The Regional Council AGM voted to adopt the following Recruitment and Organising Plan for the year ahead.

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LONDON TRANSPORT REGIONAL COUNCIL RECRUITMENT AND ORGANISING PLAN 2010 Organising team

Last year, we set up a ‘recruitment and organising team’. This year, we should develop this, adding new activists, meeting more regularly, and overseeing the implementation and review of this plan. The Membership Secretary should convene the recruitment and organising team. The team will consist of a member from each branch within the region and will meet quarterly at Unity House. The date of the first meeting will be 09th March at noon prior to the Regional EC meeting. An up-to-date regional membership list will be available at the meeting.

Making reps into more effective recruiters

We should aim to make every workplace rep into an effective recruiter. We will: - address whether stage 1 reps’ training adequately addresses the rep’s role as recruiter - re-run our 90-minute training workshop on ‘recruitment, retention and managing membership information’ - ask every branch to host the session, which can be run by Regional Council officers - assist and support reps in: carrying out a quarterly audit of membership in their area; asking every new worker in their area to join; maintaining up-to-date membership information and sharing it with the branch membership secretary; having membership forms always available. Increasing RMT profile in the workplace

All workplaces should have an RMT notice case - where these are not provided, reps should raise this with the employer, supported by their second-stage rep.

Notice cases should contain: - contact details of local reps - details of the branch, its meetings and officers - details of relevant second-stage council reps - up-to-date newsletters and circulars Printed materials

The Regional Council will continue to produce newsletters, leaflets, posters, stickers, etc to promote and assist recruitment and organising, and encourages reps and branches to suggest ideas.

We will produce a notice encouraging members to inform the union if they change job, work location, address or other personal detail.

We will ask for space at Unity House to store leaflets and other recruitment materials.

We will encourage reps and activists to use our website www.rmtlondoncalling.org.uk as a resource from which to download material for printing.

There has been a welcome increase in branches and reps producing printed materials. We can always improve this, both in quantity and quality! The Regional Council will run four training days on ‘producing effective printed materials’, one each for: - workplace reps - branches - function/company reps - ‘advanced’ training for producing top-quality material

Every item of printed material - notice, leaflet, newsletter etc - should include a ‘Join RMT’ box telling people how to join.

We will review the materials that are available for new employees, new members, and workers changing grade or location. Why people don’t join

We should systematically record and consider the reasons that staff give for not joining, or for leaving, the union. This will enable us to develop arguments and materials to counter these reasons.

The organising team should regularly review this.

Branch membership secretaries will be provided with the leavers/joiners list produced by the membership department. Members of movements committees will assist the Regional Council Membership Secretary with regular information about staff movements. Branches

We urge, and will support, all branches to: - adopt a recruitment and organising plan, after reviewing last year’s plan, and carry it out during the year ahead - discuss recruitment and organising as the first item on the agenda of all branch meetings - calculate the density of membership (ie. percentage of staff who are RMT members) in each area and company within the branch and identify weak areas to target - hold at least two major organising days per year, visiting all areas covered by the branch, with the Regional Council mobilising activists from around the region to participate - hold an organising activity on the day of every branch meeting, targeting a specific area within the branch’s area - elect a membership officer if they have not already done so, and pass his/her contact details to the Regional Organiser and Regional Council - provide resources (such as funding unpaid release) for the branch membership secretary to implement the branch’s recruitment and organising plan - encourage attendance at branch meetings in order to increase activism and thus improve recruitment; make branch meetings more attractive and accessible in order to achieve this.

The Regional Council Secretary and Membership Secretary will be available to help branch officers to do these things. Grades Committees

The Regional Council Executive is submitting a separate proposal to the AGM to develop grades committees, including a requirement for grades committees to produce an annual recruitment and organising plan for its grades, which the Regional Council will then resource as appropriate.

We look forward to endorsing and resourcing recruitment and organising plans for: stations & revenue; trains; service control; cleaners; MATS; and any other grades that wish to form a committee. Branches may make donations to assist the financing of the plan. Recruitment, retention and campaigning

Recruitment and retention must be tied in with the union’s demands and campaigns. Some people will not necessarily join a union just because of the general principles and benefits of doing so, but will join if they think that in doing so, they could win an improvement in pay and/or conditions, or fight off an attack from their employer.

Therefore, we must ensure that our campaigning on issues such as job cuts, safety standards and ticket office closures continually emphasises the importance of being a member of RMT. Efforts to unionise new areas, or to revive in areas that have become weak, should be linked to workers’ demands for improvements eg. A renewed drive for recruitment of cleaners should be part of a claim for better pay, conditions and RMT recognition.