By Ryan Carter and Cllr Georgie Laming.

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.

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.

Movement for Change activists getting organised in Southampton

Among other places, Movement for Change has recently been doing some organising work in Southampton. We have met with a number of activists who are keen to build two campaigns: one focusing on the provision of elderly care in the community and the other high rates of college drop-out in the city.  A host of one-to-one meetings culminated in a planning meeting last Friday in which the activists from both campaigns built a joint strategy for the next eight weeks.

Movement for Change will continue helping the group by shadowing a number of the activists as they got out into the community for some one-to-one meetings, and by holding a Movement for Change training session in May so that they are ready with some of the practical organising tools.

We are excited to be working with this energetic group in Southampton, some of whom are coming into Labour politics for the first time, and some who have lots of experience and want to try out some new organising techniques.

Would you like to start getting organised in your community? Get in touch with Movement for Change and attend one of our training sessions!

Ahead of our intensive training weekend in Barnsley tomorrow, Pat Wiggins of Community Union shares his experience of building action through Community Organising techniques following work with Movement for Change on the Isle of Sheppey:

My name is Pat Wiggins and I’m a union representative for Community Union at the Thamesteel steelworks on the Isle of Sheppey, where I have worked and represented workers for the past 3 decades.

Last year, our employer took the decision to close the steelworks with the threatened loss of some 400 jobs. Many of the lads with whom I work were born and raised on the Isle of Sheppey and had worked in the plant for their entire working lives. It was a devastating blow for us all.  Through this experience, and the anger and frustrations which followed, we came to believe that only with stronger links across the entire community could we build a stronger voice for jobs and growth in our area. We wanted to let people know what was happening, but we also wanted to get organised and bring about a change in Sheppey.

It felt like a daunting challenge. In my experience, many people on Sheppey are tired. We’re proud of our community but often feel overlooked. Locals sometimes joke that the bridge across to our island is a “bridge to nowhere”, but it’s only half a joke. There is a deep-rooted anger that Sheppey is a forgotten island and we are a forgotten community.

In recent months, Community Union has been working with Movement for Change to help people to get organised across the country. The aim is to forge stronger links between our Union members and local Party activists.  In Sheppey, we received an introductory training from a Movement for Change organiser that gave us new confidence in going out into our community and building new links as we take our work on ‘local jobs’ forward.  As a result, we are now planning small actions to target the far bigger challenge of how to attract sustainable growth to the island.

The approach will be positive. We’re going to focus on “Pride in Sheppey” and how we work together improve our own streets and public spaces, rather than on the negative messages that leave only feelings of hopelessness and apathy.  It’s a new challenge for us, but one which we’ll meet with Movement for Change’s support.

On the eve of our main fringe event at Labour Party Conference 2012, Chief Executive Kathryn Perera draws on Movement for Change’s work to explain the difference between Community Organising and traditional approaches to campaigning:

In the history of political activism, there are shining stars and hard grafters. Mary MacArthur was both. Born in Scotland in 1880, by the time of her premature death in 1921 she had organised more than 300,000 women into community organisations and trade unions.  In the process, she inspired and developed the most important generation of female politicians in our country’s history. The scope of her achievements supports the impression one colleague formed, on meeting Mary for the first time, that she was a person of genius.

Mary’s work was rooted in the principle of collective action; that while we may lack power as individuals to achieve change in our own lives on certain issues, through acting together in an organised way we can achieve extraordinary things. She, and those who acted with her to drive forward the early Labour Movement, worked with a sense of urgency prompted by the failure of the established politics of the time to deliver on its democratic promise. They were driven by a desire to redefine ordinary people’s concept of themselves as agents of change.

Movement for Change was formed to re-discover that sense of urgency in how we ‘do politics’. Our organisation’s role is simple: to train and develop people to take action on issues that matter to them in their communities. During the past year, we’ve trained more than 1,200 activists and supported many of them to lead success on issues as diverse as women’s safety at night, the Living Wage, Credit Unions and pigeon-infested underpasses. In Waddon, south London, for example, a Movement for Change organiser built a team of angry residents and kick-started a local action. Waddon is close to the Croydon streets made famous last summer by coverage of the London Riots. Many who live there describe it as “forgotten”, not least because it sits at the junction of two urban motorways which can only be crossed safely via a network of underpasses. The underpasses were filthy, covered in pigeon poo despite the promises of local councillors to clean things up. Their poor state, and the unpleasantness of using them, served as a metaphor for wider problems of poor lighting, anti-social behaviour and urban decay. Yet by speaking with residents one-to-one, conducting targeted listening campaigns and preparing the resultant team in how to conduct political negotiations, within 3 months our organiser’s input led to a complete volte face in the councillors’ position.

In contrast to traditional campaigning  Community Organising develops teams of activists to build strong community networks that outlast the specific issue at hand and further their ability to act together in future. It is this concept of power – the ability to act, collectively and in strong relationship with others – which distinguishes Community Organising from various forms of campaigning. We focus on the power of organisation, not the politics of protest, in the belief that leadership development in its broadest sense is the most important feature of a vibrant democracy.

The past 18 months have been a period of steady build for Movement for Change. Developing committed activists; growing localised networks around the country; and building a movement able reach out beyond existing political structures. But we can and must do more. That is why we will shortly be launching an online network, marrying Community Organising on the ground with a social media hub. Our training work will continue at a local level, but will be supplemented by bespoke sessions on payday lending and personal debt, as well as leadership development for committed activists. And our Community Organisers will kick-start new actions in every region of the country, providing the necessary support for those whose concerns are deeply-felt but who may lack the ability to effect change alone. The need for people, in their own communities, to ‘get organised’ has been more urgent.

On Wednesday evening, more than 130 activists took collective action in Wembley to recognise commitments made by Brent and Camden Councils to support fairer alternatives to legal loansharks, as a result of local Movement for Change actions.

This represented the largest Movement for Change action on legal loansharking since the launch of our latest training offer in July 2012. We were proud to be joined by members of the Co-Operative Party (including the new General Secretary, Karin Christiansen) as well as several activists from Unite the Union, many of whom arrived dressed as sharks.

Over the coming months, Movement for Change activists will be taking action in local communities up and down the country. While we’re calling for a cap on the cost of credit and an end to legal loansharking, the actions will vary depending on local strategy and leadership.

To attend a training, build a team of local leaders and take action, contact us today.

Movement for Change activists from across south London, spearheaded by women members of the Lambeth Women’s Forum, are taking action to improve the safety practices of nightclubs in Brixton.

Trained and developed by Movement for Change, the activists have launched a Women’s Safety Charter. The Charter arose out of dozens of 1-2-1 conversations as part of a community-wide listening campaign earlier this year. In May 2012, we worked in alliance with school students, local youth groups and charities (such as the National Stalking Helpline and the local Women’s Institute) to stage a large community meeting in the Brixton area.  At the event, Movement for Change activists presented testimony on their experiences of safety in the night-time economy and put forward concrete suggestions for change.

To find out more about the next strand of the Women’s Safety action, and how to get involved, please get in touch.

Kate Talbot training with other Labour activists

Kate Talbot (@geordiekate89), a Labour Party activist in Vauxhall (south London), describes her experience at the first Movement for Change Organiser School:

I recently attended Movement for Change’s first residential training weekend.  The invite had promised an “intensive training course in the core skills of community organising”. Well, at least the description was honest: I barely had time to drop my bags in my room and grab a bite to eat before starting the first session!

The thing that struck me initially was the mix of participants. Many political events I’ve attended have been aimed specifically at women, or specifically at young people, and their audiences have obviously reflected that.  Most CLP meetings I’ve been to (although I should point out I exclude Vauxhall from this) have been chaired by older white men and attended by the same. However at the Movement for Change residential, those around me ranged from 17 to 60+ in age, and hailed from all parts of the UK.

At the start of the weekend Blair McDougall, the National Director, challenged us all to share our motivations for attending the course in an honest way. After the predictable silence that falls when a room full of people are asked to speak in front of 40 others they’ve never met, answers began to trickle through. Some attendees were seasoned organisers who had come to hone their existing skills, while others had only just joined the Labour Party. Many were seeking to make their CLPs more inclusive and community based, while a few were attending precisely because they belonged to CLPs which were not making that effort. However, two things seemed to unite everyone: passion and curiosity. Passion for politics to change the world around them, and curiosity to see if Movement for Change and community organising could really help them to do that.

The course was intensive and interactive, with much demanded of participants. In our small group sessions, we explored the important differences between strategy and tactics, and I learned some worthwhile lessons about resisting the urge to rush to action without making an honest assessment of the existing situation and power structure. We also focused on understanding and communicating our own stories (or “political narratives”) and practised using them to motivate others to act.

Yet the course didn’t leave us feeling that it would be easy to take the lessons and skills back into the real world. We were challenged to be honest and self-aware in the difficulties of organising in our own local communities. For example, on the last morning everyone took part in a two hour, 40 person role play, in which a small group of Labour activists aimed to win the Living Wage through a community campaign on a university campus. All of the discussions we’d had, tactics we’d learned, and discoveries we’d made could finally be put to good use…

I don’t think any of the participants would be too offended if I say we failed miserably. We rushed straight in, tried to impose aims and actions on those to whom we were supposed to be listening and allowed the nasty Vice Chancellor (played with relish by Blair) to dictate all the proceedings. Still, as one of the trainers so diplomatically put it, this made for a valuable evaluation.

The training culminated in a few people sharing their political narratives with everyone else. As we learned about why people held the values they held, rather than just what those values were, we began to experience the power of organising and realise how far we’d come in terms of skills and experience over the course of the weekend. My belief in the importance of developing close public relationships with others was reinforced. I really began to understand how power is often given away or assumed rather than being inherent to one group or individual. Perhaps most importantly for me, I realised just how much I identified with Saul Alinksy’s assertion that we need to understand and be realistic about the world as it is, before we can even begin to try to move towards the world as it should be.

I’m taking what I’ve learned into the organising work I am doing already with Movement for Change in Lambeth. I’ll also be relying on the excellent handouts and workbook for extra support as I experience organising challenges in the real world. It is this follow-up which means that the lessons I learned won’t (as they so often can be) be left at the training room door.

Kate Talbot

Here’s Marshall Ganz in conversation with David Miliband in Boston MA recently, on the power of organised people to effect change:

Not only is there growing concern, there is increasing evidence that the Coalition cuts are putting the personal safety of women at risk. This, combined with little thought into the impact their decisions will have upon the lives of women is extremely worrying.  Set up by Yvette Cooper MP to collate evidence on the impact of the Government’s decisions, the Labour Women’s Safety Commission visited Brixton. What they heard was the culmination of months of work by Labour activists and brought together a wide range of community leaders, residents and local groups.

In my constituency Streatham Labour members wanted to address issues of women’s safety and looked to reach out beyond our Party. With training and support from Labours home of Community Organising, Movement for Change, activists used newly acquired community organising skills and began to take action on issues of women’s safety in our local area. Going out speaking with women it was startling to hear how many had been personally affected by or knew of someone affected by domestic violence, harassment or sexual abuse.  People were ready to tell their stories; it sounds simple, but it really was as straightforward as going out and starting conversations with young women. What we found was that many had clear ideas about what they wanted to see changed and what would make them feel safer. Welcoming Stella Creasy MP and Kate Green MP as part of the women’s commission to Brixton was a perfect opportunity to share our real life examples of the realities facing women in our borough. The chance however to engage with, build relationships and give our community a voice was a much greater opportunity than simply sharing our own findings.

Much is talked about reaching out to our communities and going back to our grassroots as a Party, but this does not happen overnight and requires work. Having started already to meet with community leaders, councillors, teachers and local groups as part of our action, the commissions visit served as a base from which to build on these links and acted as a spark from which we could establish firm relationships. Opening the event, local activist Michelle Agdomar spoke of how six months earlier she had sighed thinking to herself “not more rhetoric” when she had read Movement for Change’s aim to ally the Party more closely with local communities. Looking round the room she saw teenagers from local youth groups, women from Streatham Women’s Institute, representatives from the National Stalking Helpline and many others ready to present their own evidence; she was glad to announce that she had been proved wrong.

“The commission’s attended lots of events around the country, but we haven’t been to one quite like this” Shadow Equalities Minister Kate Green told the room, and I believed her.  Perhaps it was Jadene’s evidence which she gave in the form of a song she had written herself, ‘Gotta be me’ (creativity had been encouraged!); hearing young women tell how they rarely had a night out without being groped or maybe listening to teenage boys and girls debate the impact of the Chris Brown and Rihanna story on the attitudes towards domestic violence that made the event stand out. The strength of evidence was powerful, sometimes moving as well as presented professionally. This was possible as a direct result of the preparatory work done by Labour activists with each group in the run up to the meeting.

Listening to young men and women engaged in debate, to see them animated, passionate and shaping the work of the commission, it felt like a small triumph. Importantly it ensured the findings of the commission will be based in the realities of all women, but for us it has strengthened those community links and was much more than another community meeting. The event itself may have been and gone, but we will continue to meet and build on these relationships. The commission’s report has since been published, sighting much of our evidence; from this we will work together with our local community to make change for the safety of women in our area.

As a Party we must remain faithful to our aims and resist the temptation to dismiss ideas as rhetoric. If we truly work to meet and cultivate meaningful relationships within our communities then together we can act and achieve a lot.

Catriona Ogilvy

Streatham CLP