EC Meeting March 2017

Doug Nicholls,

March 2017.

The GFTU’s new education programme

Education journalist Andrew Mourant draws out the strengths of the GFTU’s education programme.

What should Trade Union education be about - and who should run it? That debate has smouldered, sometimes catching fire, over more than a century. Its heart and soul has been fought over by, among others, the Workers' Educational Association (WEA) founded in 1903, and the National Council of Labour Colleges (NCLC), established after a student strike at Ruskin College, Oxford in 1909. Ruskin dissidents, mainly trade unionists, were appalled at the prospect of Oxford University dictating content from on high - teaching economics with a ruling class viewpoint. These days the battleground is different. Many who care about TU education have a shared concern that, over the last 40 years, it’s become narrow and emasculated; and devoid of political context. Now wheels are in motion to reverse this process – for TU education to reconnect and rediscover the heart and soul that has been ebbing away since the 1970s. A focus on economic and political issues withered; purely functional training for TU reps in negotiating and representation became the new priority. This priority helped serve extensive national collective bargaining. But today collective bargaining covers less than 20% of workers and the consensus that unions are part of the solution has long since disappeared. More needs to be done organise in the workplace and establish a firmer social position for unions. After the union strengths of the 1970s with union education linked to the mechanics of negotiations, came 18 years of Tory government - that prolonged open season for eroding workers’ rights. Union membership, from 1979-1995, was estimated to have shrunk from 50%-32% of the workforce. State funding for TU education was cut; conditions attached; content monitored. There was little improvement under Tony Blair’s Labour government as public funding of union courses veered towards skills qualifications. It was a far cry from the early days of NCLC when the focus was on Marxist economics and history and a confident recognition that without organised workers not much happened in life. At times, TU Education has also had to face the enemy within, notoriously at the former Manchester College of Arts and Technology (Mancat). In 2005 five members of the TU Ed department, who’d long felt persecuted by a hostile management, were adjudged to have been unfairly sacked because of their involvement in union activities. Change of heart and mind needed. Neutralising education.

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