Going into this year, Dundee Labour students had just two members and meetings were stuck to the ‘AOCB’ culture of minutes and agendas. We had tried recruitment, but to be honest we had nothing to really recruit people to.

Here I am with other enthusiastic organisers in the making at Movement for Change Intensive Training in Barnsley in November 2012

I was delighted to be given the opportunity through my trade union Community to attend the Movement for Change intensive training weekend last November. The weekend allowed me to hear from, and become friends with, activists not only from across the UK, but from the Labour Movement in Europe too. We were all organising to achieve change within our communities in different ways. To hear their personal testimony of what had motivated them to come to the training was truly a unique and profound experience in over six years of being a Labour member. The skills I learned, people I met, and my personal growth as an organiser in the making that the training allowed was essential in how I was to lead the action for pay justice at my university.

The weekend highlighted the importance in developing a personal narrative and equally the importance of understanding what made others motivated to achieve change. This seemed like the perfect way to start off our new year. Our initial meetings were therefore used to speak about what had brought us to join the Labour Party and displayed the wide range of social backgrounds and motivations that now existed within our campus society. Critically, through hearing each other’s stories, we were all convinced that the Living Wage was a cause worth advocating, agitating and organising for.

Building power through relationships

Through the use of role play scenario during the Movement for Change training, I found the importance of building relationships with a wide range of people truly striking. So we began our campaign by going round student halls and speaking with other students through societies we were involved with or taking the time while waiting on lectures to speak with people in our classes. Often it was small five minute conversations in which we expresses our own displeasure in studying at a university where 153 members of staff were paid below £7.45 per hour, and overwhelmingly students connected in some way with our vision of how the university should be run. Critically, we spoke to and built relationships with staff employed at the university who were paid below the Living Wage so that we had a joint campaign moving forward. In next to no time we had a petition with over 500 signatures and email addresses.

Something that stuck with me from the residential was the need for the continued development of the issue so as to reach and encapsulate the interest of as many people as possible. To do this I enlisted the help of local Labour elected members Jenny Marra MSP, Jim McGovern MP and Councillor Richard McCready who were asked to publicly pledge their support from which we managed to get our initial local newspaper coverage. Their political weight and recognition allowed for our actions to develop a stronger credibility and for our movement to become an issue for the whole of Dundee bursting free of any disorganised, ill-thought-out, student protest typecast. Our credibility as a movement and as force within Dundee was further enhanced by the support from our Rector who was able to secure us yet further media attention and for the issue to be firmly placed on university court members agendas.

From building a coalition of societies of all political beliefs and pressure groups including Oxfam and the feminist society – who were agitated by the highly disproportionate gender inequality amongst low paid workers – we had constructed enough support to get our traditionally conservative student union to pass a motion for its executive to be pushing university management at every opportunity to implement the Living Wage.

Developing a campaign strategy with Movement for Change

By building power through relationships, Dundee Labour Students were able to build and impressive campaign for the Living Wage

With the continued support of Kate from Movement for Change I was able to devise a campaign strategy that understood the underlying power dynamics within our university. This allowed for our agitation to be focused into constructive action which culminated in our public event on 30th April where speakers would press the case for the Living Wage and fun informal games would highlight the gross pay injustice that exists on our campus. The Principal, who had refused or ignored our previous invitations for meetings, was invited as we knew he was due to deliver training to library staff workers on that day. Unfortunately, he changed his diary and suddenly “Sorry, Mr Downes is not in Dundee on Tuesday” was the response from an increasingly flustered PA. With it being unfair for our event to go ahead without a Principal figure I decided that I would have to fill the gap, and donned the appropriate attire of a ‘fat cat’ complete with cigar and top hat. Even though people had exams and were revising, over 50 people attended our action: a wide range of students who we had built relationships throughout the year, and from numerous societies from all political backgrounds, but we all agreed on the Living Wage. Local radio stations, newspapers, and television all came down to cover the action, and you can read more about it here.

Media coverage from our action in April

Because of the range of people present and the press coverage, The Head of Press for the university came to the action and made a commitment to discuss the issue at the next university council meeting and to release a statement afterwards. We look forward to hearing what Principal Pete Downes has to say, and the campaign continues. With the help of the UNISON branch, our representatives on University Court and with aspects of the training that I had learned now passed to the next generation of campaign leadership, we will continue to press for – and win – a Living Wage for all members of staff at the University of Dundee.

Connor McElwaine first worked with Movement for Change on our intensive training weekend. Since then, he has built a strong leadership team and led a fantastic campaign on the Living Wage at Dundee University. There are still a few places on our next intensive training weekend in June – you can apply here.

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The size of the issue facing the community in Kilburn becomes apparent as I walk through the high street. The bright, welcoming high street legal loan sharks in the area reflect an inability to access affordable credit at a time when wages are stagnating and prices are rising for ordinary people in communities across the country.

My mission? To see for myself the reality of accessing credit from legal loan sharks. I walk into these high street outlets, ranging from ‘The Money Shop’ to ‘Speedy Cash’ and enquire about borrowing some cash to pay my student rent at the end of the month. The place is busy. The deals sound deceptively attractive. Indeed, their relational, helpful service is so convincing that I’m almost tempted to walk out with £300 in my back pocket…

Yet what wasn’t as clear was details of the repayments that can easily build up. Staff talk of a ‘bonus payment’ if I repay the money on time, putting less emphasis on the large amounts of interest I’d be paying the company if I failed to do that.

In a month that was dubbed ‘black April’, where ordinary people risk loosing their benefits and working tax credits at the same time the government is giving a tax cut to the very richest in society, it’s no April Fools joke when it looks likely families will have to turn to pay day lenders in order to pay the bills and put food on the table.

What’s clear is that this is a familiar story on high streets across Britain. For the mother who needs to buy new school uniform for their children, or the young person who can’t meet their rent payments, there must seem little choice than to use these evermore accessible shops on their high street.

By speaking to people in charity shops and community centres it became clear that these shops would continue to be a necessity for all too many people.

I cannot claim to have experienced what would happen if I’d taken the loan and struggled to make the repayments – yet that is the experience of people across Britain, as has been proved through the grassroots SharkStoppers campaign.

The truth is that my mission came to a halt when I walked out the door. I can only imagine the feeling of powerlessness when people have nowhere else to turn. A sense that there is no alternative but to use these predatory companies and to go into debt.

There’s no chance of creating more resilient communities when these irresponsible companies are the answer to people’s economic woes.

Jamie Wright is communications officer at Goldsmiths Labour Students and an intern with Movement for Change. This piece was first published in Smiths Magazine in May 2013.

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We’ll look at the theory and practice of community organising, and how to develop campaigns and build campaign teams. The session will be very practical and is most suitable for people who want to take action in their communities and bring change.

The session will run from 12pm –  4pm and will be held at:

Cadbury Heath Hall, School Road, Cadbury Heath, BS30 8EN

Tea and coffee will be provided.

You can register for the training here.

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It’s been a big few weeks for the Home Sweet Home campaign. And the next few weeks will be just as important.

Our activists have been organising and negotiating to ensure that the campaign to improve service and accountability in the private rental sector makes as much progress as possible.

The team has been busy at work. Fanwell, a Home Sweet Home leader, pictured below, who moved to Cardiff from Zimbabwe, has made huge progress bringing disability and BME groups from the city into the fold to increase the breadth and power of the campaign.

Nisreen, who lives in the city and got in touch with me simply because she wanted to start making things happen in the area, worked with local student representatives to come to an agreement on how Home Sweet Home landlords and agents can be recommended to people who come to them for housing advice.

Photo: Cardiff Before Cardiff

And this week, Nisreen and I were joined by Tara, a lead Home Sweet Home activist whose personal story of landlord neglect has driven ideas for the campaign. The three of us met with Lynda Thorne. Lynda is the Cabinet Member for Housing at Cardiff Council and has been a fantastic ally for the campaign. After hearing testimony from Tara, and the story of the campaign, she agreed to a number of our asks. One of the outcomes was that she agreed to provide a key channel of advice from the Council to tenants, advising them on which landlords have signed up to the Home Sweet Home Charter that was drawn up by 40 leaders from across the Riverside ward in February.

Lynda also agreed to attend our public action that is taking place next Saturday, 18^th May. There, we will publicly recognise the actions that Lynda, the student representatives, letting agents and the campaigners have taken. And, importantly, we will plan what we do next. Just as the Charter was written up by the community, we want the community to guide the campaign into its next phase.

Exciting times lay ahead!

Ewan Moor has been working with Movement for Change and Home Sweet Home since the beginning of the campaign in November 2012.

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Southampton Sharkstoppers campaign started with a listening action

Our campaign began on the doorstep, hearing stories about the way in in which the current economic climate was affecting people in Southampton.  Many had begun turning to payday lenders in their hours of need. These organisations, which attract people with glossy advertising, had infiltrated our communities, especially Shirley High Street in the west of the city. One pay day lender had even moved into a shop that was previously held by the local credit union!

Southampton Sharkstoppers started off as a small group of local activists who wanted to see some real change in Southampton. We were all sick of the payday lenders that are filling up our high streets, and wanted to campaign for fairer forms of credit to become more available. Now, by working with Movement for Change, the local Labour party, Co-op party and interested community groups, we have achieved two innovative wins that will enable us to take on the short term, high cost lending industry in our city.

We began by becoming experts in the availability of credit in Southampton.  First we conducted online research; what was available and for how much.  We then went out and did mystery shopping of pay day lenders, pawn shops and the mainstream banks on Shirley High Street.

Role playing different scenarios in each store, we built up a first-hand understanding of how easy it is to get credit, and were surprised by our findings.  Preaching responsibility, nice workers in the local pay day lenders told our ‘pensioners in hard times’ team to use the bank and not to use them, and our ‘student’ team were rejected for a pay day loan to cover rent on the basis they only had a zero hours contract.  We also realised the banks are not trying to compete with the pay day lenders, generally offering only much larger loans.  Unsurprisingly however, many of our belongings, jewellery, phones etc, would be taken off our hands for next to nothing by the pawn shops.

We discussed our findings, and began to see that the issue at the heart of our campaign was accessible of fair credit generally, and not just the evil practices of these sharks.  A lack of access since 2008, with the contraction of bank lending, seems to have driven the explosion of pay day lenders in our communities.  We then built a strategy for taking the campaign forward.

We were pragmatic and realised our power was not yet great enough to be recognised by the huge centralised main stream banks.  Without recognition we would not be able to enter into negotiation to make a campaign ask.  Because of this we decided to focus on the local credit union; Solent Credit Union.  How could we get this small institution, which matched our own cooperative principles, to begin providing more credit to those targeted by the pay day lenders and rejected by the mainstream banks?

Before approaching the credit union we needed leverage.  To get this we made an ask of Southampton City Council.  Would they introduce a new system of auto-payroll deductions for credit union contributions?  They agreed, meaning that all staff would easily be able to put money into a credit union of their choice.

Campaigning in Southampton has paid off: negotiations resulted in an innovative deal with the local Credit Union

We then made contact with Solent Credit Union.  With the knowledge of our successful ask of the City Council they agreed to meet for a negotiation about how they lend and who to.  We knew the credit union needed more high value borrowers and savers before they could begin competing against the payday loans, and we knew we had just opened up the potential for new high value savers from the Council.  But we also knew we could not just walk in there and demand that they make more loans available to people on low incomes.

In the negotiation the credit union sat and listened to the story of our campaign, and then we heard about their business plans, lending criteria and membership.  We took five minutes out to caucus, developing a specific ask based on our ability to organise in the future and their self-interest as a business.

In the following negotiation it was agreed that for every two savers recruited through our campaign, they would make available one loan to someone on a low income at risk of going to a pay day lender.  Two for one.  Of course they will not (and should not) jeopardise their safe lending criteria.  Only people who are, based on their assessments, able to pay back the loan will be provided with credit.

This agreement is a huge achievement but it is also a challenge.  It means we can help the local credit union to grow, while at the same time making it more possible for those on the low incomes in this city to borrow money in a safe and responsible way.  But we are also challenging ourselves and the labour movement in Southampton to organise their money, to join the credit union, and to make a difference locally.  It is only by organising our money that we will have the power necessary to take on the pay day lending industry.

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This aim of the session is to talk about and practice the 1-2-1 meeting technique, which is central to community organising. Feel free to bring anyone along who has an interest in community organising!

You can register for the event here.

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Students at Dundee Unviersity are asking: “When will you meet us, Principal Pete Downs?”

Activists at Dundee University stepped up their efforts on 30 May to push Principal Pete Downs to commit to paying the Living Wage for the entire University Staff. At a meeting outside Dundee Student Union, where Principal Downs was invited to but cancelled his attendance, the student activists had students, union members, local Councillor Richard McCready and an MP Jim McGovern engage in games such as “Is Pete’s Price Right?” where action attendees were asked to guess how much people in different professions were paid in salary.

One of the Living Wage campaign leaders, dressed in a Fat Cat outfit but who happened to earn the same wage rate and bore a striking resemblance to Principal Pete Downes, Connor McElwaine said: “Currently there are 152 not paid a Living Wage which means they are living in poverty and we find this unacceptable.”

The rally on campus was attended by about 50 people who heard from speakers including councillors, union activists and students involved in the campaign

“The University could quite easily find the money to commit to a Living Wage. In most cases this would be a small increase in pay and it is a disgrace that a prestigious university like Dundee that had a surplus of over £6 million in last year can’t seem to get this done.”

The University has eventually set up a sub-committee to examine the Living Wage but for every month the sub-committee takes to discuss the Living Wage is another month that 153 families are trapped in pay poverty.

Another activist Amber Plumbly said: “It is really disappointing that our Principal didn’t show up to this meeting we’ve been trying to organise with him since November last year. Our university will play a key role in Dundee potentially being named UK City of Culture- it’s a disgrace that they cannot find the will to lift people out of poverty.”

The campaign has also received the support of Jenny Marra MSP and UK Labour Students. This support has allowed for significant press attention in the local press which has allowed the campaign to gather further legitimacy and supporters.

MP Jim McGovern said: “I fully support the student led campaign- a campaign which is fantastic in that students have united to push for better living standards not for themselves but the people who help them earn their degree. Applying the Living Wage is applying common sense. ”

The action was covered by the Courier and STV

Movement for Change has been working with the campaign in Dundee since last November.

Kate Talbot, Community Organiser with Movement for Change said: “This is a great example of people coming together to take action on an issue that matters greatly to them. It has been such an enjoyable experience working with and developing such a great bunch of activists”.

Dundee Labour Students Living Wage Campaign links to a broader demand for a Living Wage in the UK. Speaking to the Guardian last weekend Ed Miliband said: “The whole living wage idea has come up from the grassroots. It is an example of the kind of politics that I want.”

“If Pete Downs thinks we will walk away from this, he’s got another thing coming”, continued McElwaine.

The action recieved some good coverage. Read the story on the local Courier here. Local STV news were also there to cover the action. You can watch their piece on the rally here until 6pm 1 May, 2013 – the action is covered at 13 minutes.

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We’ll look at the theory and tools of community organising, how to develop campaigns and strategies, and how to build campaign teams to take action on issues that matter in your area.

The session will introduce the basic theory of organising and basic tools we can use, and will finish with a practical session on how we can apply what we have learned in our communities.

The session will run from 10.30am –  1pm and will be held at:

New Cross Library
283-285 New Cross Road
London
SE14 6AS

Tea, coffee, and a light lunch will be provided.

You can register here.

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Activists in Congleton getting organised to save local Care Home

The SaveMountview Team was established as a result of much local concern regarding the potential closure of Mountview Community Care and Respite Home in Congleton, Cheshire.

News of this reached me when I was at Milton Keynes in March on Movement for Change’s motivating intensive training weekend. It seemed ideal to get involved with this as many people, both patients and carers, were very worried and upset at the thought of this well thought of care home possibly closing.

Issue worth fighting for

Cheshire East Council would save £325,000 if it closed Mountview. This was only one option as they stated they were looking in to what care facilities the local area needed to accommodate people with Dementia, Alzheimer’s and general respite care. One audit report stated that Cheshire East has a higher percentage of elderly people and hence a higher percentage of people suffering from dementia problems which will continue to rise, creating the need for more facilities not less.

Although there had been many letters from concerned residents in local papers, as well as people asking questions at local council meetings, there was no group organisation.

So the first thing I did was to have one-to-ones with people in Congleton CLP who were actively involved. A street stall was arranged for Saturday 16th March in Congleton Town centre to make people aware and to collect names and contact details of interested people. A petition was started and in two hours we got over 200 names.

Getting organised

Concerned people started to contact us. A carer’s daughter told me she was very relieved something was starting to be organised as it was difficult to meet other people who were directly affected as she only saw certain people at the care home at the times her father was there.

We decided to hold a public meeting and invited Cheshire East Officers, and our local MP. Up to this stage various local and Cheshire East Cllrs had been reserved with their opinions regarding the future of Mountview although noises were beginning to be made, especially as a result of our street stall.

The meeting held on April 2^nd was attended by more than 90 people, including organisers, as well as local Town Councillors, 5 Cheshire East Cllrs but no CE Officers. There was no shortage of questions and notes were taken of the many issues raised. These were passed on to the officers at CE, as well as to some CE Cllrs and to our local MP, who is very supportive of the local residents in keeping Mountview open.

During this time the team continued to collect names for the petition which we handed in to the portfolio holder of Health and Adult Social Care at CE Council on Monday, 22nd April with a total of 1730 signatures.

What next?

The consultation period ends today, 25th April. We are now eagerly awaiting the decision and hoping our organising has made a difference. By June, we should have an answer and from there the Team can start planning our next steps.

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Kezia Dudgdale MSP with Cllr Maggie Chapman, Chair of the Petitions Committee, with a petition for a Payday Loan Taskforce in April 2013

The National Award for Best Practice was presented to the Debtbusters Campaign by Anas Sarwar MP, Deputy Leader of the Scottish Labour Party, in recognition of the innovation and effectiveness of their organising work on that campaign in Scotland.

One of the key leaders of the group is Kirsty Smith, who has been working with Movement for Change, including attending our residential training weekend last November, and has since worked to build and develop community actions alongside Kezia Dudgdale MSP, a Member of Movement for Change National Committee.

“When we started the Deptbusters campaign it was really Parliament focused but then, I went on to [the Movement for Change] residential training and learned how to make it more community focused” said Kirsty at the Scottish Labour Party Conference last weekend.

“The award is a recognition to what community organising can bring to Scottish labour party politics. There’s a real energy for community organising in Scotland.”

Hear Gareth and Stuart, who also work with the campaign, talk about developing leaders and inspiring people to take part in politics through community organising.

Deptbusters Campaign

Debtbusters is a grassroots, community-led campaign launched by Kezia Dugdale MSP in 2012 to tackle the growing problem of debt caused by Payday Loans. The campaign is driven by the desire to stop Payday Loan companies exploiting the vulnerable and making millions from those who are struggling to get by.

Debtbusters has three clear aims: to crack down on Payday Loan lenders street by street, to promote Credit Unions as a viable alternative and to change the law around the issue of debt

The campaign has already made a real impact. So far, the campaign has pushed the Scottish Government into agreeing that payday lenders will have to display ‘wealth warnings’ when advertising their loans. The activists have also handed in a petition of over one thousand signatures to Edinburgh City Council calling for a Payday Loan Task Force to crack down on payday loan companies and help educate and ameliorate their effects. The campaign has also been working with Mike Dailly from the Govan Law Centre to produce a proposal for interest to be frozen when people apply for a Debt Arrangement Scheme, coming into force on July 1st this year.

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