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Last updated: 09/10/08

Measuring the Organising Outcomes of Union Learning

Researchers

Dr Sian Moore

Timescale

March to September 2008

Funder

TUC Unionlearn

Project summary

The Working Lives Research Institute was commissioned by the TUC to develop existing research work on the relationship between learning and organizing. This research aimed:

  1. To identify how far unions at national level have strategies to evaluate union learning in terms of recruitment, organisation and activity, including bargaining;
  2. To explore how such strategies are reflected at workplace level and/or informed by workplace practice, identifying how union learning can impact upon membership and workplace organisation and activity;
  3. To begin to identify how unions can develop measures of the organising outcomes of union learning and to highlight what might comprise models of good practice.

Previous research had detected a concern within unions that union learning might develop separately from core union activity and that ULRs may not be integrated into the wider union. This research suggests that there has been a shift in the role of union learning and that unions are increasingly seeing union learning as critical to a wider organising agenda and consciously promoting a relationship between learning and organising at national union level. The case studies suggest the potential of union learning for organising. They highlight five key themes: firstly that learning is a key strand in union organising campaigns; secondly that it requires strong workplace or branch organisation; thirdly that unions are integrating learning into wider union structures and agendas; fourthly that although union learning may be related to employer skills agendas it also goes beyond individual employability and finally that learning is offering a path to union activism which strengthens union organisation.




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