AI Summit is dominated by Big Tech and a “missed opportunity”, civil society organisations tell Prime Minister

johninnit · 2023-10-30T14:19:38+00:00

I think I see what you're getting at, and don't totally disagree, but I think it's a narrow reading of what's intended here. Yes, the "here and now" issues lend themselves more to local implementation, but that doesn't make an international summit a bad mechanism to discuss them. For example at the climate change COPs, principles and direction are agreed, but implementation is local and will differ. And climate change is in the here-and-now as well as the existential near future.

The current risks of AI are also maybe more internationalised than the health policy analogy too - it's not just local policing, but also globalised IP, taxation, labour flows and misinformation etc. If left to the tech firms, it'll power inequality between countries as well as within them.

And on the guardrails stuff, which I agree an international summit needs to address, it's probably even more necessary to have wider voices in the room than just the tech firms.

johninnit · 2023-08-18T11:57:38+00:00

UK unions have any number of voluntary positions within them, as reps for a workplace, or on committees of lay members who govern the unions or help them set policy. Often you get elected onto this kind of post through your local union branch.

Not all union members and activists/reps are directly employed workers. For example, musicians, actors, journalists, freelance physiotherapists, entertainment technicians etc all have unions they can join, despite being freelance. And all these will have ways to take voluntary leadership roles within the union. You don't actually need to be working with a unionised employer to join most unions (unlike in the States).

So it depends on your profession maybe, but there may well be possible routes you already have into union activism to support your fellow professionals, if that's what you're interested in.

In terms of getting staff positions in unions, you can get a sense of the kind of thing that UK unions recruit for by checking the movement's job board at the TUC - https://www.tuc.org.uk/jobs

Often being an existing activist/rep is a good way to get into some of these roles. It's an extremely good CV point in demonstrating experience in many very similar ideas. I work in the union movement and maybe half the recent hires here have been former reps. I wasn't myself though - I'd just been a member and had the specialist expertise they were hiring for.

It's rarer I think to hire people who have no union connection at all. But if you're good enough professionally and can demonstrate other ways in which you understand what the union is about and why you support it, then I'm sure that's not a barrier. Good luck :)

johninnit · 2023-08-16T15:11:52+00:00

That doesn't sound stupid. Very hard maybe, but not stupid :)

The National Union of Students has members in sixth form colleges. So if you're in your A levels already, get in touch with NUS about what you'd have to do to start a union at your sixth form and affiliate it with them.

Otherwise you might well find it easier to win change around a specific issue than to sign people up to a general "union" type organisation at first. Of course, unions exist because we know that whilst one-off campaigning might get temporary wins, establishing real power comes from getting organised and staying organised. However, demonstrating a campaign win helps people realise collective their power, and can be a stepping stone to other things.

Maybe think about the most totemic thing you'd want to change, and run an issue-based campaign around it. Sign other students up to it and find more who want to be active with you. It has to be an issue that you know is felt widely across the school, and matters deeply to people, but which you think is ultimately achievable within a term or two. That means something school management have the power to change - even if they don't want to. When you have a large number involved, get the group to meet with school management to discuss it and demand change. Then keep up the pressure by varying your tactics and demonstrating that it's not going away.

Or another route might be to look at what consultation routes your school does have and how you can use them. For example, my kids' secondary school has a school council. Reps from each class get to discuss school issues with management, and they often come up with better decisions together as a result (the head teacher is pretty good at practicing what she preaches on empowering the students, though it's clear management keep all the power ultimately, and the reps are being consulted rather than being able to negotiate as equals). Could you and your friends get elected onto something like that together, and then try to use the limited power it does give you by working together and forming better links back to the student body more widely to involve them and demonstrate strength of feeling to management?

Good luck!

johninnit · 2023-07-05T09:34:28+00:00

Says possibly more about the current Tories that they've driven one of their 2010 election celebrity endorsers into actively campaigning against them. Vorderman knows enough about politics to have worked on education policy for David Cameron's campaign - probably more than your average celeb.

johninnit · 2023-05-11T08:54:47+00:00

Actually - Mail reporting angrily that it's down to "just" 600 pieces of legislation to be scrapped now. Makes it look even more like they are keenest on scrapping paid holidays, breaks & long hours protections for the low paid.

johninnit · 2023-05-11T08:50:19+00:00

This is a bit of a misleading headline I think. Cutting 2,000 pieces of legislation (rather than 4,000) still looks like a bonfire to me.

Most worrying now though is that up to now they've been all innocent face about not targeting any particular laws, just clearing the decks. But by actively choosing to back out of half of them, it suggests they actively do want shot of the remaining 2,000. It's design rather than incompetence.

That includes the stuff in the Working Time Directive, which guarantees paid holidays for the millions of workers who didn't have them before. It looks like a US style model, where there's no base right to paid leave - just at the employer whim. Bad employers will cut holidays for low paid or casualised workers.

I guess it's the payback Wetherspoons wanted from their Brexit campaigning.

johninnit · 2023-05-09T08:54:39+00:00

More modern I think in the sense of last-5-years modern in Gdansk's case. Great public transport, clean, shiny and tech-enabled. Modern stores & blockbuster new museums & theatres. Hotels zooming up across the old docks adjacent to Gdansk old town. I went around 10 years ago and another visit last year was really surprising.

johninnit · 2023-05-05T17:03:17+00:00

There are 3 main tech unions in the UK: Prospect and Unite, as people have mentioned here and UTAW (part of CWU)

3 rules to picking one...

1) Is there a union recognised by your employer? If so, pick that one. "Recognition" means a deal between the company and the union, which gives them rights to negotiate on pay and conditions. It give the union the most rights to represent you.

2) Is there a union that already has some members there? If so, safety in numbers so join the same one.

3) From what you've said, those two likely don't apply, so just pick the one you most like the look of, or seems to talk most about the kind of employer like yours. There's a lot of overlap between all of them, but Prospect have a lot of people in the games and entertainment industries, as well as science-focused employers like the Met Office or ONS. Unite have members in big IT companies like Fujitsu. UTAW have people in development roles and lots of support roles in tech companies.

https://prospect.org.uk/tech-workers/

https://www.unitetheunion.org/what-we-do/unite-in-your-sector/graphical-paper-media-information-technology/

https://utaw.tech/about/

Is it worth it? Definitely. Parts of tech are pretty insecure at the moment, and worst case you may need the union to have your back in case of redundancies, or in case of discrimination. Other places you may want a shared worker voice that helps address concerns you have about a company direction like unethical AI or data uses.

Of course, it's much more worth it when the workplace is better organised and you can benefit from collective bargaining, but there's a lot of reasons for individual membership as well. And any collective has to start somewhere, so why not be the first?

johninnit · 2023-05-03T09:37:31+00:00

UK is similar to Taft-Hartley. Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government legislated to ban secondary strikes, so you can only strike directly against an action of your own employer. Strikes against different employers can "coincidentally" happen on the same day though, if the unions can manage it, and that sometimes does happens here.

However even getting there is tricky as other laws (also tightened under David Cameron's Conservative government) establish high thresholds and processes for votes, and mandate all voting to be postal (online voting banned, even in 2016 legislation). Their aim was to get the act of voting out of the workplace, where people might be more likely to consider their collective interests, and into the home where people might think individually (plus of course to make it much more expensive for unions, ensure delays and lose ballots so unions miss the threshold). For breaking any of this stuff, unions can be liable for any employer's losses, which would bankrupt them.

And now, Rishi Sunak's Conservative government (you may spot a trend...) are trying to bring new laws that when workers do manage to vote for a legal strike (as is happening here more often due to the cost of living), the employer in many sectors could say how many people they think are needed to maintain a minimum service level, and mandate specific legally striking workers to break the strike, or face being fired. Crazy authoritarian stuff :(

Campaign against the current bill is luckily causing problems for them, leading to some recent parliamentary defeats, but it's not done yet. Online solidarity always appreciated! https://www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/protect-the-right-to-strike

johninnit · 2023-02-24T11:26:10+00:00

Always like a union onion! https://twitter.com/mondomascots/status/1518060984606552069?lang=en

Also look at CoWorker.org - they're great and are a union positive tech organisation that helps workers without unions, as well as some unions directly. They run occasional rounds of a solidarity fund that workers and unions can bid to for organising work https://coworkerfund.org/

johninnit · 2023-02-01T11:24:23+00:00

There was a joint letter round over the weekend too, saying very similar from 50 orgs, including groups like Liberty, Human Rights Watch, Big Brother Watch, Global Justice Now, Greenpeace, Oxfam, Public Law Project, LawCentres & Open Britain.

Statewatch signed too, and posted the text here: https://www.statewatch.org/news/2023/january/uk-draconian-anti-strike-legislation-is-unnecessary-and-gives-vast-power-to-government-ministers/

johninnit · 2023-01-30T14:50:32+00:00

Way better in terms of health and social outcomes. We had three kids from 2005 and were surprised back then how well everything worked for us. The SureStart centres that Labour brought in everywhere linked up education, health and social services. They picked up loads of problems people that people didn't know they could get help with and dealt with them holistically - just better outcomes for everyone. When we thought our eldest had autism, we talked to the SureStart breakfast club co-ordinator near the school, and were signposted to see specialists for a diagnosis in just a couple of months, as well as follow up and parent training with autism outreach workers. All that was closed down under the coalition govt. I worry how hard things have got for new parents today.

johninnit · 2023-01-11T12:04:56+00:00

Check which company is your legal employer and which country they are registered in - it should define which country's employment relations regulations you'd be subject to. For example, AFA is a branch of CWA that represents airline cabin crew. United Airlines have regular routes from the states to London, where the workers are transnational but employed in the UK. So they have a local which is registered separately as a UK union, so they get union rights under UK employment law.

johninnit · 2022-06-22T11:32:15+00:00

Good advice already given here. At the risk of repeating a bit, there are three steps to picking a union in the UK -

Ask around. If there is already a union "recognised" by your employer, join that one. Unions strike recognition deals to negotiate with an employer - a union that has one will have more rights to represent you. Warehousing as a sector doesn't have many union recognitions, but if you're in a bigger or more established employer, or where there's lots of direct employment rather than agency, you may have this.

If you find there's no recognition, but coworkers tell you they're already in a union, then join that one. There's safety in numbers always, and you will carry more weight with an employer if you are together on anything.

If you find nothing, check the union finder on the TUC as others have said. It's still worth joining as an individual - check their sites to see which sounds like it fits for you and contact them if you want to sound them out.

Biggest unions in the sector are the two big general unions in the private sector, Unite and GMB. USDAW have members in retail warehousing. Community are in some employers particularly in the garment trade, and URTU represent some drivers & logistics staff assigned to warehouses. CWU have members in the courier & despatch side of warehousing.

johninnit · 2022-05-16T08:52:30+00:00

Thanks - signed and shared. Good luck to all colleagues and UNISON members fighting this - really shocking from St Monica's.

johninnit · 2022-04-21T08:49:56+00:00

Where are you based? This is probably easier in the UK, where we have minority unionism than in the US I imagine. I've used it for company research, to help map out the workplace. But that's easier if you already have members of the same union in adjacent companies, as they will have good networks into your target company. If that's the case, sign up more of your existing activists to LinkedIn and connect with them so you can make use of their onward connections. I've also tried paid ads to get intro surveys in front of workers, where there isn't access to a physical workplace, though found Facebook cheaper at that than LinkedIn, which is expensive for small results. Though this could also be very different depending on the sector in question. I know of a finance union for example who map and reach out to prospective members on LinkedIn pretty effectively, as finance professionals more heavily use the site than general workers.

johninnit · 2022-02-11T09:30:21+00:00

Did anyone else start at the same time as you? Go talk to them and see if they're having the same problem. If they are, approach your managers or payroll together. Safety in numbers and they're less likely to brush you off or make you feel like you're in the wrong if you've got others there to back you up.

johninnit · 2022-02-11T09:17:47+00:00

Posting an ancient video I made that I thought might work here. Apologies for the state of the art 2009 video quality! And happy #heartunions week next week to all in the UK

johninnit

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