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 11^th January Kent Labour Students was delighted to announce that the students’ union at the University of Kent, Kent Union, would be paying its cleaning staff the living wage from 1^st August. This is excellent news for the club, which has been running a Living Wage campaign since October, with several days of action on campus raising awareness, collecting over 600 signatures on our petition and local media coverage. We were especially excited to be able to host a visit from the Rt Hon David Miliband MP in October, who joined the club for a private reception, met our vice-chancellor about the living wage, and helped raise the profile of the campaign considerably.

There are 500 staff members at the University of Kent that are paid below the living wage and we could therefore make a significant amount of difference to a lot of people during our campaign. Kent Union, the students’ union, employs significantly less staff than the university and did not pay the Living Wage. We began negotiations with the staff at Kent Union, winning support of the Facilities Manager who manages the cleaning staff, and asked her to calculate the financial implications. We then put in a request to the Chief Executive that the Union consider the hourly rate for any career staff currently earning below the living wage.

A proposal was taken to the union’s Director Group, where it was approved that the cleaning staff would receive an increase to the hourly rate of 95p, partly to ‘acknowledge the work of the cleaning staff and ensure more parity with the Union’s career staff’ and to ensure these workers earn enough to provide their family with the essentials of life. This has in total put an extra £2,884 per annum into worker’s pockets. There is no doubt that the high profile and momentum of the campaign contributed considerably to this win.

Kent Labour Students will continue the campaign on campus, to ensure that all staff that work at the University of Kent are paid a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.

We’d like to thank Kent Union for being sympathetic to the cause and for paying the living wage, Labour Students and Movement for Change for their constant and committed support, but most of all we would like to thank all the brilliant campaigners, staff and students who have supported the UKC Living Wage Campaign.  Without these hard working and passionate people we wouldn’t have had the success that we’ve had during this campaign, and we wouldn’t have been able to make life slightly easier in a difficult time, for some very hardworking and deserving people.

Matt Partridge

Chair, Kent Labour Students

Councillor Adam Tolhurst of Sittingbourne and Sheppey describes the challenges Labour faces in Kent and the work his CLP is starting with Movement for Change:

It can be very easy to dismiss the South East as a socialist no go area. In Kent we have the largest County Council in England which has been Tory controlled throughout its existence, apart from the four years post the 1997 election where the Council went to no overall control. After the 2009 election, the Tories cemented their grip by winning seventy three seats, leaving seven Lib Dems and just two Labour Councillors to form an opposition.  Surprise surprise, Kent is not a Labour heartland!

In 2005 Kent had seven Labour Members of Parliament. The County now has none. So the work to reinvigorate the Labour vote cannot be underestimated.

I mentioned the County Council because that is our next big election challenge in 2013. Sittingbourne and Sheppey CLP, of which I am a member, did have one of those Labour MPs, Derek Wyatt, who stood down at the last GE, so we know what it is like to go from an active constituency and Parliamentary MP to the current Tory (majority circa 12,000) who says very little in Parliament and doesn’t get involved in the bigger local issues affecting the constituency.

Our current CLP activist base is 15-20 hardy souls who deliver leaflets, knock on doors and run street stalls. We now have thirteen District Councillors who form the main opposition on Swale Borough Council. There is not surprisingly only one Lib Dem which means you can easily guess the party that runs that show.

Labour Party members are always looking to see how they can attract more interest in their local Parties. What is stopping people from joining or even just volunteering to help with leafleting or letter stuffing? When one talks to people on their doorsteps there is much indifference, but there is also much passion for the politic. How do we as a national and local party encourage those people to get involved in our party? A perennial question.

For Labour to do well in the County election and win the next General Election our CLP needs to grow a much stronger local activist base.

This is why we invited Movement for Change along to talk to us. Kathryn has now been to see us on two occasions. The second meeting a few weeks ago was certainly an eye opener for me, and I have since spoken to colleagues who felt the same way. We talked about our reasons for becoming Labour Party members; something I don’t recall to have ever done. When we occasionally meet in the pub after a branch or Council meeting, we chew the political fat and talk about the news of the day, but we have never really discussed why we are in the Labour Movement in the first place, and I have never given it a second thought as to why I am in that pub frankly debating events with a group of people I don’t personally know that well. Our individual journeys are from very different backgrounds and really do give weight the “broad church” adage for our party. Some have been influenced by parents or friends, activism in unions or in student politics. I recommend all CLPs to carry out the same exercise. It is a great way for members to bond with each other as we never seem to go through the process of ‘forming, storming, norming and performing’ as other effective teams tend to do.

Kathryn has set small achievable individual tasks for each of us and we will reconvene again in the next couple of months to discuss progress. The focus is to get us more embedded in our local communities and encourage others to do get involved in the Labour Party. There is no quick fix, but there is little time to waste and much for us to do.

 Cllr Adam Tolhurst

Sittingbourne and Sheppey CLP