Already, this year’s intake of TUC Academy Organisers have turned out to one en masse in Oxford, and doubtless the rest of us, dotted all over the country, have been involved in our local campaigns.

In Nottinghamshire, the local Trades Union Council have been instrumental in setting up Notts Save Our Services. The event grew out of a meeting, reported previously on the blog.

By now, the new intake of  TUC Academy organisers will be preparing for their union interviews, and I wish them the best of luck. This will be the most exciting year since the inception of the Academy, and organisers, with their skills and training, will be central to these local campaigns and their success.

When we learn about community organising this is where we need to put it into practice. We need to unite trade unionists, benefits claimants, disabled people, tenants’ associations, students and anyone else affected by the cuts into an effective campaigning body.

Trade unionists are instinctive organisers and excellent campaigners. But we’re not always so good at identifying our allies and involving them. That’s why Notts SOS have been reaching out to groups who would not normally see the trade unions as obvious allies. They won’t come to us, we have to go to them.

An attack like this requires a united response. Trades Councils across the country are awakening to these new attacks, and their role in resisting them. Last night more than 150 people packed a hall in Nottingham to hear Labour MPs, trade unionists and community campaigners call for united resistance.

On Sunday 19 September 4,000 trade unionists lobbied the Lib Dems in Liverpool. The Liverpool Trades Council organised a march through the city. If you have a Trades Council In your area, get involved and bring some of that Organising Academy magic to these slumbering giants.

Despite its faults the BSF programme was replacing crumbling school buildings across the country. A parent from Nottingham spoke at the rally of the concrete cancer, sewage leaks and inadequate class rooms that desperately need renovation.

What’s needed is a strategy of community organising. Schools are ideal for this as they have a defined catchment area, pre-existing networks (PTAs) and concern everyone.

If you know of a community campaign for a new school get in touch and we’ll spread the message using this blog.

It’s a government of the rich, but a poor example of an administration.

But for a classic example of life imitating politics you can’t beat this. It’s Michael Gove showing his amazing ability to make even the simplest things look hard.

For this visit hundreds of letters, scores of posters and dozens of phone calls helped smooth the way so that every visit produced a result. Using email, snail mail, text and telephony every school visit involved some kind of meeting with members.

Progressive Lincolnshire

lincolnshire has links with the east coast of the United States. The first published poet in the states, Anne Bradstreet, lived in Lincolnshire before emigrating with other pilgrims to the US. She has often been described as a feminist. Below are a few lines from a poem about Queen Elizabeth I.

Now say, have women worth, or have they none
Or had they some, but with our Queen is’t gone?
Nay, masculines, you have taxed us long;
But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong.
Let such as say our sex is void of reason,
Know ’tis a slander now, but once was treason.

So it aint all bad.

The team, including former graduates of the Organisers Academy, visited, or tried to visit, 41 schools. Many were welcoming, one offered us a school meal, but some were downright hostile and it is with those schools that follow up becomes extremely important.

We found a number of reps and school contacts, and found that compliance with accepted practices is woeful, particularly in small schools.

At one school we had a very friendly deputy head pop in to ensure that everything was alright. Once she was in, she wasn’t for leaving. In the end we had to have a polite word.

In some schools we had very aggressive senior managers denying that any of our members wanted to meet us, only to get phone calls from said members asking when we would be arriving.

The mapping element is so important, with local knowledge built in to the plan, and regular consultation with existing reps, caseworkers and Local Association officials. Invariably the schools which we had been advised to visit produced reps and contacts.

It was great to see so many of the new faces at a Local Association meeting last night. It just goes to show, there’s no substitute for a face to face meeting to get people active.

Stewart first got involved with unions when he joined USDAW as a 16 year old Tesco worker. He distributed his first union leaflet at 17 and was almost sacked for it.

He has been a campaigning activist for many years, most recently when he worked for Stop the War Coalition setting up and supporting local campaigning groups across the country.

Stewart heard about the organising model through friends who worked for Unite the Union. He was intrigued by a model for organising but as no one could explain exactly what it was he decided to try his hand at it. Unite took him out for a day to the Del Monte factory at Wisbech where he experienced organising agency workers for the first time. ‘It’s hard and management don’t like it.’

He enjoyed learning about mapping and the organising model and was encouraged to go for the TUC Organising Academy. He think anyone who is interested in building up the strength of the Trade Union movement should apply as even if they don’t get through they will get a fantastic introduction to the organising model and how it is reinvigorating trade union recruitment and activism.

‘Trade unions will play a vital role in resisting attacks on workers during the recession and I look forward to my time at the chalk-face of union organising’ said Stewart of his new role.