North West No.1: Recruiting and Reconnecting

February 13 2025

In any workplace, the real power of the worker is measured by the strength their union holds in the workplace – strength that is earned how many of their colleagues know to belong to the union.

This principle is what is guiding a wave of new activity for North West No.1 branch, which covers workers in, amongst other places, the Bolton, Oldham and Rochdale broad areas.

In the past few months, active members of the branch have recruited large numbers of workers to the union after making it a priority to redevelop contact between the union and recent entrants.

To branch area delivery rep Michael Stewart, it was about “taking a hard look at ourselves as a branch” and directly addressing concerns many members had about flagging density and a growing concern that the union might be lagging behind with new workers.  

“We’ve all attended the briefings, we’re aware of the decline in membership, and we also want to stay as a standalone union.

“So we’ve acted on this, and it’s meant seeing recruitment as a number one priority.”

According to Michael, the work began with active members in the branch mapping out 11 offices – some with thousands of members in them.

After creating an Excel spreadsheet on the lead of new branch secretary Gary Ingram, members then looked into workers in each office and compared their workers’ list with data from CWU headquarters to see who was and wasn’t a member.

They then spoke to local reps, who discussed what sort of general work patterns non-union workers were on, and identified the best days that active members could reach out to them on.

Recruitment days were set up, where banners were hoisted and merchandise laid out on tables with the hope of catching non-members.

Some non-members were young people, Michael said, “who don’t know what a union is, don’t know what it does, and just ned to hear what it does for us in the unit and on national terms.”

Others had already been in the union but had been lost in name changes or hadn’t been transferred into a new branch when they’d changed office.  

And while of course “a small minority” will never be union, “most people ask for a form” once they hear of the work the union does.  

The branch members have got to “a reasonable level” of units so far, Michael says, with visits being arranged from Rochdale to Bolton and everywhere else in the region, with no office too small to evade attention.

Regardless, the branch is waiting on the January figures, which Michael confidently believes will tell the tale of their work.

They are also looking at new ways of ensuring reps have all the right training, as well as hoping to instil in members new and old the understanding that capturing new starters is vital to the true strength of the union.

This, Michael says, is a key factor in ensuring all branches can get back to a near-total level of membership density – and believes his branch are well on the way to restoring this.