Post on 02-Jan-2016
transcript
What is wrong with UKIP?
Poisoning the national discourse
Dividing communities
At a time when the far right (potentially more violent than ever) and the ‘jihadis’ want to exploit and recruit from community tensions
Real issues are lost Housing
NHS
Education
Jobs/Low wage economy
Poverty in our communities
Environment
Deficit
Short term objective
Keep UKIP out of office and
thereby reduce their political power by:
•Challenging their ‘soft support’ and
•Turning out the anti-UKIP vote
Long term objectives?
Building strong, inclusive communities that are resilient to the politics of division
Establish deep and meaningful alliances across traditional barriers
Building a localProgressive alliance
Students Young people Trade
unionists
Faith com-
munities
LGBTcommunity
Tennants groups
environmentalists
Key campaign elements
Voter registration 1 million lost from the register
Disproportionately young
Least likely to vote UKIP
Community and trade union organising
It is not new Role of trades councils
Traditional relationship between trade unions and the Labour party
The moral authority that London Citizens has given to the London living wage has been extraordinary’ ... ‘this should not be underestimated …we would not have been able to do what we have done without this leadership…the moral authority of London Citizens has been devastating in its impact.’ Jack Dromey, former Unite Deputy General Secretary’
Practical steps Know what you are organising for
Choose your partners strategically Hackney Unison and Disability rights
network
Undertake power mapping Hackney Gazette and BNP advert
Practical steps
Build relationships to last
Think outside ‘trade union culture’.
‘Put in’ at least as much as you ‘take out’
Have some fun
Use your membersWe don’t look at our members outside the workplace. Time and again I have encountered people through London Citizens who are there through their church or through their mosque or through some other organisation, and then they turn out to be a union member.
Summary
Community organising takes time
It involves building reciprocal relationships of trust
It is about understanding power and leverage
It provides opportunities to mobilise communities and people
So much of the debate around union organizing strategy never leaves the realm of jargon and abstraction, it’s important to spell out what organizing the ‘whole worker’ means. Life was changing for these people. They were constituting themselves as a class. They were bargaining with their bosses, not begging. And they were winning everywhere. They were fundamentally building workers power, and it was an experience of class, race, faith, and personal liberation.