In 2020, the Union Learning Fund [ULF] – a Government-funded initiative launched in 1997 to leverage the union movement’s extensive reach to address inequality in education - was abruptly axed. The ULF had sparked an extraordinary swelling of enthusiasm for lifelong learning within the movement. Trade unions began bargaining with employers on skills, established learning centres, promoted literacy and numeracy, and tackled the barriers to learning amongst its members.
It is widely accepted that the Government’s decision to axe the ULF was made for entirely vindictive reasons, possibly a consequence of the Education Secretary’s battle with the teaching unions post COVID. Whatever the reasons, it came at a time when anti-union sentiment and legislation were having a significant impact on the union movement. Many unions were already facing financial difficulties, making the end of the ULF just one more problem to overcome. The near-existential threat forced many unions to retreat into positions that could be considered more traditional trade union interests. However, we must not abandon our historical struggle for working people and their children to access education. While the ULF was often portrayed as a new role for the union movement, lifelong learning was not a new concern; rather, it was the culmination of 200 years of campaigning for education.
Research by the Learning and Work Institute into the decline of adult education should make all trade unionists stand up and take notice. Yes, this is just another cut amongst the many, but that does not lessen its importance. The research found that the number of adult learners had dropped by approximately 50% between 2010 and 2023, resulting in 7 million fewer qualifications. Additionally, employers are investing less in the skills of their workers, spending 26% less per employee than in 2005. Now, the Government are proposing further cuts. The Education and Skills Funding Agency’s budget will be cut by 6% and funding for Mayor’s skills budgets will fall by 2-3%.
It will come as no surprise to trade unionists that those from working-class backgrounds are the most heavily impacted. The history of our movement is filled with brilliant men and women who recognised the importance of education. They changed government policies, established institutions, and challenged employers, understanding that skills must be part of the bargaining agenda. The same passions that ignited unionists in the 19th century must be rekindled in 2025. The union movement serves as a check on governments whose policies lead to inequality, and we recognise that education is at the heart of this fight. Once again, we must lobby Government, rebuild our learning structures, and champion our Union Learning Reps [ULRs]. We can use those oft-repeated benefits to the movement to encourage this re-focus, but in the end, we just cannot afford not to.
“The education required is not a mere bread and butter education, which will only make the worker into a more efficient wealth producer. It may be very good for the commercial prosperity of the nation that our workmen should be higher skilled and more capable than their brethren in America or Germany, but when education has merely made a man into a better workman, it has not done all that it can for him, nor all that he has a right to expect. The time has come for the working man to demand a share in the education which is called ‘liberal’ because it concerns life, not livelihood; because it is to be desired for its own sake, and not because it has any direct bearing upon his wage-earning capacity. By the avenues of Art, literature, and History, it gives access to the thoughts and ideals of the ages; its outward mark is a broad reasoned view of things and a sane measure of social values; in a word, it stands for culture in its highest and truest sense.”
- Letter from a ‘trade unionist’ quoted in ‘Oxford and Working Class Education – 1909’
