SWU members can access the GFTU Education Programme training courses free of charge*.
*With some exceptions including the Activists’ Academy and the Trade Union Leadership Innovation Programme (T.U.L.I.P), which offer a discounted rate for GFTU affiliates including SWU members.
About GFTU Educational Trust Courses
Building on the GFTU’s growing success, as we continue to strengthen their educational offer for all, the GFTU Education Trust is proud to present our biggest education programme yet.
This year’s programme provides the foundations for further union renewal by combining the best of online learning, webinars and workshops with high-quality residential courses. This includes union education, development of skills, peer-to-peer networking, and strategic discussion.
We all learn differently and at the GFTU we pride ourselves on providing topical and thought-provoking learning opportunities, which are sometimes beyond the classroom, such as a conference or live performance. Knowledge is powerful and through learning, we develop understanding that stays with us, enabling us to be empowered to make a difference, to make more informed choices and support others to make a difference for themselves, their union, family and communities.
There is something for everyone who is already active or wants to become active in their trade union. Our aim is to inspire, educate and support trade union activists across the UK and beyond. You may be a new union member just finding out about how to get more involved in your union or a seasoned activist, a full-time union officer, or possibly something in between.
You can visit the GFTU Educational Trust website to book onto any course, click here for a PDF version of the full timetable of courses, or keep reading below.
You can also click here to view a full list of the GFTU Education Programme 2025-2026 training courses.
Trade Union and Working Class History (Online)
Following the success of last year’s programme of online courses, we will be running another trade union and working-class history series. This year’s course focuses specifically on the role played by women in trade union and working class history, and are run in partnership with the Marx Memorial Library and Working Class Movement Library.
Price: Free
Dates: These online sessions will each last for 90 minutes and begin at 7pm. See the sessions below for dates:
- 25 June 2026 – The Ford Dagenham Strike
- 30 July 2026 – Trico: The Longest Equal Pay Strike
REGISTER HERE. Please note: You only need to sign up once to access all online sessions.
Watch previous Trade Union & Working Class seminars on the GFTU Educational Trust’s YouTube playlists:
- 2025-2026: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf157HLv68RCXBcIVBvh2TI_XJckeRNCy
- 2024-2025: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf157HLv68RAVwnIw9fQItVXAEtW9mcWM
- 2023-2024: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf157HLv68RCFUBDzzfTQc1K0UGoj8eyZ
Activists’ Academy
Residential Course: GFTU Quorn Grange
Alongside high-quality courses throughout the year, those who sign up to any of our Workplace Reps stage 1 courses will be enrolled in our Activists’ Academy.
Our academy will link all students with an experienced trade union mentor and be able to speak with other peers, through our peer-to-peer network.
This academy bridges the gap between the incredible learning experiences we all have on union education courses with the reality of implementing what we have learned when we get back to the workplace. We will undertake a full review of the academy and its impact before developing further.
To find out more about our activists’ academy please get in touch via campaigns@gftu.org.uk.
GFTU Summer School
Price: Free for SWU members and GFTU affiliates. £425 for non-affiliates.
Location: GFTU Quorn Grange
Dates:
- Summer Term: 13 – 15 July 2026
This is our annual opportunity to take stock and think about the future of the Movement and where we go next. As we look to build on recent organising and campaigning successes, the course will help participants to think strategically and embrace new ideas.
Our Summer School provides the space and stimulus for a bolder, bigger and better union Movement. This course is aimed at experienced and newer trade union activists who want an opportunity to think outside the box with key leaders from across the movement.
This Summer School will be extra special as it will include the graduation of those that took part in the first ever pilot of the Activist Academy.
REGISTER HERE. Please note: The application deadline for this course is June 29th 2026.
CPD Day for Professional Trade Union Tutors
Price: £150
Location: GFTU Quorn Grange
Dates:
- Summer Term: 16 July 2026
We aim to bring together all professional trade union education tutors across the movement. You might deliver education and training as part of your full-time union staff role, or you might be a full-time trade union educator, working for a further education college. This continual professional development (CPD) day is for everyone to come together and discuss emerging technologies, curriculum and pedagogies for the best education and learning across our movement.
We recognise the incredible breadth of skills and experience across the union movement in the delivery of trade union education and believe providing the space for
educators to come together is vital to strengthening activism in our unions.
This is a one-day course, delivered at the Workers’ Retreat, Quorn Grange Hotel in Loughborough.
REGISTER HERE. Please note: The application deadline for this course is 2nd July 2026.
Political Economy International School 2025-2026 (video recordings)
Made up of 10 sessions in total, watch our complete series of the Political Economy International School as part of our 2025-2026 education programme: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf157HLv68RDfiI8gK3Xqa6cz38uY5b65
This series is built upon the joint Lecture Series in Advanced Political Economy (SAPE) by SOAS University of London and The New School for Social Research in New York in 2021-23. With an additional partner The Center for Heterodox Economics (CHE) at the University of Tulsa, this seminar series connects the academic discussions to the real-world power struggle and workers’ everyday lives.
We talk about current affairs, trends in production and work, and their implications on trade unions and the working-class movement. Each week, we invite leading experts on the subject and analyse what’s been going on by identifying key challenges.
Together with the audience, we want to think about how we can fight against the challenges and build a movement toward a more systematic change.
Strategy Series 2024-2026 (video recordings)
This online international seminar series is built upon the joint Lecture Series in Advanced Political Economy (SAPE) by SOAS University of London and The New School for Social Research in New York in 2021-23. With an additional partner The Center for Heterodox Economics (CHE) at the University of Tulsa, this seminar series will connect the academic discussions to the real-world power struggle and workers’ everyday lives.
We will talk about current affairs, trends in production and work, and their implications on trade unions and the working-class movement. Each week, we will invite leading experts on the subject and analyse what’s been going on by identifying key challenges.
Together with the audience, we want to think about how we can fight against the challenges and build a movement toward a more systematic change.
You can view the GFTU’s YouTube playlists for this series here:
- 2025-2026: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf157HLv68RBeicrVjmy5oHpV39aCs2TU
- 2024-2025: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf157HLv68RCe1iDiOut8_27cyQQeCWM2
Solidarity Series 2024-2025 (video recordings)
Solidarity is a key founding principle of the General Federation of Trade Unions and our educational trust. Through this series, we will explore domestic and international campaign groups, organisations and unions that help us think about and deliver solidarity that matters. Join this series and help build a stronger union movement across our country and beyond.
You can view the GFTU’s YouTube playlist for this series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf157HLv68RBBjCeiRxJnnu8bqDaoTFG6
Social Justice Unionism Today – 16 September 2024
This public meeting took place on 16th September 2024 from 6-7:30pm at The Wesley in London, Euston. Speakers were:
- Cecily Myart-Cruz, President of the United Teachers Los Angeles
- Daniel Kebede, General Secretary of the National Education Union
- Gawain Little, General Secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions
Join Cecily Myart-Cruz in conversation with Daniel Kebede and Gawain Little to learn about the experiences of UTLA and discuss what lessons we can draw here. This was Cecily’s only public event on her visit to the UK in 2024.
Cecily, the first Black woman president of the UTLA, has led the union during a period of renewed organising and campaigning. UTLA has secured major victories in this time:
- 21% pay rise for teachers
- increased staffing in schools – including psychologists and social workers
- housing support for low-income families
- immigrant support in schools
These wins have come from a conscious strategy of building member power; forging alliances with students, parents, and community groups; and ‘bargaining for the common good’.
Reviving the Trade Union Movement, Defying Anti-UnionLaws, and Building Power – 17 September 2024
This online session was led by veteran union negotiator and labor lawyer with over 30 years experience negotiating labor agreements, Joe Burns. Joe is currently the General Counsel and Director of Collective Bargaining for the Association of Flight Attendants, CWA. He graduated from the New York University School of Law. Prior to law school he worked in a public sector hospital and was president of his AFSCME Local. He is the author of three books on labor: Class Struggle Unionism, Strike Back and Reviving the Strike.
The True Causes of Inflation: Weak Production and High Profits
By Costas Lapavitsas, James Meadway & Doug Nicholls
The “cost of living crisis” in the UK can be simply summed up: prices, especially of essentials, are too high, and wages, and other working-class incomes are too low. The basic steps to resolving the crisis are simple: prices, especially of essentials, must be brought down, and wages, salaries, benefits, and pensions must be increased.
This pamphlet published in September 2022 shows that the big businesses dominating production and distribution make huge profits out of high inflation, while working people lose out. It sets out factual evidence to illustrate that the source of record profits is the fall in real wages as inflation rises. A large part of the income of working people is transferred directly into the profits of big business.
Download a copy of this PDF here.
A Series of Seminars: Economic Policy & the Role of Trade Unions Recordings
Each of these seminars will consider critical, but overlooked, contemporary economic issues. These have to be discussed if fresh policies are to be developed with trade union participation to achieve a new deal for working people, our communities, and the environment.
The dominance of the finance sector and lack of investment in the productive economy have created a volatile and fragile environment. It is imperative to consider the latest thinking that could inject dynamism into productive activities, create good jobs, channel finance away from speculation, and achieve environmental targets.
Professor Costas Lapavitsas, Larry Elliott, Economics Editor Guardian, and Grace Blakely, Economics Editor, Tribune, will be among those contributing to this series.
It is hoped that the seminars would lead to new policy development for unions and community organisations.
Economic Seminar 1: Dealing with the Rising Cost of Living (published 16 June 2022)
This is the first in a series of online seminars on the British economy by the General Federation of Trade Unions and SOAS, University of London, in collaboration with the research network, EReNSEP. This seminar covers:
- The causes of inflation in the Pandemic Crisis.
- Government intervention in favour of big business.
- Measures to protect the income and livelihood of working people.
The Bigger Picture: Autumn 2022 Series of Online Seminars
This is a series of GFTU online seminars that took place every third Thursday – starting on 15th September 2022. More sessions are planned for the New Year.
Trade Unionists have to deal with the day to day and the here and now. But what happens at work is affected by wider, global forces also? The balance of those world forces, particularly the US and China is changing. The changes will have dramatic impact.
You can view the first of these free GFTU seminars designed to stimulate online discussion with international experts:
GFTU Seminar: China in the World Today (15 September 2022)
“The Chinese people have adopted a completely different developmental approach than the West. This route is constantly vilified and attacked and distorted in the media. So what is the truth, what are the policies that are driving China, is it a force for peace and progress and social and economic development or not? Is a country that has raised 850m people out of extreme poverty as bad as it has been depicted? Do the people have a say or is everything determined by the 96m Communist Party members? Why have 147 of the 193 nations who are members of the UN signed up to its vast belt and road initiative? Why has the US surrounded China with arsenals of weapons? How does China’s foreign policy compare with that of the US and Britain?
To consider these and many other issues surrounding China and our perceptions of it join Keith Bennett and Carlos Martinez (who are both expert writers and advisors on China), to take part in an informed discussion.”
GFTU Seminar: The Decline of US Imperialism (20 October 2022)
“The United States is marred by severe structural difficulties that are increasingly impairing its former ability to get its way and shape the world to suit its narrow interests. A combination of increasing indebtedness (already larger than its GDP), sustained neglect of its domestic infrastructure, poor economic performance and extraordinary levels of military spending are driving it to lose its world supremacy in almost every field.
This situation the US faces is compounded by the rise of China as part of an emerging multipolar geopolitics, but more acutely by the growing challenge to the petrodollar. All of this lies to an important degree at the base of both the string of defeats suffered by Latin America’s right-wing forces and the beginnings of the re-emergence of the Pink Tide with left wing electoral victories in Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia, Chile (possibly also in Colombia and Brazil), plus the survival and recovery of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. This context offers promising opportunities to progressive forces in Latin America.
This discussion will be facilitated by Dr Francisco Dominguez, Specialist in the political economy of contemporary Latin America at Middlesex University.”