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The power of organising, and progressive Lincolnshire…

Back to Lincolnshire again, where the road beneath you is the highest point in the landscape. This time a bit of experience, and a bit more planning, and every visit was a success. Even where the head wanted to turn us away they couldn’t.
For this visit hundreds of letters, scores of posters and dozens of [...]

Mapping

Followers of my blog will remember that I have recently put together my project plan and that the first item is mapping.
Mapping is just what it sounds like: a process of understanding the important features of a workplace or situation: how many people work in this office, or warehouse or industry, how many are union [...]

What do you do all day?

 Here’s an example of a working week from around the beginning of March. What I notice about this week, looking back is that it’s a remarkably unstructured.
 At this stage I was beginning to think about my work plan and I certainly had some ideas but nothing had been given the go-ahead. I was still trying [...]

British Airways

 One of the cool things about working at Congress House is the sense you have of national events unfolding around you. Just lately, the building’s been hosting the  negotiations around the British Airways dispute.
Yesterday the  guy in the phone shop wanted to know  if I thought he’d still be able to get to his brothers [...]

Planning

Ever heard of a Gantt chart? No neither had I!  But a Gantt chart I was asked for and a Gantt chart I have produced.
For the uninitiated this is a way of showing when different parts of a project should be started or finished. It looks a load of lines or boxes on a calendar. [...]

More on SERTUC: The Race Relations Committee

Well a month has gone by and it feels about the right time for a little update on my progress. I can picture you all waiting with baited breath.  You will remember  that I had arrived in Congress house, wide eyed and naive with scarcely any knowledge of the strange new world I found myself in, marvelling at [...]

Andrew Robbins – NUT Organiser!

Andrew Robbins – NUT Organiser!
Somewhere around the summer of 2008, I took the difficult decision to leave behind my blossoming future as an Elvis Presley impersonator and take up the gauntlet of organising full-time in the labour movement!! A tough call you might think – after all it’s hard to beat Elvis when it comes [...]

Working for SERTUC

This is a post I’ve put slightly on the back burner. The environment is new to me so it’s taken some time to form an impression.
I’m working for the South East region TUC, based in the magnificent Congress House, just off of London’s Oxford Street (my first pay packet was spent in my mind at [...]

Stewart Halforty

Sponsoring Union: NASUWT
Age:29
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 [...]

Profile of Chris Thomas – Organising Academy Trainee

Chris is originally from a small town in South Wales, where he worked as a Liaison Officer for the local authority, providing Disabled Facility grants for children, the elderly and young adults.
He was a steward with Unison for 14 months, before becoming an officer and taking up the position of Joint Trade Union [...]

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