IT IS widely acknowledged in today’s labour movement that we have a problem — our young people do not know about trade unions.

In response to this, Unite has recently relaunched its Unite in Schools national programme.

Unite has been successfully going into schools for a few years now, with a national, strategic and resourced campaign running hour-long awareness sessions in secondary schools — on trade unions.

And our fears have been realised. Very few of today’s schoolkids know anything about trade unions.

They may have heard of strikes, but not about the right to join, and the power — and the increasing necessity — of trade unions in the workplace.

We’ve been establishing relationships with secondary schools across Britain, many of which are now committed to our programme.

We began by targeting young people aged 14 to 16, but have increasingly been asked to run sessions for students in all years.

Initially, we linked into the citizenship classes, but these are being marginalised and are under threat in many schools.

So we find ourselves running our programme in the context of careers advice and guidance, or building schools councils, and even running campaign days for students.

A typical session will begin with a “does anybody know what a trade union is?” prompted discussion.

This usually draws a blank. Ukip? Yes. Strikes? Yes. Trade unions? No.

It’s important the session is based in the students’ own experience.

Group work around campaigning and finding a voice, juxtaposed with five-minute films demystifying the role of trade unions in the workplace and globally, all serve to hook the students in and to prompt meaningful discussion around the idea that getting together at work results in a fairer workplace, where employees are more protected and can even to try to change things.

Some of the most relevant and vivid teaching aids are the teachers themselves, nearly all of whom are in a trade union and who can be called on to “testify” in the session.

The main group activity we have been running in our short sessions involves the students identifying what they might want to change in their school, and how they would go about campaigning for this change.

At this point it always becomes apparent that these young people know what they want and how to get it — in ways we older activists could never have envisaged — such as organising around social media, flash mobs and so on.

They always come up with the key concepts — equality, protection, rights at work, health and safety.

We’ve learnt not to underestimate young people — they do know this stuff and clearly have the wherewithal to organise themselves to act collectively for protection and change.

We train our Unite activists to speak in these sessions — there’s nothing more potent that a cabin crew rep or a bus driver telling the students about campaigning for better working conditions on a plane or bus why they joined a trade union and what they get out of it.

We have young and older activists, all with a story to tell and a desire to inspire and activate young people by facilitating debate in the classroom.

Our speakers initiate discussions around how trade unions work to improve the pay and terms and conditions of their members — as well as protecting workers against bullying or discrimination.

Underpinning it all is the notion that getting together to protect yourself at work is the most natural thing in the world, a fundamental human right and at the heart of why workers the world over form trade unions at work.

Key concepts we want to get across in our sessions are finding a voice in the context of equality and acting collectively for protection and change.

Inequality — linked to bullying or discrimination in the workplace — is a powerful discussion prompt and something the students and teachers all have experience of and have strong opinions about.

We only have an hour to speak with young people in the classroom and the challenge is to get them thinking about their rights and how people have always got together to preserve those rights.

Of course, we end up discussing how these hard-fought and won rights are now being eroded and exploring ways in which they can find a voice, get together and again fight to keep these fundamental rights.

We’ve discovered that some schools, and some local councils, are now deeply concerned about young people’s general lack of awareness of what they can expect when they go into the workplace.

In a number of schools, we have been included in an emerging programme — that of raising students’ awareness and giving them direct experience of the reality of the workplace — which is becoming regarded as a basic entitlement for young people entering the world of work.

Where some of the more dynamic schools are developing their own models of excellence around meaningful work experience, workplace visits, apprenticeships and internships, we are working together with them to find models of good employers, apprenticeships and strong and effective trade unions, and to develop realistic and relevant young people’s workplace scenarios for group activities in our sessions.

The most compelling indication of positive feedback is that we have been invited back to deliver an even wider range of sessions in many of the schools and colleges for the 2015-16 academic year.

Building good relationships and training and mentoring skilled speakers are key to ensuring Unite in Schools continues to be a success.

As certain schools and local councils become committed to Unite in Schools, there is an acknowledgement that we need to extend our reach.

Key people working with youth in local councils have offered to support the development of our Unite in Schools programme in their youth employment and careers guidance initiatives.

So we will continue to embed our programme in high schools, with a link into citizenship and careers sessions.

We are also planning to provide training for teachers in how to run our basic sessions in schools, which will then free up our speakers for more targeted, sectoral sessions for post-16 and sixth form colleges, apprenticeships and FE colleges.

Unite in Schools is going from strength to strength. Our young people are hungry to know their rights and go to the workplace prepared. 

To this end, we will be working with youth councils, youth assemblies and youth parliaments, as well as in schools, on sessions on campaigning and finding a voice.

The students themselves inform these sessions around a broad range of issues such as the environment, issues affecting young people in the community and developing links with organisations overseas.

In some parts of the country, we are piloting a more targeted, sectoral approach — producing materials for FE colleges where students are studying vocational courses such as construction, printing, motor vehicle engineering and manufacturing — to ensure we cover those particular sectors where we need to reach young people, where increasingly large numbers of our young people will end up in precarious jobs, often in a zero-hours contract culture.

We have learnt that young people cannot be underestimated and have the wherewithal to find a voice, to act collectively to make a difference — and to run effective trade unions in the workplaces in the future.

• To find out more, please contact: uniteinschools@unitetheunion.org.