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Sees Health & Safety as a tool for recruitment
They are being fully supported by Jamie McGovern, the Union's new national officer responsible for the promotion, development, of Health & Safety policies of the CWU in his role as Health & Safety Policy Adviser Central Services. UTAW have their own website, which provides a brief history of this relatively new Union Branch: United Tech and Allied Workers (UTAW) are a national branch of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) formed in 2020. We are the UK’s only union specifically for all workers in the tech industry, and we're proud to represent more tech workers than anyone else. Stress is a big factor for workers in the tech industry, especially when you consider, that many are classed as self employed e.g. content monitors who are responsible for sifting through the quagmire of the worst so-called 'influencers' providing immoral, distorted and false and dangerous content and imagery. The so-called 'gig economy' is often embedded within this sector, and it is within this environment that UTAW may well find itself when it comes to recruitment of workers into the Union.
"If you develop or deploy technology, regardless of your employer’s industry. If your workplace is owned by a tech company, or if your labour is a necessary part of a tech companies' operation. If you are studying to work in tech or you educate others in technology. We encourage you to join us." Further it states: "From developers and project managers to designers, couriers, and warehouse assistants, UTAW will fight for your interests. Together we are stronger and as a unionised collective we act to improve the conditions of all our members. Joining the union is the first step towards working in a better, fairer and safer way." You can join your tech colleagues in the Union - simply click on the image above left. UTAW's Tech Sector Support Cordinator, Ellie, spoke with Chris Ingram, editor of unionsafety.eu about how she sees health & safety as a key issue for her members, working as they do within the private companies of the tech industry: Ellie: I'm here today on behalf of UTAW United Tech and Allied Workers, a union of real tech workers by tech workers and we're a branch of the CWU, the Communication Workers Union. Chris: So how long have you been active in the union? Ellie: So, I got to know UTAW and ended up getting a job working directly for UTAW. Chris: Excellent, so you're particularly interested in the health and safety elements of it?
Ellie: Yeah, so I'll be completely honest, health and safety isn't something that I've really thought much about at work, and then I've been on a bit of a journey these last few years where I've sort of started learning a lot more about health and safety and from my perspective how important it is not only to make workplaces safe because a lot of the companies that I'm working with, we see the stress across the tech industry, mass layoffs, we're seeing loads and loads of issues with AI, all of these things are having a massive impact on our members and also the wider world. And my specific interest in the health and safety is understanding how we can use the health and safety legislation to better organize workplace unions and empower people to make workplaces better and safer for them essentially. Obviously, I'm on a bit of a journey, really enjoying it, learning about it today and that's why I'm here. Chris: It's very interesting that you see health and safety as an issue for helping recruitment. Unfortunately, that's one of the best tools to have, not many unions use it to the full extent, so are you trying to build your membership and do you have other people you're working with in your organization to help? Ellie: Yeah, so UTAW is a very grassroots branch, we're a very grassroots union basically. For example, in our entire branch we only have four paid members of staff, the rest is grassroots activists, workers on the ground and tech work that covers all sorts of different people like I was software developers to people working in warehouses or on the shop floor at Apple for example. From a recruitment perspective what I've learned is that we can do health and safety risk assessments which we are planning to roll out on a mass scale in certain workplaces and beyond, to find out what the risks are to our members and to the workers there and then we use that as an organizing tool to talk to more members, recruit people, get them to understand the power of agents, but also more importantly because we can use that data and we need that data to then take to a company and say look we've got this data, we can see that the workers here are stressed because they're moderating videos that are incredibly harmful to their mental health. They're not getting the breaks that they need and we can take that to the employer and show them and say look you need to change this otherwise you're actually breaking the law. So that's the goal. Chris: The industry seems to me to be mostly the employment of young people, are you finding that a specific problem to get through the message or are you finding it easier than you would if you had a general spread of ages within the workforce? Ellie: Yeah it's a really good question like I think we do have like a mix of different ages but you're right there are a lot of young people in our union and sort of younger workers, people slightly newer to the workforce and there are like you know I think young people get quite a hard time, well down on young people but like the young people I interact with are energetic, they're educated, they're very worried about the real issues that are facing all of us. Climate crisis for one is something that a lot of young people are terrified about, myself included, not that I'm that young but yeah so, I think that because we're a new union for 25 years and the tech industry isn't heavily unionised, it's just new for a lot of people. It comes with strengths and it comes with weaknesses and I think one of the strengths is that when you have a deal, you're not held back by the things that have held bigger unions that have existed for longer times. So, all the stuff that we're doing is very grassroots, there's a lot of figuring out and there's a lack of knowledge in what's been done before which is actually quite empowering because people are figuring out for themselves and you know we've seen our membership the last four years rise massively and it just keeps going up and up. So, it's actually a very exciting union and it's a very exciting time to join so if you're not part of a union and if you're a tech worker watching this, if you work for a tech company and want to get involved, please do join us ATAW because it will benefit you and it will benefit society. See Also: CWU North West Region Health & Safety Forum Holds A Second Conference Event
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The recent CWU NW Health & Safety Forum's Conference on 11th April, gave the opportunity for delegates from the new section within the T&FS constituency, United Tech and Allied Workers Branch to attend the North West Region's second health & safety conference; and to meet up with other USRs from within the region. 