• Are you involved in organising workers in unrecognised areas?

 • Are you considering applying for recognition? 

• Are you looking to achieve bargaining rights in new areas?

Then this is the course for you! The TUC Organising Academy invites you to attend a 2 day pilot course being held on 10th and 11th of June 2008, co–hosted by our Equality & Employment Rights Unit http://www.tuc.org.uk/organisation/tuc-14771-f0.cfm US unions help celebrate 10 years of the TUC Organising Academy Stewart Acuff, the Director of Organising at the AFL-CIO, will be one of the keynote speakers at ‘Building Stronger Unions: organising the future’, which is being hosted by the TUC on October 14, 2008. The AFL-CIO represents 10.5 million members, including 2 million members in Working America, its new community affiliate, and Stewart has led the federation’s organising efforts since 2002. Earlier this year the TUC and the AFL-CIO signed a joint protocol, setting out efforts to tackle ‘unionbusters’ on both sides of the Atlantic. ‘The AFL-CIO’s pioneering Organizing Institute was one of the key inspirations behind the setting up of the TUC’s Organising Academy in 1998‘, says Organising Academy Director, Liz Blackshaw, ‘So I’m delighted that Stewart is able to join us in October, to celebrate the success of the Organising Academy and its sponsoring unions and to debate what more we can do to build stronger unions.’ http://www.tuc.org.uk/organisation/tuc-14769-f0.cfm

The Myplace funding stream for Youth Centres was launched today .The myplace programme, funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), and delivered by the Big Lottery Fund, will be making available grants of between one and five million pounds. These grants will support projects across England that are working to create safe places for young people to go, where they can get involved in a wide range of exciting activities and get information and advice from people they trust.

Although welcoming the new funding for Youth Service capital projects NAYCEO believe that it is no substitute for long term strategic capital funding of Youth Centres. Many existing Centres are run down and were built in response to the 1958 Albemarle Report.

Children and Families Minister, Beverley Hughes today announced the details of a £16m ‘Family Pathfinder’ programme – naming 15 local areas where disadvantaged families will be offered intensive help and support. Each of the 15 areas has successfully bid to lead the way in testing and developing a ground-breaking ‘think family’ approach to help their most vulnerable families. ‘Think Family’ – an approach developed by the Cabinet Office’s Social Exclusion Task Force – aims to ensure that adults’ and children’s services join up to respond to the needs of whole families. Six of the Family Pathfinders will also receive additional funding to deliver services for families with young carers. The aim is to help ensure that children in these families do not have to take on inappropriate caring roles. Outlining the need for joined up services at a speech to the National Association of Head Teachers, Children and Families Minister Beverley Hughes said: “We need to give disadvantaged children and families the extra support they need. “This is especially important for children from the most vulnerable families where children are five times more likely to struggle with reading and writing, eight times more likely to be suspended, and ten times more likely to get into trouble with the law. “When parents face multiple problems in their own lives the impact can be severe and enduring for both themselves and for their children. Families at risk need good children’s services, but adult services also have a vital role to play. Our Family Pathfinder programme is designed to develop our understanding of how we can best offer the integrated provision these children and families need.” Ed Miliband, Cabinet Minister with responsibility for social exclusion, said: “To ensure children get a fair start in life, we must support the needs of the whole family. “When vulnerable adults turn to public services, there must be no wrong door to the tailored support they need. Only by effectively co-ordinating children’s and adults’ services to think family will we break the cycle of disadvantage that exists for the most at risk families”. The successful areas are Blackpool, Bolton, Brighton and Hove, Durham, Gateshead, Islington, Leeds, Salford, Somerset, Walsall, Warrington, Southampton, Southend, Sunderland and Westminster. The six areas who will receive additional funds for young carers services are Islington, Gateshead, Sunderland, Bolton, Somerset and Leeds.

This information pack has been created to help local groups to organise and facilitate discussions on the topic of empowerment. The pack contains suggestions for the format of the meeting, advice for facilitators and organisers and detailed information about key empowerment issues 

Within a decade millions of workers will be at home juggling their careers with caring for children and older relatives, the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) has forecast. Futurologists are predicting there will be less talk about ‘work-life balance’ and more about ‘work-life integration.’ CMI’s report on the nature of employment in 2018 predicts an exodus from the traditional workplace caused partly by environmental pressure to reduce the carbon footprint of commuting and partly by the demographic pressure of an ageing population, with fewer employees able to avoid looking after older relatives, leading to a blurring of boundaries between family and career. The report said would be a proliferation of ‘virtual’ companies, often small community-based enterprises without conventional business premises. The institute put the report’s findings to more than 1,000 senior executives. It found 74 per cent expected ‘virtual teams of employees’, working at a distance from each other, to become the norm by 2018. CMI chief executive Mary Chapman commented: ‘Looking ahead ten years, it is clear that the successful organisations will be those who can do more than embrace change - they will anticipate, identify and drive it. Of course we cannot determine the future, but that does not mean we shouldn’t forecast and prepare for it to ensure that organisations and teams are effective, capable and competitive.’ Looking at the ‘private needs of people’ the study concluded changing demographics will compel organisations to offer more tailored lifestyle benefits to employees. CMI’s Mary Chapman said: ‘A greater degree of emotional intelligence will be required by managers and leaders so they can understand how people work and their likely reaction to change. They will also need to shift from today’s input-driven approach to a focus on output, achievement and a better integration between work and personal lives.’