ATL

Organising oracle

When renowned Harvard union expert Elaine Bernard visited the UK, Report took the opportunity to get her views on how unions should operate. Words by Alex Tomlin

Elaine Bernard may not be a household name, but as executive director of the Labour and Worklife Programme at Harvard Business School she is one of the most respected figures in union circles. ATL's organising team had the opportunity to spend the day with her during her visit to the UK earlier this year and to benefit from her knowledge and experience.

The subject of organising was top of the agenda, something that Elaine defines as: "Bringing folks into the labour movement. It's a combination of unionising, recruitment, recognition - those types of things. But that's not sufficient. One of the things we do a lot of work on is how you move a membership who are basically passive dues-payers to being more active and realising that the power of the union is in them."

A key part of encouraging members to be more active is to increase their understanding of how the union works and showing it can be more than "an insurance company for them, thinking 'it's nice to know in case I ever get into trouble, I have protection,'" she explains. "Unions provide feedback in the workplace, a voice, they help to open educational opportunities for members, take part in collective bargaining, improve conditions and wages, and workplace safety. They're pretty vital organisations.

"You can't just talk to people to explain what the union is, they have to experience it," she continues. "It's not about bringing people to meetings necessarily, it's about getting them involved in campaigns, starting with their interests."

It's an ongoing task to maintain involvement and activity in the union as existing activists retire; new blood is always needed to retain vitality. "You need to constantly be bringing in young people," Elaine states, adding that she was particularly impressed by ATL Future, the group of students and newly qualified members that represents ATL's newest members.

"So much of fair trade and environmental concerns starts with young people," she continues. "These are great examples of building power through organising; not organising just for the sake of it, but creating power where it didn't exist before."

One way of doing this is through union learning, a successful UK scheme that Elaine would like to see replicated in the US. Union learning reps promote learning and continuing professional development opportunities among members. "That's a very exciting programme," she enthuses. "For the last eight years we've not had a federal government that was the least bit friendly to this type of initiative. With the Obama administration there's a lot of hope that we can look at those and consider such a programme in the US.

"The time is right - the best time to retrain is during a recession. It's less expensive; people have reduced hours. This is the time when it makes sense to put resources into re-skilling the workforce."

Elaine is also hopeful that the change of government in the US will enable more dialogue between unions and the powers that be - akin to social partnership, the relationship that enables ATL to talk directly to the UK government on education issues. "The first stage is being invited in and being part of the discussion. There's a hope that the labour movement will have a greater voice [under the new administration]. Social partnership is much further advanced in the UK though."

ATL national organiser Collette Bradford feels the organising team learnt a great deal from their time with Elaine. "Identifying and developing reps is key to ATL building capacity and growth for the future in workplaces, branches and the leadership of the union, and is one of the main priorities of the organising team's work," she explains. "We are also identifying and developing new ATL reps and leaders through engaging new professionals in ATL Future, supporting new members in campaigns and activity around issues and opportunities that matter to them."

"The best way to predict the future is to create it," Elaine concludes, "and ATL must engage and organise education professionals at all levels, working together with other unions on common interests to effectively influence education policy in the UK."