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PJDS E010 - Nik on strike transcript
INTRO CHAT
Priyanka Raval
Happy New Year. Isaac, George.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
Happy New Year to our listeners as well. Happy New Year. George and Priy are both vectors of disease today. Hence why Priy didn't join me in this interview. It was scary doing it on my own. I was suddenly like, because, you know, usually…
Priyanka Raval
Were you lost without me?
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
A little bit, you know, you're doing…
Priyanka Raval
I thought you would have loved it?
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
No, because, you know, usually there's like, a buffer. And you're like, well, I need to work out what I'm gonna say next. I can be quiet, but Priy will or probably say something. And suddenly you're like, Oh, no one says anything. It's not gonna Yeah, but, you know, I'm excited. We're back, and we're back on the journalism. I was doing some secret investigating over the weekend, which culminated in me being chased after minor trespassing, chased by a load of men who ran at me out the dark with sticks. There was a child with a stick. Okay? First I heard about this was I had some people in the car who I took on this little adventure. And I'm like, there, and we're trying to talk to these men, like, sorry. We're just turning around. Sorry about this. And then my mate goes, they've got weapons.
Priyanka Raval
Like, what this is a kid with a stick. You made it sound like you were chased by a mob.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
There was six people, five men and a child who just, we drive into this place, we're just turning around. We weren't doing anything suspicious. And then suddenly, out of the dark, we're in this abandoned mansion, and out of the dark, they just start running. And we're like, oh, and they're just in this row, and we sort of wind down the window, like, Hello guys. We're just turning around, and they do not say anything, and they just keep running at us. And we're like, okay, probably, probably time to leave, just drove off, and then parked up around the corner. And we're like, Okay, we'll just just sort of do what we had to do. We'll do that here instead of down there. And we're like, recording this little thing, and we're just, I'm just watching out the back window like any cars come I'm getting the hell out of here. So you know, in a future date, we might be able to give more information. But let's say it's exciting, intrigue, mystery. Who knows what could come from it?
Priyanka Raval
So from the Bristol Cable. This is people just do something, a podcast where we try to uncover what it takes to be an activist by talking to the people on the front line of political movements. I'm Priyanka Raval…
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
…and I'm Isaac Kneebone Hopkins…
Priyanka Raval
…and episodes will come out every other week on Friday for Cable early access or on Monday, general release on podcast players. If you love it, then please just do something about it and subscribe to People Just Do Something on your podcast apps today, and while you're at it, join the Bristol Cable at the Bristol Cable.org, forward slash, join and let us know if it was indeed this podcast that made you want to sign up
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
Today we are talking about industrial action strikes. We're joined by Nik from the Requires Improvement podcast, which is an NEU activist podcast where they talk about education and things that can be changed. Nik is currently on strike in Bristol. There's a strike happening around the sixth form colleges, and basically, because the way they're set up, which we get into the interview, they didn't get a pay rate rise that everyone else got, so they've been taking industrial action. So we spoke to Nik basically about that, but also more broadly, about, how do you organise your workplace? What is industrial action? What does it mean to take strike action and like, I'm obviously biased. I think that, like, unions are one of the best forms of organising that we can do. Like, I think it's the place where we have power is our, is what we'd call our labour, our work. We make the money, we look after the kids, we drive the trains, and when we refuse to do that, we show our real worth, and we can fight for what we deserve in our workplaces. Because big picture, this is obviously like, you know, unions, currently, there are issues like ageing population of the activists, particularly the reps for the people who do the work. We talk about that in the interview, they're getting older, and young people are not so involved. But there's been big strikes in recent years, railway strikes that were led by the RMT also involved Aslef and TSSA. They were like the biggest strike in decades in Britain, and they started in late 2022 and ran through 2023. Ironically, I got caught out by that strike. I was going to my job at a union in Cardiff, and I was going to go and organise for our strike, but then I couldn't get on the train because there was a strike. And so I was suddenly, oh, no, I can't believe this inconvenienced me. But that strike in 2023 led to a big wave of strikes across the country. There were strikes in healthcare, education, all manner of. Industries. So like at the moment, now, that kind of big wave has stopped, but this action still exists. These sort of issues that were happening then still exist. Now, our workplace is safe. Are we getting paid enough? Do we have the resources we need to do our jobs with all that in mind, we are joined by Nik today, and we talking about all of this, and we'll be trying to sort of unpick some of the complicated aspects of trade unionism and show you the best ways to beat your boss and get what you deserve through the power of a union. So yeah, without further ado, we will get into that. All right, hello. So yes, today I'm joined by Nik. Nik has been a teacher for 10 years. He's also the host of the Requires Improvement podcast, a podcast hosted by NEU activists, which discusses the issues with education and what can be done to fix them. And you know, it's exciting because Nik is currently on strike, so we're actually relevant and on point for once in our usually slightly out there timing schedule. So this is very exciting.
INTERVIEW
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
So Hello, Nik, how is it going? How are you today?
Nik
Yeah, I'm okay. I'm freezing. My feet are cold, but that's just, that's just the time of year. It's okay.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
That's because you've been standing on picket lines getting chilblains for the workers’ cause.
Nik
Yeah. I mean, I've done no, I've basically done no work this week whatsoever. But it feels just as tiring from getting up earlier than normal and going in and standing outside and getting absolutely freezing.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
But that is what they don't tell you about strikes, is it ends up being more effort than usually, just doing your job.
Nik
Well, they used to have those bins that were on fire, but I don't think we're allowed those anymore. But that was, that was when striking was cool. They had stuff that was on fire, but I think we'd be frowned on now.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
This is what woke has taken from us, it took away the burning bins.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
So we were sort of mentioning your strike. We should. Let's get into the details. So you're on strike. What's the strike about? What is this strike action?
Nik
Yes, this current strike, which I'm not actually on strike today. I'm doing childcare today, but the first three teaching days of this year, so Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I've been on strike. So I work at a certain kind of Sixth Form College. So there's about 30 odd Sixth Form colleges in the UK that aren't part of Academy chains. So they're like, they're standalone colleges. They're not attached to a school, and they're not FE. FE has slightly different pay and conditions. So it's like a further education, further education, so it's an FE. College has different pay and conditions, worse pay, but, well, worse conditions, but they're kind of paid by the hour, almost, sort of thing. Whereas most, a lot of Sixth Form colleges are, like, part of Academy chains, or they're like, attached to a school, we're standalone, so we're kind of like a school, but it just doesn't have year seven to 11, yeah? So we just have lower sixth and upper sixth. Basically, because of, kind of strike action in 2023, the Labour government comes in and they do what they've done is like a five and a half percent increase for pay across schools in the country. So primary school teachers, secondary school teachers. I think FE got an uptick as well. And all the sixth form colleges that are part of Academy chains, or are, you know, attached to a school? They all got the increase. There was like, 30 odd colleges that are independent and not attached, and we did not get the five and a half percent increase. Now, it's completely unfair. You can't explain it to anyone where they go that makes sense, that that seems fine because we do exactly the same job. It's just a kind of bureaucratic weirdness. Now, at first, at first, lots of people were thinking, Oh, well, that must be a mistake. So we're kind of waiting, seeing if it was a mistake. And then they… it might have been a mistake, but they doubled down on it. Yeah? If you were under the Tories, you'd be like, Oh, well, they're doing it because they want to force us all to be academies. Yeah, if you're, if you're paying your staff five and a half percent less, like, we can, we struggle to recruit staff anyway, yeah. And so to keep people like, forcing them to become academies. But that's not really part of the Labour thing. So it's very weird what is actually happening. Nobody knows why. It's very unfair. So the NEU balloted the members in these colleges, and yeah, resoundingly, like, yes, we're going to go on strike. So we've had, I think, seven days now. We had like, sort of four days before Christmas, and then we come back in January, we've had like, three days, three days of action, like, in a row.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
And like, so if we're going to talk about this, like, real, back to basics, yeah, like, we've got zoomer listeners. They don't go on strike. What is a strike? What? What? What does it mean to be on strike?
Nik
Yeah, it's reasonable to say that, because, you know, we talk, we talk to students about it. Yeah, they ask, what's going on. I think they sometimes get a bit confused between a strike and a rally and a protest. Like these things kind of seem quite similar to them. Ultimately, a strike is when you withhold your labour so, like, you don't, you don't go into work. So it's about having leverage. Is saying, Look, you would not have an institution without us working here? We're fed up, and you're not listening to us. We've given you lots of chances to resolve this in other ways. We've written nice letters, we've been in the meetings, we've done everything we possibly could, and this is our last resort. We've voted. You know, it's not just one person deciding. It's been democratically done like we have to jump through quite a lot of hoops in this country, to make it a legal strike, and to not, you know, to not be sacked, for example, for going on strike. But you know, we've done everything, and you're not listening to us, so we're just not going to come into work, and that is going to cause disruption. That's going to cause you a problem. So, I mean, it's going to cause the bosses a problem that they have to solve now, like in, in this kind of private sector, in, like, a business, it it's quite easy to understand, yeah, like, if you work in the toothbrush factory, and all the people in the toothbrush factory, like, we, we're not being paid fairly. We want more breaks, or whatever you can say, right? We're gonna go on strike. And that means you can't make any, you can't make and sell any more toothbrushes until we're happy? And so the bosses tend to give in pretty quickly when it's those kind of financial demands. And now in the public sector, it's a bit different, yeah, in education and healthcare and things like that, it's slightly different, because the disruption is disrupting students, really, parents and things like that. And it's just, well, it's just causing a bit of a crisis. And I guess you're sort of hoping for a media storm to come up. But I'm not… lots of other members of staff are always like, oh, we need the media to cover and I'm just like, the disruption on its own is enough. I think it does get through…
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
Yeah because we're talking about like people have to then take days off work because they have to look after their kids who can't go to school, and that sort of thing is that that's where the kind of the disruption happens.
Nik
Yeah, that's, that's like, our specific point of leverage in the economy, really is, is child care. But you know, this is, these are sixth form colleges. Yeah, they come to school on their own. Yeah, if they could be bothered, it's like, but I guess the other bit of disruption leverage is that we could completely destroy the exam system if we wanted to. No, I don't think we're near that. Like, that's, that's like, the problem. They know. The bosses know that we come into education to help our students, not necessarily that we love exams or anything, but it's just like we feel a bit bad like that people start to get chipped off in a strike when they start to worry about, like the kids and their exams and, yeah, things like that.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
And why are there no alternatives to going on strike? Why is, why are you striking and not doing something else? Why aren't you doing a rally? Why aren't you, you know…?
Nik
Well, we are doing rally as well. The point, yeah, the point is that it's, it's like a kind of nuclear option. It's, it's the maximum disruptive thing. And I also think it's, the workers run the country. And when you go on strike, you show, look, nothing happens without us. You need to treat us better. You know, we actually, every other day of the year, we put up with shit every other day of the year, we're unpaid. Like, it's, you know, when they try and go, like, oh, you know, we're letting kids down on that one day. It's like kids are being let down every single day. Because we have successive governments who say they care about public education, but we know they don't, because if they did, they'd fund it, and it's just not, it's not a defensible position for them. And this is the way, I guess, when you're, you know, when you're a rep in in a school trying to, like, persuade people to go on strike, and they're a bit, like, funny about exams, you kind of have about exams, you kind of have to try and sell them that thing remind them, look, nothing happens without us, and we're not being treated fairly. And, yeah, okay, it's disruption for three days, but it's a year's worth of disruption, years on years worth of disruption from funding cuts, austerity, pointless, box-ticking pointless, stupid activities we have to do. And really it's nothing in the scheme of things and like it just should remind people just how valuable their labour is really.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
Yeah, that if it causes that much disruption, that it should be being properly funded, I guess. And the thing we've not said is that obviously when you're on strike, you're not getting paid. You are losing your day's wage on that day to make the point – you do get some money back from the union, and that level can vary, right? But it's a sacrifice of your wage to prove how important your work is and how it should be valued.
Nik
Yeah, there's different amounts of sacrifice in there. So if it's a… it tends to be like, the bigger the strike and the more people involved, the less likely you are to have any money paid for it, like sustaination stuff. There's normally hardship funds set up and things like so, for example, if you were like, two, you know, both of you worked in education, you were both on strike, then you could get some money back to make sure, you know, you're not, like, totally destitute, and to support people who want to do it. But maybe financially, it's a bit more difficult. Yeah, and this strike, because it only affects, like, 30 colleges, we're getting quite a lot of money covered.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
Because it's not every single school in the country. And yeah, the union organisation with some money aside that it can…
Nik
You know, it depends on the union and it depends on the situation, but it is different. You know, you are sacrificing other stuff as well, like, your sanity. Like, you know, I'm gonna have to, like, work harder, I guess, next week to catch up. Like, it's literally a whole week of lessons I've missed with an A level class, you know, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna have to, like, fiddle around with things, catch up. Like it does make things more confusing and difficult. And the point of the picket line, I mean, that's the other part of it, is like, you go on strike, and then the picket line is where you stand outside the workplace. And in theory, you're trying to persuade people to not go in. It doesn't really work like that. Because, like, the people that want to work, they’re scabs, they drive past anyway, and they beep and go, Hello, and then they go past…
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
Sneak in the back. That's, that's a classic, sneaking in the side entrances.
Nik
Yeah, there's that stuff. But, I mean, like, but it's also like, again, it's, it's about having that moral high ground, isn't it? It's like, Yeah, I'm not coming to work, but I am here earlier than you…
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
Like I'm not skiving off. I came here. I could be here, and I'm, I'm making the point of… that's sort of interesting, I guess. So we'll move on to a past stuff where there's been more. We can talk more about how you build towards these sort of strike actions.
Nik
Well, I could just say a little bit more on this strike in that people keep asking me, like, do you think you're going to win? And that's a sort of funny thing, because I'm kind of like, I mean, I've seen strikes work. I know they work. I believe in the system. I trust in the system, but at the same time, when the government is just kind of ignoring you and saying, No, we don't care. You know, you win a strike, when it's like a kind of, sort of war of attrition, in a way, yeah, where it's who blinks first? So it's like, are you going to give out first? Or the boss is going to give out first? Like, and the union when they're deciding to do more strikes. Or, you know, whether to ballot the members or whatever, they have to kind of assess, is there still momentum behind this? Or are people being chipped off and, like, just going back to work and just kind of getting, you know, you know, getting burnt out by it, and, you know, who's holding their nerve more, sort of thing. And in this strike, we were getting nothing, nothing, nothing. And then before Christmas, this Sixth Form College Association, which it’s weird there aren't, they’re our antagonists, but they're also the government's antagonist. So I don't… really, it's very confusing. They basically gave up their leverage, which was to do a judicial review, which was going to take months. They gave up that leverage on the condition of giving us three and a half percent backdated to September, yeah. And then five and a half percent from like, May, which basically means we'd match pay parity, but we just lose out on like, kind of 700 quid a head of backpay. And I'm kind of like, that's a completely stupid thing for them to do, because a) it proves that we're winning. Because why would they give it to us if we weren't? And B, why would we accept that when we're so close to winning? So yes, we've done these three days, the government, well, the Sixth Form College Association… so it's not really discussing with us, but like, we've announced more action for the end of January, so two days at the end of January and one week, and then two days the next week. And the idea is that the head honchos are negotiating in that time, or it's time to build up more media attention and that kind of stuff. And if you want to help us, if you've got kids in sixth form or anything like that, be really helpful for you to email your MPs, because we've been emailing our MPs, and they're kind of like, what, what? Really, I don't know what a sixth form is. I went to private school. I don't know what that is. And then they, then they kind of get back to you eventually, and they and they go, oh yeah, we've looked into it. It does seem wrong or with the Blairite Labour right people that around here, as they go, they just send you the same message from Jacqui Smith saying, oh no. You know, times are hard, we don't have money to pay you, actually, for no reason other than, like, we just forgot to pay you, and now we're just going to try and double down. But then they haven't, because they've given in. So, yeah, win this. We just have to hang on, really.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
So if anyone wants to help with this particular action, yeah, if they've got kids whose teachers are on strike, they should get in touch with their MPs and say, I'm annoyed about this, and I think it's your fault. And not the teacher's fault,
Nik
Because it is not our fault we're not being paid properly!
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
All right, so we'll pull out slightly. So you've been involved in strikes in the past. So you said there was one in 2023, around pay, was the issue?
Nik
So, I mean, you know, if people remember 2023, was sort of, you know, kind of cossy livs, dying days of a dying days of a Tory government, where I couldn't say where the kind of spark came from, but it just looked very clear towards the end of this Tory government that, like all the big unions, were going to want to go on strike over over pay. And it's worth probably saying that under Thatcher, they changed the regulations about striking so that you can basically only really go on strike over pay and conditions. It used to be in the past that teachers and health workers wouldn't need to go on strike because the factory could go on strike on their behalf. Or, like, you could go on strike over British foreign policy, like, so we're not going to go back to school until they stop blowing up children in Gaza, like, because we could do that. Now, it's very linked to pay and conditions, which you can be clever about. And, yeah, you know, people do deserve good pay and conditions, we can be clever about the way we did it so.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
And we've seen examples like, in the civil service, where the people who signed off in the civil service signed off on, like, arms contracts, yeah, were able to go on strike about pay and conditions. But that means that the work we do, which is sign off these contracts, won't be done.
Nik
Yeah, I think, did they not make a link with their own kind of, like, professional safety, as in, like, oh, you can't, make me do something illegal. So they had a clever way to do it well. So we went on strike over pay. You know, the RMT were on strike. The doctors were on strike. Loads of people on strike. And there were points in that campaign which were just absolutely, like, electrifying. That was that big strike day – like, all, like, all, like, all these unions were on strike on the same day. And it was like, the best rally I've ever been to in Bristol. I've been to millions. Because it wasn't just like Saturday, all the kind of lefties with nothing sort of better to do were there. It was like, all of these people should be at work, but they've refused to go to work, and they're at this instead, and they're doing a big fuck you to the government. It was just like, the best thing. So we had various days, and there were points where, like, the government will make an offer and say, it's a final offer, and then the union, the National structure of the Union, would kind of offer the members, like, you know, is that enough? Like are we gonna, we're gonna accept this offer or not? And the first offer they came back with, we said no, because it was rubbish. And we did some more strike days, and then they came back with an offer that, well, I mean, there's beef around that, but like, the head honchos in the Union recommended that we all accept this offer that was below what we had. But it wasn't quite as much as we could. I know that that was frustrating for a lot of like, the harder activists in the union, because we were kind of like, why would you give up your leverage at this point of maximum power. Like, we just got to this point where we just about managed to get these kind of… our bystander sister unions that our sister education unions that never do anything. We just about got to the point where they were kind of, you know, getting mobilised. They just managed to pass a ballot with their members. It's like, come on, we've got this maximum amount of power. And they were like, let’s demobilise now. So that was amazing. And we, you know, we did win. And you know that properly did the, you know, shove the daggers into the Tories at that point there, they just looked kind of ridiculous by that, that point. And we did get big pay rises. And then when Labour came in, they also had to give us pay rise because they were scared that we're going to do it again. So that was cool. But then that strike, that was, that was a a harder one emotionally, because people were losing a lot more money, people were just, you know, I can't afford to go on strike. And I think, I mean, I do get that, you know, the prospect of, like, losing sort of 80 quid, you know, to not go to work there's quite a lot, I get that. But I think I what I think in my and people, you know, I'm not, it's not for me to tell people what they can afford or not afford, but I think I would what, what I have in my head is poorer people throughout history, poorer people have been on strike for longer with a lot less like it just, they just have – and, you know, the miners’ strike. I mean, they lost, don't, don't tell everyone that. Don't tell anyone. I said that they did lose, but they did go on strike for like, a whole year. You know, there were very poor communities across the country who were, who had that level of like, forward thinking and understanding to be like, yes, we're making this massive sacrifice and massive loss now, but for a future gain for everyone that would be better if we won, and that that having to do that. And they were like, you know, there were people that started scabbing that I worked with for like, eight or nine years, and just kind of couldn't really look at them the same way ever again after that, like, you know, just kind of, because it is just kind of, we're losing money, and you're not, and you're still going to get the pay rise and that, that…
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
You'll still benefit from our sacrifice. That’s galling for people, yeah?
Nik
I mean, that's why there's harsh words for, for people who cross picket lines for, you know, for no decent reason…
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
They’re fucking scabs, mate, yeah. And everyone who tells you, oh, when they still use this in these, these rural Welsh communities, they still know the scab families, yeah, they do, and they should. And, and that is good…
Nik
It’s theft. It’s theft, yeah.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
And, I guess I'd so, like, so you, yeah, that's the thing. And I think there is. The thing about money is that I think there's a British thing in particular, of like, Oh, someone says they can't afford it. We can never question that, because it's money, and money is awkward. But like, was it Brace Beldon from TrueAnon, and said years ago, when he was organising like a brewery, he's like, no one's in a union to be poor like we're in these organisations to make make ourselves more money, make our lives more sustainable, so that we can do these jobs that we want to be proud of, and we want to be proud of what we're creating, be that IPAs or PhDs. Oh, that's good! We mentioned these fighting funds, and that's money that the union pays you for. It won't always cover your whole wage, but it's meant to try and mitigate some of that. It's also why people, like, always bring food to picket lines, isn't it? It's like, what are these costs that we can mitigate for people? Oh, we can feed them. Like I was, I was helping with the strike recently, and I brought a big box of samosas because, like, great. That means that these workers who are losing a day's wage, they don’t have to think about their lunch today. We've that has been dealt with.
Nik
I mean, the other nice thing about that collective lunch, though, and what we've been doing as well, I think you know, you're with Union stuff. Yes, you're using the leverage of organising and going on strike, but you're trying to build a collective consciousness. When we say organising, that's what we're doing, we're all we're organising so that everyone is pulling in the same direction, I would say, and you're trying to show that we can achieve more together. Well, we do every day. We go into work, and it's collective, but it's just that. You know, teachers might feel some kind of competition for results, might feel competition for student numbers, might feel competition for promotions and stuff like that in there, but like, but like, yeah, you know, so on the picket line, you get to talk. And the best thing about is like, just get to chat. When I started this college in September, I've met more people standing on the picket line talking to them, just having conversations about anything. Talk about politics, talk about life, talk about their subject, talk about bikes or dogs or films or whatever. Just like, having time to actually talk to people is quite rare in a school like you're just always on 100 miles an hour, and that's just been amazing. But, and it's things like, you know, the samosas, like you're saying, like you're saying, what we've done is we've just gone to Gregg's, okay? We've gone to Gregg's every after every picket. And people like, what I can order anything. It's like, yes, you pay your subs. Like the union is, it's a resource you chip into, and you you take from when you when you need to. And we're just, we're gonna say, have a sausage roll, hot chocolate whatever, and we just chat. And the other day, you know, just sitting, literally, it sounds mad like if you don't have a job, like, in, like, an education, I'm not saying it's the only busy job in the world or the only hard job in the world, but, like, lots of jobs, you know, you might work on your own, or, you know, you can work at your own pace and stuff. School is just 100 miles an hour, but just being able to, like, sit in Gregg's and talk to people. And the other day, a seagull walked in and picked a packet of crisps and walked outside and just ate it and everyone's talking about that now, next day on the picket lines, oh, did you see this seagull? It's just, like, it's just such a rarity in a school to actually just have some kind of like, he hesitated a bit over which flavor he was going to have, and then he just went out and bit it open in one bite. He didn't share, he didn't share with the other seagulls. Maybe there's an omen in there. But, you know, just having that time to actually talk to people and build that kind of thing, like, and it's just having that space where we're like, look, we've all got the same issues. And then, like, individually, people go to management and they say, Oh, can you help us with this issue? And management might buy them off with a little bit of leeway, but then when you hear, Oh, that one person got a bit more time to do the marking, but the other people didn't, you're like, Well, why? You should all get that. If that's possible for one person, you shouldn't just be paying off the people who are most annoying. Like, you should be giving it to everyone. If it's deservable…
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
All the workers should be equally annoying.
Nik
Yeah. I mean, I actually, I mean, on this one. Maybe this is worth fleshing out. So like, support staff in school. So support staff could be like a teaching assistant, could be an admin person, can be anything. Support staff often in schools, it's difficult because we've got different pay and conditions. So often, like the teachers will have a ballot on something like Pay, and then support staff are not – so you end up with a situation where even if we're even if they're in the same union as us, so the support staff can be in the NEU like anyone, like the dinner ladies and the site team, to the, you know, head teacher's assistant, anyone can be in the NEU. They weren't balloted on pay, because they are paid separately. Now, because the support staff have loads of issues in the college, yeah, they also wanted to show their support for us, and they wanted to show like a big fuck you to management. So lots of them enacted this right, and this is probably worth talking about, which is a right to not cross a picket line. So if there's a strike in a workplace that doesn't involve you, specifically, you can enact a right to refuse to cross a picket line, and management will will piss and whine over this and try and scaremonger you and lie and make stuff up and try and threaten you to not do it, as they've done in this, in this strike. But ultimately, loads of support staff just didn't cross the picket line because, not because, you know, their pay is linked into this, but because they wanted to show a level of solidarity with us, and also they've got their own beef, and they wanted to, they want support from teachers on their own beef, and a good way of showing that they've got our backs. You know, they show that they've got our backs. So that means that when they go in for their stuff, we're like, well, they refuse to cross a picket for us, so we're ready for them. So it's actively building that collective consciousness there…
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
Let’s talk about the COVID stuff because that was slightly different, because it wasn't a strike. Because the strike, we sort of talked about this law where basically, to go on strike, 50% of the union members in whichever area – the workplace or all the schools in the country, whatever, 50% of them have to have voted in a ballot, which has to be done via the post, which no one reads, and they have to have voted yes with over 50% turnout, which is really difficult, just administratively. That is really difficult to do. Everyone always asks you, I've worked for trade unions most of my life, and people always like, Well, why don't we just do it via email? They think that it's unions being old fashioned, and we're like, no, no, it's that this is the law. We don't want to do it like this. This is annoying. That's the sort of legal bit of that, and that, you know, having a 50% turnout is a good bar, like that. Being able to do that shows you're powerful, but it's annoying. It didn't used to be like that. But then some of the COVID stuff, that wasn't a strike, but there were ways to not go in. So do you want to sort of explain that bit? WhyWhy, during COVID, were you able to, what we call, withdraw your labour?
Nik
Yeah, so if people remember COVID, sorry to bring it up and take you all back there. God, it was mad. Absolutely mad, wasn't it? Sometimes you just kind of sit down and you think, sometimes when COVID comes up, I'm just like, man, don't care. Sometimes when I think about it, I'm just like, my brain was just functioning in a completely weird way for various reasons, especially at the beginning all sorts of stuff. Anyway. So there was the whole tension where you would kind of, you know, tune into whatever nonsense Boris Johnson was going to say on TV. And it was like, when we're going to open, and every time we'd make up some new stages of opening whatever. And the thing that teachers always had in their head, and probably a lot of parents as well, was like, When are the schools going to be back open? And we were kept saying, obviously, obviously, schools are massive sites of transmission. There's just nowhere else in society where you have that many people kept to get that close for that long. Even if kids aren't getting it, we don't know enough about it and not you know, it's just really obvious to us that it was that because that, you know, you're a teacher, you just get ill all the time, and kids stink as well in the classroom. Like you're just breathing recycled air the whole time, yeah? Like it's just that, yeah. And they don’t wash their hands after the toilet, the old sorts of stuff. It's just a germ factory. It's just a COVID mine, basically schools…
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
As someone who's got a partner who's a teacher, like, because she'd built up a bit of the teacher's immune system when we started going out, I got sick constantly. Yeah, by just her bringing back these germs that she sort of got some defense to and it would just wipe me out constantly.
Nik
Yeah, it's a whole thing. So it was just obvious that schools were like, not only, you know, a crucial choke point in terms of in terms of virus spread, but also, like, a choke point in terms of the economy, yeah, like, you can't, like we were saying before, you can't have parents going, you know, doing full work if they're having to look after kids and be responsible for their kids education in any way, or they can't leave the house and that kind of stuff. So there weren't many unions at all, really. I mean, the other mad thing about COVID is, like, in terms of the stuff that we stood up to the government on there was, like, it was literally still Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, that basically got it. You know, another feels like another age now, doesn't it? But like, where they were arguing for the whatchamacallit, furlough money. Yeah, that was it. So that was like a pushback against government that won because we've got these, like, actual leftist, like Labour Party leaders are arguing with it and fighting for it. The only other thing that I can think on, I'm happy to be corrected. I could be wrong. The only other thing I think of that there was actually pushback against the government from any kind of, you know, civil society institution in that way, was like the NEU, where we were basically saying our it's not safe for our members to go into COVID ridden schools and to open the school. So the government was desperate to open up as quickly as possible. Yeah. So, you know, there's arguments over whether lockdown or whatever, don't need to get into that. But the point was that they are a site of transmission. Our members did not feel safe going back into the schools with a minimal amount of… I think if there were more protections, like air filtering and stuff, people would have been all right. But I was like, No, it's too soon. And there was this sort of point. I think it was like the first of June, they were going to open the schools, really high virus still flying around like things were just not ready, but the government wanted to stop paying furlough and that kind of stuff. And what we did as a union was enact this right. But the right is like section 48. It's this idea that like an individual, so it's not a collective right, like strikes a collective because you've got a ballot from whatever, yeah, an individual can't really go on strike in that way. These are individual rights, where your right is to refuse to enter an unsafe workplace. So the unit had to be clever in the way that we did it, but it was basically, it was putting pressure on the head teacher. So we didn't ballot members, because it wasn't a strike. What we did do was encourage reps to get members to write their names to a letter to the head saying, we're going to enact this right individually. So don't think about opening the school. So it was applying pressure on the individual heads that then had to apply, you know, they applied their pressure upwards to the people that they're accountable to. And it just became really clear that the. If they did open the schools, the teachers weren’t going to come in. And we did. We resisted the government. We saved 1000s of lives. And I'm never going to get… I'm never going to not be proud of that.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
So how do you organise towards these things? What does it look like? Let's say you work somewhere you've inflation is 5% and you're being offered a 1% pay rise. You're going to lose money. It's going to be a real terms pay cut. How do you… say you're a rep in a workplace? Say your workplace doesn't have a rep, and maybe you could become one, like, how do you organise what we're doing? Where do we start?
Nik
So I get, I think it might be better to, I mean, the pay stuff, I would say, is more… especially in the public sector. The pay stuff, I think, is more likely to be done on a national level, because you've got, like, some version of something a bit like collective bargaining. The kind of the top people in the industry are working with the government to try and get a pay… they're going to come out. I think on a workplace by workplace level, I think the disputes are different. They're more about, like, conditions, I would say, although, you know, obviously the toothbrush factory, example, like that does happen. Like Unite tends to, you know, they'll work with the bus drivers and get an increase, or they'll work with individual factories and that kind of stuff. Where there are individual school strikes, yeah, that comes. I mean, maybe I could talk about a previous strike I was in at another school when I was the rep. You know, people are just unhappy. You can sense there's this idea that morale is quite low in a school often, you know, loads of burnout. Teachers going off sick all the time, often in schools, like behavior management being really bad, like just really big problems where people feel unsafe, unappreciated, and what reps, good reps would do. And, I mean, my top tip, and this is kind of how we run it, is, you know, you have meetings where you call… union members meetings, you get people in a room, you say, like, what are the big issues, and what do we do about them? And you're trying to find, and there's this kind of like Union lingo, which is, like, you're trying to find issues which are widely felt and deeply felt, and visible and winnable. That's the NEU ones anyway. So it's like, does this issue affect lots of people? Tick. Is it really, really winding people up? Is it a really deep thing? Yes. Is it visible? Are you like, is it kind of, everyone can see that it's an issue, or you can at least make it seen if it's not, and then is it winnable? And that means, like, if you've got a thing that you can… you're asking for, like, a demand, either for, like, you know, that could be from they need to release money to do this. It could be that they need to change a policy. Or it could be like this head teacher… well you don't tend to say it like, as specifically as that, but it could be something like, you know, the way that we're being taught to you by this person is absolutely not acceptable. And you're not saying, like, sack them, but you're saying, like, they can't do this anymore. And often someone will get rid of them. Sometimes for that kind of thing.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
An example I got given in… I did a Unite training, which is one of the big unions in the country, and an example they gave was like a workplace where they don't have a microwave for their lunch. And it cost people loads of money because they want hot food. They got to leave, this pissed everyone off. This is sort of, it's a smaller example than some of them, but it kind of is very tangible, of like they could say it's really annoying that we don't have this. It's costing us all loads of money, except to go and spend eight quid on lunch. Yeah. It would cost the employer fuck all. So it's winnable. It cost them, like, 20 quid to just buy a bloody microwave, now they have a microwave, and now they can bring their lunch to work like we're we're talking, you know, that's a very small scale example…
Nik
But it's good. But that kind of example is really useful, because you you you win on something small. And by doing that little struggle, you kind of practice it. You build a collective consciousness where people are thinking together. You show them how it works. Because quite a lot of striking stuff, you're having to, like, explain the same stuff. You're tapping the sign over and over and over again, like, having to explain things against like, no, you've got to post it. Yes, you've got to… No, yes, you will lose pay. But don't worry, you can claim some of it. But is these very basic things, the more things, the more you it's like, a muscle, yeah, the strike muscle, yeah, you kind of the more you use it, and the more power you have. And if you can start with small things and win, you're ready to go for bigger things. But, I mean, so, I mean, the way I would say to anyone, and even, like, you don't really need to be in a union, like, technically, this stuff can happen without it, where I would say is, you write an open letter, yeah, you have a letter, which is like, here's, here's the thing, here's some things we believe, like we've noted, we're working harder, and it's, you know, we're being talked down to, and all these things, whatever. Then you say, these are the things we demand, and the reps, or whoever wants to do it, you go around and you talk to everyone in the workplace, or every member, and you ask them to put their name to this piece of paper. Do you agree with this stuff? Do you want this stuff to happen? And you can write the letter in, you know, with other people's input, and that kind of stuff, whatever. You have meetings, and you get people involved, but you work out the most important things that you know, winnable, visible, whatever. And then you you talk to people, because some people will go, if you just email it out to everyone, and go, who agrees with this? Some people will come back and say, Yes, great, fine. Some people won't. But when you go and talk to them, they might just be like, I just misunderstood that one bit, but I'm actually on board. Or some might be like, not quite sure about this one thing. So you can persuade them, you can talk them around. Or maybe they're still not giving in. But then you think, Oh, hang on, they're really good mates with this other person who's quite influential. So if I can get them onside, then I'll flip them. So that's kind of what the union rep’s job. If they're all doing organising, that's what I mean. It's literally just talking to people and persuading people and making sure everyone's done the thing that they said they were going to do, which is put their name to a thing, and if they go, Oh, but what if my name is on it? What if they're going to victimise me? And you go, ah, the magical thing here is that we're not going to release the names until we've got over 50% of the people on board already. Then you go, Okay, right. And then by that point, you've got everyone you know. And then you can start to go for sort of 60% 70% 80% of people on board. Then you present your demands to management and see what happens. The cleverest thing management can do is just to give you everything you want, but the dumbest thing they can do is to react really aggressively and weirdly, with the idea that you you know, the people that come in and do all the work all day, every day, should have any right in deciding how this place is run because that's obviously for the people that don't do the work actually to decide…
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
Who might never even have been a teacher. Might just be some middle management dickhead who used to work for the toothbrush factory and now runs eight schools as part of her multi-academy trust…
Nik
But it just is the case that, like, even if you were a teacher for 20 years, yeah, you become a head teacher, you just teach less. Like, even if you were amazing at teaching, you're just not, you're not at what we call the chalk face. You know you're not at the coal face. Like, doesn't matter, and like you're saying it doesn't have to be personal. Management will find life easier, their job, and probably life easier if they can make you work harder for less money and less complaining. That just is, that just is the role of a manager. Like, no matter how nice they are, how good they are. It just is simpler for them, because they have pressures elsewhere, and it doesn't have to be personal. It's just union stuff is just about saying, look, there's more of us than you. We do loads of work. Because even if you don't say we work harder, there's just more of us. So if you add the work together, it just means that we deserve to get what we want more than you – in some ways that's just like, a really radical, mad, like, communistic kind of thing to say. But in other ways, it's just like, we do the work. We should decide how it's done. That really should not be controversial. And when you explain it in those terms, people are like, yeah, actually, let's go. Let's go!
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins 44:19
Yeah. And so we're of this sort of generation of trade unions that are pushing this sort of new, we're not even new, it's what they used to do. But we're pushing this approach of organising based on, particularly… there's a writer called Jane McAlevey, her Bible is No Shortcuts. You should read it. It's a great book. It's on Audible if you can't read but you listen to podcasts, listen to the audio book, and so like in that, she makes the difference between organising unions and service unions, with service unions being your… you pay, basically saying that the union is an insurance that you. You pay if you're a teacher or an educator, you pay it. And if you're accused of, like, hitting a kid, marking them down because you don't like them, something like that, then the union comes in and goes, no, they didn't do that. They're like your lawyer. And then they, without talking to you, every year, go and talk to the government and go, we think these people should get a pay rise, and they and you as a member have no input in that. Whereas the organising approach and correct me if you think I'm wrong, the organising approach is that, is that the… like you said, you have a meeting. You go, what do we want? What do we want to change, us in this workplace or in this area, or anything like that? What do we want to change? And then using your power as the people who do the work at that, that chalk face level to, like, make the demands for yourselves, and not through, you know, union bureaucrats like me.
Nik
Yes. I mean, there's the Yeah, I think that's right. And I think the the easiest way to explain it, I've said a million times, and I'll say it a million times more, because I will be a trade unionist till the day I die, and I will always keep fighting for this stuff, because, unfortunately, I really believe in it, and I just think it's the most important thing to change society. But whatever… it's that a union membership is not an insurance policy. It is a gym membership. The point is that an insurance policy, yeah, you pay in, and one day you hope it will come and save you. But a gym membership, like you can pay in, but if you don't go to the gym and train and take part and work, you don't get stronger. I've never been to a gym, but I'm told that's what it's like! If you can pay your fees, but if you don't turn up, you won't get stronger. And the point is that, yes, there are rules and laws and stuff, and yes, sometimes you can stand alongside a member and you can go and defend them from management, and you can point to the policy, and you say, Look, you haven't followed these words on the page. But ultimately the management goes, Yeah, we don't care really, like, what's there to back it up, like, maybe the law, but you're not paying for a lawyer. It's all the people in the workplace that make the workplace happen, that create the value for the bosses, that teach the children, that heal the sick. These people want this thing to happen. You're just going to have to give in eventually, if we all decide that that's what's going to happen.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
We're talking about being more involved in our trade unions, and that's what we're saying. We're not telling people here just to join. We're saying join, get involved, go to the meetings. If you can be a rep, be a rep, anything like that. But what can this trade union movement do more widely, or what's it lacking? What else could trade unions be doing to, like, build on this organising work beyond just like, building towards strikes, like, what? What are we missing? What should they be doing?
Nik
I think there are three main things that you can get involved in. One is being a rep in your workplace. And that's like the most important thing that you can do, I think, if you're, if you're, if you're a socialist, if you're leftwing in any way, you have a genuine commitment to improving society. You have to, you have to be a rep like you just have, you have to step up, and you just have to do it. And I know it's hard, but whatever. So more people need to step up and do stuff in their workplaces, and you get trained and supported and whatever. The other one is, you could be part of union democracy, I like, sort of joining a branch or local committee, like, these things are hard, yeah, and it requires a lot of patience, a lot of understanding of jargon. If anyone's done any political stuff, it's that kind of idea that politics is show business for ugly people, like, it is fucking frustrating at times, like interpersonal beef, like, you know, just annoying stuff. But like I say, like, once you understand that it is just the most effective way to improve society, then you just, I don't know, you kind of have to find a way to make it work. And it is joyful when it goes well, is, you know, collective joy in that way of working with other people on projects that are important. I think that's just what humans are designed to do, really. And then the other thing is, like, getting involved in union events and conferences and political education and going to those kinds of things. So more people need to be more involved, and I don't know how to do that, other than do what we have been doing, which is putting on events that are interesting and can give people stuff, talking to people, hanging out with people, building a network.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
And so the NEU put events where they talk on an issue, so like, there's one happening on the 18th of January? Am I right about Bell Hooks? So it's like a talk, and then there'll be free pizza and a free drink for everyone who comes.
Nik
21st of January, that's Bristol Transformed. That's not even the NEU but yes, they’re running events and, like, you know that would you know when we do events like that, and there are any events we do on Prevent, for example, and stuff like, you know, it's just about, if you're the only person in your school or workplace that feels like I'm the only person that cares about this political stuff, I don't have anyone to talk to. Come to these things, you'll find people that you can talk to. You can, you know, you build up shared understandings of how to beat things and how to get more involved… going to conferences like you'll be… just read your union emails, like the people emailing you about this stuff all the time. There's local conferences, conferences for different sort of identity sectors and things like that, because there's always stuff to do. It's always…
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
And they are good fun. You go meet lots of people, you drink lots of beer.
Nik
Well, they're funded. They're funded like, you know, as a teacher, like, I've never, like, when I first went to my first Union Conference, and it was like, someone else has booked the hotel for me, like, literally rocking up into the hotel and be like, yes, my name is on the list, and my hotels, you know, as I imagine, that's what, like people with corporate jobs, do, you know, yeah, got their expenses, and that stuff is like, look, I'm actually being, you know, my my my skills, my position is being respected here. You know, I've been way more respected and felt way more useful as part of a trade union than any other part of my career in any way, like, definitely felt more valued and more useful, and have much more agency to, like, change things and improve things.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
And if you really need to be bribed, I got paid to go to Cuba by Unite for being an active trade unionist and the NEU does something similar, there's, there can be some exciting, you know, bonuses from being involved. But it's not about that.
Nik
It's an ethical gravy train! That's, that's, that's what we can say! You know, I've paid fees into this thing for like, 10 years, and you I am active on, I am as important as every other cog in the NEU machine. And that's just not something that you feel in education, necessarily. So I would encourage anyone to do it. It's just… if you work in a workplace where you have no agency, you have no control over what happens, you see things just getting worse. Every single year, you will get depressed. Your life will be hard. But if you decide to like, work with other people on projects that matter, try and improve stuff, yeah, you lose half the time, and it's really frustrating, but when you win, it's just like, wow, this is what I was put on Earth to do.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
No, it's the best feeling in the world. My alarm is going off. So I'm going to ask you the final question. I think I might know the answer. So what is one thing people should just do from listening to this.
Nik
So read your union emails and go to an event. Just go to the the first or the next thing, and if it's a branch or a committee meeting, be prepared for it to be a little bit dull and difficult and for you to not understand everything, but keep going until you find even just one person who you enjoy hanging out with there, even if it's just like one bit of the meeting you're looking forward to. But if that is too hard, come to the fun events, or the more different, varied events, like political education stuff, for example, you know, Bristol Transformed events education and socialism come along. Everyone's welcome, you don’t have to be an educator. You know, come to those until you meet people who can help you to find which bit of activity that you actually want to get involved in. But ultimately, like, if you, if you say you're a socialist, if you say you're left wing in any way, and you're in a workplace that has a union and there's, there's no rep, or the rep needs some help, you're not really a socialist, unless you step up and help. I'm sorry. You just have to, it’s just the rules, I'm afraid. And if you've got any questions about any of this, just message the Requires Improvement Twitter account, like we're happy to… we don't get that many messages. We don't know how many people listen to us, but we're happy to help anyone that gets in contact. So please do, we can help.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
Amazing that that's great. I think that that gives plenty for people to get on with, get involved with your union. Reach out to Requires Improvement. Join your branch, become a rep, win socialism in our lifetime. Fuck the bosses. Fuck the bosses. Up the workers. Yeah, all right. Thank you very much. Nik for joining us. It's been great. It's been really good to, like, sort of lay this out for people. So, yeah, it's been good to chat with you, and I'll speak to you again soon. I'm sure – and all the best with your strike. Let's, let's, let's win this and get involved.
Nik
We'll win. Yeah, oh yeah, we got it, sweet.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
Bye. All nice. You.
OUTRO CHAT
Priyanka Raval
That was a great interview. It was a big union bro love-in.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
Yeah, done, as all trade unions should be men in a smoke filled room. George, let us smoke cigars throughout. Proper Cubans, as it should be for the movement. We could barely see each other. We were whispering through, through the vapors, and we got the job done.
Priyanka Raval
And Zuckerberg says we need more masculine energy in the workplace…
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
And we are bringing that to the Bristol Cable.
Priyanka Raval
I actually met Nik during the strike wave, where the rally in Bristol culminated on College Green, and there were huge numbers of people. And I think it is really nice to relive in this interview that heyday of the trade union… Well, I mean, in recent times, obviously, like, the heyday was the 80s and before that. But I think, yeah…
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
Definitely that was an example of, you know, it'd been said for years that you couldn't have strike action on that level, partly because what we mentioned, like, in 2016 the laws changed, which meant it made it much harder to go on strike. It used to be, you just had a quick vote, and as long as all the people who turned out said, yeah, great strike. And that could be, like, 10% or something, yeah, you could just go whereas now it's much harder, much more bureaucratic.
Priyanka Raval
Well, exactly. And that was what was so great when I spoke to him at that rally, and you guys said in the interview, you know, it used to be the case that you could go on strike on behalf of someone else the factories. Could go on strike on behalf of the hospitals and schools. But now the rules of what you are allowed to strike about when and how, like only doing postal ballots, blah, blah, blah, like all these measures post Thatcher, which have come in to restrict union movement, has meant that it was really difficult, which is why that time was so exciting. Remember, at the Cable we were running coverage about it. That was when Adam Quarshie became our industrial correspondent and was covering it. You said in that interview that, you know, there might be some Zoomers listening who don't know about strikes, and it just reminded me how much the trade union movement, in terms of literacy, yeah, like understanding is kind of like dying. It's like, it's hard to keep alive.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
Yes, I think, like, there's a it's for various reasons. Like, there is the kind of the difficulties that have been put on us and sort of anti trade union laws. I think part of it is that the trade union movement needed to show we could still get wins. I think we needed to sort of demystify it. Need to make it accessible to people and like and some of it is just for years like the trade union… what we talked about, the service model, where it was just your insurance and you didn't have to do anything. And I think that disempowers people. It means people just join up. If they are, maybe I'm about to get in trouble. I'll join up now. Like, and were using it wrong. They weren't sort of building that union muscle, as we said.
Priyanka Raval
That's exactly what I liked about his analogy of a gym membership. When I say, like, trade union literacy in terms of, like, what is a trade union, or maybe the jargon that goes along with that, it's like, at its basis, the thing that we've lost is the power of working as a collective. What I think I do imagine is off putting for some people, is the idea of paying subs, right? Like paying a monthly amount, yeah, cost of living. Can't afford that. And then this, this idea that you guys were saying of like you sort of can't afford not to – you take the hit as a group in order to get more at the end.
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
Yes, exactly. And it's your, you know, when we've been talking about, what a lot of the campaigns have been about in recent years, which is about pay, is that, yes, does being a trade union cost some money? Sure, maybe slightly more than your Netflix account. But in the long term, when you're talking about, you know, people demanding 10% pay rises, they are getting that back very quickly, like no one joins a trade union to be poor, is the main thing. And the you know, these are things that can save your jobs if you're accused of something that you didn't do, or if things are being handled badly, or your role, or, you know, as basic as people being bullied in the workplace, and that making it untenable for you to stay there, and they're not being proper avenues for people to try and push back against sort of bullying managers, which is all too common in many workplaces. But we have so few places that are like, community places that, you know, in what you talked about the heyday of the 80s, there were working men's clubs, and if you scabbed, it was very difficult for you to go to these clubs. And like, there's still families in parts of South Wales that are known as, or they're the scab families and like, and that kind of it being so ingrained in everything you did. Like union, cycling clubs, union like football teams, was like a day to day part of people's lives, a fabric of people's lives. And like, I think that we've lost that and that, but unions do give us a place to rebuild that the NEU are really good for, like having drinks and pisza nights, little events, little talks. It's sort of what we're trying to replicate in BT, which was often funded by – Bristol transformed, I should say – which was funded by the trade union, as it was, trying to replicate some of the community…
Priyanka Raval
…the social structure that, yeah, unions gave people…
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
So that being in a union wasn't just: It is now your duty to go to a really boring meeting once a month where we'll go through quite a tedious agenda and not get much done, and to be like, No, this is fun. This is the place where you make friends for life. This place where you meet your future wife or husband. This is the place where you're improving yourself, body and mind, right? Like, it sounds a bit grand, and maybe it is, but I am a true believer, so I'm, I'm always going to sound a bit uh, grand and all these things.
Priyanka Raval
Yeah, I think, you know, compared to some of the other podcasts that we've done, this is probably one of the most actionable episodes I think we've done. It's likely that a lot of people listening are a worker, yes, and if you are a worker, you have the ability to organise in some kind of way without going well out of your daily routine. You know, like other forms of activism, maybe you've got to dedicate time to it. But this is something, yeah, actually, well, it's just your work. It's like the majority of your life. So yeah…
Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins
And I should add that even if you're not a worker, Unite community has something set up within these structures for people who are unemployed or unable to work for whatever reason. So there's still ways to get involved, and I would recommend people look into them, just because these are really amazing institutions and all too rare for people partaking them in these days. So yeah, if you can get stuck in, I should add that Nik has subsequently sent me, I'm finishing up, George. He's giving me an angry look. Nik has sent us a link, which we'll put in the show notes. So if you want to donate towards supporting that ongoing strike at these colleges to, you know, win what they're owed. Basically, you can, you can do that there. And yeah, if not, just tell us about your successes. Email in and tell us how you have organised your workers and toppled your boss. We would love to hear it.
Priyanka Raval
Okay, this has been People Just Do Something with me. Priyanka Raval and Isaac Kneebone Hopkins, if you like the show, please give us some money to keep it alive. You can go to the Bristol Cable.org forward slash, join 10 pounds a month or 120 per year. It will give you early access to all Bristol Cable podcasts, plus other member discounts. Email us comments and questions to content at the Bristol Cable.org This episode was produced by the Bristol Cable and our producer, George Colwey, thank you.
ENDS
Transcribed by https://otter.ai