Stand Up For Your Rights: An Introduction to Unions
Poster image reads: "Stand Up for your rights: an introduction to unions" with United Voices of the World and ACORN the community union.
Creative Practice Coordinator Eli Lower reflects on our #WhoseFuture exploration of unions and their potential benefit to creatives and our communities.
Back in July of 2021, we hosted a panel discussion between two unions and Rising to explore what unions look like in 2021, what role they play, and how we can use collective action for our individual and shared benefit.
At Rising, we know that we are stronger together, but—as young people in the arts—our exposure to unions has been relatively minimal. So, as #WhoseFuture 2 developed, centring Care and Wellbeing and the systems that govern and influence our lives, we wanted to grow our knowledge and spark a conversation.
Below, you can find the transcript and the captioned, BSL interpreted recording of the panel, which was held on Zoom.
With many thanks to Louie at ACORN, the Community Union, and Anna from the Designers and Cultural Workers branch of United Voices of the World(both unions we highly recommend joining if you’re a creative living/working in the UK).
If the idea of creative collective action excites you and you want to get involved, you can:
join a union (we suggest the ones above)
check out our Creative Action Network, and join us in devising creative responses to the issues that affect us and our communities
get involved with Rising!
The Video
https://youtu.be/Slmbm9j4ZkU
Transcript
Host: Eli, for Rising Arts Agency
Speakers: Anna for United Voices of the World, Designers and Cultural Workers Branch + Louie for ACORN, the Community Union.
Eli: Hello everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. So my name is Eli and I am the Creative Practice Coordinator for Rising Arts Agency. And today we are talking about unions and the roles that unions can play both in organising for workers' rights, but also in a context for things housing rights.
We've got two amazing representatives from two unions today who will be joining in the conversation about the roles of unions and how we can all be organising for our individual and collective rights. So a bit of an introduction. My name is Eli. For those of you who don't know what Rising Arts Agency does, we are a primarily Bristol and South West-based creative agency and we work with young people aged 16 to 30 (with a little bit of leeway at either end), using creativity and the arts to mobilise ourselves and others for greater economic social and cultural reform/justice/ social change. So using creativity with a political goal in mind.
So at the moment, we are in the middle of our second year of Whose Future, which is our citywide billboard campaign, where we platform the work of young artists and young creatives alongside statements and provocations and demands of and to the city with the idea of taking up as much space as we can, replacing advertising with art and increasing the visibility and the profile of the young people in Rising's creative community.
And this year's theme is Care and Wellbeing. But under the umbrella that it's not green tea and " I'm gonna have a lovely bath" and "Ooh, I'm gonna put on a face mask and relax," but actually what does Care and Wellbeing mean under capitalism and under systemic injustice and how can we live well within these systems and how can we begin to mobilise and organise to dismantle those systems so that we can live better.
And not instead be tethered to the yoke of grind culture and burnout and all of those kinds of things. So ramble, ramble, ramble from me. But first I'd to hand over to Anna to introduce yourself and the union that you're here to represent
Anna: Hi everyone. So thanks for inviting us. I'm Anna.
So I am gonna to speak on behalf of Designers and Cultural Workers, which is a branch of United Voices of the World (UVW). In the branch – Designers and Cultural Workers– my elected role is Casework Coordinator; sounds a bit boring, but it's not. And otherwise in my work life, I am a freelancer.
And I mostly do textiles. And then on the weekends, I also work in a cinema, as Front of House. So as you'll see, in the unions, it's very worker led, so we're not professional. I won't be able to speak too professionally about things, but yeah. Is that it for now?
Eli: Oh yeah, that was perfect. And that's also the exact energy that Rising operates as, which is we're doing professional-level work, and we are achieving things that are as effective as somebody who might have double, triple the amount of experience or professional experience. But we're not gonna change the way that we communicate or act or hold ourselves in order to fit into something that ultimately we think is kind of bullshit anyway.
Because you don't need to be dressed a certain way or to act a certain way or be a certain type of person in order to know what the fuck you're talking about. So that's the energy we're holding today in this space. So Louis, can I hand over to you to introduce yourself?
Louie: Yes. You can hand over to me to introduce myself. So I'm Louie I am a member of ACORN Bristol. ACORN is a community union, so we operate very similarly to trade unions, but rather than organising people in a specific workplace or a specific industry, we organise people in communities.
So we started in Bristol in 2014. We'll do a bit more of the history of it later, but we're now operating all across the country. And we've got, I think about 30 branches in different towns and cities and very similar to UVW in terms of the fact that we are made up of ordinary working class people and we represent low and middle income families.
We try to bring them together so that we can have more political power over those decision-makers that currently have way too much control over the way that our lives are led.
Eli: Thank you so much. Yeah, so this is very much both a crash course and an open conversation about the role that unions play and using your two unions as specific case studies, but also as doorways into something that I think not a lot of young people, particularly young creatives and young freelancers have had much contact with and much engagement with because there's not necessarily the same entrenched habit and tradition of unionisation in the the arts and the creative industries.
There obviously is some tradition of it, but not as much as in other industries. So I was just wondering if I could put the question to the two of you that from your experience of being in it and your unions are different in, in many different ways, but what a union is to you and, and what the power of the union is in your individual contexts. I wonder if I can come to you first, Anna?
Anna: Yes. So our union. Also, I want to say I started organising or being more active in my trade union two years ago, before that I had no union experience and it wasn't something that was spoken of in my industry.
So yeah, I really relate to that and this is why our branch also was born. So yes, from the beginning. A Trade Union is- so basically it's a group of workers that come together and that fight together for better working conditions. There are more traditional forms it can take where you have to go through certain protocols and you have to elect one representative to bargain on behalf of all the workers to your employers.
But generally, it's what we- at least the way we do it in UVW is that it's not- it's basically just workers coming together. There is you don't have to follow too much of the protocol and it still works. All you- I guess the only thing that's important is to create solidarity, communicate with your colleagues and try and fight for something that's for everyone's best interest.
Even if you don't have all the same ideas about everything. You probably all want London Living Wage if you live in London. So maybe I'll just say quickly a little bit about UVW is that helpful? So UVW is a member-led campaigning trade union, which supports and empowers precarious low-paid and predominantly migrant workers in the UK.
So it used to be London-centric, but now not so anymore. Because it's migrant-centred and very Latinx migrant-centred, the meetings and events are run in both English and Spanish. And the union focuses on precarious workers in the gig economy and other undervalued neglected and unorganised sectors.
And maybe you'll hear the word organised a lot. And I don't know if this- if I'm using lingo that doesn't- but it just means, I guess, organising means, hmm, I guess, coming together and doing the work to fight for- yes. So UVW is known for supporting and being composed of workers that usually are left out of union, traditional union organising, workers that are migrants and that have precarious jobs.
It's also- I would say UVW is known to be a radical union, so it's anti-racist, anticapitalist and it focuses on direct action techniques. So even if the, let's say the union isn't recognised in the workplace, they'll still do actions. Some of the amazing wins that have happened in the last year is for example, bringing outsourced cleaners and catering staff from hospitals and bringing them as NHS staff. So fighting, challenging outsourcing and actually the- at St. George's Uni, the first group of Black and Brown workers have challenged outsourcing in UK courts as institutional racism. And then us also during COVID-19, a lot of workers have done walkouts.
So when they felt unsafe they've used a section of employment law called Section 44 and they've walked out and demanded safer workplaces. Okay, I'm rambling, should I focus on Designers and Cultural Workers or?
Eli: Yeah. Yeah. If you'd to speak to that element, that'd be great.
Anna: Yeah. Yeah. So in UVW there's many branches and so you have Legal Sector Workers, so people working in the legal sector, there's also Architectural Workers, Sex Workers, Childcare, Cleaners and Service Sector, people working in domestic abuse sector. So a lot of charity workers as well.
I don't want to forget anyone but I probably am forgetting. So I think what happened is that this group of graphic designers, they had a group called Evening Class and they started speaking about what trade unions could be helpful for graphic designers. And they started- some of them are, were already members of UVW 'cause you could be a member without having a job that fits into any sector.
Whereas with traditional unions, you might have to fit into strict categories. So any type of work, you can be a member and you'll be represented by the employment lawyers and tribunal. So anyways, graphic designers did some research into artists' union and into the history of creative unions in the UK.
And they decided that it would benefit from UVW's techniques and agile structure. That's a bit more I guess, reactive to the new landscape, shitty landscape of employment. And that also we can learn from our sibling branches with who we share common struggles, for example, things around worker status.
So a lot of us struggle with this of being perpetually freelance, and self-employed when we should be employed. So we benefit from learning from, for example, the sex workers that have won worker status which was a big, big win.
And-
Hmm, what else can I tell you?
I feel I've been going on for a while. Maybe.
Eli: Yeah. I can hand over to Louis and then if you think of something else, we can come back to you. Lovely. Yeah. Louis, you spoke about how ACORN is a Community Union, which is different from a Trade Union. So from ACORN's perspective and your perspective what is a union, what functions does it play in and how is it used?
Louie: So I think, I mean, from my perspective and I suppose really from ACORN's perspective, in some ways as well, you know, a union is, is there to try to redress the balance of power that exists between powerful individuals and the communities or the people that they hold power over. One of the things that we'll talk about with our members and that's part of our political education is this idea that there are two types of power in the world: there is organised money, which is generally what we're talking about is single individuals, business owners, the elite rich, and then there are organised people. And the way that we're able to redress those balances of power is by creating organised people. By bringing us together. So, I said, we're a community union, which is different to a worker's union in some quite obvious ways. Right? So the big one is that for workers unions, there's always an employer, there's a boss. There's someone who is quite the obvious person who you are going to be organising people to have power over. In communities those bosses are a little bit more all over the place in communities there are probably several quite powerful individuals. So there'll be the local councillors, there might be the local MP and Bristol there might be the Mayor that holds power over the communities. There's also going to be business owners.
And ACORN particularly came together organising around landlords. When we first started doorknocking in Easton, in Bristol, where we started in 2014, we didn't know what issue we wanted to organise around. We were going door to door in communities, knocking on people's doors saying, "Hey, we're wanting to build a community union.
We want to get more power for normal people in this area. What issues are affecting you?" And the thing that just kept on coming up over and over and over again was housing, housing, housing, housing. It's not really a surprise, you know, in Easton, when we started, I think it had the highest amount of private renters of anywhere else in Bristol.
It was about 60% of the housing stock was owned by landlords and they control quite a lot of your lives, right? Exorbitant rent, terrible conditions, and all the rest of it. You know, if you try and complain as an individual about these practices it is really, really, really easy to get brushed off and you'll get brushed off in various ways.
They might just say "oh yeah, you're upset about this, well don't worry, we've got a complaints procedure for that." and they'll shove you down this long bureaucracy that is purposefully designed to not work or to at least not cause any disruption to the people who have created that bureaucracy. And for us as a union, what we're able to do is bring people together so that we can bypass that bureaucracy and create other forms of pressure that are much more to work. So for instance, you know, we might knock on your door. You might tell us about your landlord who's not fixing your house properly. We'll note that down. Talk to you about: do you know anybody else who is suffering from the same thing, maybe they've got the same landlord, maybe got the same estate agent.
And then we might through our door-knocking throughout community links, find several people who've got the same estate agent, who've got the same problem. And then rather than each of these individual people sending a letter or making a phone call and getting fobbed off, we'll take them down to the estate agent offices with a load of other people in the community who are upset about housing.
And we'll demonstrate outside the estate agents until they meet with us until they accept our demands. So that's what we're about, I suppose, it's about direct action, about bringing people together. And for me, the successes of that come by bypassing the systems that are created by powerful forces to engage with.
And that resonated me with what UVW do as well in that same way. You know, I think there was some issues about not being a recognised union and that means that they can just say, oh, well, you're not recognised, we actually don't need to listen to you. But actually if you can disrupt their business, if you can get a media story about them and things that they're doing and the rest of it, if you can cause financial pressure and financial harm to businesses, then they're absolutely forced to listen to you.
And so that's what ACORN's about. As we've grown, the scale of the work we've been able to take on has grown as well. I think one of the really important things for us has not just been about sticking a flag in the ground and saying "we believe this, we want this to happen," we've only wanted to take on campaigns where we know we can get a win for the people who we're running those campaigns with. There's no point in just kicking off about something if you're not gonna be able to actually get a win on it. So when we first started it might've been individual landlords, individual estate agents, but more recently we've had huge national successes.
A couple of years ago, we got our first big national win where we forced a number of banks to remove the clause in their mortgage lenders, which was stopping them from- if you got a buy-to-let mortgage as a landlord from TSB bank, it came with a clause saying that you were not allowed to let that property to somebody receiving benefits.
Which was horrific, right? But that actually meant a huge number of people on benefits across the whole country were not able to access housing. So we had a think on the day, I can't remember exactly how large we were at the time, but we had maybe 15 different branches that all occupied a local branch of their TSB.
And we refused to leave that branch for a number of hours, had said "this is the reason we're here today. And if you don't remove this clause we're going to be back next Saturday, we're going to do exactly the same thing." and it took them five days to remove that clause from their buy-to-let mortgages, which is huge.
And you know, as we get bigger they're the types of things that we're able to do. So we're now at 30 branches up and down the country, I think we're at about- I've got it in my notes- somewhere six and a half thousand members. And we've doubled in size every year for the last three years. So we're really really, really, really growing.
We don't just do housing. I said, we're member-led, democratically led by members. So a couple of stuff that we've done that has been non-housing-related: in Manchester, they managed to win a campaign to get local buses brought back under public control, which was amazing; in Sheffield, one of my favorite actions, that a group in Sheffield did, they had a problem with bin collections and bins not being picked up properly by the council office, and local cuts. So local members went and picked up all the bins themselves and dumped them at the council offices responsible for bin collection, and they now get more regular bin collections, which is a bit of a classic organising tactic, really, really, really nice.
Eli: Yeah, that's amazing. I think it's one of those things that feels very powerful, the organising against an issue that everybody experiences, but in that fragmented and isolated way, you say, oh, everyone's got a shitty landlord, which I feel is, is something that I mean, in Bristol there's obviously a lot of conversations about that at the moment, because particularly at the moment, the state of housing and renting in Bristol is absolutely ridiculous and completely pitched against renters.
But yeah, it seems so simple that if you can bring those people together, then that's loads of people because everybody is on that same battle. And you were saying Anna, the London living wage, there often is a thing that you can unite people around. Yeah, that's so exciting.
Both of you speak quite a lot to agility and- I guess- newness and a different way of doing things, whether that's through direct action, that feels quite different to the myth of the trade union. And I wonder what your experiences are of being new and different and what you've found the the pros and cons of that is; of being unions that have sprung up in the last 10 years or so that don't maybe necessarily do things in the way that people expect unions to do things.
I don't know if either of you have anything to say on that?
Anna: Yeah, maybe I can speak for the fact, for example- I guess what's- I don't want to say it's totally new because there's a history of it, and people have been doing it for a long time. But maybe we're- or these- these structures are newer or they're different from, I guess, bigger trade unions.
Because at least we thrive to function more on a mutual aid or 'solidarity not charity' kind of ideal. Because we realised that we don't know our rights and we don't know how to create these networks, really. And that actually it's I guess what Louie was saying about, you think you can't do anything, you're powerless, but actually you are.
And so that's, I guess that's a big pro, is that by being more member-led or more, I guess, less red tape or less service-style, it's more sustainable because we're shifting all our ways of being where we empower each other. We learn, we skillshare and, I don't know, I feel once you've done that work, I'm not saying you'll never, ever be exploited again. That's not true, but I feel it helps shift much more. I think there's lots of challenges because sometimes we do feel tiny in the face of big, big corporations and workplaces, and so I would say that's a challenge.
Also the big challenge in the creative industries is there's not really a culture of this kind of things because the dominant culture is more, I guess, individualised, competition it's because of how work has been shaped there's, I guess, the understanding that, let's say you're pitted against each other because there's so little jobs and you have to stay late, you have to work for free until you get picked. So you don't want to kick a fuss. And when you're picked, you feel privileged and you feel lucky.
You also feel in creative industries, there's this whole narrative of you do what you love. So you're not going to start politicizing it. You're not going to see yourself as a worker. And this is how they've- I guess, capitalism has really been successful is in that sense, because they've completely removed all sense of regulation or structure to see yourself as a worker.
But what I find really interesting is to re-inject this thought into our jobs and to actually understand that people in the past, workers in the past have fought for eight hour days and fought for sick pay. And it's not a luxury, it's not uncool to put boundaries and to have security.
Yeah, I think, yeah, that's it.
Eli: Thank you so much. Louis, I was wondering if you had anything to add on that?
Louie: I mean, I covered a lot of it really. I don't wanna echo too much, I mean, I think similarly, it's worth saying although ACORN started in the UK in 2014, ACORN actually started in the United States in the sixties.
And you know, a lot of the methodology that we're using is directly copied from people who were doing this exact same work then. I think here in the UK, one of the spaces we're able to operate in that works is linked to the fact that, you know, generally speaking treasury involvement has been on a massive decline recently. And also one of the things that's linked to that is that trade unions and communities used to be much stronger linked, you know, when you had a factory in the middle of a town and then naturally, all of the workers would live near there. And so actually they lived in the same community and actually they probably- their union did some community activity as well.
And trade unions and communities were not totally linked. Now we've got this hugely disparate workforce, people spread out across the whole city, you know, and actually that link between communities and unions has for the most part disappeared. And so for ACORN, stepping into that space, the community union, we are, I said, revitalizing an old idea and just bringing something new to it.
I think similarly to Anna, one of the things that's key with ACORN is that same thing of trying to use our work as a politicising force for people who we come into contact with. One of the things that, you know, upsets me is the myth of the good landlord, for instance, when you're talking about housing and you knock on someone's door, and you talk to them about their housing and they might actually think that their landlord's okay.
"Oh, he's alright, you know, my boiler broke, but it only took two weeks for him to fix it. He's okay." And, "oh, I suppose it's all right. Yeah. I give them 40% of my take home pay every single month, but they're okay. They send me a Christmas card. They're a nice guy." And it's part of our work as ACORN is agitating around that space and pushing people to actually recognise that actually that's really messed up. And that it doesn't need to be that way, that it shouldn't have been that way. And using examples from the past of how things used to be. My favorite question ever to ask people on the doorstep, when they say something that, is "oh, do you think the landlord's house looks this?"
"Do you think they take three weeks to fix their own boiler?" "How would you to have 40% of their income? Be pretty sweet, right?" And then all of a sudden people start to think about some of those differences maybe, right?. And actually the fact that maybe why they're sitting isn't such a comfortable space.
I think as an organiser and so, I mean, I'm a member ACORN, I'm not staff or anything, but I still treat myself as an organiser. And that agitation is really, really, really key to what we do. And I think I once heard, I forget who this is- probably I'm robbing this from someone I hope I'm not butchering the quote, but it says 'an organiser's job is to rub sore the wounds of discontent.'
And that's just a little bit of being "actually are you sure you're not a little bit more upset about that?' 'Cause it's from that anger that we create action. And that's what brings people together in a way that can get them to come and do some cool stuff with us and to start fighting for things, you know, it says on our t-shirt in red , "taking what's ours.".
And I think that's a key with ACORN as well. We're not demanding something that isn't rightfully ours. All of these things should belong to the commons, things that we need in order for us to simply live our lives, food, housing, shelter, education, all of this is ours by right. And we're not demanding anything that is in any way extraordinary, but just demanding some real basics, you know?
Eli: Yeah, it's a really interesting point about when you come up against somebody who asks really good questions and you're "oh, well the narrative that I'm living is that everything is actually fine. And I'm really knackered all the time. And I work six jobs, but hey, I'm having a great time. It's fine." And then someone goes, "are you fine? Are you? And you're "don't open the door, please don't open the door. Cause it's just a huge mess back there, and it's that thing, right? It is rubbing the wound of going, "yeah, maybe it is fine, but couldn't everything be better? dream bigger. The world could be better than this." And I think it's you say, it's both that making things hurt so that you care about them, but also doing it with a love that's you know, you deserve more than this. You deserve a house that doesn't have a hole in the roof and you deserve a job that pays you so that you can feel calm and relaxed and not "oh god, if I miss a shift tomorrow, then I'm going to lose my job" and it's high stakes all the time. It's just what if the stakes were lower and actually you could just live a cat on the side of the road? He doesn't have a job he's having a great time. Not that that's relevant.
You've both spoken about fragmentation and the disparate nature of both jobs and communities now, and I'm wondering how much that impacts the way that you guys work. I know that United Voices of the World, particularly cultural workers, a lot of that is about people being freelance and fragmented and individualised. And I wonder whether you could speak to the impact that it has on the way that organising has to happen or what you think needs to change in that context.
Anna: Yeah, so that's one of the reasons why, I guess it's it's great to come together. It's because in the creative industries, a lot of us are freelance. So we don't have colleagues or we work in places where other people are freelance too, and we're pitted against each other.
And generally the world is heading towards a more freelance kind of landscape. So one in four workers in the UK are freelance already. And I think- there's nothing wrong with being freelanced in some ways. The problem is it's been used so employers are not responsible or are responsible for so little.
So you have no employment rights an employee, and the employer doesn't have to pay for any sort of pension, sick pay, annual leave. Yeah, anything. If you're discriminated in the workplace, you can't bring your employer to employment tribunal, for example. You could go to civil court, but it's different.
And also, the other problem with freelancing is that it makes us feel very replaceable. And that's the point I think that the employers are trying to make is that, oh, you come in for a project, next time we'll have someone else. So you always have to be the best version of yourself to be re-employed and re-employed.
And you don't really have colleagues that you can speak to and share concerns on the conditions at work. And let's say when you have COVID , well you just lose all your money because you just have to give up all your freelance days. So it's a massive problem.
And it's true that in terms of trade unions it's very new and this is where we look at what Uber drivers have done, Deliveroo riders, and I guess one important thing that happens is that even if we don't have colleagues to support us, we have other union members that work in similar workplaces so they can relate. For me, it was very refreshing to meet other people in fashion, let's say, that were also saying "it's not okay to finish at 11 in the evening, and I'm angry and I want to stand up to my boss." And that makes a big difference to just meet other workers. Then those workers can also support us because we do do casework for freelancers, so it might be different.
It could be just- basically, sometimes it's just negotiating a contract, your freelance contracts. You don't have to go to employment law necessarily. You could put pressure, Louie said, by going through threatening of public shaming, or even just showing that you have the legal lingo and that you are surrounded by a body of other workers.
And that you're sending letters on behalf of a union. Everything it just helps; they're so not used to that . And so we all write our letters together, for a fellow freelancer in another, let's say, graphic design studio. And we'll share, advice on what is a better contract or what is a better pay.
We'll create also- we're trying to create more resources together. So having terms and conditions that are more fair in our contracts let's say, "if you do not pay within the 30 days, my invoice you'll get an extra fee" or "if there's too many back and forths to change the project then I will add more fee on my invoice," things that.
I am trying to think of examples.
The other thing that happens, and this is what I think a lot of unions us are trying to fight for, is worker status. So to prove that basically a lot of us who are freelance are not technically freelance, so that actually you should be protected by employment law and your employers should be a bit more responsible towards you; that he can't just clean his hands from any responsibility.
And this is something that we go either to tribunal for, or even if you explain to the employer, you threatened to go to tribunal that you are technically an employee; they could either change your contract or, if you get dismissed and you want to make a claim- sorry, I'm getting a bit- this is confusing maybe.
Basically what's important to know is that you're not always self-employed, that sometimes, because you're always asked to go to the workplace at the same time or because you do things that is not on your terms or you have regular work from this employer, that you're a worker or even more you're an employee.
So this is one of the angles, the pressure points that we have for atomised workers. Yeah.
Eli: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. I think it's interesting that you spoke, you said really early on that we don't know our rights and we don't know how things work. And I think it's both the case that individuals don't know their rights as well, but I think actually there's also quite a lot of employers also don't know what the rules are and so do things a certain way. And so if you come back and go, " actually, I think you'll find that's not true." And they go, "oh my God. I was really hoping you wouldn't ask me about that because I actually don't know how it works." And yeah, there are so many pressure points about classification and responsibility where it's obviously it's in the favor of the employer to just cross their fingers and hope that you—with landlords, that you don't read the contract properly and then they can screw you down the line but actually if you come back and be "this is an illegal tenancy agreement. You can't say this." And then suddenly you're "Aha! I bet you didn't even think I could read, but I'm coming for you."
Anna: Sorry I just want to add a tiny thing. It's also good to remember, I think, that it's not just down to what's in the law. It's also, sometimes you could pressure for things you just want, it doesn't have to fall under employment law.
"I want this better condition" and you don't need to stop at employment law and yeah, that's it.
Eli: That's such a good point actually. I think we're so accustomed to not even having the things that we're entitled to, that you can't even imagine what it might look to have things that were even better than the bare minimum.
Yeah, that's such a good point. Louie how does fragmentation and that kind of disparate stuff- how does that play into the way that community organising works?
Louie: Yeah, like I said at the start really, it's kind of fundamental to why ACORN has grown is because that disparate stuff exists in a lot of workplaces and communities anyway.
All of these people that are making these decisions about us in our communities, these powerful people, they rely on us being atomised. They rely on us treating the problems that we run up against as individual problems that are probably problems that are 'my fault'. Maybe the reason I can't afford my rent is actually because I can't manage my money properly. Maybe the reason that I'm not being paid enough is because I'm not skilled enough at my job. If you accept the narrative that's given to us, that's really how it is that you'd feel, right? And it's only when we start to bring people together that we start to realise that narrative that we're fed isn't actually the way that it is. And then we can start to realise that actually there are systemic problems that are causing these things that happen to us. Kind of an aside to that, which I think is really interesting, that feeds into it is unless- when we recruit members, the way that we get people to join ACORN is by going door-to-door in communities and talking to people about the problems and issues that they're facing. But unless you, as the person knocking on the door, start the conversation around actually something that leads into towards this politicised end, if you just knock on someone's door-
you could go into an area where, you know- or the area where you live and you know that it's got some of the highest child poverty in the country. It's got some of the least percentage of people who make it to university, some really high unemployment, and you knock on people's doors and you say "what are the big problems in this community?"
I guarantee you, people will say dog shit, parking and litter. And that's because people don't recognise these actual huge problems that are community problems, right?. There's a reason that all people that are poor live in similar areas, they're 100% community problems but people don't recognise them as such.
They recognise them as individual problems and a huge part of any organising work is about getting people to recognise that individual problems are actually collective problems. And I think that's the same whether it's a trade union or a community problem. It's just that in a community, sometimes you have to do a little bit more work to make people recognise those things that are shared.
So the way ACORN is formed is that it has branches that are area-specific. So there is a Bristol branch, which covers the whole city, but that is made up of smaller branches. So there's an Easton branch, we've got a new group at the moment, which is starting in Lockleaze, and it's by bringing people together in these smaller communities that we start to get people to have those conversations about actually what are the shared problems that genuinely affect this community? You can get them to work on that. And then we'll take that up to city level. And then occasionally- as well as the city level we have a national board as well. All of that is fed into these progressively raising-the-scales people, into the organisation.
Eli: So in this second part I'd love for us to talk about the joining process and the 'getting involved' element of unions. Because I think, like we talked about, there is quite a lack of information about what it means to be a member of a union and what it means to- what's asked of you once you're in a union, how much do you have to be involved and that sort of thing.
So I was wondering if each of you could speak to why you joined and what that process of joining and getting involved in organising has been like for you and how other people might be able to do the same. Anna, can I come to you first?
Anna: Yes. So how I joined UVW. I think from my personal story I went through the whole juggling an unpaid internship with nannying and then going into being employed by young designers, but then never getting paid.
And I think it was an accumulation of all my jobs, even not fashion-related- [phone sound] sorry, my phone is making a noise. There was always an issue, always often around pay: not getting paid or getting paid late- as if you can afford that. And then the big other one was work hours. So just being expected to stay super, super late, being sent on errands at sometimes 22:30 at night and having to be back the next day at 7:00 AM and feeling unsafe, also, doing those things. And yeah, lunch breaks also at 3pm apparently, things like this. And after a while I think I got more and more angry and then I got more and more, I think, involved in community projects and learned more about unions and went to a few events at Anti-University Festival, which is a festival where everyone could basically throw an event. And there was an event that was called, 'What Can Unions Do For-' I think, 'For Graphic Designers' or something like this. And that's where I learned about this new union branch. So I joined quite early on, which has been very interesting to see how it begins. And since maybe this was two years ago, and since we've tried to have a bit more structure, because the problem- I mean, it's great to have no structure and to be very horizontal, which we want to remain, but it also meant that it was maybe not so accessible because you felt like you had to know all these things without- you had to know these functionings.
And I think that's also the problem with a lot of these maybe more radical groups is you feel like you have to learn the code. And so in an effort to, I guess, be more organised and accessible, we did an AGM. We have now elected roles. We have also a members handbook. So if you, when you join you can basically access all these resources that explain more how it works.
Also we use Discord which has its flaws but it's better than WhatsApp because a lot of people were complaining about no boundaries between work and life and and being on huge WhatsApp groups and having everything come into your phone. So there is a Discord which functions like... Slack I think it's called? I don't know. I didn't before. And then there's different channels. And I think as a member, as a new member, you can get involved into pretty much anything. And people- because I guess the idea is that we are fighting overwork and burnout and stress, we try not to replicate these in the union, which is hard with voluntary work because not everyone wants to do a one-hour meeting Zoom call after a full day of work, or maybe they can't even make the Zoom calls ever because they finish too late. So there's different entry points, I guess. And there's also the idea that you can just create your own group or idea or working group. Like "I want to look into-" I don't know, "fair pay guidelines for makeup artists" and and then start a working group around that.
And then you could just concentrate some of your time on that. I think one thing that we encourage people to join, though, is what we call the worker solidarity network. And so that's where we support each other on workplace issues because I guess this is where we learn a lot and this is also- we have limited resources, so it is good to be able to lean on each other.
And in terms of joining fees- so this is something also that we wanted to have a better fee because especially freelance people or unemployed people, they don't have regular income at all. And the opening fee is £8, which can be too much for people. So there's a £3, I think it's called Solidarity Network, is when you- Students, for example- when you want to join.
But the problem with that is that you don't access, I think, employment lawyers. So we're working on having a better pay scale.
I'll put the link also in the chat on joining, but yeah, please join. It's not one of those hardcore, trade unions from a hundred years ago. I think we're- yeah, hopefully it's not intimidating.
Eli: Yeah, I joined last week and I love all the emails. They just are very like, "Hey, this is on, you can come in if you want."
So if anybody wants to also be new, I'm new to it.
Louis, same question to you really: why it started and, and what that process is with joining and integrating into the actions and the organising.
Louie: Firstly, just an aside, our workplace, we're just about to join UVW as our union which is exciting for us and leaving behind Unite and joining a more fighting union, which is great. Yeah, so I mean, a lot of the stuff that Anna just said really rings true as well. My journey to join ACORN is a bit different because I was one of the first people to set it up, but I suppose to- you know, before ACORN I'd been an activist in various capacities, but I suppose my first lot of activism happened in Manchester in what was anarcho organising in the 2010's or whenever it was.
And weirdly, you know, these were places the first time I was coming into places that had safer spaces, policies, and all of these things, all of this was language that I had absolutely zero idea about, I felt like I was sat in a room with a lot of people that had degrees from SOAS and they were all just ultra-lefting each other out.
And everybody was just one-upping each other on ultra-leftness. And I just- I was just there because they advertised a meeting that was really upset about the climate or they were maybe really upset about Vodafone not paying any taxes. And I was like, yeah, I'm pissed off about that too, I want to do something about it.
And I'd go to these meetings feel really weirdly alienated, might stick around long enough to do an action with them. But ultimately the action wouldn't quite get any results. And I- it never quite clicked for me where I felt genuinely part of something. And I was bored of doing these things where I felt excluded, bored of doing these things where we didn't win.
And I got lucky really, in that I managed to get a job as a trainee community organiser in 2012 where I learned some of the basics and got a better understanding of it. And like I said, cause I didn't have that academic background, the job actually came with an NVQ in community organising.
So I got to spend a year being employed where I was paid, you know, an okay enough wage. And I also got to do some study as well, alongside it. And so it was after that that me and a friend who was on that same training program with me, our conversations shifted during the year that we were working together from "is the model we're using right? Do we like it? How would it be different if we were in charge?" Through to "hang on a minute, maybe there is a way for us to actually set up something that is for us." And so we started door knocking in Easton, in our local community with this idea of a community union. We borrowed the model from ACORN in the States, the guy who set it up, a guy called Wade Rathke, we sent him an email basically and said, "Hey, we want to start up ACORN in the UK.
How do you feel about that?" He zoom called with us to check, I suppose, that we were the right type of mad, cause it's definitely an insane thing to do. Turns out we were. And so we started ACORN that way. And then it's just- at first very, very slowly grown and is now really, really, really big.
But in terms of where people are at at the moment that join, you know, you can do as much or as little as you want. If you want to be a member of ACORN, you can go online, again, similar to Anna, I'll put the link in the chat. We ask that people donate an hour's wage per month as their fee, but it's an open box and you can pay whatever you're able to pay.
I think the minimum is £3 a month. So if you're unemployed or very low wage, you pay £3 a month. But the ask is that people pay an hour's wages a month from that, it's an honesty way of doing a sliding scale. We don't, obviously, ask to see people's payment slips or anything when they join us, we do have some wealthier people that are paying £20, £25 a month. But I think the average is probably about £8/£9- or something like that anyway. And then in terms of how we organise, so locally here in Bristol is our largest branch group.
So there's probably the most opportunity for you to do stuff as a volunteer and really it's up to you what things is that you want to get involved in. We organise via WhatsApp mostly. So the WhatsApp groups that I am currently in at the moment, one of them is a really simple, low level one, which is ACORN content sharing.
So if we're wanting to push something on social media, the person who's in charge of our social media drops it in there and we can all just click it and share it. One of the other ones I'm in is the member defense group. So the member defense group is often for things which are a bit more urgent and where we need a large community call-out.
So a message that might be typically appearing in member defense might be, "Hey, this person who lives at number 24 has just received a letter and they're having bailiffs turn up to their house tomorrow, can you turn up to be stood outside the house so that we can deny bailiffs access to that property?"
And there's those kinds of things. And then we also have branch meetings every single month and our branch meetings, really the kind of things we discuss there are what might be our next city-wide campaigns. And you can come in and feed into those discussions.
And if you feed into those discussions, often those will come with action points. So if we decide to take on a campaign- like at the moment we're discussing between three campaigns we might possibly take on in Bristol. One of them is about Bristol City Council using bailiffs to collect council tax.
One of them is about pollution. There's a third one, which I've forgotten as well. But if you turned up to the meeting, you would be able to be involved in each of those groups. And then we're also a democratic organisation as well. So I think at the September meeting, we'll actually vote on which one of those it is that we're we're going to take on.
If you want to get really involved, then we also have elected positions. So ACORN's got staff members, but really the staff's job is to do the admin and to let the union work. And then volunteers are the people who run things. So if you turned up to an ACORN branch meeting, there'll be people- there's a chair and a secretary and a social media officer and a few other officers.
I forget exactly which ones we have. But all of those are elected positions and we elect those normally on an annual basis. So if you're really interested, you can stand for those positions as well. And then I think I mentioned a little bit before about the structure. So we also have a national committee and again, that's voted on by-
members in Bristol, for instance, would vote. If somebody wanted to sit on the national board and make decisions about the way we operate nationally as well. One of the other things that you can do, which everybody can do, whether you want to join ACORN or not is, on Facebook, and again I'll put in the link, we have the ACORN Tenant Support Group, and that's just a place where really people- although most people in that group, or a large number of people in that group are ACORN members- provide mutual aid and support to people that have got housing crises.
So people might post in there about, "Hey, I've just received this letter from my landlord. I'm not entirely sure if it's legal or not. Can anybody help me?" So there's enough people in that group that have either got genuine legal background or have learnt enough from being with ACORN that they might be able to give you some proper advice on that. And that's a really nice first step for people to enter into ACORN as well.
I'll do those links now.
Eli: Amazing. Yeah. Something that was definitely a big part of the pandemic response, I remember being in the WhatsApp group that was like, here's a big spreadsheet of all of the people that need medicine picking up or food deliveries and all of that kind of thing.
And I think that was something for me as somebody who was quite new to joining felt really like, 'oh, I can do that. I can put my name down next to somebody else' and being like, 'I can go and get some eggs for a lady in Fishponds, I can do that.' And I think it's those little things, those little entry points of like, 'I don't know how to do the big thing and I'm scared of the thing over there, but Dot down the road needs her medicine getting from Boots,
and I can definitely do that.' And it's relearning what local community or community organising could be. And it feeling less you know, picket line, massive, great big thing-- maybe you want to get there, but it's baby steps sometimes to refamiliarising yourself with what that narrative might look for you.
Louie: Yeah, definitely. And there's also- we also do lots of trainings on that stuff, if you did, for instance, want to join the member defense group, then we would suggest that you went and did a training on how that works first. We regularly run those trainings as well.
So you feel like you're a bit more skilled up know how to deal with a situation.
Eli: Yeah, definitely. I put a thing on our Instagram story earlier, asking what people wanted to know about unions and somebody asked to both unions: what you guys think might be the role of unions for young people currently, and, and in the future, if you have any thoughts on that
Anna: I'm just starting because that's how we've been doing it. But also Louie, if you have a...
Louie: I was letting you as well, because that's how we've been doing it. I can go, do you want me to go? I can go. Let's mix it up. Yeah. I mean, ACORN'll be whatever you want it to be for you, I suppose, as young people.
I think, like I said, we're democratically led. If there's a particular cause that you want us to work on, come and get involved. Tell other people in the room you want us to work on it and there's every chance that we will end up taking it on. You know, the key thing about ACORN's work is that it's always going to do things that affect the most number of people.
And so really we wanted to look for issues that are affecting as many people as possible. So that could be issues that affect young people, it could be issues that, hopefully, affect young and old people as well - that's the stuff that we're always more, more likely to take on. You have to be over 16 to join the union.
That's our lowest age to join, but equally, you can definitely get your parents involved and get them to join as well. I don't know what age group people are Rising Arts actually.
Eli: Typically 16 to 30. It's more 18+, broadly.
Louie: Great, yeah. So, I think one of the reasons why ACORN has had growth so much around housing is because-
I mean I'm under 40 and near enough nobody I know that's my age owns a house, we're all renters. And unless we're lucky enough to have parents that are going to buy us houses, which me and my friends are not, then we're going to be renting for a very, very, very long time. And so ACORN is going to be able to provide us with some mechanisms for making that renting system fairer.
And I think it was touched on a bit by Anna earlier, it's that same thing of- there's two things I think ACORN does around housing concurrently. One is helping us to enforce our rights that we currently have, which is really, really, really tricky. And then the other thing is about trying to extend those rights and privileges as well for something that we actually want and is helping us create that better world.
I think as a union, we probably are fairly young. I think, compared to your traditional trade unions, they probably do have a much older average age. All those kinds of elected positions I spoke about before, I think the vast majority of those will be people that are under 35 and all the rest of it.
And obviously we've got people of all ages in our union but you'll feel very at home at a meeting here. You wouldn't feel like the weird youngster or anything like that in an ACORN meeting for sure. I, yeah, I'm touching on the older, the oldest side now, which is weird. That's happened to me over the last few years, but there we go.
Eli: Ah, the passage of time
Louie: You know it's a terrible thing. No union's sorting it out yet.
Eli: Now there's an idea. Anna, I was wondering whether you had any thoughts to add on that point.
Anna: I think. So the question was what can unions do for young people?
Eli: Yeah. And what role they can play.
Anna: Well, I mean, also, I'm not sure again what young means, but for how I see it is that young people are going to be more affected by the changing landscape in the workplace.
They're going to be more affected by, I guess, even less regulations as maybe older generations, they might have to fight more for their rights. And so they definitely need to get organised. Also I think, one thing is in Designers and Cultural Workers there's a lot of people that are straight out of uni or that it's their first- they are entering the workforce.
I don't consider myself an old worker, I've been in my job five years, which is a lot for these days. But I feel like I definitely got stuck into bad habits of not challenging my boss. And I want to tell people to, I guess, not do that, learn about your rights quite early on, because if you go to uni, at least, I don't feel like they tell you about those things.
I wasn't warned about leaving on time or about pay or about lots of other things. So I would say that it's important for young people to get involved and get their friends involved about their rights and teach others about their rights at work and not feel disempowered, even though I know finding a job is really hard.
If everyone, I guess, is ready to challenge their boss then you don't have this culture of shutting each other up because you're in fear. This is hard to say in an increasingly more precarious environment. But actually sometimes the law is on our side. And if we do get together, we could build power.
Also, we always say that young people are getting more politicised, so I feel like we count on them also. And yeah. And unions are changing. They're not just like we were saying these very administration top-down, you have to be obsessed and passionate about employment law and trade union history.
There are more- I guess there's more space for all sorts of actions and concerns.
In the union, there's also a few people that are tutors. And I know that they tried to bring this to their students. So hopefully there are going to be more- there's going to be more young people, but there already are.
Eli: Amazing. Thank you. I have a couple more questions from those kinds of things, but I also I'm aware that there's people also that are here and have been listening. So if anybody has been listening that has any questions as well, please put those in the chat and we'd love to go through those as well.
In the meantime, I've got another question that somebody asked, which was: somebody wanted to know what's their favourite action that you have been a part of, as being part of a union. What's the best/ the biggest success or the most fun thing. I suppose Louis, you talked about the, the TSB action, but is there anything that comes to mind?
The moment where you were like, yeah, this is fucking cool. Or I'm really proud of that. Anything that springs to mind?
Louie: There's quite a few, actually. I think the first time that ACORN got any national media coverage, was one of our early eviction resistances that we did win in BS5 and it was a member of the community. He was due to be evicted. We got a 24 hour notice of when it was that the bailiffs we gonna come. So ACORN members, the night before, door-knocked on the street and said, 'oh, just so you know, your neighbour at number whatever is going to be evicted tomorrow. And so what we're going to do is we're going to form a human chain outside of this person's house, and we're going to stop the bailiffs from coming and entering the property.'
And I think the thing that was really inspiring about it was the turnout, the turnout was just absolutely amazing. We got, I don't know what percentage of residents on the street, but them plus other ACORN members from the local community literally covered the entirety of one side of the street and all just linked arms.
One of the people on the street had gotten married a couple of days beforehand and they had wedding cake leftover. So they came out and shared their wedding cake with everybody. Media came and did some filming. We looked really powerful. We looked really strong. The bailiff came in his car, drove up, got out, had one little look around, clocked something, got back in his car, turned around and drove away. And all of us just got really, really nice big celebration.
That was really, really, really powerful. And we've repeated that quite a number of times since it's a very regular thing that we do.
But yeah, that first one, I think definitely sits as quite special for me. Yeah.
Eli: Yeah, amazing. What a feeling, I wasn't even there and I'm excited about it. Oh, what a moment. Anna, does anything come to mind when thinking about that?
Anna: So this is an interesting point, I guess, because UVW is really known for amazing picket lines and loads of music and dancing and amazing speeches.
And I think in our branch we're reevaluating what this direct action means because it's not that easy for people that are maybe alone in their workplace or- so we haven't had a big, spectacular strike yet. Which is okay. It's different tactics.
So yeah, it's also- if we want to start thinking creatively of what tactics can look like for workplaces that are less traditional, where you'll have- you won't have 200 employees that will be able to form a picket line. Yeah, I think, I don't know for me, wins have just been being able as a freelancer to negotiate better terms or get reinstated if you've been unfairly dismissed, things like that, that are a bit more more individual for the moment. What was, I guess, a collective action where a lot of people got together during COVID was we campaigned for a rent freeze in artist studios, which is a bit more- it's, I guess it's a different- it's less like you absolutely- it's not like housing, but it did help a lot of people to have these resources of good practice. And a lot of studios, I guess, also reacted to it because they didn't want to be badly seen. So, yeah, maybe wait, we'll come back with a cooler, more spectacular action in a few...
I don't know when.
Eli: Yeah. I think sometimes it is the little things though. It's that- an individual, particularly when it's very person-focused and relationships build for a long time, for someone to come back and be 'oh yeah, thank you for that conversation. I managed to get this' and that's not a massive, great big party, but it is one person going 'and now I don't feel sick when I go to work.'
And hey, that's pretty good, that somebody doesn't really want to throw up when they go into their workplace, I would count that 100% as a win. Yeah. So it's different scales of stuff, I suppose. Somebody else asked the question:
' Where is your union going next?' Do you have a sense of what your next- whether that's a way of working- they said ' is your union going to change at all or are you working up to something?'
The answer might be no, in which case that's fine.
Louie: Yeah. Maybe the answer to that- so for ACORN the answer is we want to keep on growing. So, like I said, over the last three years, ACORN's managed to double its membership every year for the last three years. So hopefully what it's going to do is it's gonna be able to do that again in the next 12 months, which will take us to having 13,000 members across the UK, which is pretty, pretty sizeable. And would obviously give us a lot more power to to do things. You know, locally, like I said—I've just managed to find it—locally the next thing we're going to be running big campaigns on around Bristol is either going to be stopping bailiffs coming after council tax, a campaigner around getting cleaner air, or the other campaign that's in the mix is gonna be for more public toilets. So that's the thing that we'll be focusing on here locally. I don't know the moment where we're at on a national strategy stuff, I don't know what that focus is. I know that during the pandemic ACORN did a lot of work on organising mutual aid support and those kinds of things as well. But yeah I don't know what we're doing nationally at the moment, but more of the same.
Eli: Hey, more of the same. It's not a bad thing when more of the same it pretty good stuff . If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Anna, same question to you.
Anna: I, yeah probably getting more confident in things that I try to explain. Empowering each other more and having one of those spectacular wins and making people believe that unions, I guess, have a role to play and that their workplaces can be improved and their lives can be improved.
Yeah, I think we also noticed that we wanted to work on retention, so not members leaving and trying to reach out to members more so do phone banking and checking in with people. ' Cause yeah, sometimes we were worried to be out of our depth if we grow, grow, grow, but we are very young and sometimes not in enough resources, so yeah.
Eli: Consolidating, putting down roots and making sure that people feel like they're part of something.
Anna: Yeah. And I think another thing is also links with other sectors and UVW Main and continuing to strengthen those relationships. Yeah. So we'll get together on particular things we want to improve about the union in general.
Eli: So that's important too. Yeah, amazing.
That was the last question that I've got from somebody on Instagram. I don't know if anybody who's watching wants to put some questions in the chat, but in the meantime, I have found this such a nourishing conversation.
Cause I think that Rising's very small, Rising's only been going for, well, we've been going officially since mid 2016. And it's the similar thing where it's growing and growing and growing. And there's all of this potential energy where people want to change things.
And it's happening in fits and starts, but we're getting more slick and more professional as we do, and putting more things in place. And I think you're right there is that sense of wanting to hold onto people and make sure that we're growing in a sustainable and nurturing way so that it's not a sudden explosion that then goes, 'we weren't ready for that'.
'That's bigger and more attention than we were looking for. And now it's all a bit scary'. So I definitely feel that more of the same, just keep doing what we're doing. But doing it in a more healthy and a more considered way each time so that when the moment comes for the big, big, spectacular win or the big moment, the big demonstration, big whatever, everyone's ready, they've got their rucksacks on and they're like, 'let's f*cking go, 'cause we've been preparing for this for years and the world isn't ready'. So yeah, I definitely feel that.
Since this is going to be a resource that's going to be distributed to our community of young creatives and stuff. I just wondered whether there was anything, in closing since we're basically at the end now, whether there was anything that you guys- final remarks, thoughts, whether the flea in your ear has anything further to say.
Anna: You're based in Bristol, right? And so we have members in Bristol, if ever you want to connect with them, with other cultural sector, creative sector workers.
Eli: Amazing. Networks, connections. I love that. That's very exciting. I'm definitely going to follow up on that, cause that will be be really great. Louie?
Louie: Yeah. I mean, I'll just say, you know, just join; join ACORN. There'll be a local branch near you, if you're Bristol-based, that's the biggest and most active, we've got other branches across the South West.
If you joined soon, some events we've got coming up really soon. So I mentioned eviction resistance. We're running an eviction resistance training on Tuesday the 3rd of August at 6:00 PM. We're running a full day's community organiser training on Saturday, the 14th of August, which teaches you about the nuts and bolts and how to build power in your community.
And our branch meetings, are the first Monday of every month, there's one next Monday. And then the one on the 6th of September will be the one where you actually get to influence what campaign we take on next in Bristol. So join, if you join, you'll get sent a link to the Facebook, which is where we publicise all those things.
We send out by email as well. But yeah, we're nothing without members. So join us.
Eli: Yeah. Nice one. Thank you so much for joining guys and thank you to everybody who's here watching as well.
End of transcript. This transcript was edited for clarity.