New Organising Conference - September 2023

We were part of the steering group for the New Organising Conference 2023, delivering the session on Workers Education, and co-delivering the sessions on Leadership and Diaspora Workers' Organising.

Exercises for the RYSE, Stroud - July, 2023

We worked with a youth centre in Stroud to develop exercises around organising, gender, and reproductive work in organisations. 

Edinburgh University Conference Presentation - July, 2023

We presented at an Edinburgh University conference on organising in app-based work, and worked with geography teachers and land activists on exercises around land access and the labour movement. 

Maslaha Workshop - July, 2023

Cat’s Cradle ran a two-day workshop for Maslaha on radical pedagogy in school and prison settings. 

S.I.S.T.E.R Workshop - July, 2023

Cat’s Cradle ran an afternoon workshop on the Federation march from Mali to Burkina. Our workshop is called ‘On the Federation Bus’ and we are very keen to discuss it with other educators. 

Work with the Red Clinic and East Jerusalem Educational Psychologists - July, 2023

We work with educational psychologists in Palestine and the United Kingdom to develop teaching materials and a curriculum around mental health and organising.

Solidarity Across Land Trades workshop - July, 2023

We ran a workshop for this new trade union, looking at tools and tactics for organising land workers, and thinking about the relevance of trade unions for young, precarious workers interested in social justice beyond labour conditions.

Internationalism Workshop for Glasgow Trades Council - April, 2023

Glasgow Trades Council commissioned us to run the first workshop in their May Day programme. 

We ran a workshop in the UNISON offices where participants learned together about the history of internationalism in the labour movement, and the prospects for international solidarity going forward.

Palestine Summer School Exercise Development - June, 2023

In June, Cat’s Cradle worked on developing exercises on the labour movement for a children’s summer school in Palestine. We focused on global labour solidarity, gender and organising, developing your skills to organise, and the nature of value and profit. This was a very useful exercise for those in the organisation to think about teaching basic internationalist organising skills.

April Online Sessions - April, 2023

We ran three one-hour online study groups, looking at organising in Panama, Palestine, Egypt and Burkina Faso. In these we worked with organisers in each country to investigate the history of organising and the current situation of the labour movement in these countries. We had around 20 attendees each time, and we discussed the relationship between colonisation and organising, as well as the exportation of trade union structures from colonising countries to colonised countries. We talked about what organisers in the USA and UK can learn from organising theory and techniques from global majority countries - and how they can work together with and offer solidarity to organisers elsewhere: what should international organising look like.

Paisley Museum Workshop - May, 2023

Paisley museum commissioned Cat’s Cradle to do a workshop on trade unions for secondary school children in Paisley. These session had a focus on history and, in particular, the development of trade union tactics among Paisley weavers at the end of the 19th century - we also covered principles and theory of organising, and tactics of industrial action.

IWW Winter School - Feb, 2023

Cat’s Cradle ran the Winter Wob School at Glen Prosen Youth hostel. This ran for three days and covered various aspects of organising and trade union culture.

Romano Lav Workshops - February, 2023

Cat’s Cradle ran three workshops with Romano Lav (SCIO) in Glasgow, a Roma community organisation. This was part of their Catalyst programme which aims to develop the skills of young people in supporting their community in fighting for justice in housing, welfare, the workplace, the city, and elsewhere. 

The Cat’s Cradle workshops covered teaching and organising, focusing on work, wages, trade unions, and racism. The students were all secondary-school age, and developed techniques to teach others about labour organising and injustice at work.

Law and Organising - February, 2023

Cat’s Cradle ran an online workshop on law and organising, attended by trades unionists and tenants unionists from Chicago and the UK. Students at this workshop then wrote-up what they had learned, and published it in a journal. 

Cat’s Cradle also worked with UVW members who had been through legal action to investigate the ‘lessons for organising’ from their cases. This was done through a series of zoom interviews with the lawyer and client present.