From 14 to 16 May 2010 UNISON held its National Young Members Weekend. This year it was in Croyde Bay*, Devon which meant a long journey for the Scottish Delegation! For me the journey involved a bus, a train, two planes and a taxi there, however it was well worth it!
On the Friday, after an introduction by Grum Smith (Chair of National Young Members Forum, and also UNISON Scotland Young Members) Dave Prentis, General Secretary of UNISON spoke about the future under coalition government, and challenges ahead for the union. We then broke into regional groups to look at priorities we thought UNISON should be looking at over the next year.
Saturday started off with a number of workshops. I first went to one for more experienced activists, which looked at reasons people join the union, and also how to encourage members to become active. We found that the majority of us had sought out the union rather than being recruited, so had to put thinking caps on when looking at these issues!
The next workshop examined the Hidden Workforce that is, areas of the workforce that can be difficult to recruit (and coincidentally, often have a higher number of issues). This is a particular problem in outsourced services, where hostile management, part time workers, shift patterns and perceptions of the union can make it challenging to recruit.
The final workshop I attended was on Rights at Work where we looked at the minimum wage and rights for part time workers.
After lunch we were visited by workers from the local hospital who were employed by Sodexo. After being outsourced they had suffered attacks on their terms and conditions of employment, and it was only after a well organised plan of recruitment, followed by industrial action, that their employer was forced to restore their conditions to national standards.
Gerry Gallagher, President of UNISON then gave an address, after which we broke up into regional groups again. We examined how we could get more Young Members active within Scotland, and after some discussion one idea was of organising more localised groups, in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Highlands so that long distances were less of a problem for members wanting to get involved.
On Sunday we were due to present our ideas on getting more people active within our region, however fate intervened, as volcanic ash was forecast to disrupt flights across the country. With Northern Ireland already rushing away we eventually sorted out train tickets to get us back to Scotland (which for me ended up being a 24 hours trip, only beaten in duration by the delegate from Orkney who took 33 hours to get home!). Fortunately the train journey back went relatively smoothly, and overall the weekend (the last I will be able to attend as a Young Member) was a positive experience. Hopefully Moray UNISON will have someone to send next year!
*Croyde Bay is a holiday camp owned and run by UNISON for the benefit of members. I highly recommend going, the facilities are excellent and the beach is great. The only downside is the fact the it will most likely take you longer to get there than it would to Spain!