Are You the 1 in 10 ?

I have spent the last few days on an intensive training course on branch organising, part of our Birmingham organising campaign. I can't remember the last time I was able to set time aside for such training. I am always too busy fighting fires to stop and look at why there are so many fires breaking out.

This has been a very practical and fundamental look at how we can organise more effectively. I can hear members silently commenting about 'effective union organisation' just as Gandhi did to a reporter who asked what he thought about Western Civilisation - "It would be a good idea" !

The truth is, in my view, we have come well past the limits of what we can achieve through the super-hero 'servicing' model whereby many, if not most, members expect to have immediate, expert, individual representation when something goes wrong and for 'the union' to solve all their problems for them. A bit like 'Ghostbusters' - who you gonna call ?

Don't get me wrong, we still need to give good representation when needed. But now it is not just grievances and disciplinaries for a small percentage of members we have to service. We also have dozens of restructuring and job cutting exercises, thousands of members facing the possibility of redundancy, thousands losing pay under the new contract, as well as many worried they might be asked to change work location or working hours, many schools becoming Academies, transfers of services to private companies or social enterprises, to name but a few.

Just about everyone understandably has a major concern or issue. We all need our union.

The answer is, I believe, a fundamental change to the way we approach the union. We need to work towards building up strong active workplaces, with a high union membership and where management can see the members are actively involved and prepared to stand up for themselves and each other. Our greatest strength is our being a group, a collective, and a force to be reckoned with - if we work together. A union is not the Fifth Cavalry riding to the rescue, but a means by which we organise ourselves together to defend ourselves. That's the way to carry real weight with management. They may be strong, but we are many !

That's what we have been looking at on the course.

One small but powerful development in this direction of travel is to get more direct contact with our many hundreds of workplaces across the city.

How about becoming one of the '1 in 10' ? Would you be prepared to become a workplace contact ? Who would for example on occasions talk to 5 or 10 of their colleagues about a union issue - say about "what do you think about the pensions offer" or "what do you think people would be prepared to do to make the PDR system operate more fairly". And then feedback the views and information to the branch. We wouldn't ask you to do too much, talking to 5 or 10 people would be a great help.

It wouldn't necessarily take much time and effort but it would greatly strengthen our links to our membership. It would be a small but significant step towards becoming a union which really listens and relates to our membership as a whole.

Think about it and contact us if you would be prepared to do a little to help build up our local union organisation where you work. Be one of the '1 in 10' !

Graeme Horn
Joint Branch Secretary