The Community & Youth Workers' Union must expand its recruitment or face being swallowed up by the expanding and diversifying labour market in work with young people. That was the message facing delegates at the union's recent annual conference in Cumbria.
With just over 4,000 members, the union is one of the smallest in the TUC, and it has long valued its independence as a specialist union over teaming up as a section of a larger trade union. But the continued large-scale investment in work with young people means the union is being forced to reassess the ways it works and is organised to adapt to the new make-up of the workforce.
Last year's conference saw the union vote to end its caucus structure, which gave power to self-organising groups based on race, gender and sexuality.
The structure introduced this year means it is now structured around five occupational groups: youth workers, community workers, play workers, personal advisers and learning mentors.
The union wants to get as many of these workers on the Joint Negotiating Committee for Youth and Community Workers (JNC) terms and conditions that are common in youth work and which it states result in higher pay and longer holidays than other public sector scales. One immediate result is the conference decision to seek funds to appoint a full-time organiser to support play workers in the union.
Kev Henman, National Executive Committee member and co-editor of the Union's journal Rapport, explains: "The NEC believes we need to recruit workers from all five professions. We want to see them on JNC, not APTC (Administrative, Professional, Technical and Clerical Services Staff), or any other scale thought up in a boardroom. We want them in a safe and healthy workplace, to be free from bullying and we want to be at the forefront of negotiations on pay." Henman adds that the union wants a membership so strong, and so organised, that "we never return to the dark days of the 1980s".
But the union acknowledges it faces a struggle. Demand for JNC-qualified workers outstrips supply, and if employers cannot get the workers they may well abandon it. Southwark has already done so and Portsmouth is among those moving towards it. A particular problem is that there is no framework through which skilled workers with qualifications in closely related fields but no JNC recognition can gain higher rates of pay on that scale. Candidates are unlikely to accept the lower, unqualified JNC rate, and employers may see it as a hindrance.
A conference motion to establish such a framework was debated extensively, but delegates voted for it to "lie on the table" while more work was done.
CYWU general secretary Doug Nicholls says: "We don't want to tie our hands when the field is changing so rapidly."
The conference did pass a motion to get exact details in the next month from employers on who is getting paid what.
The chair of the salary and tenure committee, Larry McCready, urged the conference to use this time of unprecedented demand for workers to ensure improved terms. "Let's take a lead from the Fire Brigades Union: we put out fires too, in a different way," he says. "We're in the best ever position to get a pay rise, but only if we have the information."
MAIN POINTS OF THE CONFERENCE
- The chair of the union's casework committee, Pete Johnson, said 12 youth and community workers had lost their jobs for downloading, or allowing their computers to be used for downloading, pornography. "The message must be: 'Don't get involved'," he adds. "And if you do, don't expect this union to support you."
- Following a landmark European case involving Spanish doctors, the union is to campaign for the JNC to get workers on residentials paid for all the time they are away from home, including the time when they are asleep.
- The union is losing around 100,000 in underpayment of membership fees. But a get-tough policy of withdrawing services from members in arrears has resulted in a boost to income that turned last year's 36,749 deficit in the accounts into an 1,819 surplus.
- For the first time, delegates were able to gain an Open College Network credit for their participation. The scheme involved membership of Ruskin College and was co-ordinated by education officers from the General Federation of Trade Unions, who also ran workshops.
- The union is counting the cost of a grievance procedure brought by one of its own National Executive Committee members. The alleged case of race and sex discrimination was dropped after a "directions hearing" by the chair of the tribunal. General secretary Doug Nicholls called the case "spurious, vexatious and a huge lead weight on us". It is estimated to have cost the union 10,000.
- Next year's conference will take place at the Millennium Forum in Derry, Northern Ireland, from 28 April to 2 May.
