Category: Courses

Green UNISON Week, 18 – 26 September

#GreenWorkplace #JustTransition #DivestFromFossilFuels #COP26 #ClimateJustice

The week provides an opportunity to step up calls for urgent action on climate change, support youth climate strikers AND build towards a massive turnout of Scottish members at the Global Day of Action on Saturday 6 November during the United Nations COP 26 Climate Summit.

Thursday 16 September, 10am – 1pm.

Adaptation in the Workplace, free interactive workshop for all Scottish trade unionists.

Take this short survey on your experiences of how the Scottish climate affects your workplace.

Wednesday 22 September

ITUC Global Day of Action to climate and employment-proof work: take part in a global conversation about our future.

Thursday 23 September, 12.30pm

UNISON Green Week lunchtime webinar: register here to find out more about what members can do to green public services and organise to support the November 6th Cop26 Global day of Action for Climate Justice demonstrations and rallies in 10 cities across the UK.

Friday 24 September

Global youth climate strike: events planned across Scotland, including Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling.

Anti-trade union laws mean that UNISON branches cannot take strike action, but individuals can show their support in other ways, such as attending events in their own time or offering help with stewarding.

September and October

Take One Action Film Festival nurtures communal exploration of the stories, ideas and questions at the heart of positive social change.  Through film screenings, conversation and enquiry, the festival brings people together to inspire a fairer, more sustainable and more fulfilling world, in Scotland and beyond.

Saturday 6 November

COP26 Global Day of Action, Glasgow: Worldwide demonstrations demanding that the UN Climate talks at COP26 in Glasgow deliver climate justice.  UNISON members are encouraged to join thousands of protesters for the rally and march in Glasgow calling on world leaders to act now on the climate emergency.

Sunday 7 to Wednesday 10 November

People’s Summit for Climate Justice aims to bring together the climate justice movement to discuss, learn and strategise for system change.  Join in online from anywhere in the world, or in person in Glasgow.

UNISON is part of the COP26 Coalition.  To find out more about the COP Climate Summit in Glasgow and how branches and members can get involved, support climate justice and related activities, and take part, keep an eye on the Cop26 Coalition website for updates on details of Cop 26 Glasgow events from 31 October to 12 November.

Climate Adaptation in the Workplace

 Thu, 16 September 2021 | 10:00 – 13:00

We’ve all seen news reports in recent days and months on the immensely destructive impact of extreme weather events around the world. Climate change is hitting hard. It’s important, in addition to work on how we reduce emissions in a Just Transition, to look at how we adapt, including at work to protect workers.

The workshop is open to members of all Scottish trade unions. It will, of course, be of particular interest to health and safety and green/environment reps, but no prior knowledge or experience is required. It builds upon the preliminary webinar held on 13 July, which provided an overview of how climate change will impact Scottish workplaces. However, all are welcome and there is no need to have attended the earlier webinar to attend this workshop. A video of the previous session can be viewed here:

This is part of a joint project with the STUC and is being taken forward by UNISON Scotland working with Adaptation Scotland. Contributions in the workshop (and from the survey, below) will help inform content for the handbook, due to be published during the period of the UN COP26 climate talks in Glasgow in November. The handbook and video presentation resources are aimed at helping trade union reps to champion well-designed workplace adaptation solutions that help tackle inequality and promote social justice.

Please take part in this short survey if you’ve not yet done so. You can also volunteer via the survey for a longer interview.
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/BSNHMLN

The Relaxation of COVID19 Protections

There is a STUC  webinar on ‘The Relaxation of COVID19 Protections: The impact for workers and unions’, this takes place on 08th September at 4pm, further information including registration details can be found here.

This webinar is FREE and will be very interesting, if you are interested please book.

UNISON Save our Services campaign

We have released:

In addition to the above the following actions have also taken place:

  • General Secretary Christina McAnea has asked members and the public to consider, ‘Is this the kind of community you want to live in?’ in her new blog.
  • Youtube advertising
  • Email to all local gov members
  • Lead story in Activist Digital
  • Facebook, Insta, Twitter and Youtube posts

Just Transition conference -Thurs 2 Sept

Please find below details of this important Just Transition conference on Thurs 2 Sept, organised by the Just Transition Partnership. The excellent list of speakers includes Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Congress, Roz Foyer, STUC General Secretary, Asad Rehman, of War on Want and the COP26 Coalition, Mary Church of Friends of the Earth Scotland and the COP26 Coalition. More info and registration via the Eventbrite link

Climate, Jobs, Justice: Making the Just Transition Happen, Online Event on Thursday, 2 September, 11.30-3.30pm

A conference about why we need a just transition and what has to be done about it. Organised by the Just Transition Partnership, confirmed speakers include:

  • Sharan Burrow, General Secretary, International Trade Union Congress
  • Dipti Bhatnagar, Friends of the Earth International
  • Roz Foyer, General Secretary, Scottish Trade Union Congress
  • Mary Church, Head of Campaigns, Friends of the Earth Scotland
  • Asad Rehman, War on Want and COP26 Coalition
  • Mika Minio-Palluelo, energy economist, Transition Economics
  • Laurie Macfarlane, economist, University College London
  • Sean Sweeney, Trade Unions for Energy Democracy
  • Various trade union speakers

You can register for free using the following link:

Climate, Jobs, Justice: Making the Just Transition Happen, Online Event on Thursday, 2 September, 11.30-3.30pm

A conference about why we need a just transition and what has to be done about it. Organised by the Just Transition Partnership, confirmed speakers include:

  • Sharan Burrow, General Secretary, International Trade Union Congress
  • Dipti Bhatnagar, Friends of the Earth International
  • Roz Foyer, General Secretary, Scottish Trade Union Congress
  • Mary Church, Head of Campaigns, Friends of the Earth Scotland
  • Asad Rehman, War on Want and COP26 Coalition
  • Mika Minio-Palluelo, energy economist, Transition Economics
  • Laurie Macfarlane, economist, University College London
  • Sean Sweeney, Trade Unions for Energy Democracy
  • Various trade union speakers

You can register for free using the following link:

Register on Eventbrite

New and helpful local government finance training resources available

Throughout the year we have made available a series of training courses, run by the Local Government Information Unit, to help local government activists understand how local government finance works and crucially to provide them with guidance on how best they can influence the budgetary process to help protect jobs and council services. Given the extremely challenging financial outlook for all local councils it has never been more important for trade unionists to have a firm understanding of how local government finance works.
The courses for activists in England have now finished for the year but if you are in Wales or Scotland then you can still register for the upcoming training courses here: https://lgiu.org/localgovernment-finance-training-for-unison-stewards/

Session One

Session one of the training for activists in Scotland takes place online on 9th September

Session two

Session two in Scotland taking place on 30th September.


Session one of the training for activists in Cymru/Wales takes place online on 6th October with session two taking place on 29th October.

For those people who have not been able to attend any of these online training courses we are pleased to present a series of very helpful online videos which help promote understanding of how local government finance works which can be accessed here: https://lgiu.org/bite-size-learning-local-government-finance-training-for-unison-stewards/
UNISON members who haven’t registered on the LGIU website before will be prompted to sign up here https://lgiu.org/membership/ and then they will be able to access the videos via the webpage
above.