IN THIS ISSUE »

Tomas secures new job >>p7

Learning the sad truth about soldier Frederick >>p4

Celebrating learning success >>p7

» News from unionlearn with the South West TUC January 2014www.unionlearn.org.uk/southwest

Learning Works

The South West TUC has been awarded a grant of £38,700 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to bring to life the story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs.

The grant will go towards designing an audio visual trail in Tolpuddle, giving visitors the chance to witness key moments in the lives of the six farm workers transported to Australia in 1834 after forming a trade union.

Visitors will be able to walk round the Dorset village, stopping off at various points where scenes from the story will be recreated on mobile phones or tablets by actors playing the Martyrs and their wives.

Visitors will be able to stand in front of the famous Martyrs’ Tree and view a

re-enactment of 19th century farm workers discussing how to resist further pay cuts. Instead of seeing just a plaque marking where the secret oath was taken, people will be able to see a short film of the ceremonies.

Nigel Costley, Regional Secretary of the South West TUC, said: “This is terrific news. We’re thrilled that, with the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund, a new generation has the chance to learn of the inspiring story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ – six men who sacrificed their freedom to remain strong to their principles.

“Their courage enshrined in law the right to join a trade union – something that is as

important for working people today as it was then. This project will bring the village of Tolpuddle of 1834 alive.”

HLF’s Head of South West Nerys Watts said: “The story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs continues to inspire us today, and marks a key milestone in the history of human rights.

“We were delighted to able to support this project which will ensure that future generations can continue to understand and appreciate the importance of what happened in Tolpuddle nearly 200 years ago.”

“The story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs continues to inspire us today, and marks a key milestone in the history of human rights”

Delegates to a South West TUC and unionlearn conference were told investing in the health and well-being of staff is a surefire way to improve performance and productivity at work. Full conference report on pages two and three.

It is hoped actor Maxine Peake, pictured above speaking at the 2013 Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival, will voice the audio trail. Image by karenhatchphotography.com

Lottery brings Tolpuddle to lifeMartyrs’ story to be told in audio visual trail through Dorset village

Learning Works January 2014

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Investing in the health and well-being of your staff is a surefire way to improve performance and productivity at work, a South West TUC and unionlearn conference heard.

Delegates to November’s Health, Work and Well-Being conference in Bristol agreed stress was the main cause of mental ill health in the workplace, particularly around job losses and workload.

“We need to convince employers that when change is around the corner they should talk to people, engage with them as soon as possible,” said Elaine Dobson, Senior Union Support Officer for unionlearn.

One employer working with unions to improve the health of staff is Bristol City Council, which has introduced a Workplace Wellbeing Charter for employees. The authority is working with staff to look at ways of reducing sickness absence and improving staff well-being.

“The involvement of trade unions in this is absolutely critical,” said Liz McDougall, the council’s public health lead officer.

“We’ve worked with them from day one because it’s really important we address the issues that matter to people, and the people who can help us the most is the unions.

“It’s also important that we are trusted, and people know we will treat the information they give us carefully and sensitively, and with integrity. Our trade union colleagues have been very helpful in developing that trust for us.”

Health and well-being isn’t a side issue for unions – it’s our core workTim Lezard reports from conference and hears workplace stress is caused by low pay, overwork and potential job losses

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“All the major studies show that for every pound you spend on health and well-being, you get more than a pound back because of savings in lost productivity and sick pay”

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“We need to convince employers that when change is around the corner they should talk to people, engage with them as soon as possible”»

Working with the unions, the council is helping to keep staff healthy – a strategy that helps the employer as well as individuals.

“There are lots of benefits that accrue,” said Liz. “All the major studies show that for every pound you spend on this issue, you get more than a pound back and, in some instance, as much as £10 back, because of savings in lost productivity and sick pay, all by preventing accidents, keeping people healthy and preventing them from going off sick.”

Former Charlton Athletic player Michael Bennett told delegates about the PFA’s nationwide counselling course for retired footballers, helping them to cope with being out of the public spotlight and, later, Riz Rehman talked about the well-being of Asian footballers who were often left alone to cope with issues arising from their religion, such as halal diets, fasting during Ramadam and communal showers.

Sandwiched in between these sessions were workshops dealing with stress and

mental health awareness, cancer in the workplace, healthy feet – run by the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists – and health at work run by the British Heart Foundation.

Nigel Costley closed the event saying: “One of the things we learned today is that health and safety isn’t just a side issue – workplace stress caused by low pay, overwork and potential job losses is a massive issue for our members.

“There was a great turn-out, which shows the level of interest in this issue, particularly amongst reps.”

• Visit www.unionlearn.org.uk/southwest for the conference presentations, and for details of TUC Health & Safety rep and related courses, such as Mental Health and Workplace Stress. Or email tucedsw@tuc.org.uk to request the latest regional course booklet.

“One of the things we learned today is that health and safety isn’t just a side issue – workplace stress caused by low pay, overwork and potential job losses is a massive issue for our members”

How much is sickness absence costing the Bristol economy?£240m per year

How many working hours are lost each year at Bristol City Council?Ten million

How much could be saved by Bristol City Council working to reduce the incidences and consequences of work-related mental ill health?£18m per year

What is the main reason for sickness absence at Bristol City Council?Uncertainty about the future, workload and software or technical issues

Why do people come to work despite feeling unwell?They don’t want to overburden colleagues

Does caring for your staff’s health and well-being make a difference?It can reduce sick days by up to 27%

* Statistics from quiz to conference by Liz McDougall, Health Improvement Co-Ordinator, Bristol City Council

Health facts & figuresTop left: The PFA’s Michael Bennett Below: Bristol City Council’s Liz McDougall

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Learning Works January 2014

Learning the sad truth about soldier FrederickUnions commemorate the centenary of World War One by exploring the world of work in 1914. By Tim Lezard

I deeply regret to inform you that your son was killed by a shell which struck the shelter occupied by him and three other stretcher bearers.”

It’s the letter every parent dreads receiving in wartime and, 96 years on, these very words again sent a shiver down the spine of the reader: PCS learning organiser Jack Davies.

The son referred to in the missive from his commanding officer in December 1917 was Frederick Cornelius White, a member of the Prince of Wales’s Own Civil Service Rifles who fought on the Western Front during World War One.

In peacetime, young Frederick (he was just 17 when he died) worked as a civil servant in Exeter, and it was this that sparked Jack’s interest as he embarked on a project to mark the centenary of the war.

“There’s a lot going on to commemorate the war, and I wanted to look at how we could get involved from a trade union perspective,” Jack says.

“We want to engage our members in helping them to explore what their union was like in that period, what employment was like, what working conditions were like because it’s good to offer an alternative perspective to compliment what the county council and other agencies are doing.”

The idea came about in the wake of 2011’s hugely successful World at Work event in Swindon, pioneered by CWU rep Sandra Absalom. Keen to replicate the event elsewhere in the South West, she contacted trade unions in Exeter and the project sprung a life of its own, with plans underway for an open day in a prominent city venue during the summer.

Jack stumbled across Frederick’s details while looking through Exeter’s Roll of Honour online, then logged on to ancestry.com to discover where Frederick lived in Exeter, the details of his parents and the full record of his military service.

“I found a certificate talking about his discharge from the Army,” says Jack. “He was fit only for sedentary work, such as a clerk, a cook or an orderly, and I wondered why.

“I went further through his records and I saw in his medical officer’s report that in June 1917 he was doing his training on an assault course when he fell and injured his knee.

“There was also a handwritten account from Frederick himself saying ‘I had to jump across a trench and bayonet a sack on the other side, but the shock of pitching onto the ground was too great for my knee which gave way under me.”

The next record Jack found was, sadly, Frederick’s death certificate.

“At this point I was getting quite attached to him,” says Jack. “I didn’t know how he died, so I went to the records office and

had a look through copies of the Express and Echo. I got the newspapers from December 1917 to March 1918 and had a long scroll through them, eventually finding the death notice.”

The beginning of the notice is printed at the beginning of this article, and continues ‘Two of the others were very badly wounded. We feel Frederick’s death all the more because we were due to be relieved that evening for a rest after the recent

“Jack is keen for others to follow his lead and explore the lives and times of wartime Britain from a trade union perspective”

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» “I didn’t know how he died, so I went to the records office and had a look through copies of the Express and Echo”

The 2014 Tolpuddle Radical History School is to focus on the role played by trade unions in the run-up to and during World War One.

PROGRAMME

Thursday, July 17thCauses of World War One Les Kennedy

The socialist and the jingo: Keir Hardie and CB Stanton Dave Chapple

Trade unions and the war Professor Joe Melling

Russia and the events leading up to the war Professor Chris Read

Friday, July 18thInternationalism Dr John Callow

Conscientious objectors Martin Cooke

Socialist women and the labour movement Professor June Hannam

A soldier’s story Jack Davies

Wrong’Un A one-woman suffragette musical written by Boff Whalley and directed by Justin Audibert from Red Ladder Theatre

Saturday, July 19thFemale suffrage: The Women’s Freedom League Dr Claire Eustance

The Labour Party Professor Andrew Thorpe

More details of the event are available at: www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk

“Seeing the report of his death was pretty emotional,” Jack says. “I know he didn’t have any children, so I wondered whether anyone else had looked through his records before.”

The project is backed by unionlearn, with senior union support officer Rob Garrett saying: “There is a good learning angle to this because a lot of the research will be done online.

With the changes to the welfare system, universal credit being 80% digital by default, accessing public services online, saving money online and all the leisure things you do, we thought it was a really good way to engage learners, to encourage them to go online.”

The scheduled date for the Exeter event is August 9th 2014

If you are interested in running a similar project in your workplace, contact unionlearn South West on 0117 947 0521 or unionlearnsouthwest@tuc.org.uk

“There is a good learning angle to this project because a lot of the research will be done online”

heavy fighting. A chaplain came up and held the usual service and erected a cross over the grave’.

Learning Works January 2014

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Teachers in Dorset are learning to spot the early signs of mental health disorders in pupils.

With one in ten children suffering from a diagnosable mental illness, and more than half those diagnosed in childhood not having the appropriate treatment, ATL is working with unionlearn to raise awareness in the staffroom.

Together with charity Rethink Mental Illness, the union ran a pilot course at The Sir John Colfox School in Bridport dealing with basic misconceptions and facts, covering common diagnoses, stigma and discrimination, where to find help and identifying signs and triggers.

“The course was invaluable,” said ATL Dorset branch secretary Nic Preston. “There seems to be a marked increase in mental health issues, yet this is an area that pastoral leaders don’t have any training on.

“Those of us who attended will be more aware of symptoms and how to react and alert others. We really do hope there will be some positive follow-up action after this workshop because it’s such an important area of concern.”

Nic praised the support the school had given in terms of the conference room and facilities

to run the session. He hopes to set up a network between local secondary schools to share best practice.

“This is early days for us in Dorset,” Nic says. “I’m new into the post, however I really wish to develop all aspects of union work in the local area.”

Unite has organised forklift training for unemployed members in the Forest of Dean to help them back to work.

The union, together with recruitment firm N-Gaged, is offering a range of courses running from one day to four days covering

all aspects of warehousing, storage and driving forklifts.

The courses are being run in the union’s newly-opened countryside community centre in Cinderford, Gloucestershire. The first course was

attended by 16 people, 12 of whom were new Unite members.

Unite regional learning organiser Andy Hewlett said: “We’re bringing learning to people in an area that desperately needs it – they’d have to travel to Bristol or Gloucester to get this sort of training – at the same time as growing the union and reconnecting the Forest with its trade union roots.”

The Cinderford centre was opened in September by Labour shadow leader in the House of Lords, Lady Royall of Blaisdon. It is open three days a week (11.30 – 17.00, Tuesday-Thursday) offering Lifelong Learning, including skills to assist Unite members getting back into employment.

Unite regional secretary Laurence Faircloth said: “This exciting development brings Unite back into our industrial heartlands. Our members can be confident that we are aware of their local issues and that Unite is seeking to work with the people of the Forest to address them.

Teachers taught to spot mental illness

Forest returns to its trade union roots

ATL members look for early signs of health disorders. By Keith Hatch

“Together with charity Rethink Mental Illness, the union ran a pilot course at The Sir John Colfox School in Bridport dealing with basic misconceptions and facts, covering common diagnoses, stigma and discrimination, where to find help and identifying signs and triggers”

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“It is a fact that women more often than not miss out on education and training, mainly due to caring responsibilities and poor experiences at school”»

More than 900 learners have passed through the POA’s learning centre in Dartmoor Prison.

The centre, which is outside the prison walls in what used to be the officers’ mess, was opened in 2010 with a grant from unionlearn. It provides trade union education and lifelong learning opportunities for all prison and secure hospital employees, their families and community members.

The prison governor pays for the centre’s facilities and meets running costs, while the POA provides computers and IT equipment, as well as funding the part-time salaries of joint managers Andy Harding and Ivan Judd.

Andy said: “This is a success story that needs to be shared with our local Devon community. In today’s ever-changing employment market, it’s crucial that we all update our employability skills to meet the demands of an ever-changing labour market.”

Prison officers celebrate learning success

Tomas comes out of the cold to secure new job

More than 900 people have passed through Dartmoor Prison Learning Centre

Unionlearn helps UNISON member into health care assistant role

Tomas Curtis came out of the cold to get a new job, thanks to help from his union.

The catering assistant spent most of his working day in a freezer, picking out pre-cooked meals for patients in Cornwall’s hospitals, but wanted to move into nursing.

After several failed attempts to get an interview as a clinical support worker, he took advice from UNISON and unionlearn, along with paid time off to attend a workshop in higher education and a free HE course in Essentials in Healthcare.

It was this course, Tom reckons, that helped him secure a job as a Healthcare Assistant working on a ward, admitting new patients to the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro.

“I’m a lot happier in my job now,” he said. “I really love going to work because it’s fast-paced, you learn loads and every day

is different. I’m also earning more money. I don’t have to work all hours to make ends meet. I’m so grateful to unionlearn for helping out.”

This advice was offered through unionlearn’s Skills Support In Recession Project, funded by ESF Convergence

Learning Works January 2014

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The South West TUC has published a new version of its popular myth-busting booklet addressing immigration and population changes in the region.

Entitled Truth, Lies and Migrants, the 20-page publication provides up-to-date statistics about age, migration (in and out of the South West), asylum seekers and where people are born.

Nigel Costley, Regional Secretary of the South West TUC, said: “The issues of immigration and population are hotly debated, and affect how people are treated at work and in our

communities.

“Trade unions speak up for working people, which means protecting wages and conditions from being undercut. It also means supporting workers when they are being exploited by employers and gangmasters, so we have a duty to arm trade union reps with the facts.

“This booklet presents the population in the South West. It tries to bridge the gulf between how people think the South West is made up and how it really is. It challenges the scaremongering and racist views of some groups and newspapers.

“We take for granted the right to travel. The way populations change bring the richness of diversity but can unsettle people. We need to address the fears with facts and the problems with solutions.”

Some key facts include:

■■ in 2012 3,200 more 16-24-year-olds left the South West than came

■■ the South West has the largest percentage of people aged over 65 in the UK

■■ in 2011 there were 82 million overnight stays by tourists in the South West

■■ there are 221 per sq km in the South West, compared to 401 per sq km in England

■■ More people left Cheltenham, North Devon, Plymouth and Weymouth & Portland than moved in

■■ in 2012 Cornwall had 3,800 more people from within the UK arrive than leave

■■ EU migrants pay 34% more in than they take out in services

■■ in 2010 52,000 people came to the UK to have medical treatment, spending £219m, while 63,000 travelled to hospitals and clinics abroad

■■ there are just 650 asylum seekers in the South West

■■ asylum seekers are entitled to just £36.62 per week – £5.23 a day

■■ just 1% of the South West are Muslims

■■ 3% of migrants claim disability benefits, compared to 7% of UK nationals

■■ 1% of migrants claim out-of-work benefits, compared to 4% of UK nationals

Contact unionlearnunionlearn South West Church House, Church Road, Filton Bristol BS34 7BD t: 0117 947 0521 f: 0117 947 0523 e: unionlearnsouthwest@tuc.org.uk twitter: @swtuc @tucedsw

All TUC publications may be made available for dyslexic or visually impaired readers, on request, in an agreed electronic format or in accessible formats such as Braille, audio tape and large print, at no extra cost. Contact the South West TUC on 0117 947 0521. Learning Works was edited by Tim Lezard lezard@elmtreecottages.co.ukDesigned by Rumba www.rumbadesign.co.uk

Truth, lies and migrants

a guide to population

and migration in the South West

Truth, lies and migrantsTUC publishes updated myths guide addressing immigration and population change

“This booklet presents the population in the South West. It tries to bridge the gulf between how people think the South West is made up and how it really is.”

The South West TUC, in conjunction with the EU Commission, is organising an event in Plymouth on February 28th to discuss the impact of migration in the South West. For details, contact 0117 947 0521 or southwest@tuc.org.uk

“Because of my accent, people find it funny when I tell them I used to be an English teacher,” smiles Agnieszka Zamonski.

The Polish graduate arrived in Plymouth from Gdansk in 2001, and soon got a job as a teaching assistant. Before long she began teaching English to migrants and ended up managing a Refugee Action’s advice service in the city.

She now lives in Bristol and works as a project worker for GMB, encouraging members and non-members alike to learn new skills.

“Trade unions are built upon equality, and equality of opportunity is part of that, including access to education,” she says. “Much of my time is spent with migrant workers and organising training for those who do not speak English as their first language”.