This year’s Adult Learners’ Week (15-21 May) is seeing trade unions at their innovative best when offering informal learning opportunities. Through unionlearn NW, workers and employers have come together to support a variety of projects across the region that look at addressing issues such as environmental issues, work life balance, fair trade and health at work.
Employers and union reps from across the region are today (14th May) attending the launch of the Enhanced Skills to Support Employment initiative. Unionlearn NW and the University of Bolton are embarking on this important project primarily aimed at supporting those facing redundancy or restructures at work.
Skills:Recession & Recovery project briefing
Skills: Recession & Recovery project briefing
More than half of employers (55 per cent) say that their employees have improved their qualifications, thanks to union-led projects.
As a result, nine out of ten say they will continue to be involved in union learning activities in the workplace. Two-thirds said there had been a benefit to the organisation and eight in ten said there had been a benefit to individuals.
It is the saddest story a man can ever tell – the death of his young daughter.
Ian Clayton, who describes himself as a storyteller, writer, broadcaster and performer, has done just that in his new book Our Billie. It tells of how he lost one of his twins, aged nine, in a canoeing accident in 2006 and how he was able to save her brother, Edward, from fast-flowing water of the river at Hay-on-Wye, Powys, Wales.
Ian will be reading from and signing copies of his new book at an event on Friday, April 23, held by unionlearn, the TUC’s learning and training organisation, at the LOGIK Centre, Leeds University, to celebrate World Book and Copyright Day. The day is a worldwide celebration and tribute to authors and books and aims to encourage people to discover the pleasure of reading.
Employers piggy backing off the popularity of apprenticeships with their own poor quality courses could ruin the brand reputation that has been built up over the last decade, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber will warn at a conference today (Friday).
Following the Government’s endorsement of the Financial Services Skills Council’s (FSSC) new strategy and renewal of its license, the FSSC and trade unions representing workers in the financial services and accountancy sectors will be working together to help meet the skills challenges facing the sector.
A third of people who do not receive training from their employers have said they are likely to use a new right to request training – with young people most likely to use the new right – according to a poll published by unionlearn, the learning and skills arm of the TUC. From tomorrow (April 6), 11 million employees in Great Britain will have the new right to ask for time away from work to undertake training that they believe will improve their performance and be beneficial to the business. Employers will be able to turn down requests only when there is a sound business reason to do so.
A new facility, which will make learning accessible to any union member, was launched on Friday (March 19). The TUS U-Net learning centre, based at Southampton City College, will provide online learning for members of any union, as well as their close family.