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.

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 members, who is doing what, with whom and how? What the hell is going on and how could it be improved on?

Since I’ve been given a remit that could easily encompass the entire working class and the area of London, a city of seven and a half million people, the main difficulty presented by this task is where to start and when to end!

Because I had the luxury of writing my own work plan, I left myself a very generous two to three months for this part, got on the phone to anyone and everyone who seemed interesting and started to set up meetings. This is surprisingly easy: any number busy people have found time to talk a newcomer through their terrain and for this I am eternally grateful.

When I think of the readership of this blog I imagine someone like me: perhaps considering applying to the organiser academy, perhaps about to start a placement. I want to be encouraging but I want to be realistic too. So I’ll tell you the truth: There have been moments when I’ve found myself staring at a blank computer screen wondering how to fill my diary or coming back from a meeting  wondering if I’m doing the “right” thing.

You get through it: you look at the contacts you have and the resources in front of you, you get on the phone and you make appointments and talk to people and take notes. Pretty soon filling time isn’t a problem anymore although finding it might be!

You need flat shoes for running about the city, an A to Z and the nerve to talk to a lot of strangers. Apparently in Brazil they call this having a “wooden face.” I would never have known that if it wasn’t for the mapping.

What I’ve found is that generally people are happy to chat and are very helpful. Only very occasionally is someone sarcastic, patronising or clutchy over their knowledge. After a while it’s clicked with me that these are the people who perhaps are not so sure of what they’re doing.

Where people are helpful, I try to cultivate a similarly friendly and open attitude and if possible to do some small favour to show willing: even if this is just passing on a contact or putting them in the direction of some information.

Gradually, gradually, the hopeful little lines on my Gantt chart have begun to look like definite possibilities.

Real things that might get done by real people.

Yesterday the  guy in the phone shop wanted to know  if I thought he’d still be able to get to his brothers stag do in Miami. I had no idea of course, its not like they announce updates throughout the building on a tannoy.  

 A whole bunch of journalists are camped outside the main entrance, sometimes until midnight, waiting for some news to happen. I have to push past them to get in and out of work.

This morning Willie Walsh walked past and they all formed a little scrum around him like a flock of camera wielding geese. There is a TV in the canteen and from where I was sitting I could watch events simultaneously in real life and on the screen.

Later on I begin to wonder what would happen if I were to get dressed up in a sharp suit, march out of the front door and make an “announcement.”

“Don’t worry it all sorted out!”

Before I can get any further with this dangerous line of thought, John Ball wanders into the office with the latest news. It seems the talks have broken down.

Too bad phone shop guy, looks like the strike is on.

Before you all rush to rip up your union cards, I am happy to report that I am starting to get the hang of things!

The main thing to learn, after locating the toilets and learning how to use the photocopier has been the structure of the SERTUC region, the structure and processes of the affiliated unions and the important personalities within the region.

One of the first tasks I was given was to help build up the Race Relations Committee. This has been hugely useful in orienting me as it has required me to contact the officers of the different unions, learn how their nomination procedures and internal democracy work and then explain these procedures to interested members. This should hold me in good stead for future tasks.

It has also given me the opportunity to get to know my way around the various race relations, black members and equalities substructures in the region, which vary from union to union. I’ve been making contact with these organisations and have a number of invitations to visit meetings so I’m very much looking forward to meeting active members. I’ll be finding out what black and minority ethnic activists are up to across the region and also promoting SERTUC’s activities, in particular the snappily titled ARAFAP.

For the uninitiated this is SERTUC’s Anti Racist Anti Fascist Action Plan.

With the BNP’s steady growth and the startling rise, seemingly out of nowhere of EDL (aficionados of the contemporary cultural history of the football firm can pull me up on this statement: if they must); anyone with eyes in their head can see the urgency of anti fascist activity. Cross union coordination is obviously useful and this is a good example of the kind of situation where SERTUC really adds something to the trade union movement so I’m very pleased to be involved.

 This Saturday is the national conference of Unite Against Fascism which SERTUC supports and which will be held in Congress House. See here fro more info: http://www.uaf.org.uk/news.asp?choice=91217

I will be there on the SERTUC stall promoting ARAFAP and other SERTUC activities and hopefully also getting some new people interested in the Race Relations committee.

This will  be the test of how well I’ve understood all the different structures and procedures as any interested people will have to be signposted to the right person in their own union to talk to!

I’ve even had a go at designing my own leaflet for the event. I’d show you a copy but all attempts at pasting here have failed. Still, I picked up 500 of the little beauties this morning.One email to the copy desk and there they all were just five minutes later. Fantastic! The print room still holds the power to impress!

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 to rock ‘n’ roll! The problem was, Elvis didn’t much bother with picket lines or the peace movement – and I certainly do! So I downed my white cape and shiny Las Vegas glasses, sung my last Suspicious Minds, and headed straight to the Graceland of the workers – the TUC Development Centre, Exeter…

It certainly was a tough weekend, but clearly someone in the sky (most probably Elvis) was shining down upon me that fateful Sunday afternoon, when (wearing my favourite Beatles T-Shirt – mainly for the benefit of Carl Roper) I was told I had been selected for a TUC interview! Two weeks later I had passed and it wasn’t long before I had been selected as the NUT organiser for Kent and East Sussex!!! Finally, I was going to do for trade unionism what Elvis had done for music… (Make it fashionable again, get the masses involved and inspire other people to great things)!

As a long standing socialist, anti-privatisation, community and peace activist, I have engaged in numerous campaigns. At the age of 17, you would have found me occupying the University of Luton. Following the decision to abolish the humanities department, I and a group of students elected an occupation committee and engaged in direct action lasting two days (I was the look out)! This provided a valuable first experience of organising. The action made the press and highlighted the market-driven disruption to higher education, which Luton students were experiencing.

I have organised a number of campaigning and community projects over the years. In 2005 I founded ‘Musicardo’ – a now well established community arts project in Luton. Together with Beds Senior Citizens’ Arts and Recreational Forum, University of Bedfordshire Student Union and Luton Sixth Form College (amongst others) Musicardo has supported International Older Persons’ Festival and continues to organise multicultural community projects such as ‘Community for Humanity’.

In 2009, I founded Luton Love Music Hate Racism – in response to the recession, rising social inequality and the potential for far-right growth in these circumstances. Luton Trades Council, SERTUC, Kelvin Hopkins MP, Esther Rantzen and a host of other trade union, community, political groups and performers – have all supported Luton LMHR. It represents successful organising on a profound scale! When English Defence League gangs invaded Luton in May 2009 – unleashing racist violence and hatred towards the local community – Luton LMHR was ready and prepared! I and the committee organised a huge 2000 strong, one-day music festival. We recruited massively and made the racists look pathetic. Shortly afterwards the Home Office granted an order banning the EDL from marching through Luton.

Luton LMHR – 1                       Racist Bigots – 0 !!!!!              

My ambitions from here onwards lie with the NUT. I view the union’s role within the school environment as invaluable. The union’s commitment to fairness for teachers and students alike; it’s principled stand against privatisation and its support for the environmental movement, is what makes it such an important trade union. With the NUT, I will be working hard to organise, expand and involve teachers in a progressive agenda – making sure the union remains the powerful force for good which we can all unite behind!

The Batay Ouvriye Haiti Solidarity Network and Miami Autonomy and Solidarity (Miami has a large Haitian community),is also collecting funds for the Haitain union and social movement Batay Ouriye.  Batay Ouriye is a workers and peasants union most well known for their work in the Industrial sweatshops and Free Trade Zones.  Some of Batay Ouvriye’s members have died in the earthquake and many more have been displaced and made homeless. Still others are unemployed as their workplaces have simply been destroyed.

With the IMF reportedly demanding pay freezes and energy price hikes in exchange for help: organisations like Batay Ouriye will be crucial to the fate of the Haitian people in the coming years and must be given every assistance.

Donations can be made  here: https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/811/t/3678/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=5875

For more information on Batay Ouvire your can check out their website here: http://www.batayouvriye.org/English/Welcome.html

For historical background this guardian article here is very good: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/14/haiti-history-earthquake-disaster

For the current situation, check out the facebook group: No Shock Doctrine for Haiti:  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=292737727221&ref=mf

And for anyone who can make it into London on the 3^rd of February Cuba Solidarity are holding a benefit night at Congress House at which you can see Billy Bragg and the Cuban band, Son Mas for a very reasonable £10: http://www.concertforhaiti.co.uk/

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.