- Conference
- Date
- June 16, 2017
- Decision
UNISON members face increased uncertainties because of Government regulation and policy changes that directly impact on their jobs in many circumstances placing an onus on individuals to up skills for example the English Language Requirement for Public sector Workers, EU exit and the apprenticeship levy scheme.
Conference recognises the valuable role that learning in the workplace plays in supporting members to achieve personal and professional development and to tackle the UK skills gap.
Conference also recognises that learning in the workplace plays a crucial role in supporting branches, activists and members to develop confidence, skills and knowledge to be able to campaign and organise effectively to oppose the challenges and threats they face in the workplace.
Despite the evidence that member learning and the Union Learning Fund (ULF) activity brings many benefits including supporting UNISON’s organising agenda much more needs to be done. The TUC/ Unionlearn research reported in 2016 that the number of Union Learning Reps (ULRs) per workplace had nearly halved between 2010 and 2015 and that there was a continual need to promote the wider benefits of the learning culture in order to mainstream the learning agenda within unions and that more ULRs are needed to help achieve this.
Conference therefore calls on the National Executive Council to encourage branches to:
- Dedicate resources via the joint branch assessment process that aim to promote and mainstream UNISON’s member learning and ULF programmes across all workplaces and to develop approaches to recruit around learning as part of the branch recruitment and organising plan;
- Proactively target recruitment of ULRs in every workplace ensuring that they access training as quickly as possible;
- Ensure that there is a trained Branch Education Co-ordinator in every branch that can support all new activists to access training as quickly as possible.
Conference also calls on the National Executive Council to:
- To review the current member only learning internal programme and workshops and the union-wide learning offer to new members to reflect the needs of members in the changing working environment;
- To encourage greater participation by branches and regions in union learning funded activity, particularly around supporting initiatives to establish high quality apprenticeship schemes in which apprentices are encouraged to join and get involved in UNISON;
- Learning and Organising Services to develop and promote new workshops and resources to encourage members to become active ensuring that there is coordination and collaboration between regions, branches and national departments;
- Linking political education to the development of new activists, including sessions targeted specifically at members from equality groups;
- Build on the current suite of political education materials to support the recruitment of new members and activist development better enabling UNISON to challenge any adverse consequences of the UK’s exit from the European Union.
National Executive Council