Fuel For Thought

from fuel poverty to climate justice

Fuel For Thought is a series of monthly collective learning sessions run by Fuel Poverty Action. A space to share research and lived experience, tackle lies, clear up confusion and answer questions.

Make your Union work for you. Thursday, 17 April, 6.30 PM.

Joined a union to help win the change you want to see? This session of Fuel For Thought is for you.

An advanced discussion on trade unions, for union members. Timed to take place in the run-up to International Worker’s Day, it's a chance to share your experiences of unions, hear from trade unionists with decades of experience, and ask them anything.

We’ve got a lot to thank unions for: weekends, sick pay, holiday pay, parental leave, the minimum wage, decent conditions, democratic rights and the welfare state just to name a few. But for 40 years, membership has been in DECLINE in the UK. And unions’ power and legal rights have been successively curtailed by governments aiming to restrict and co-opt the institutions that won us basic rights.

It's time we talked about what's preventing members getting active, and winning. Starting with encounters with bureaucracy, conservatism and gatekeeping, divisions that exist between leaders and members on issues ranging from the climate to the arms trade, and alternatives to the largest unions in the UK today.

Join us on Thursday, April 17, to be part of this important conversation.

Register on the form below.

Confirmed speakers include:

Clara Paillard | Clara is a trade Unionist and organiser, supporting grassroots climate justice campaigns. She is the former President of PCS union Culture group who represented 4,000 museum workers in the UK's national institutions.

Ali Dowling | Ali is an actor, coach, activist, and Equity union member. She holds a masters in Ecological Design Thinking and is the co-vice chair of the Equity for a Green New Deal network.

Max O'Donnell Savage | Max is a workplace Rep and Chair of a Union branch in the Education sector. I am a member of Unite National Executive Council, representing and having been elected by members in the South East Region.

Matt Collins | Matt is an organiser with United Voices of the World, an independent, grassroots trade union which organises predominantly low-paid, precarious and migrant workers. He has previously worked for the Bakers, Food & allied workers union as an organiser on their Fast Food rights campaign. He was, for many years, a workplace activist and rep in both private sector social care and the hospitality sector.