In June 2024 a group of trade union lay reps in the union Prospect began talking with one another about Palestine solidarity. Culture workers in the Broadcast, Entertainment, Communications and Theatre Union (BECTU), a sector within Prospect, initiated meet ups at political demonstrations and national conferences. The below is a write-up of an extended discussion with some of the activists within this network, following the annual Bectu conference in May 2025.

Who are we, and how did we start organising together?

All of us currently work in positions across the arts, culture and media. Most of us met, one way or another, through our desire to intensify union organising around the Palestinian struggle. We wanted to follow up with other members from different branches who had supported international solidarity motions at our union’s national conference, and connect at national Palestine demos with other activists waving our union’s flag.

We would manage to meet one other person, and then get linked up with a wider network of people. Some of us were more directly recruited - a former colleague or friend would message, and say ‘Hey, I’m part of this group? Do you want to get involved in this cool network that is forming?’ The group grew out of these individual interactions and connections, then just got bigger and bigger. Suddenly, out of nowhere, we were organising together and doing it really well!

The fact is that our trade union is not just another trade union. Prospect has nearly 160,000 members and some of its base seem to be closely involved in what’s going on, via the defence sector. So suddenly, personally, I went from knowing nothing about trade unionism to being told, Oh, potentially you’re playing in the Champions League. You’re going against the top guys. And I said, ‘Okay, if that’s the challenge that I’m given, I gotta take it on.’

We all have our own histories and journeys to get to this point. It’s important to document the different processes that led to us wanting to go beyond the often quite hostile union structure, and to demonstrate how we can organise and engage one another outside of its hierarchies.

How has the group been useful so far?

The group is incredibly useful, for us all, because it feels like we are not alone in having these convictions. This might sound incredibly cliche, but it’s true. In this regard, it’s a bit like starting to organise a workplace, where conversations lead to the discovery of shared problems. Ian Allinson’s book, Workers Can Win, uses the term ‘pluralistic ignorance’ to describe a situation where many people in the same organisation have the same grievances but remain unaware of one another in this respect. By starting to have organising conversations, both at work and in our unions, we become more keenly aware of what needs to change.

You can join the union, but not really want to get too involved, because it doesn’t seem like people are interested in things like fighting for international solidarity - often the trade union movement in Britain seems solely focused on domestic issues, on worker issues, and in a very insular way. When you find a group like this, however, it enables you to be in touch with incredible organisers from so many backgrounds, and to expose yourself to different groups that are involved in a wide diversity of things. It helps you feel more connected to the trade union movement as a whole; it helps you see how different struggles are coming together.

It also shows how different struggles are relevant in the workplace. It gives you the confidence to always try really hard to bring wider politics into your branch meetings - whether that’s questions of international solidarity like with Palestine, or in the struggle for trans rights. If we are not fighting for solidarity with the oppressed when we are fighting for better working conditions, then who are we really fighting for?

If you’re highly disillusioned with parliamentary politics, but you know the world is fucked up, you still want to find ways to fix things. When October 7th happened, there was a bit of a dolly zoom track moment: you see how mainstream media was talking about it, what was actually happening on the streets and on social media, and how your political organisations were interacting with things. If you don’t want to get involved in regular politics - trying to run for the council or something like that - then getting involved with a group like this is the way to go.

What problems are we trying to overcome?

You need a group like this to understand what is happening in your own union branches, and to escape the dull bureaucracy of those meetings. Union committee meetings usually just get hyper-focused on small, detailed issues, while missing the larger picture of what is happening politically. This group, in particular, is very important for channeling frustration with the current structure of the union. It’s so controlled by senior union management - you’re expected to shut up and just accept whatever service you’re given or how you’re being treated. If you’re a rep, you’re treated as an unpaid employee.

When you join a group like this, you see how these issues are the same across different workforces - from the civil service, to arts and leisure spaces, to communications companies. Prospect, in particular, does not seem to want to actually listen to members, even if they endlessly talk about doing so. When we work as a group, we can better identify how the union is operating, how it tries to minimise activism amongst its members, so we can develop our own counter-strategies.

One example would be about bringing flags to demos. The union doesn’t have anything about this in its rule book. Usually when the union leadership says that things are to be done on a ‘case by case’ basis, what they mean is they would like the power to pick and choose what is legitimate and what is out of order. We were told it is not permitted to bring our union flags to any demos happening outside workplaces where the union represents workers. This gives a sense of how they operate.

“We help empower each other, grow our union, but also just politically develop ourselves. I think political consciousness is so important in the workplace…”

The class composition of our union feels like an issue. Prospect, a lot of the time, represents managers. The union is more comfortable dealing with management than, say, the catering staff, most of the people who are sitting on the NEC tend to be management types. And then there’s a few outliers as well, but most of it’s dominated by management types.

There also feels like a certain degree of co-option goes on, as the leadership tries to court the reps they like into the union officialdom. They have their favourites!

What are the future aims of the group?

If you enter the world of union organizing from something like the student movement - where everything is very intense all of the time, and can feel very fast-moving - then it’s hard to keep up that energy. What you need is a group to rejuvenate yourself, to feel that same energy and fighting spirit. Outside of more militant unions like the RMT or radical unions like the IWGB, trade unionism feels like it’s missing this kind of energy.

It does feel like - and we don’t want to jinx it - we can really take back power in our union. Whether that’s taking up spots in decision making roles or in committees, you don’t need a huge amount of people to really change things. A small number of very dedicated individuals who are disciplined and committed to change, and you’ll make waves. We’ve gained a lot of knowledge over the last year, through writing petitions and letters, in putting through motions and strategizing at conference on what to do. We can take that to the next level if we keep going, and make moves the union has never seen before - it’s really exciting.

We know, however, that although the group was largely born out of passing motions for Palestine at conference, this victory could all too easily just remain on paper. Nothing solid will come out of this if the leadership of the union won’t actually take action on it - in short, they keep bullshitting and prevaricating. They keep promising they will have an action document of sorts, but we’ve been waiting for this for about a year. It got to the point where we even had a letter circulating, signed by branches, literally just instructing the leadership/NEC to put into practice what we’d voted on at Prospect national conference! (‘Motion 46’ - the union will lobby the government to end all arms sales to Israel).

Our focus has evolved to fight also on issues of anti-fascism and trans rights. We found problems when it turned out that the union generally won’t support anti-fascist demos that have been called by Stand Up to Racism, citing an inability to conduct a proper risk assessment. This is of course very frustrating when we can see other unions backing the same protests, like, Prospect’s reasoning about risk assessment is bullshit - it’s a political issue. One thing we know we have the potential to make change on is democratising the union.

We need a viable strategy for returning democracy into different sectors of the union, and making the leadership more accountable to members. We need to be clear that we pay union subs, the union works for us. It should do what we, as members, want it to do. One thing we can do in this group is to articulate and express this dissent. We could transform the union from one that seeks cosy arrangements with companies and never advances through strikes, to a rank-and-file led union that does the opposite. Employers will be more accountable to employees this way when we have created a union that is willing to fight.

We are demonstrating that being well organised for international solidarity is a solid foundation for wider organising efforts in our workplaces. If we keep growing like this, we know we can represent a sizeable section in the union. We want to meet new members and help them become reps, help them see how they can use their power as a trade unionist, and transform our union’s structures so they can better facilitate rank-and-file tactics. We want to think about organising members in the defence sector and building solidarity with Palestine. This is work that remains to be done, we know the potential is there.

“Get organised, come up with strategies, take action.”

We have, so far, relied significantly on meeting people at demos and conferences. This has the benefit of finding people already engaged in or dedicated to trade union activity. But, it is building organic connections in the workplace (primary organising) that matters most. You have to keep having campaign conservations at work, filtering these discussions amongst the rank-and-file. It is what happens between conferences that really matters.

Attending protests and picket lines, organising meetings with members to mobilise on political issues - this is the lifeblood of good trade unionism. There will always be contradictions and disagreements, but we are all learning to have tactical conversations that prompt action. Not everyone is aligned on every issue, but we can still struggle together without making endless factions. If anything does unite us above all, however, it is Palestine. We must always return to the question of solidarity with Palestine when working through these tensions in the group. This is the core issue which always guides our activity and understanding of what it is we should be doing in the trade union movement.

Image Credit: Abu Saleh @photographeroffortune