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The GFTU Educational Trust is helping turn the tide by launching the most extensive programme in
its history. This aims to revive the best of the old – for instance, the neglected world of trade union
history - and address today’s challenges such as zero-hours contracts, with help for those at the
sharp end of the gig economy and all the insecurity that brings.
“We’ve never depended on government funding,” says GFTU Trust secretary Doug Nicholls. “Our
programme seeks to restore a more politicised agenda alongside its commitment to skills training.”
Empowering education.
It also aims to banish the drab world of ‘chalk and talk’ teaching. For instance, it’s commissioned a
75-minute performance piece Our History, Our Future that can be toured around the unions: history
unfurling in pictures; video clips; songs - all very much in tune with GFTU’s record of promoting
culture.
How best can the arts be deployed in the Trade Union movement? There’s a course to consider that
too. Polemic art throughout history - from Picasso’s Guernica to a century of poetry dating from
World War 1 - will be examined. The GFTU clearly believes it is not just about bread but roses too.
In November GFTU will hold a weekend festival to celebrate all the art forms and how they benefit
TU campaigning, organising and education. The event will also draw on the talents of ‘our greatest
cultural workers’ - affiliates include the Musician’s Union - to help ‘fire imagination’.
One joy of education is stumbling across stuff you never knew. Those who think they’re familiar with
milestones of working class history can expect some surprises in the GFTU’s Our History programme.
People may have heard of the 1381 peasant revolts, but fewer, almost certainly, of those in 1549 led
by Norfolk yeoman farmer Robert Kett against land enclosure. With this uprising came some of the
first demands for a more equal society. Students can now find out all about it.
New content, new methods.
Drab content and uninspired educational methods are, says Nicholls, a peculiarly British curse,
whereas Labour movements overseas ‘have embraced radical learning theories and methods’. “The
way learning is delivered is as important as what’s delivered, sometimes more so.” Informative,
informal day schools and stimulating discussion is the way forward, the GFTU believes.
So, when it comes to understanding Britain’s complex political machine, rather than listen to a
lecturer wielding class notes, workers will travel to Westminster to meet union colleagues in the
Lords and Commons. The course will be led by former MP trade unionists who know all about the
arcane world of Early Day Motions and Private Members’ Bills.
Parliament is full of people who appear born to rule - a disproportionate number schooled in self-
projection at public school and Oxbridge. Yet public speaking rarely comes easily to the majority. A
new course on offer is designed to help redress the balance for trade unionists lacking the self-
confidence and know-how to hold an audience.
Motivational learning.
GFTU’s programme draws heavily on what Nicholls describes as ‘a rich tradition of informal learning
theories in Britain’. “We learn from each other – there’s no substitute for face to face learning.
Youth and community education techniques have been motivational for generations.”
The ‘radical’ adult tradition has drawn on progressive teaching methods from around the world, he
adds. GFTU has been working with, among others, colleagues in Latin America to reform teaching