With thousands of union members taking industrial action amid the cost-of-living crisis, hundreds of union reps got together in Congress House in October of this year to learn more about getting them a better deal.

The timing of Unionreps Connect 2022 couldn’t have been better, arriving a fortnight after the government’s disastrous mini-Budget directly led to rocketing mortgage payments and food costs. But while the government was making life harder for millions of people, trade unionists were getting together to identify all the ways they could help improve things.

The event focused on helping reps expand their knowledge of employment law, health and safety, organising, union learning and equality through a mix of presentations, conversations and participatory workshops. The whole morning explored many of the ways effective union reps make a difference for their members every day.

Becky Sixsmith-Hughes, the former chair of Unite’s Gatwick branch, set out how in 2020 she’d helped negotiate British Airways down from base closure to 1,200 redundancies to a final figure of 600 job losses – including her own.

I saved a lot of people’s jobs, not everyone’s, but it was the best outcome it could have been. I negotiated the agreement for a new contract and I know I left my branch in a sustainable position – that’s a lot of satisfaction.

Becky is now helping develop regional networks of Black and minority ethnic union members in her current role as TUC Building BME Networks Project Officer.

RMT union learning rep Ivor Riddell reminded participants of the power of every win by telling the story of how he helped a member with poor IT skills get to grips with video messaging so she could better connect to a sister in Australia she’d been restricted to phoning once every four months.

We contacted her sister to make sure she would be available at the time of our session and that was a real lump-in-the-throat moment – things like that make a real difference to people.

Jo Tapper, UNISON Branch Secretary at University College London (UCL), set out the successes of the branch’s campaign to bring cleaning, catering and security staff back in-house to secure better pay and conditions for them.

UNISON have managed to get staff back in-house at SOAS, at Birkbeck, at the London School of Economics (LSE) and, most recently, we won this for our own workers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. At UCL, we have managed to win parity of terms and conditions for these staff as part of our Bring Them In campaign, which was an incredible victory that shows the power organising within a union.

Jo’s top tips for organising were:

• “Listen to your reps and you’ll find your organising issue, whether it’s insourcing or anything else you want to campaign about.”
• “Don’t just listen to one person’s ideas – listen to everyone’s ideas.”

Jo added:

Roger MacKenzie, the previous assistant general secretary at UNISON, taught me not to be afraid to call out racism and discrimination when you see it happening – I was so glad to hear Mick Lynch referring to outsourcing as systemic racism – we need to say this loudly and say it more often.

TUC National Organiser Carl Roper unveiled the TUC Solidarity Hub, a new online resource to help local union branches win their campaigns and disputes, which includes:

• Ready for Action, a support tool for branches preparing for industrial action
• The online Pocket Guide to Organising and Campaigning
• Strike Funder, which helps branches create online donation pages for their campaign funds
• Top tips for looking after everyone’s mental health during a dispute
• Using the TUC’s Megaphone platform for online campaigning
• A collection of inspiring stories about recent union victories.

The trade union movement is based on two things: collectivism – the belief that workers are more than the sum of their parts – and solidarity in workplaces and across the movement. Solidarity and collectivism turns members into activists and individuals into a collective force for good.

In his keynote address, incoming TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak identified three key priorities for the trade union movement:

• Supporting members through the cost-of-living crisis: "We don’t need wage restraint – we need greed restraint."
• A judicial review of the new agency worker laws that are aimed at breaking strikes
• Securing a government that works for working people: "Labour must go into the next election on a manifesto committed to issues that matter to our members, like bringing public services back in house and ending scandal of rail privatisation."

Paul added:

Union membership had grown in four out of the last five years, despite the pandemic. We’ve broken through into anti-union strangleholds, including Ryanair and Uber and Deliveroo – if we can organise there, we can organise everywhere.

Brian Wilson, Regional Employment Rights Manager at Thompsons Solicitors, offered a detailed breakdown of recent changes to employment law and answered a number of specific questions from reps about cases they were involved with.

And Nicole Clarke and Tony Lowe from employment advice and dispute resolution specialists ACAS set out how reps could contribute to more effective conciliation processes in the workplace.

The two rounds of workshops after lunch offered practical, up-to-date, hands-on sessions to support reps in the workplace.

Ivor Riddell reminded participants in the Changing Lives Through Learning workshop, which was chaired by TUC Learning & Skills Policy Officer Julia Jones:

ULRs have the same place in law as health and safety reps. Learning agreements are still sitting there, which means you have rights through collective bargaining – engage with your companies to make sure they act on those agreements.

Bill Esmond, Associate Professor – Education and Employment at the University of Derby, set out how he and his colleagues research how education and training can help young people find their way in life.

The current apprenticeships model is shaping new inequalities in the workforce and in education. Learning at work is mostly organised around turning up on time and standards of behaviour, when they should be teaching about how to connect college learning with workplace activity.

Chris Segal, who organises learning opportunities for members of Community, explained how the union’s In Your Community campaign was bringing local people together to find solutions to important local issues in Somerset and on Merseyside.

The union had also developed a partnership with the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) through which Community members facing redundancy can access free information, advice and guidance to help them secure new opportunities, Chris said.