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GFTU Educational Trust
1
Eight of the current nine staff at the GFTU have a percentage of their contracts dedicated to
Educational Trust work.
2
In 2016 the GFTU established a fully professional finance team to support our work. The new
Head of Finance established a new Finance Policy which has been adopted and implemented
and is subject to annual review. A range of new protocols were also adopted.
3
Two post-holders dedicated nearly 100% each to the Trust left our employment in 2016 and
their responsibilities have been shared between the General Secretary and the Operations
Manager.
4
Recruitment and Selection for a new Education Officer, Education Administrator and Office
Support worker has been held.
5
We have over the last three years adopted an interrelated strategy which considers our
finances, organisation, purpose and important professional development issues about trade
union education. Risk assessment of our work is ongoing.
6
Our task financially has been to try and supplement previously exclusive GFTU subsidies to
our education programme with alternative funding streams. Our purchase of Quorn Grange
Hotel and Nursery and current development plans there have been central to this. We have
also developed an ethical shop with New Internationalist, and we are also launching a new
international publishing house with them this year called Workable Books.
7
We have sought to re direct our educational partnerships towards higher education and
work more closely with supportive academics. A small research project in relation to this
was commissioned and positive results from a good number of academics keen to support
our work have been achieved.
8
We have adopted a clear set of principles to underpin our educational work which have
taken into account the near disappearance of government funding for trade union
education, the pressures on FE colleges, the urgent need to politicise the curriculum and re
develop a sense of history within it, deploy and advocate for progressive arts and cultural
work and to ensure that our curriculum meets the needs of GFTU affiliates more closely. The
new principles underpinning our education programme state that it will:
* Provide and develop an understanding of the political and economic context - political
economy, labour and capital within which TUs operate;
* Provide and develop an understanding of the political and economic context within which
has shaped, and which continues to shape, the historical development of TU;
* Provide the skills and knowledge needed to develop confident and informed activists in
order to build collective power;
* Be informed by our commitment to the values of equality, diversity, and inclusion;