How the National Trust branch prospered in the ‘new normal’

Paul Delaney, President of the National Trust Branch, writes about how they have adapted to the challenges posed by the pandemic, how they’ve continued organising and supporting its members and shares some of the lessons that might be of benefit to other Prospect branches.

Paul Delaney, National Trust branch

This year has certainly thrown up some challenges for us all.

As trade union reps, perhaps the biggest challenge was how with reduced travel, social distancing and access to our members severely curtailed, how we could continue providing the support that was desperately needed.

A crumbling economy and many jobs under risk only underlined the urgency before us.

Prospect National Trust Branch, like others, were thrown into this ‘new normal’ back in March when the effects of the pandemic became clear. Given that our membership is geographically dispersed across the length and breadth of the nation, it has always been difficult to reach out to everyone.

With a travel ban in place, the challenge grew to an impossible level, and we needed to do something.

Moving online

Technology offered a solution although we were uncertain how effective that might be. Our Branch Meetings with the employer had already switched to an online forum using Webex, so it seemed obvious that the Branch would adopt the system and make it work for us.

We had just about got used to meeting online, negotiating new employment law with the Trust as (or in some cases before) it is written by central government.

But then National Trust announced a huge programme of redundancies due to a fall in visitor numbers and income, so the needs of our reps and members dramatically increased and the reliance on technology increased.

We strengthened our negotiating committee to give us coverage across the country and introduced weekly Branch meeting, which were well attended and productive.

We also put in place an online chat board where reps can network and support each other, and this has possibly been the most useful development yet.

We knew we had to be well organised in order to meet all of the challenges which were coming our way – our reps had to be empowered and come with the lead negotiators on that journey.

Our meetings with the employer now took place two or three times a week as the process evolved.

Growing membership

We have managed to support our members and grow our membership through this time, attending online meetings, dealing with assessments, selection and some personal cases along the way.

Listening sessions for our members were held on a number of occasions and while they were challenging, they also gave us valuable insights to take back to the negotiations table.

Starting out from a position of not knowing how this would work, we have found that we are reaching more of our membership than was previously possible and during Union Week we saw a fantastic increase in numbers following an online campaign.

Having a virtual platform to communicate with reps which is well used provided us with an opportunity that our more traditional methods would not have been able to accommodate.

It meant we could organise training sessions much more quickly – had we been trying to book a venue, arrange tutors and find a date that suited everyone, it could have taken months to coordinate the sessions that we have been able to provide in the last few months on redundancy and race equality audits.

We feel the move to online support and organising has been much more successful than we first hoped and enabled greater contact with members and with reps feeling better supported.

Of course, we’ve increased membership, our members feel better involved and we have reduced our travel and associated carbon footprint.

Here are some of the areas that we believe have played a fundamental role in maintaining our ability to organise and recruit during all the challenges faced by the branch since March:

• Regular meetings as a Branch Exec/group of reps – and importantly, participation from everyone
• The ability to run bespoke training to improve reps’ knowledge base and provide personal development and confidence – redundancy sessions and race equality audits.
• Members’ meetings
• Strong branch comms with members – all member mail outs at significant moments in time – pay discussions, furlough agreements, redundancy consultation announcements.
• A clear rep structure with dedicated reps for each area of operation
• Recruitment! – The scale of the change within the Trust presented a huge opportunity for us to recruit new members and crucially show them how influential Prospect can be and that we are there to provide them with a voice and fight for their rights throughout.

Should other branches adopt this method? Absolutely they should, if possible. It won’t work for all but for most, it might be the way forward.