Meet the candidates for General Secretary

Claudia Turbet-Delof

Languages:	English and Spanish
Sector:	Other workers
Workplace:	The Counselling Space
Occupation:	Community therapist
Length of UVW Membership:	4 years and 1 month – Treasurer

Candidate statement:

Hello UVW comrade!

This is my manifesto as UVW’s next General Secretary. 

Like you, I feel tremendous pride for the historic victories our migrant-led, grassroots, multi-sector, independent union has achieved for thousands of underrepresented workers across the country. 

But, we do have serious challenges ahead as the pandemic exposed historic and emerging issues we need to tackle to secure long-term sustainability of our workers movement. 

This is how I plan to lead UVW into becoming a fully functioning union that promptly supports all its members and sectors, works towards financial independence, and continues to win BIG for workers.

THREE PILLARS OF WORK MANIFESTO:

WORKERS’ POWER

I will lead on operational and organising strategies to expand our workers power and meet growing demand. To do this I will:  

1. Organise to achieve worker status for all.
2. Expose and aim to end all forms of labour exploitation.
3. Increase our Solidarity Strike Funds. 
4. Bring back monthly general assembly meetings.
5. Introduce Membership ID cards. 
6. Introduce a UVW Members Welcome Induction Pack with key information on your basic workers’ rights plus templates to aid you to request what your employer might be denying i.e. contracts, payslips, annual leave.
7. Shift culture to reduce high levels of UVW staff turnover, stress and burnout. We will lead by example in how we treat, elevate and empower our staff. 
8. Lead on developing knowledge of UVW’s finances and collective input on financial decisions.
9. Lead on the revamp of our casework system.
10. Set up Sectors yearly campaign strategies to tackle unique and needs that are sector specific.

Lastly, as a Mental Health professional, I will lead a national campaign to expose the direct relationship between labour exploitation and mental health illness in workers. We will demand workers’ mental health as a top priority in the workplace.  

EDUCATION 

Making use of our new spacious headquarters, we will launch an all-year UVW Community Learning hub that offers not only continued training on what we excel, organising and campaigns, but also extends to topics affecting our socio-economic independence i.e. pension, taxes, housing  

WORKERS’ SOLIDARITY 

Solidarity and internationalism will be a key asset for the growth and respect in our workers’ movement, joining and exchanging organising power with trade unions around the world, we will defend workers’ rights at national and international levels. ¡Si nos tocan a uno, nos tocan a todos!