UNI organiser Nigel Flanagan outlined the steps to a successful campaign and set the delegates to work on how they could apply it to their workplaces.
He encouraged them to think about what they would do if they could change one thing at work. "Find the issue most widely and deeply felt and build your organising campaign around that, he said.
Breaking Through strategy
- Draw up a strategy based on information, knowledge, intelligence and reality. Review, learn and develop your strategy.
- Mapping: Get a good idea of where everyone is eg how do we map the 12,000 people at Sellafield, where they work, what shifts they do?
- One to one conversations (listening, not talking) eg why everyone in that office refuses to join the union. How do we know?
- Find a workers’ issue and build a campaign around this
- Find new leaders, test them, train them, mentor them.
- Turn recruitment drives into organising campaigns.
- Resources: not just money but time, technology, helpers, ears and eyes on the ground.
- Sustainability