GFTU Education Programme 2024 – 2025

General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU)

SWU members can access the GFTU Education Programme training courses free of charge*.

*With the sole exceptions being 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

This year, we are celebrating GFTU’s 125th anniversary. GFTU has led the way with 125 years of solidarity, education, and unity. To mark this occasion, our Educational Trust is launching the biggest and most comprehensive education programme we have ever announced.

Listening to our affiliates and the wider trade union movement, this programme combines the best elements of union education, development of skills, peer-to-peer networking, and strategic discussion with a hybrid delivery.

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 brochure, or keep reading below.

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.

Price: Free

Dates: These online sessions will each last for 90 minutes and begin at 7pm. See the sessions below for dates:

  • 19th September 2024 – 1842 General Strike
  • 17th October 2024 – The Matchwomen’s Strike
  • 21st November 2024 – Chainmakers 1910
  • 4th December 2024 – 1914-1920: From syndicalism to revolution! In-person session: Working Class Movement Library, Salford
  • 16th January 2025 – General Strike 1926
  • 20th February 2025 – Anti-fascism 1930s/40s
  • 20th March 2025 – Ford Dagenham women
  • 17th April 2025 – Liaison Committee – New Rank & File Organisation
  • 15th May 2025 – Miners’ Strike 1974
  • 5th June 2025 – The Wapping Dispute & Printworker Organisation In-person session: Marx Memorial Library, London
  • 19th June 2025 – Imperial Typewriters 1974
  • 17th July 2025 – Grunwick 1976

REGISTER HERE.

Watch previous Trade Union & Working Class seminars on the GFTU Educational Trust’s YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf157HLv68RCFUBDzzfTQc1K0UGoj8eyZ

Health and Safety Stage 1 (5 days)


Price: Free for affiliates including SWU members. £425 for non-affiliates. 

Residential Course: GFTU Quorn Grange

Dates: 

  • Spring Term: 13th – 15th January 2025 (Follow-on sessions: 20th – 21st February 2025)
  • Summer Term: 6th – 8th May 2025 (Follow-on sessions: 12th – 13th June 2025)

The essential first course for new union representatives – both shop stewards and safety representatives.

The course is split into a 3-day residential course followed by two further days delivered online.

We will explore the trade union approach to health and safety, how to spot and deal with safety hazards, the rights and responsibilities of union representatives, and the main aspects of health and safety legislation. We will also cover how to carry out safety inspections and participate in safety committees.  

All pupils are provided with a Google Classroom of materials. 

REGISTER HERE. Please note: The deadlines for applications are 30th December 2024 for the Spring Term and 22nd April 2025 for the Summer Term.

Bargaining and Organising for Neurodiversity


Price: Free for affiliates including SWU members. For Non-affiliates: £200

Residential Course: GFTU Quorn Grange

Dates: 

  • Spring Term: 16th – 17th January 2025
  • Summer Term: 16th – 17th July 2025

This is a brand-new course in this year’s programme. In this two-day in-person course for union reps and activists, we will learn the meaning of the term ‘neurodiversity’ and related terms such as neurodiverse, neurodivergent, neurotypical.

This course will enable participants to be confident in identifying and understanding six neurodivergent conditions, understand aspects of neurodiversity and neurodivergent experience, e.g., spectrum, social judgements and understand the social model of disability and apply it to neurodivergence.

This course will give practical advice, support, and strategies to help participants identify barriers that workplaces and working conditions present to neurodivergent workers and measures to remove or reduce them, identify workplace changes that will benefit neurodivergent workers and understand the role of the trade union representative in bargaining, campaigning, and representing for change.

This course will be tutored by Janine Booth, Britain’s leading trainer of trade unionists about neurodiversity. After over 25 years of being actively involved in RMT, Janine now runs Red in the Spectrum, providing training and support. She is neurodivergent (autistic / ADHD / dyslexic-type specific learning difficulties), so brings lived experience of the issues that the training covers.

REGISTER HERE. Please note: The deadline for applications is 2nd January 2025 for Spring Term and 2nd July 2025 for Summer Term.

Strategy Series – Strategic Capacity


Price: Free

Location: Online

Date: 21st January 2025, 7-8pm

Strategy is not just a word. Strategy is about how we all within the trade union and wider labour movement build the power and capacity to improve workers’ lives. The employers have strategy, the managers have strategy, and it is vital that as a united labour movement we build our own.

This series will include discussions from leading thinkers on: reviving the trade union movement, how we build union strategy, the role of women and feminist approaches to our unions, strategies for developing activists and the capacity to win campaigns big and small.

Strategic Capacity will be delivered by Marshall Ganz, renowned community organiser and Harvard Professor, known for his work on public narrative and grassroots mobilisation strategies.

REGISTER HERE. Please note: The deadline for applications is 7th January 2025.

Solidarity Series – GFTU at Latin America Adelante Conference


Price: Free

Location: Online

Date: 8th February 2025

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.

REGISTER HERE. Please note: The deadline for applications is 11th January 2025.

Workplace Reps Stage 1 (5 Days)


Price: Free for affiliates including SWU members. For Non-affiliates: £400

Residential Course: GFTU Quorn Grange

Dates: 

  • Spring Term: 27th – 29th January 2025 (Follow-on sessions: 27th – 28th February 2025)
  • Summer Term: 27th – 29th May 2025 (Follow-on sessions: 26th – 27th June 2025)

The essential first course for all new union activists.

The course is split into a 3-day residential course followed by two further days delivered online.

We will be looking at the role of the rep, how to effectively represent members in a variety of situations, how to build the union in your workplace, and the importance of effective communication with members and your union.  

All pupils are provided with a Google Classroom of materials. 

REGISTER HERE. Please note: The deadlines for applications are 13th January 2025 for the Spring Term and 13th May 2025 for the Summer Term.

Lessons in Organising


Price: Free for affiliates including SWU members. For non-affiliates: £325

Venue: GFTU Quorn Grange

Residential Course Dates: 3rd – 4th February 2025

Several unions recently have won industrial action ballots despite the punitive thresholds imposed on them by legislation. What lessons can we learn from these successes so we can continue to win for members?

Drawing heavily on the success of the NEU in securing a huge mandate for action from their members across schools in England and Wales, we will be answering this question. This course takes its name from the book written by the GFTU’s new General Secretary and others.

REGISTER HERE. Please note: The deadlines for applications is 20th January 2025. 

Young Members’ Development Weekend


Price: Free for affiliates including SWU members. For Non-affiliates: £325

Residential Course: GFTU Quorn Grange

Dates: 

  • Spring Term: 7th – 9th February 2025
  • Summer Term: 20th – 22nd June 2025

If you are a young member or are new to union membership, then this residential event is for you! Full of inspiration, opportunity, education, and networking, this is a real chance for young members across the movement to develop their skills, gain knowledge and create links with other trade unions.

REGISTER HERE. Please note: The deadlines for applications are 24th January 2025 for the Spring Term and 6th June 2025 for the Summer Term.

Health and Safety Stage 2 (5 days)


Price: Free for affiliates including SWU members. £400 for non-affiliates. 

Residential Course: GFTU Quorn Grange

Dates: 

  • Spring Term: 10th – 12th February 2025 (Follow-on sessions: 20th – 21st March 2025)
  • Summer Term: 16th – 18th June 2025 (Follow-on sessions: 17th – 18th July 2025)

Building on the Stage 1 course, this course is suitable for new representatives wanting to develop their knowledge and skills and is also suitable as a refresher for more senior representatives.

The course is split into a 3-day residential course followed by two further days delivered online.

We will build knowledge of workplace safety legislation and how this can be used to, not only ensure a safer workplace, but also as a tool for building wider union organisation. 

All pupils are provided with a Google Classroom of materials. 

REGISTER HERE. Please note: The deadlines for applications are 27th January 2025 for the Spring Term and 2nd June 2025 for the Summer Term.

Strategy Series – What Does ‘Vulture Capitalism’ Mean For Organised Labour?


Price: Free

Location: Online

Date: 19th February 2025, 7-8pm

Strategy is not just a word. Strategy is about how we all within the trade union and wider labour movement build the power and capacity to improve workers’ lives. The employers have strategy, the managers have strategy, and it is vital that as a united labour movement we build our own.

This series will include discussions from leading thinkers on: reviving the trade union movement, how we build union strategy, the role of women and feminist approaches to our unions, strategies for developing activists and the capacity to win campaigns big and small.

What Does ‘Vulture Capitalism’ Mean For Organised Labour? will be delivered by Grace Blakeley, Tribune Magazine writer and author of Vulture Capitalism and The Corona Crash and Stolen: How to save the world from financialisation.

REGISTER HERE. Please note: The deadline for applications is 5th February 2025.

Workplace Reps Stage 2 (5 Days)


Price: Free for affiliates including SWU members. For Non-affiliates: £400

Residential Course: GFTU Quorn Grange

Dates: 

  • Spring Term: 3rd – 5th March 2025  (Follow-on sessions: 10th – 11th April 2025)
  • Summer Term: 4th – 6th August 2025 (Follow-on sessions: 11th – 12th September 2025)

Building on the Stage 1 course, this course is suitable for new activists wanting to develop their skills and is also suitable as a refresher for more senior activists.

The course is split into a 3-day residential course followed by two further days delivered online.

We will develop representation skills as well as looking at how activists can campaign and deal with issues collectively. We will also cover rights at work, the importance of the employment contract and how to ensure the union stays on the front foot with employers.  

All pupils are provided with a Google Classroom of materials. 

REGISTER HERE. Please note: The deadlines for applications are 17th February 2025 for the Spring Term and 21st July 2025 for the Summer Term.

Bargaining, Organising & Campaigning Around AI and Data


Price: Free for affiliates including SWU members. For Non-affiliates: £200

Residential Course: GFTU Quorn Grange

Dates: 

  • Spring Term: 10th – 11th March 2025
  • Summer Term: Summer Term: 28th – 29th July 2025

A two-day in-person course for union reps and activists to explore the opportunities and challenges offered by the rapidly developing world of Artificial Intelligence and data.

This course will include an in-depth analysis and explanation of all the variations of different Artificial Intelligence products, uses and then how we can utilise this knowledge to negotiate, organise and campaign as unions for the benefit of workers.

We will be exploring some of the new concepts that have been developed by unions that combine the use of data with automated systems and digital information/communication platforms.

Reps and activists will feel confident and empowered to negotiate and bargain with the employer around these critically important ideas, concepts, and their impact on the world of work.

This course will be tutored by Mike Joslin, CEO and Co-Founder of Bombe, an AI data targeting and audience modelling platform. He has built start-ups, managed large teams, run some of the UKs most high-profile campaigns and worked for and advised dozens of leading figures on the centre-left of politics including US President Barack Obama, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, Labour Leader Keir Starmer and Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner on data and campaigning. 
 
He has led on some of the major breakthroughs in political technology in the UK including introducing political text message campaigning and building a digital social network for campaigning. His award-winning work at the National Education Union includes building the NEU Communicator, a pioneering data science and  engagement-based communications platform that formed the centrepiece of the NEU’s ‘Moneyball Activism’ approach. It was credited by journalist Paul Waugh as “winning the data war” that led to the NEU being the only education union that met the ballot thresholds in the recent campaign for teacher pay and to save our schools and subsequently helped win the biggest pay rise for teachers since the year 2000. 
 
He regularly speaks on data, has been featured in academic studies and his work appears almost weekly in the media. Two examples of his work include: Introducing text message campaigning into UK politics and Using data science to make real change in education.

REGISTER HERE. Please note: The deadlines for applications are 24th February 2025 for the Spring Term and 14th July 2025 for the Summer Term.

Solidarity Series – Cuba Solidarity Campaign


Price: Free

Location: Online

Date: 12th March 2025, 7-8pm

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.

Cuba Solidarity Campaign will be delivered by Kevin Courtney, a former educator who served as the joint general secretary of the National Education Union. Known for his advocacy in education, he now chairs the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, continuing a commitment to global solidarity. Kevin’s career exemplifies a dedication to both educational reform and international solidarity. 

REGISTER HERE. Please note: The deadline for applications is 26th February 2025.

Activists’ Corner – Building a Strong Union at Work


Price: Free for affiliates including SWU members. For non-affiliates: £5 (£25 total to attend all Activists’ Corner sessions) 

Location: Online

Date: 13th March 2025, 7pm – 8pm

We all like to learn and develop skills that can support our trade union activity. This series of sessions will focus on practical tools and skills that you can take back to your workplace.

Throughout Activists’ Corner sessions, you will be able to build your toolkit for building power at work and growing the strength of your union to make meaningful change.

This course is provided online and will be capped at 16 participants to ensure as much participation as possible. All pupils will be provided with a Google Classroom for access to resources, session recordings and materials used.

The sessions will be delivered by a mixture of activists and specialists in their subject and is a great chance to develop all your skills further.

Building a Strong Union at Work will be delivered by James Kerr, a teacher for 12 years and an NUT / NEU workplace rep for 10 of them, organising in academies and local authority schools. He is also Lewisham NEU branch secretary and a National Executive member for Inner London.

REGISTER HERE. Please note: The deadline for applications is 27th February 2025.

Strategy Series – Union Strategy and the Crisis in Organised Labour


Price: Free 

Location: Online

Date: 19th March 2025, 7-8pm

Strategy is not just a word. Strategy is about how we all within the trade union and wider labour movement build the power and capacity to improve workers’ lives. The employers have strategy, the managers have strategy, and it is vital that as a united labour movement we build our own.

This series will include discussions from leading thinkers on: reviving the trade union movement, how we build union strategy, the role of women and feminist approaches to our unions, strategies for developing activists and the capacity to win campaigns big and small.

Union Strategy and the Crisis in Organised Labour will be delivered by Bill Fletcher Jnr. who has been an activist since his teens; worked as a welder, labour leader, AFL-CIO staffer, author, syndicated columnist, and media commentator.

REGISTER HERE. Please note: The deadline for applications is 5th March 2025.

Tackling Sexual Harassment


Price: Free for affiliates including SWU members. For Non-affiliates: £50

Location: Online

Date: 20th March 2025

A one-day online course to help workplace representatives understand the nature of workplace sexual harassment, how to spot it and how to deal with it. It will explore reasons why sexual harassment is often not reported and the steps that unions and employers should take to ensure that harassment is taken seriously. 

This course will be tutored by Helen Nolan, who been involved in trade union education for many years, meeting dedicated people committed to fighting injustice. Acknowledging that unions reflect society’s good and bad aspects, including sexual harassment, Helen looks forward to helping you address this critical issue.

All pupils are provided with a Google Classroom of materials. 

REGISTER HERE. Please note: The deadline for applications is 6th March 2025.

IER X GFTU Employment Law Update Conference 2025


Price: Follow the registration link on the GFTU Educational Trust website for more information.

Venue: GFTU Quorn Grange

Date: Monday 24th March 2025, 9:30am-3pm

Join the first-ever in-person employment law conference on Monday 24th of March. View the pamphlet here.

IER in partnership with General Federation of Trade Unions.

REGISTER HERE.

Activists’ Corner – Using Health & Safety to Organise in Partnership with Greater Manchester Hazards Centre


Price: Free for affiliates including SWU members. For non-affiliates: £5 (£25 total to attend all Activists’ Corner sessions) 

Location: Online

Date: 15th May 2025, 7pm – 8pm

We all like to learn and develop skills that can support our trade union activity. This series of sessions will focus on practical tools and skills that you can take back to your workplace.

Throughout Activists’ Corner sessions, you will be able to build your toolkit for building power at work and growing the strength of your union to make meaningful change.

This course is provided online and will be capped at 16 participants to ensure as much participation as possible. All pupils will be provided with a Google Classroom for access to resources, session recordings and materials used.

The sessions will be delivered by a mixture of activists and specialists in their subject and is a great chance to develop all your skills further.

Using Health & Safety to Organise in Partnership with Greater Manchester Hazards Centre will be delivered by Janet Newsham, who has been an active trade unionist and representative since starting work at Bae in 1980. She has been a GFTU Educational Trust member since 1995 and, after a career break with her 3 children, returned to work in trade union education, delivering trade union and TUC courses from introductions to diploma level courses. Janet still delivers UCU Workload reps training and long Covid training. She started work at Greater Manchester Hazards Centre 7 years ago, where she is the coordinator and Chair of the UK Hazards Campaign. 

REGISTER HERE. Please note: The deadline for applications is 1st May 2025.

Activists’ Corner – Tackling Discrimination


Price: Free for affiliates including SWU members. For non-affiliates: £5 (£25 total to attend all Activists’ Corner sessions) 

Location: Online

Date: 19th June 2025, 7pm – 8pm

We all like to learn and develop skills that can support our trade union activity. This series of sessions will focus on practical tools and skills that you can take back to your workplace.

Throughout Activists’ Corner sessions, you will be able to build your toolkit for building power at work and growing the strength of your union to make meaningful change.

This course is provided online and will be capped at 16 participants to ensure as much participation as possible. All pupils will be provided with a Google Classroom for access to resources, session recordings and materials used.

The sessions will be delivered by a mixture of activists and specialists in their subject and is a great chance to develop all your skills further.

Tackling Discrimination will be delivered by Helen Nolan, who been involved with trade union education for many years and has met many dedicated and energetic people along the way; from newly appointed reps to General Secretaries. The vast majority of them are firmly committed to fighting injustice. However, it has to be recognised that trade unions reflect the make-up of normal society, with both its good and bad aspects. We have to remain vigilant and educated on the problems that can occur within our movement. Unfortunately, harassment is a real problem. Helen looks forward to helping you discover more about this topic, so that you can be part of the solution.

REGISTER HERE. Please note: The deadline for applications is 5th June 2025.

Solidarity Series – War on Want


Price: Free  

Location: Online

Date: 10th July 2025, 7-8pm

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.

War on Want will be delivered by Asad Rehman who is the Executive Director of War on Want, the radical anti-poverty and workers’ rights organisation. Asad is a leading climate justice activist whose work has helped to reframe the climate crisis as a crisis of neoliberal capitalism, inequality, and racism. Asad has led climate justice groups inside the UNFCCC process and was co-founder of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice, is currently coordinator of the Global Green New Deal Project and was one of the founders of the COP26 Coalition connecting the labour movement and the climate movement. Over the last 35 years, he has worked with many social movements both globally and nationally including the labour movement, anti-racist movement, the alter-globalisation movement, and the anti-war movement. He has previously served on the Boards of Amnesty International UK, Global Justice Now, Friends of the Earth International and is currently on the Boards of a Thousand Currents and Rainforest Action Network. 

REGISTER HERE. Please note: The deadline for applications is 26th June 2025.

GFTU Summer School 2025


Price: Free for affiliates including SWU members. £325 for non-affiliates. 

Residential Course: GFTU Quorn Grange

Dates: 

  • Summer Term 1: 31st July – 2nd August 2024
  • Summer Term 2: 4th – 6th August 2025

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 deadlines for applications are 17th July 2024 for Summer Term 1 and 21st July 2025 for Summer Term 2.

Roots of Racism


Price: Free for affiliates including SWU members. £200 for non-affiliates. 

Residential Course: GFTU Quorn Grange

Dates: 

  • 21st – 22nd July 2025

The course will be led by the prominent trade unionist Roger McKenzie, who has an extensive experience of work on race equality issues and, in particular in building Black self-organised structures within the trade union movement. Roger is former Assistant General Secretary of Unison, former Regional Secretary TUC, former Race Equality Officer TUC, former Race Equality Officer PCS, former Trade Union studies lecturer at Manchester College and Northeast London College.

We will be looking at understanding the context of racism and where it comes from, the rise and mainstreaming of the far right, as well as challenging racism in the workplace and the community.  

All pupils are provided with a Google Classroom of materials. 

REGISTER HERE. Please note: The deadline for applications is 7th July 2025.

Strategy Series 2024-2025

You can view the GFTU’s YouTube playlist for this series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf157HLv68RCe1iDiOut8_27cyQQeCWM2


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’.

Social Justice Unionism Today – 16 September 2024

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.

Reviving the Trade Union Movement, Defying Anti-UnionLaws, and Building Power – 17 September 2024

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.”

The GFTU is pleased to facilitate informed debate and critical thinking about many subjects in its education programme and the views of speakers and participants do not necessarily reflect those of the GFTU.

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.”

The GFTU is pleased to facilitate informed debate and critical thinking about many subjects in its education programme and the views of speakers and participants do not necessarily reflect those of the GFTU.