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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.
Change of heart and mind needed.
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.
Neutralising education.
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.