Trade Unions have a long and proud history of worker education. From the founding of Ruskin College in Oxford in 1899 to provide third level education for working class people, to the establishment of the Workers Educational Association in 1903, Trade Unions have been involved in the struggle to provide ‘second chance’ educational opportunities for people for many generations.

We provide courses for all union reps free of charge. Our courses are provided by accredited trade union tutors with many years experience in the trade union movement. Courses are accredited with the Open College Network. To see the latest programme of courses, click here.

Courses are accredited with the Open College Network. To see the latest programme of courses, click here in the trade union movement. Courses are accredited with the Open College Network. To see the latest programme of courses, click here.

The conference represents the culmination of the Trade Unions in Post Conflict Societies programme, funded by the SEUPB. The project seeks to explore, analyse and share learning from regions dealing with conflict with a focus on the role of trade unions in the development of shared and just societies.

This year’s conference will bring together trade unionists, activists and academics from Britain, Ireland, Iraq, Palestine, the Basque Country and Andalusia who will talk about the challenges faced by trade unions in societies in transition.

The conference will focus on:

• Labour and transition from conflict
• Labour rights as human rights
• Austerity and inequality
• Alternatives for transition

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This one day symposium offers the opportunity to reflect upon and discuss the politics, economics and culture that are transforming Belfast, Derry and their environs.

The contemporary city is one which ceaselessly trades on and monetises its culture as commodity. We see this very explicitly in the cultural and creative industries, and in the emergence of an open competition between cities and regions as they continually seek to secure inward investment from significant global or transnational economic players. In this respect, the city is a crucial unit of economic and political analysis, showing us how transnational capital moves through particular spaces and places, how it transforms theses spaces and places accordingly. The question of how the particular cultures or forms of cultural production in a given city connect up to the economic forces that play through it is a hard one to pose with any real clarify and purpose. This is one of our key ambitions for this one-day symposium, bringing together, as it does, a range of scholars to talk about how culture and economy connect up in the contemporary city. Read More…

As part of an SEUPB Peace III funded programme ‘Trade Unions in Post Conflict Societies’ led by ICTU in partnership with Trademark we have designed a course entitled Continuing Professional Development Certificate in Social Justice – Trade Unions and Social Justice. This new development is designed to offer an accredited course designed to reconnect activists to trade union fundamentals in the context of an economy and society in transition. The course will be delivered by a combination of experienced trade union tutors and academics from the UCD School of Social Justice.

What accreditation does the course offer?

It is a 10 credit course at Level 8 of the National Qualification Framework and can be taken as the sole element of a Certificate of Continuing Professional Development. Read More…