NASUWT Representatives

www.nasuwt.org.uk15Engage• Get together with members and talk generally about issues they face, the Union, oreducation in the news. Feeling that the Union is accountable and listening is important formembers.• Regular, formal meetings are necessary too. Give members the opportunity to engagewith each other and discuss issues that they might have. Briefing them on Union news isvital to ensure they can effect change through the Union’s democratic structures.• It is essential that your school is represented at Local Association meetings. Thesemeetings keep your workplace engaged with the wider NASUWT community. Your LocalAssociation Secretary can help you and give advice when you need it. If you cannot getto a Local Association meeting yourself, ask other members in your school to do so.• Engage effectively with school management and report regularly back to NASUWTmembers on all discussions/developments. Ensure members are kept appraised of widerissues affecting their terms and conditions.Inform• Organise ways to pass on information to members within the school. If members sharedifferent lunch times or are in different departments, delegate responsibility to pass‘down’ information. Develop a system in which members can feed back on news, so youcan decide if a members’ meeting is necessary to address any recurring concerns.• Do your best to make sure that Union notice boards are up to date and that you arepublicising the material that the Union sends out. If another member is willing to take onthis responsibility, make arrangements for them to join the team.Empower• Where you feel it is possible to ‘group’ members’ concerns, encourage them to gettogether and suggest alternatives and encourage them to act together as the Union.• Have conversations with members about how they can contribute to the direction of theUnion at work. Do not be tempted to ‘service’ members and try to meet their needsyourself. Organise them, by delegating responsibility so that they can effect their ownchange.• The NASUWT wants all minority and under-represented groups within the Union toparticipate. Women, disabled, lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT), black and minorityethnic (BME) and young members should be encouraged and if there are issues at work,or within education that specifically relate to a minority group, we should empower themto make changes by engaging them within the Union’s structure.• Identify training needs of members, whether union training or continuing professionaldevelopment (CPD), and make representations on their behalf.REALISMRealistically, organising is about increasing the number of activists and participatingmembers to as high a percentage as is practicable. Activists/representatives operatingin an organising environment will be more proactive. We cannot achieve this type oforganising culture overnight, but the NASUWT has committed itself to making thejourney.Useful recruitment resources produced by the NASUWT can be found on theNASUWT website at www.nasuwt.org.uk.Background Information