Like any union, UNISON is only as strong and effective as our members acting together – the more of us there are, the better we are.

As every activist knows, increasing the size of the union and, with it, workplace density, by recruiting more members is crucial to making UNISON a more effective union.

But it’s one thing to know that – how do you actually go about it? Where on earth do you start? What if your workplace isn’t organised? Or the employer doesn’t recognise unions? And how do you deal with the most common rejections?

Find out how to recruit new members here...

 

UNISON is marking becoming the UK’s biggest union by launching a month of recruitment activity today (Tuesday) to reach out to every worker in the country providing public services.

The union has now more than 1.3 million people in its membership who work in education, local government, the NHS, the police service and the energy sector. Members work in both the public and private sectors.

But there are still tens of thousands of public sector workers who aren’t part of a union. During the month of November – renamed Grovember in UNISON – the union’s reps will be working hard to attract new recruits in every town and city across the UK.

Find out about more here...

 

Welcome to another year of Yorkshire & Humberside’s Regional Education and Training Programme for 2019. It is our priority to have as diverse and suitable courses to meet all the needs of both our members and activists both new and old. Again this year we have endeavored to have courses as widely assessable as possible by offering access across the region, and making more use of the TUC both in the classroom and online. UNISON is also developing its own on line workshops and e-notes.

You can find the 2019 Education Programme here...

We are continuing to support venues from across the region as well as delivering more at the Regional HQ in Leeds; and we will also continue to use Northern College.

The massive unrelenting Tory cuts are continuing to affect not only Trade Union education but all adult further education, which makes our Lifelong Learning and member learning access even more important for our members and potential members and activists. In addition to our Regional Education Team, and our Organisers will continue working with branches, along with their organising duties to develop Lifelong Learning and ensure activists are trained to the highest standards with courses on most TU subjects. Learning and training are now firmly embedded with all branches development and future plans.

The programme is designed to increase access to the most up to date training UNISON can offer, both for new and developing existing activists. The courses provided are directly aimed at building confidence and developing skills and abilities. We are sure that both you and UNISON will benefit from the experience. It is never too late to learn.

Branch development is vital in recruiting and organising and retaining members. We are constantly striving to increase membership and provide a better service. Increasing membership and developing new activists from all sectors of the union will make us stronger and more representative of our members.

We believe that no member should be out of pocket attending UNISON courses. Branches and the Region will continue to contribute to ensure this, and access is freely available to as many members / activist as possible. Any additional travel costs or carer costs can be claimed from your branch, but you do need to speak to your branch and get their agreement in advance (details of help can be found within this programme).

We also offer for clarity a separate members only training programme detailing some of the courses/workshops UNISON offers for non activist members. You can obtain a copy of this from your branch education co-ordinator or Branch Secretary. You can always find it on our website www.unison-yorks.org.uk/education.html.

We pride ourselves on offering an extremely friendly relaxed and supportive learning environment, and this gives opportunities to meet new people make new friends and build networks with other branches and activists learners to build on knowledge and skills. Working together with other trade unionists to achieve common goals is at the fundamental core of our organisation and we offer many opportunities for development.

So please access and enjoy our learning offer and don’t be afraid to comment on things that went well or not as well as we are always striving to improve your learning experience and all feedback is carefully considered and used to improve our delivery.

This year we are offering many short workshops on various subjects such as Dementia, Autism, Retirement, alongside our Confidence Building workshops for both women and men.

The TUC now offer fully online and integrated courses webinars as well as E-notes. We will also be introducing Return to Learn and Women’s Lives workshop taster sessions as a first step in unleashing members potential.

I hope you will participate and enjoy what we have to offer and I firmly believe UNISON has the best trained activist of any other union in the UK.

Wendy Nichols
Regional Convenor

You can find the 2019 Education Programme here...

Let's grow together

November is just around the corner – and that means it’s nearly Grovember!

Grovember is our month-long push to raise our recruitment levels and improve retention too. To make it work we need everyone to join in.

You can find resources here...

Supporting members and recruiting new people to UNISON is what we all do week in and week out anyway.  Because of our focus on recruitment and organising, we’ve kept UNISON strong despite massive job cuts in public services. But now we have a chance to turn things around and grow our union.

We can’t think of a better way to celebrate our 25th birthday – and to help all those people out there working hard to provide our vital public services who should be in UNISON because they need us.

So, let’s get out there and talk to them about all the support that’s on offer from UNISON and all the great campaigning work we are doing to improve the public services we all care so much about. Let’s show potential members why we are so proud to be in UNISON, and let’s remind our existing members why they joined and how to access our help and support when they need it.

There’s plenty of stuff available on our online catalogue to help you plan and deliver Grovember in our online catalogue.

We’d love to know what your plans are, what you are organising and how it all went – plus pictures of course. With that in mind we’d like to suggest three steps for sharing:

Step 1 – share on social media via usual channels – Please use #joinUNISON when you are tweeting so we can see everything that is happening.

Step 2 – email us at editorial@unison.co.uk

Step 3 – share your organising tips on the organising space

Find out more here...

 

SHOW RACISM THE RED CARD
WEAR RED DAY - FRIDAY 19th OCTOBER 2018
#WRD18

Each October Show Racism the Red Card holds its annual Wear Red Day!

The 4th annual Wear Red Day will take place in England and Wales is on Friday 19th October.

Wear Red Day is a national day of action which encourages schools, businesses & individuals to wear red and donate £1 to help facilitate the delivery of anti-racism education for young people & adults throughout England, Scotland & Wales. For just £5, SRtRC can educate one child for a whole day.

Every penny raised during WRD enables the campaign to work with more young people and adults across the UK to challenge racism in society.

Fundraising Guide
Our fundraising guide will explain how you can get involved as well as details on how to apply for your fundraising pack.

 

Opening the debate on privatisation at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool today (Tuesday 25 September 2018), UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis

Opening the debate on privatisation at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool today (Tuesday), UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis said:

“UNISON has always led the fight against privatisation, in the past all too frequently against the New Labour leadership.

“Year after year, I stood at this rostrum, and was heckled and hissed at by New Labour ministers for opposing their privatisation plans.

“Gullible ministers, who’d been seduced by the promises of vulture capitalism, sucked in by G4S, Capita and Carillion, and bedazzled by the chief executives of multinational companies who promised so much, yet delivered so little.

“But much has changed thanks to the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell. Those dark days are gone.

“The country must never go back to the time when it was beholden to the profiteers, seduced by their false promises, and by the mantra that private was good and public bad.

“A mile from here stands the Royal Liverpool Hospital – a shell of a hospital, that’s half built, effectively a £300m building site.

“It’s been abandoned by Carillion, the company that everyone said was too big to fail.

“Carillion, a private company that was praised by the Tories and lauded by New Labour, has now left a trail of destruction in its wake.

“Workers were unpaid and apprentices were sacked, and this great city has been left without its promised new hospital. An epic monument to failure.

“And just as Grenfell will forever be associated with neglect, so Carillion will always be associated with greed.

“But at long last the Labour Party is led by those who oppose privatisation of all our public services.

“I’ve waited all my life for this. Our party, led by Jeremy Corbyn – a proud UNISON member, has always stood with us on protests.

“Campaigning against hospital closures, council cuts and privatisation. He’s
the kind of Member of Parliament our party needs, who stands with you when times are tough, and not just when they want something.

“So everyone in this hall, and every MP must get behind our leader, get behind the policies, and get behind the party to campaign for the best manifesto ever put to the British people.

“It’s a party that works not for the rich but for the cleaners, the carers, the cooks, the teaching assistants, nurses, and all other public sector workers.

“They need our party preparing for power, looking outwards, moving upwards and standing united. That’s what our country needs.

“That’s what the children sleeping rough on the streets of cities like this need. And what the dozens of Birmingham care workers who travelled here yesterday need.

“They’ve taken 21 days of strike action, fighting pay cuts, and a cut in their hours.

“We need unity now more than ever, to be united behind radical policies, not outdated dogmas of the past, united behind a leadership that is no longer timid.

“For the first time in a generation, we have the opportunity to be bold and bring public sector workers who’ve been privatised back into local government, and back into the health service where they belong.

“An end to privatisation must be a year one priority for a Labour government, not an aspiration. A day one commitment to end the scourge of privatisation and bring all services back in house.”

 

 

Our union is so proud of our NHS, not just because we’re the largest health union in the country, but also because the National Health Service embodies our union’s values. A universal public service. Free at the point of use. With health and care as priorities – not profit.

The NHS is perhaps the greatest achievement of our movement. A beacon to the world. And the greatest example of Socialism in action and the basic decency and fairness of our labour movement.

Born amidst the rubble of war, opposed by churches, charities and doctors – it was a ray of hope in that bleak time, and it remains one today.

 

You can download the report here...