Scottish Union Learning

Case study: Scottish Union Learning.

The Open University (OU) in Scotland, Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) and Scottish Union Learning (SUL) have been working in partnership with union learners since 2007 and share a common mission, to support the upskilling and reskilling of workers throughout Scotland.

A practical example of this collaboration was the delivery of a highly topical ‘green webinars’ series examining green jobs, green spaces, and the climate crisis. The webinars took place in partnership with trade unions and sparked discussion on the local impact of this global issue including the developing demand for green skills in workplaces. Over sixty-six union members and representatives from Inverness to Dumfries attended the three sessions.

Catherine Garvie, SUL Senior Development Officer, said: "There is an urgent need to support unions in the development of green skills and green jobs for members and workers, and to facilitate partnerships to tackle what is seen by many as the biggest issue of the twenty-first century – tackling climate change."

In partnership with SUL in the Highlands and Islands, a regional climate network has stemmed from one of the webinars delivered by OU environmental systems expert Dr Leslie Mabon ‘A just transition for the Highlands and Islands: green jobs, skills and support’. The network has since held a climate event for union learning representatives, aiming to develop cross-union collaboration sharing the impact and learning from climate change for unions and their work sectors.

"The workshop provided a focus for our partners and stakeholders in Highlands and Islands to come together and explore some of the vital issues that climate change presents to us as workers, citizens, and members of our communities. Dr Mabon’s tailored session was informative, engaging and of the highest quality."
Craig Finnie
SUL Development Officer

In October 2023 at SUL’s annual Learning Conference ‘Learning, Organising, Responding: making work fair’, Dr Mabon joined a key green skills discussion panel for union representatives. Dr Mabon said: "There is no shortage of work that needs to be done to turn Scotland into a zero-carbon and sustainable society; and to make our environment and people resilient to the climate changes we are already experiencing. Climate change affects work in all sectors, and it is vital that Scotland can maintain existing fair and decent jobs and create new ones. For me, the real value of the green skills sessions is that they bring together workers from so many different sectors, to start the process of thinking about what climate change might mean for their area of work and what training and upskilling might be needed to realise these opportunities."

In addition to the climate and green-themed agenda, OU and SUL collaborations have included a series of webinars about learning and teaching pedagogy using online delivery and facilitation about ‘the development of Women and Workplace Struggles: Scotland 1900-2022 which consisted of a collection of learning materials hosted on OpenLearn, the OU’s free learning platform; the development of bespoke wellbeing workshops for primary and secondary school teachers and cross union delivery of OU modules, and microcredentials with workers.