Organising For A Change

Organisations tend to do just what they were built to do. they need to change themselves at the same time as they seek to change their worlds. This is the job of organisers - to build and rebuild unions

Organising and leading change for 30 years at BWTUC, TUC Organising Academy, GMB, Labour Community Organising, Global Supply Chains and UCU.

Currently working with UNISON, FBU, ADCU, Mandate, Unions 21, GFTU and TUC

Organising For a Change offers advice training and coaching on union building and leading change

And now follow Organising for a Change Radio where-ever you get your podcasts

Organising For A Change - the podcast for union builders | Podcast on Spotify

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Handling HR

Human Resources (HR) has become an industry all of itself and one of the fastest growing in the UK in recent years in terms of the numbers it employs within public and private sector organisations But the shine may well be coming off in the private and public corporate world – as many of the misgivings and warnings about treating workers as just another "resource" expressed by union builders over 30 years ago become more widely recognised. A recent critical article by Pam

msmithorganiser

Mar 199 min read

Building Unions in “Bullshit Jobs”

As long ago as 2018, social anthropologist and comrade David Graeber set out his “Bullshit Jobs” theory. (David Graeber: Bullshit Jobs – The rise of pointless work and what we can do about it. Penguin Books 2019) The kind of jobs where the people doing them know that if they stopped tomorrow, nobody would notice. But they stay to pay the rent and keep food coming in. Not all low paid and hard jobs are bullshit jobs of course. Like cleaning hospitals for example they need doin

msmithorganiser

Feb 104 min read

Book Review: A State of Struggle. John McInally.

Powerful corrupting forces swirl and surround unions. They act equally on both the “permanently organised faction” of full time officers set to manage the union and the elected lay representatives set to govern it. This corrupting influence can take many forms apart from just the obvious cash bribes and watches as gifts from employers, pay talks in exotic locations etc… all designed to bend the union agenda but which remain rare and easy to spot. But other forms of corruption

msmithorganiser

Nov 17, 20256 min read

Tackling Division at Work

Union Builders know that employers will tend to latch on to anything that helps them divide their workforce and set them against each other as we try to build unity and solidarity. Many of the working practices that union builders face such as zero and micro hours working and outsourcing have division built into them for this reason and can create invisible sections of the workforce, where exploitation can be easily ignored or overlooked Major Unions report that the rhetoric

msmithorganiser

Oct 21, 20253 min read

Labours Employment Rights Act - Update

In a post on the eve of the 2024 General Election we reviewed the promises Labour was setting out in its manifesto on new employment...

msmithorganiser

Jul 31, 20253 min read

Health Care Assistants Build Their Union

Organising for a Change interviewed Louise Chinnery from UNISON about her unions successful union building campaign in NHS Hospital...

msmithorganiser

Mar 22, 20254 min read

Anti Union Bosses

Building a union is about calling out the huge imbalance of power between workers and bosses in the workplace and setting out to make...

msmithorganiser

Feb 12, 20255 min read

Building Unions in Schools

Special guest blogger Avril Chambers writes about her massively successful union building strategy and tactics in schools with support...

msmithorganiser

Sep 5, 20244 min read

Union Builders Better Get Ready

Another Labour Government looks to be upon us and its time to plan our campaigns based on our recent experience As set out in this blog...

msmithorganiser

Jun 20, 20243 min read

Union Building With a Labour Government

On current trends 2024 seems on course to produce a Labour Government for the first time in 14 years. The Tory Party seems likely to be...

msmithorganiser

Jan 3, 20248 min read

Now is the Time

The recent groundswell of wage militancy across the public, private and privatised sectors has been more than a decade in the making....

msmithorganiser

May 19, 20236 min read

Union Building in the Platform Economy

Estimates vary but union builders are seeing a huge expansion of platform style working conditions across the labour market as capitalism...

msmithorganiser

Nov 27, 20226 min read

Building Class Unity

1993 saw the Tories announce their latest masterplan to destroy and disable unions once and for all – the re-sign legislation which...

msmithorganiser

Oct 28, 20224 min read

United We Bargain

We bargain when the employer knows we can stop the job and deliver effective strike action supported by the majority of their workforce....

msmithorganiser

Jun 4, 20224 min read

Divided We Beg

A direct challenge from those whose shoulders we stand on lurks in the background – to reject the easy cop out of managing the decline of...

msmithorganiser

Jun 4, 20224 min read

Developing Effective Leadership

The right wing view is that leaders make history. Our view in the labour and trade union movement is essentially the opposite – that...

msmithorganiser

Sep 4, 20213 min read

Looking for Leaders

Workplace leaders tend to be those who define reality and build consensus within a group of workers. Either for, or against, the union....

msmithorganiser

Jul 31, 20214 min read

Organising Planner

A useful ready reckoner for union organisers and campaigners to bring together in one place the tools methods and philosophy contained in...

msmithorganiser

Jul 4, 20213 min read

Our Move

A campaign is not an end in itself. Its about getting a specific Target to make a change they don’t want to make by mobilising people to...

msmithorganiser

May 5, 20213 min read

Campaigning for Power - Aim Target Lever.

All the rights we have as working people were fought for and squeezed out of the rich and powerful against their will. We were never...

msmithorganiser

Apr 15, 20213 min read

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