapping disturbed, confused and as far as could be seen non-violent patients was horrible to watch. Pouring water and leaving some patients outside in the freezing cold weather and generally intimidating people who couldn’t fight back - even by telling their visiting parents who didn’t want to believe they were being abused - was appalling.

And when lower level managers witnessed such incidents the unwillingness to take action by riding the institution of what were rightly described, by outside experts asked by the programme makers to comment, as “torturers” left a sickening feeling.

None of which should take away the excellent work of the Panorama reporter who captured on camera such scenes during his five weeks of undercover work at the hospital. Fair play to him.

Much less so for Castlebeck. Terry Bryan had been senior nurse at the hospital. He quit at what he witnessed, including patients being frequently sat on and restrained. Bryan wrote to the company, and considering over the last year a number of its carers have been prosecuted, you might have thought they’d take notice and action.

When they didn’t he wrote to the regulatory body - the Care Quality Commission - in fact Bryan contacted them not once, not twice but three times. They didn’t bother to get back to him, preferring to rely on their own two inspections of Winterbourne over the last year that - surprise, surprise - showed there was nothing to worry about.

“We made a mistake,” said the CQM spokesperson. Meanwhile Castlebeck have appointed a new chief executive - one wonders if the last one was sacked or made redundant with a decent payout to mask the pain - and he could only “fully apologise.” Things would be better in the future.

Philipa Bragman, the director of CHANGE, a national human rights organisation led by disabled people, hopes that for the likes of Winterbourne there isn’t a future. She was left “horrified” by what she witnessed and is convinced that the hospital won’t be unique as “these kind of institutions breed a level of abuse as they are dehumanizing environments. Newly recruited staff that want to challenge bad practices face an almost impossible task. It was terrible to see the levels of collusion.

What worries me is that Panorama showed a clip from a 1981 programme. A Silent Minority revealed shocking examples of brutality against people with learning disabilities. Thirty years later we see similar scenes on our television screens.”

So if Silent Minority failed to stop the abuse then will the Panorama programme three decades later? Gill Greaves doesn’t think so.

Firstly because she’s seen for herself “abuse in care homes” and “how it’s covered up” and so was not “in the least surprised by what I witnessed.”

But also because she believes the programme lacked any serious depth or analysis, or just as importantly any solutions even for families who feel their loved ones in similar institutions are being abused.

“The programme left you feeling helpless. There was no information about solutions for other people. Organisations that can help are few and far between, and as third sector organisations they struggle for funds, but that’s no reason not to mention them.

Are Panorama going into every home? It’s great that a few people will be helped, but where were the points about the need for more rigorous staff training and decent pay rates? God help those who need care in the future.”

CHANGE - http://www.changepeople.co.uk/index.php

* Greaves was asked not to “visit so often” her mother after she raised concerns at the lack of care, general neglect and unexplained injuries - including what later transpired to be a broken hip. Looking for a new care home she visited 58 and calculated that only four were “up to scratch.”

Over a four-year period with Corral she estimates to have helped over 100 families and older people - “I think we had a positive outcome in every case” she says proudly. However when funds dried up Greaves, after exhausting much of her families savings, was forced to shut Corral down and seek employment elsewhere. Today she works with disadvantaged children on a cycling project.

I received the following comment from Tim McSharry after the piece appeared on the blog.

Based on my experience of the cqc and its predecessor, in its present set up it is simply not fit for purpose and no number of well meaning apologies from Cynthia Bower or any officer working for the cqc will never do anything to change this, or provide the leadership needed to protect those older and disabled people who are facing abuse, discrimination, hostility and intolerable standards of care on a daily basis.

The regime that is set up to allegedly protect clearly vulnerable older and disabled people has simply failed them.  It currently provides no meaningful or focused way to inspect or assess standards of care within homes.  And whilst its worth acknowledging that there are many examples of outstanding care across both Local Authority and Private residential provision, it is clear that without a complete overhaul of the current system such cases as Winterbourne will continue with apparent impunity.

There can be no excuses in the circumstances when these incidents were raised by a `whistle blower` Terry Bryan directly with the cqc, who then did very little to engage existing safeguarding policy and applied the path of least resistance and avoided taking responsibility, what an unforgivable state of affairs for any public agency.

The lack of any direct accountability to members of the public who rely on the
cqc has contributed to a fog of mixed priorities that have failed too many people in care.  If the cqc is to continue its essential that some form of service user, family carer or third sector representation is independently commissioned to oversee, review and embed core values and accountability into the working priorities and strategies of the cqc. - No more excuses.

Philipa Bragman got it totally right in stating  that there can be no future for places like Winterbourne, the only worry is who will take the action needed to make the changes to the cqc that are so clearly needed?"
Tim McSharry, Head of Disability and Diversity
Access Committee for Leeds (ACL)

Equality reps courses

Equality reps course

4.00pm Friday and John Hoey was in a buoyant mood. Partly it was the prospect of the long weekend before him. More importantly he and five other northwest Unite members had just completed a five-day Equality reps training course in Liverpool that the Barclays Bank employee was confident would “give everyone the skills needed to tackle workplace equalities issues.”

These are things that John feels passionate about. Visually impaired, he was by no means disappointed at being forced to give up chairing the Barclays equalities and diversity group. This is because it came with the understanding the company now wants anyone on it to receive equalities training.

John was happy to do so and was already looking forward to starting back at work the following Monday and seeking “official accreditation as an Equality rep in order to be able to openly discuss with members their concerns.” He, like the others on the course is already looking ahead - with plans for a company wide equalities day  - after being asked to prepare an Action Plan by the course tutor Samantha Firth-Corner. 

It’s a relatively new role for Samantha after she was made redundant in the summer, ending more than two decades as a laboratory technician at Arla Foods in Northallerton. What’s certain to stand her in good stead is that, like the vast majority of Unite tutors, she comes to the post with a wealth of union workplace experience.

She’s more than happy to pass it on, and recalls that although her branch elected an Equality Rep to sit on its committee not every member was supportive, saying, “I know how difficult it is to change some members, even the active one’s, attitudes. We examine how best to do this on the course. ”

Aircelle employee David Smith was pleased with what he had learnt during his five days. Over 70% of the 700 plus employees at the Burnley based commercial aircraft engineering company are members of Unite, and early in 2010 he became the first to be elected as an Equality rep.  He sees the role as a caring one and had already managed to organise an equalities awareness day. 

Now he’s properly trained David, alongside a freshly elected second equality rep, intends working closely with management to promote the issue of equality amongst the workforce. “It’s in the interests of the company to treat everyone equally by, for example, preventing bullying and ensuring people are paid fairly as otherwise they will end up with dissatisfied staff who will constantly be seeking alternative employment” he explains.

“Everyone has learnt a great deal. There’s been a good diversity of workplaces as, in addition to David and my workplaces, there are workers from Liverpool council, the food industry and a plastering company. Despite no legal rights for union equality reps Unite members are electing them and winning agreements with management to get them trained to do the role properly. Long may it continue,” said John Hoey.

The Unite Equality Reps training course lasts five days. Held in learning centres across the country the course looks at why equality matters, understanding discrimination and harassment, unite equality rules, structure and policy, roles and skills, organising your workplace, negotiating, campaigning, listening and communicating, workplace equality policies, actions plans and a quiz. It’s not easy, but you and your workmates will benefit if you get involved. 

Union Learning Reps courses

Union Learning Representative

As a bus driver for a quarter of a century John Lea was used to picking people up. He still is, but now as Union Learning Representative [ULR] organiser across northwest England he has an aversion to dropping people - or to be specific ULR’s - off.  

Which is why John is constantly telling any potential, or recently elected, ULR that “Unite runs courses just for them at easy to reach, safe and friendly locations across the region. We aim to ensure those who’ve taken on such an important position quickly gain the skills to do the job effectively on behalf of the members who’ve elected them.”

Which is exactly why Jean Bishop, an RSA employee since 1999, could be found in late September participating on the ULR stage 1 five-day training course being run at Jack Jones House in Liverpool by John. 

As one of the largest insurance companies in the world RSA has branches across Britain, and Unite have members in each branch, including at the Liverpool site where Jean is one of 1040 employees. A staunch trade union member for many years she agreed to become the first ULR after Unite negotiated a union learning agreement with the company, allowing for a rep on each site. 

Speaking on the course’s final day she said, “it has been a very interesting week from which I’ve learnt a great deal. I appreciate why the union puts so much importance on life-long learning, helping as it does people to update their skills at a time when no-one has a job for life. I have a much greater understanding of which courses it might be appropriate to try and attract members to attend, whilst being amongst new ULR’s has helped in bouncing ideas around and gaining support from others in a similar situation to myself.”

Joining Jean on the course was Everton fan Brian Whitehill. A taxi driver for two decades he joined Unite at the start of 2008, when after attending a NVQ level 2 Road Passenger Vehicle Driving [RPVD] Course at Jack Jones House he became convinced his constant battle with the authorities on behalf of his work colleagues would be better served inside the union. It’s a move he’s never regretted. 

After becoming a ULR he was so spurred on by his learning experiences that he subsequently undertook an assessors and Preparing to Teach in the Life-Long Learning Sector course, as well as recruiting hundreds of new Unite members by initially encouraging drivers to attend the RPVD course. “This course has acted as a refresher, allowing me to examine where I might have made mistakes in the past, whilst I also hope that my recounted experiences to the others on the course will help them in the future” said Brian.

According to John what comes next for the newly trained reps must include “letting people know they’ve been on the course, advertising their role, preparing a questionnaire, offering guidance on what courses might be available and finding out what all employees, including potential unite members, want.”

“I’d urge anyone who might be interested in becoming a Unite ULR to contact their officer knowing they can expect to receive some high quality training to help them do their job effectively” said Jean.

The Union Learning Reps Training Stage 1 lasts five days. Held in learning centres across the country the course looks at why Unite is involved in lifelong learning, the role of a ULR including the legal framework, overcoming barriers to learning, skills for life in a workplace, facilities, identifying learning needs, designing questionnaires, interviewing skills, working with others and personal development. It’s not easy, but you and your workmates will benefit if you get involved.