Combatting Bullying in the Workplace - a guide for Younger Workers

It's anti-bullying week here in the UK!  With this in mind, the lovely folks at Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust asked me to pen a few thoughts on bullying in the workplace, with particular emphasis on younger workers.  This is a handy guide that you may wish to share with someone who you suspect may be being bullied at work.


Other resources: Anti-bullying.co.uk.

Trade Unions Congress website: www.tuc.org.uk.

Some Thoughts on International Aid

At the time of year that I find myself bound for distant towns and cities to attend the biannual UNISON International Seminar, I realise that there are many things for which you can justifiably attack our government. They've run a sinking economy into the dirt, ostracised us from Europe and are still trying to introduce competition to the NHS so that they can create an insurance-based health system similar to the one in the US.

So yes, you can knock this coalition for many things, but on the matter of international aid, the coalition policy appears to remain steadfast. In fact, all three of the major political parties in the UK agree on at least one thing - namely, a firm commitment to meeting the United Nations target of 0.7% of each country's Gross National Product (GNP) being ringfenced for the purposes of international aid.

International aid, along with immigration, is one of those issues that makes policymakers twitchy. One cannot be too harsh on the subject without alienating the sections of one's electorate with personal and business connections abroad, but one also cannot be seen to be entirely in favour of aid without due cause, as this might risk losing the votes of those who don't understand why we appear to be gifting money to other nations - particularly when our own needy are growing needier by the day.

As international officers, how do we help people understand the necessity of international aid? Nationally, UNISON publishes the following advice to members. We know full well that our members in the UK are suffering greatly under the horrific mismanagement of our economy, but we also know that people join unions in a spirit of solidarity - when you need help most, all of us will stand behind you. Therefore members need to understand that while Britain is ailing from the effects of punishing and unnecessary austerity, workers in other nations are going through the same thing. It is only by building solidarity and cooperation that bypasses borders that we can hope to resist the massive neoliberal global attacks on our public services.

Let's establish a few facts. The actual amount that Britain spends annually is in the region of £8bn, or £137 per person per year. This equates to a little over 0.5% of our GNP, so if we are to meet our target, we'll have to find another few billion. It is worth mentioning that only a handful of Nordic and central European nations actually achieve the UN goal. The US, in comparison, gives a paltry 0.2% of its GNP in international aid each year.

What is aid used for? Ostensibly, the UN goal is that the money be redistributed from wealthy nations to poor ones in order to reduce poverty. That's a very noble goal, but also a very general one, and there are many better ways to use money than simply donating it to other nations. Just because we accept the notion that we should find this money and use it to alleviate suffering worldwide, there is still a debate about how that should best be done. We, as trade unionists, should be shaping the debate about how our money is spent.

We know better than most that the best use of a limited resource is to focus it in areas of great need. We know from experience that using the money within existing networks in local communities, asking them what they need and helping them to build their own organising capacity, is the most efficient model to use. To help us remember this, we use a time-honoured example: Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish, and he will feed himself for a lifetime.

Critics of international aid argue that DFID (The UK's Department For International Development) is not transparent and that giving money to foreign governments creates dependency. We must be careful, certainly, that we don't simply create duplicate networks to those already used by governments and NGOs to carry out functions that should be performed by governments. We should also be concerned at the ways in which the money reaches the beneficiaries. By routing 40% of our spend through organisations such as the World Bank and the OECD, we risk creating political conditions on the recipients of aid, and thus potentially spreading neoliberal tendancies further throughout the world.

However, the concept of tied money is not a new one - and while it is ideal to meet the target without imposing conditions, we must also consider that foreign aid budgets are easier to sell politically if we can show that there are benefits to the UK too. DFID contracts are still awarded overwhelmingly to UK firms, and while not all trade unionists will agree with me, I believe that we can still improve relations with other nations, assist them in ways such as improving their infrastructure and benefit from cheap goods in return.

One of my fellow attendees here at the International Seminar suggested that we stop referring to international aid as aid. He has a very good point, and one that had previously been unmentioned by anyone else up to that point. Part of shaping the debate is controlling the language that is used (if you want evidence of this, note how the proposed forthcoming changes to council tax legislation are referred to as the 'bedroom tax' by opponents on the left, and the 'spare room subsidy' by supporters on the right) and by taking away the notion of 'aid' and replacing it with something that recognises the true role that it plays.

He suggested the Global Responsibility Allowance - a term that recognises the need to move away from seeing this money as something we own and give away, and more as a commitment to assisting the developing world with their own self-improvement, if not for its own end, at least in return for access to their markets. Whether this could be sold to the general public may be another matter - but it certainly couldn't hurt to try.

Balls

Ugh...can it really be that the last time I posted on here, the Raoul Moat saga was still unravelling? By now the t-shirts with the slogan 'Harder Than Moaty' are already kitsch items. I'm going to post today about the day I met a potential future leader of the country, but that day was ten days ago now, and I really have no excuse. I apologise to both of you.

Monday last I took a train ride to London, fast becoming my second home-from-home in these days of post-apocalyptic financial meltdown. UNISON, my fair trade union and sponsors for the day, wished to send support to sister union NASUWT (the teaching union that isn't the NUT) who stand to see planned improvements to buildings and infrastructure under the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) project cruelly denied by the coalition government and its incompetent representative, Michael Gove.

What they needed was numbers, vocal support, people with stories to tell about how the cuts were impacting on real lives. What they got was me. And I didn't even have a placard.

As I said earlier, I must confess to becoming something of a Londophile of late. I have reached the point now that I can actually connect the geography in my head and name the Underground lines simply by looking at the colour. This won't be much to regular city-dwellers but it's huge for me, a man born with an innate fear of the Oyster Card. Regardless, it's good to know where you're going without having to seek the advice of the giant coloured wallcharts. It also makes it much easier to be righteously offended when every single line seems to be simultaneously closed.

Several of my friends have suggested that I should go into politics, and I would have readily agreed if it were not for a closet level of sexual deviance and a passing contempt for the average man on the street. However, having now met the Shadow Secretary of State for Education and some of his more enthusiastic entourage members, it is clear to me that in Parliament, I would be a minnow amongst sharks.

It was Labour stalwart and outside bet for the Labour leadership Ed Balls who held the podium at the rally, and commanded the attention of every camera in the room. Balls! He of the booming rhetoric and psychopathic eyes, a man who claims to have visited three hundred British schools in the last twelve months. I only went to one in my entire life, and that was fifteen years ago.

It is immediately clear to even the casual observer that Balls Believes In Himself. Note the capitals, for they are significant. And it's no bad thing. Speaking as one (admittedly less successful) professional about another, you need to have a certain pomp to get anywhere in life once the average grunts fall away. But there is something of the Vladimir Putin about Mr Balls. Unfortunate surname notwithstanding, he definitely strikes me as the kind of man who would have you killed and then tell your corpse that it was for your own good.

It was after the rally, in the gardens near the Houses of Parliament. We had marched en masse from Methodist Central Hall, tripping over photographers eager to pap the politician. Balls marched at the centre, radiating that aggressive confidence as he did so. His eyes bulged from a space above jowls that seemingly met his shirt collar without bothering to stop for neck. Several of my more media-conscious UNISON colleagues saw an opportunity and descended upon him for photos. I was dragged along for the ride as political self-interest met political self-interest, and somewhere out there, there is now a picture of me waving a giant purple solidarity flag above a large collection of gurning unionites.

This would have been surreal enough had the crowd not suddenly parted, leaving me face-to-face with Ed himself. He raised his chin, looked me directly in the eye and boomed, 'I thought that was a really good turnout, don't you agree?' I was suddenly aware of flashing cameras on all sides and dozens of pairs of eyes focused on me, and I blinked a couple of times while I searched frantically for an appropriate answer. Mercifully, after what seemed like an eternity, I squeaked, 'Yes.'

It was Balls' turn to look somewhat nonplussed. When you are used to political dialogue and the subtle complexities of intrigue, it is perhaps somewhat disarming to encounter banality. We sized each other up for a few seconds, before his staff swarmed around him and hustled him away to meetings with genuinely important people.

Say No More

A fitting title for what has been a lousy week for at least one person close to me while my own week has been up there as one of the happiest I've had in ages. Mostly this has been due to the positive experience of a UNISON Tackling Racism course, which has made me think a whole lot more on the subject.

The single biggest thing I took from the course is how much of the insitutional racism in today's educated world tends to be an unwitting and unintended side-effect of not thinking through policies and comments, rather than being due to direct prejudice. Of course, it would be foolish to think that such prejudices no longer existed and either way, the divisive outcome still needs to be tackled. However, I am hopeful that this is symptomatic of a cultural shift whereby the racism we do see is a product of thoughtlessness rather than malicious forethought. It is not yet the sea change that black and minority ethnic people deserve, but at least we can hope that things may be moving in the right direction.

The real topic of this entry is about talking. It might have been good to talk in BT adverts a few years ago, but recent experience teaches us that it might be even better to shut up. In the last ten days, we have seen Lord Triesman, head of the English Football Association and chair of the England 2018 World Cup bid stung by the Daily Mail into making unwise comments to Melissa Jacobs, a lady he considered to be a personal friend but who was actually armed with a tape recorder and a requisite amount of silver.

Triesman suggested the possibility that Russian referees at the forthcoming world cup in South Africa might make preferential decisions towards Spain in return for Latin American support in deciding the outcome of who would host the event in 2018. So far, so ill-advised - but Triesman was clear that this was a private opinion only, and that he had no evidence that supported the possibility. Regardless, the sting became front page news and Triesman duly resigned, sagely noting that he was foolish to entrust his opinions to a former colleague. The England bid team have worked hard to minimise the damage, while much of the fallout has been attached to the odious Daily Mail, who have already blotted their copybook by supporting the Nazis in the run-up to World War II. In fact, I love to tell that story so much, I've decided here and now that that will be the topic of a future entry. Watch this space.

In the same week, US waitress Ashley Johnson became briefly famous for being sacked by pizza chain Brixx. Her crime - posting a Facebook entry criticising customers for being lousy at tipping. She has joined the less-than-illustrious ranks of those to put jobs at jeopardy by not thinking through the consequences of their actions.

And as for me? Kettle, this is pot...you're black. One of the hardest lessons my career has taught me is that there is a time and a place for being honest and critical with opinions. It frustrates me sometimes when things are not done well and I know that they could be done much better. However, there is also a way to make this point and much to be said for leading by example, rather than being cynical or using that horrible phrase, 'I told you so.'

Would I criticise my employer in this blog if I felt that the criticism was justified? Yes, I have always struggled to lie and I suspect that my principles would win out in the end. However, I feel it is also important to acknowledge that I and my colleagues work very hard and are often underappreciated by the general public for the things that we do well. More than ever, it is something well worth remembering.