Why exactly does the union make us strong? How is a strike different from a work to rule? How can ‘precarious’ workers gain collective strength?

I’ve run workshops with lots of differnet unions, from land workers’ unions to food courier unions. We look at the struggles of workers across the world, and across history, to contextualise our own role in the fight for workers’ control.

Whether you run workshops or a full scale education programme, or whether you’re just starting out in teaching, there is a wealth of radical educational theory and practice to explore. This practice-based workshop helps tutors work out the right exercises and structures to use for their own educational practice. With a focus on the interplay between education and action, the workshop covers techniques from liberation movements in Brazil, Guinea-Bissau and Grenada.

In the aftermath of the 1926 General Strike, strike committees from across the UK were surveyed to debrief from the action. They wrote that they felt workers needed to be better trained in writing, speech-giving, cartoons, pamphlet making, and in practical printing skills. They had found that during the strike they wanted to produce more stuff but had lacked the confidence or skill to do it. Skills in creative writing, art and music completely change our movement. This workshop helps students make the stuff they want to make.

What holds a group together? How can a group of people support each other and remain strong? How have modern conditions of work and life made it harder to wield collective strength?

From guilds to mass unions, to tenants organisations and feminist groups, radicals have had to build collective identity and strength in the face of huge challenges. This workshop explores different kinds of workers collectives, from history and the present, and the glue that holds them together.

History is an important part of workers education. Studying history gives students the ideas and license to be more creative and adventurous with their philosophy and with their practice. It gives them a sense of historical change that allows them to work out how to act in the conditions they find themselves in. I have most experience teaching the history of Irish and Scottish radical movements, the history of Marxism, and the history of political thought.

What is Marxism and why does it matter? How does it change our view of history when we see it from a materialist perspective? How did Marx think change came about?

The workshop introduces Marx’s historical context and the development of Marxism as the philosophy of mass movements since the 19th century. It gives students a basic understanding that they can use to grasp the archipalegic Marxist movements that arose across the world.