Having problems at work sucks – but having the support of a union can make all the difference.
Here’s some of our latest victories!
March 2024
We settled a long-running dispute with Brighton Language College over the sacking of an admin worker.
We helped a London-based teacher successfully push back against an unlawful contract change.
February 2024
We saw our biggest-ever individual tribunal payout of £40K for constructive dismissal from a particularly recalcitrant London TEFL school.
October 2023
A Bournemouth teacher won £22k at Tribunal for disability-related harassment, constructive dismissal, and wrongful dismissal. Constructive dismissal is notoriously hard to prove (less than 5% of claims are successful at tribunal), but we’ve had two victories this year alone.
September 2023
We resolved a dispute with WE Bridge Academy in Cardiff.
May 2023
We helped one of our members fight back against an unfair contract change that led into an unfair redundancy process. Our support led to a BIG payout – and even an apology from HR!
April 2023
We supported a teacher at a big chain school whose DOS tried to discipline them – w/o reason and w/o process.
If you work in ELT & have a problem at work, it’s tefl@iww.org.uk to speak to an organiser.
A talk with David Jesudason & the Brewery Workers Union
The London IWW and the Brewery Workers Union is proud to be sponsoring a talk with David Jesudason, the 2023 Beer Writer of the Year, focusing on the history, politics, and cultural significance of “Desi pubs”. The talk, which is free, will be held at the May Day Rooms on the 24th of January.
If you like beer, history, and intelligent chat, we invite you to come to the May Day Rooms (88 Fleet Street, London, EC4Y 1DH) on January 24th. The topic of the evening will be “Desi pubs”, drinking establishments traditionally run by a landlord of Indian descent and which have served as an organising space for south Asian (and other working class) communities across the UK.
We’re honoured that the talk will be led by David Jesudason, the 2023 Beer Writer of the Year. Jason’s book Desi Pubs follows the history of how the UK’s Indian communities both embraced and enhanced British pub culture; with Desi pubs at once being a flashpoint in battles over identity and integration and a space where immigrants, radicals, workers, and trade unionists could come together to find community.
Alongside plenty of beer, a number of union representatives will be present. Whether you’re currently a member of the union (or just yet to join!), a union rep will be glad to look over your contract or offer guidance and any workplace issues you may be facing. Bring your workmates and make it a night!
The talk, which is free, will be held at the May Day Rooms from 7-9pm on Wednesday January 24th.
Whether you can make it to the event or not, we highly recommend you get a copy of David’s book, available here from the CAMRA website. As always, if you’re having any problems at work or would like advice on how to form a union in your workplace, you can reach a representative from the Brewery Workers Union at breweryworkers@iww.org.uk. If you work in any other industry, it’s london@iww.org.uk.
The documentary entitled ‘The Truth about BrewDog’, which aired on BBC Scotland on Monday 24th January, paints a picture of a company with two faces. This follows a score of articles about sexual harassment, legal threats against the BBC and CEO James Watt’s threats to staff who have come forward.
On the surface, Brewdog appears to be a maverick sticking two fingers up at corporate beer. From it’s marketing campaign that poked fun at major players in the beer world such as Heineken to a publicity stunt where they dropped taxidermy ‘fat cats’ on the city, Brewdog’s outward image is decidedly punk. However, allegations made during the documentary reveal a different side to the beer giant.
Brewdog’s cofounder James Watts has outwardly condemned competitors who have struck business deals with large corporations, including Beavertown when they sold part of the company to Heineken. However, the documentary claims that this is all lip service, and that he personally bought £500,000 worth of shares in the company.
The disparity between Brewdog’s anti corporate image and the alleged interests of the CEO, may seem shocking, until you actually consider Brewdog’s size and rapid expansion over recent years. One interviewee in the documentary claimed that Brewdog could feasibly be worth anywhere between £1 billion and £2 billion. That is enormous! Can any company that size genuinely claim to be anti-corporate?
The most concerning allegations were those of a toxic workplace in which bullying and sexual harassment are the norm. Unfortunately, these issues are not unique to Brewdog. The craft beer industry presents itself as a fun, forward thinking place to work, however, issues of bullying and harassment are systemic in the industry.
In our own experience working in breweries we know workers are routinely forced to work in unsafe conditions, face intimidation and threats from management for speaking out. They often work long, unsociable hours on low pay, experience poor mental health as a result and the needs of those on the floor are always secondary to management’s desires for profit.
The industry needs a shake up! Breweries and bars need to commit to a workplace free from toxicity, but more than that workers need to unionise. The fat cats at the top will never voluntarily make things better from those who brew the beer and pour the pints. On our own, changing the working conditions in craft beer may seem impossible, but through collective action we can do it.
If you are working somewhere with a toxic workplace culture, bullying or sexual harassment, you can contct the union at breweryworkers@iww.org.uk or @breweryunion on Twitter.
We have published some information on sexual harassment in the workplace here.
Support striking university workers and build worker-student solidarity!
Education workers with the University and College Union (UCU) are preparing for another battle around pensions, casualization, pay, and discrimination. This is the third time workers mobilise on these issues which continue to be ignored by university management with the first time being in November 2019 and a second time in February 2020 before being called off due to the pandemic.
This battle will open with 58 universities taking strike action for three days from December 1 to December 3 and action short of strike until May 2022. The UCU will follow that up with a reballot at universities that did not meet the restrictive participation requirements which require a 50% participation rate, a requirement not placed on any other democratic institution. The reballot might be held on an aggregate basis, meaning that potentially 146 institutions can go out on strike.
The issues
So why have education workers in higher education been so persistent with strike action? In short, higher education institutions are waging an aggressive war against workers.
Universities have refused to reverse an over 35% cut to guaranteed pensions and staff pay has fallen by 20% in real terms over twelve years. Additionally, one third of academic workers are on insecure contracts and that number is growing. The gender pay gap sits at 15% and there is massive underrepresentation with women and Black staff representing only 27 and 1 per-cent of the workforce respectively. In addition to these financial discrepancies, workers in higher education are increasingly overworked with the average worker putting in more than two days unpaid each week. These poor work conditions Have also led to a crisis of work-related stress with over half of education workers in higher education showing probable signs of depression.
These numbers need to be understood in the context of the general trend of ‘corporatizing’ universities and education at large. Universities are being increasingly run as a business which means that any and all costs need to be supressed for the sake of the bottom line. As such, staff have salaries stop rising, recruitment decreases, workload increased, and contact hours with students are slashed. This makes it impossible for universities to meet their social and civic duties of educating the next generation and students become nothing more than the products on the assembly line of the university factory. Meanwhile, management are flush; with vice chancellors’ average pay reaching £269,000 per year.
As can be expected, universities have responded with their usual disdain for the workers who make universities run. Messages of disappointment and feigned concern for the welfare of students have been sent out. All of this, as if it wasn’t university management that forced students into accommodation into the midst of the pandemic, continue to cover up sexual violence, and invite excessive policing on campuses. None of this even touches on the fact that universities attack on working conditions translates into drops in the quality of education students receive, even though fees keep going up.
The way forward
The education industry has put on some valiant fights over the past two years. We’ve seen students launch occupations and rent strikes and school workers use collective action to shut down unsafe work places. The tenacity of university workers is commendable, but the fact that universities have been able to put up such resistance should give us reason to pause and think of our strategy as workers.
The current structure of trade unions means being tied up with legal red tape. Student solidarity, while present, remains fleeting and appears only in times of open conflict. Additionally, many workplaces have several unions that do not act in concert with one another. This means that fellow workers end up crossing picket lines for lack of a choice, the economic impact of strikes is reduced if not negligible, and management can continue to play divide and conquer between workers and students.
To fix this, we need to institutionalize worker-student solidarity by building workplace councils and committees that listen, represent, and coordinate all workers regardless of the type of work they do or if they are workers to be. This is exactly what the IWW is doing, and we invite all workers, members and non-members alike, to reach out to us to learn how this can be done. We also encourage our members in higher education to work with traditional trade unions to expand the scope of their work, build bridges with other unions, and help mobilize non-unionised staff.
In terms of concrete steps to take in support of current strike action, we implore all our members to:
Not cross the picket line if your workplace is on strike
Work with your branches, education liaisons, and other fellow workers to organise support visits to picket lines and care packages
Print and distribute the below flyers and posters in student and staff areas in your university even if they are not on strike
Should you need any support or advice on doing any of the above, feel free to reach out to education@iww.org.uk
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