Advice for new reps

Being a new rep can seem a bit daunting. Often you are as worried about what you don’t know, as what you do! But remember that an old rep is just a new rep who’s been doing it for a while. And no rep (in fact nobody!) knows everything. Your members are more interested in you being honest with them than having all the answers. In fact often it’s less intimidating for members to work with a rep that understands why they are angry, confused or worried. If you need support, or just want to know what’s available, see Support for activists and reps.

Don’t forget the basics

The biggest trap new reps can fall into is to forget the basics. Racing on to bigger issues before getting yourself, and the branch, organised will leave you overworked, vulnerable and less likely to succeed.

The first thing to do is make sure people know you are a rep. The following people will need to be informed:

Your employer Check whether they have been informed. If not then inform them in writing. Address the letter to the personnel officer or another appropriate senior manager and send a copy to your regional office. Also inform your immediate supervisor as a matter of courtesy.

Your regional office Informing regional office that you are a rep will ensure that this is entered on to the membership system so that you receive all the appropriate information from the regional and national offices. You should also check that your contact details are up to date on the membership system. If possible you should speak to one of the full time regional officers to introduce yourself.

The members in your branch Not all the members will know that you are the rep. At the very least you should send an email or newsletter to all members letting them know that you are the rep and announce it on the notice board - giving your contact details. Additionally you should make an effort to meet those individuals, or departments, that you do not have regular contact with, to personally introduce yourself and encourage them to get involved.

Gather basic information

You will need some basic information to keep you informed. Ideally you should have inherited a file or folder from the previous rep. Where this information is missing you will need to collate it. Your regional office should be able to give you advice and some information. Where you are unable to get the information from anywhere else try your personnel office, especially for local policies and procedures and agreements. Try to find out about the following:

Members You should have a complete and up to date list of members. If you don’t have a current list, contact your regional office.

Other NATFHE representatives There should be other NATFHE reps in the branch that meet regularly. You should attend meetings or, if they don’t occur regularly, make contact with the reps.

Other union representatives There will almost certainly be at least one other union in your workplace. Usually it will be UNISON for administrative staff and occasionally the AUT for other academic staff. NATFHE has a history of working well with other unions and encourages all reps to do the same.

NATFHE regional representatives NATFHE has strong regional structures. You should inform your regional secretary that you have been elected.

Essential information
 

• Copies of your disciplinary and grievance procedures
   
• Copy of your recognition and/ or facilities agreement
   
• Copies of any other union agreements e.g. health and safety, equal opportunities, union learning
   
• Copy of management policies and procedures. This may be in the form of a handbook or simply a collection of staffing procedures
• Any standard employment contracts that management may issue from time to time
   
• NATFHE toolkits and other information available in the Branch Resources section of the union web site at www.natfhe.org.uk/?id=tooldoor_natfhe.

You should also be aware of the relevant national agreements NATFHE has negotiated in HE and FE. These agreements cover a wide range of areas including grievance, disciplinary and consultation over change. FE agreements can be found on the NATFHE web site at www.natfhe.org.uk/?id=fued0002 and HE agreements can be found at www.natfhe.org.uk/?id=heagree.

You should try to find out when and where:

• The NATFHE committee meets
• Members or department meetings are held
• Joint union meetings are held
• Meetings with management take place, such as a joint consultative meeting or health and safety consultative meeting
• Your regional council meets

Training

All NATFHE representatives should undertake at least NATFHE’s stage one representatives training. The stage one course will provide you with the basics in organising and representing your members, give you the opportunity to share experiences with other reps and ask questions.

You have a legal right to paid time off for your training and NATFHE covers all reasonable travel expenses. See Facilities for NATFHE Representatives for more information about time off.

After you have taken the stage one course you may want to do further courses in organising, representation, the advanced stage two reps course or other training available through NATFHE.

Contact your regional office for details of the next course in your area.

Organise yourself

Organising yourself should not be confused with organising your branch. Organising yourself does not require much effort but could create problems later if it is not well thought through. There is no right or wrong way to keep yourself organised but the following pointers will help.

• Your employer should provide you with an office with a locked filing cabinet, access to a computer, a private phone and a private meeting room to interview members. If you do not have at least these facilities, check your recognition and/or facilities agreement and see Facilities for NATFHE reps.
   
• You should have all your important documents from the section above filed in the cabinet.
   
• You should develop a filing system for keeping documents that you will receive from time to time. You will need sections for individual members, NATFHE circulars and correspondence from management.
   
• Your filing system should save you time not create more work. So keep it simple and follow a logical pattern. Label files clearly and sort them alphabetically. Open new files if new topics arise. If your files are getting too big break them down into smaller sub files. You may want to keep an index on the front of the cabinet to record which files you have and in what order.
   
• You should file documents, by date order, as they come in, clearly recording on the front page the date you received the document.
   
• If you need documents to work with but don’t want to keep the whole file out, you should copy them and use the copy or create a working file. For example, correspondence to the branch from management about health and safety might be kept in a correspondence file until it has been reported to the branch when it would go in the relevant health and safety file.

In addition you should think about which objectives you want to achieve first, how you will prioritise them and what they will require.

Organising the branch

By now you should realise that the most important job is to ensure that the branch is well organised and healthy. Not all reps inherit healthy branches. And even those that do can identify areas that will need further work. See The healthy branch and The role of the branch rep and branch committee. Check to see in which areas your branch is strong and where it is weak.

If there are gaps in the list for your branch you should work on these areas before you concentrate too heavily on individual and collective representation. If you are the only rep you will need to concentrate on finding other reps and activists to share the load. You may also need assistance from your regional office for some of the individual representation work that may arise while you are getting organised. This should be a temporary measure until you get better organised.

Try not to view the branch health-check list as a hit list. Look for areas of work to focus on. If people are not talking about the union or attending meetings it may mean that members don’t know the issues that the union is pursuing, don’t feel involved in decision making or maybe simply that you do not have high enough membership levels. If this is the case you will need to work on increasing membership levels and finding better ways to involve and communicate with people.

Similarly you will have to pick areas to concentrate on first. You can’t do everything at once. Broadly speaking you should work first on areas closer to the top of the list. For example developing an active membership will make it much easier to get an active committee. It will be difficult to build an equal relationship with management if you haven’t been recruiting and don’t have an active committee. And achieving gains in your facilities will be easier if you have a good relationship with management.

If you can’t decide which areas to start with, the following are the most important and are best undertaken in this order:

1. Mapping
2. Looking for potential activists
3. Identifying Issues

Probably the most important single thing you can do is to start mapping your workplace. Mapping is the process of developing a detailed picture of the people in your workplace or institution. It will help you to identify your strong and weak areas, recruit, identify issues, identify activists and build your committee. Mapping itself should be a collective activity. You can use it to help get people involved in union work by mapping their department or work-team.

More detail is provided on all of these topics in other sections.

NATFHE toolkits provide advice for branches and links to other sources of information. Anyone seeking specific advice in respect of the issues covered by this toolkit should consult their branch officers in the first instance, who in turn may need to take advice from NATFHE regional officials. Important time limits often apply; for further information about these or if you are seeking to pursue a legal claim on the issues covered in this toolkit, you should not rely on the toolkit alone but should seek additional advice from the union.