We had our meeting around a million climate jobs. 31 people came. The
speakers were good and it has generally registered on the local
political scene as another good meeting, one that has contributed to
building both the climate and the cuts movement in Derby.As we said before, we spent some time preparing for this, trying to
get unions to sponsor and support. In the event this was not reflected
in the turnout; there we very few trade union members there, but we
did make a few new contacts. I believe the Oxford meeting, held a week
before, attracted 56 or 57 people, and that also had very few trade
unionists. So be it. But that does not mean we shouldn’t be targeting
trade unionists; just that there is a big gap between them and the
environmentalists. Talking of the gap: we could only get a handful of
environmentalists down to a general anti-cuts protest, despite us
having a leaflet focusing upon the stringent cuts to the council’s
Climate Change unit. (Is anybody aware of similar offensives against
climate and environmental departments in other councils?)
speakers were good and it has generally registered on the local
political scene as another good meeting, one that has contributed to
building both the climate and the cuts movement in Derby.As we said before, we spent some time preparing for this, trying to
get unions to sponsor and support. In the event this was not reflected
in the turnout; there we very few trade union members there, but we
did make a few new contacts. I believe the Oxford meeting, held a week
before, attracted 56 or 57 people, and that also had very few trade
unionists. So be it. But that does not mean we shouldn’t be targeting
trade unionists; just that there is a big gap between them and the
environmentalists. Talking of the gap: we could only get a handful of
environmentalists down to a general anti-cuts protest, despite us
having a leaflet focusing upon the stringent cuts to the council’s
Climate Change unit. (Is anybody aware of similar offensives against
climate and environmental departments in other councils?)
Also, possibly, the TU movement is fairly inhibitated, except over
the anti cuts protests. The fact that we has good climate jobs meeting
meant that we were able to go to an anti-cuts organising meeting the
following evening and say that we had a good meeting, and asking the
anti-cuts folks to join our protest around the cuts to the climate
change unit (on Feb 15th). I suspect we will get more than a handful
of environmentalists to this, and hopefully quite a few trade
unionists as well.