A Reciprocal Process: working on an equal basis

Overseas visits are of course in many ways a two way process and UK based research participants were keen to demonstrate notions of equity, equality and reciprocity, with Liza summing-up the comments of several when she spoke of discovering what “we can usefully do together, and for them to come over to us helps us see how it can be a shared partnership……….. to share activities and help each other on quite an equal basis”. Ideas of sharing, partnerships, togetherness, were sprinkled through several testimonies, demonstrating perhaps not only trade union diversity awareness in the UK but also the sensitivities surrounding international worker solidarities.

The advantages of Majority World workers coming to the UK within this reciprocal process were also highlighted. Rohini Hensman spoke of when

after the Bhopal disaster, she helped organise a tour to England for some of the survivors. She contacted local groups in the UK and the Bhopal survivors came and spoke about their situation and exchanged their experiences with those campaigning in the UK against hazardous processes in general. This provided an immediate and “strong sense of identification. These were not just ‘poor third world people’, who are victims,……..they are actively fighting for their rights, they are struggling against huge global corporations and they’re talking about…..a goal that is common, so that immediately provided a link that is very strong”.

Expressions of solidarity, common experience and of agency surface here and could appear as having a similar transformative impact on the UK workers in question as actually travelling overseas themselves. Rohini also made reference to travelling overseas to attend labour and trade union conferences. In utilising the example of her participation with Women Working Worldwide she emphasised the value in her experience of these events as “activists from different countries came together and that was especially positive because it was women. I think that’s a very important way of establishing contacts and solidarity”. The realities of overcoming the practical hurdles also surfaced within her discussion, as “the problem is of course is it is quite expensive”. In addition to issues of cost, the second hurdle is that of communication. For Rohini, short of face-to-face contact, one powerful approach is to utilise certain forms of media, as “films I think could be one way of establishing contacts, they could provide a useful way of putting workers in touch with the struggles elsewhere or the conditions elsewhere”.

Trade union Branch ‘twinning’ was mentioned by Carrie and Klaus as a method of nationally different union Branches keeping in touch, sharing video making, building relationships and possibly engaging in reciprocal visits, with Carrie emphasising the solidaristic value of visiting speakers being utilised at international learning events. Martin and Griffiths (2012) would concur with the approach of better integrating overseas visits far more closely within formal educational courses and international practice placements programmes, as opposed to one-off, isolated events. In the author’s

experience on the GFTU International Development Champions course visit to Egypt, outside of the subsequent project conference little follow-up support was offered to visit participants upon return to the UK. Any further personal learning and development was thus instigated by participants themselves. Finally it is of note that within the findings some narratives, particularly those originating from Colombia, spoke of visits to the UK a protective measure against harm. For labour and justice activist Amelia, longer term “respite from the persecution that they (trade union activists) face in Colombia” is a key ingredient within union visits to the UK. Longer term funded programmes would afford union members the opportunity to not have to leave their home country on a permanent basis. Additionally this would allow them the chance to learn English, hopefully at an affordable rate at a university or college in the UK, and have somewhere to stay for a period of months. This would give visit participants sufficient “space, and to help build the campaigns over here….but what’s really needed is some kind of respite, because at the moment there are a lot of colleagues in Colombia who are under threat from paramilitaries”. Although the resource implications of such a visit programme are obviously extensive, from a Majority World perspective they are requisite for any in- depth mutual learning to take place.

From the research findings, the inference can be drawn that in terms of transformative learning experiences the immediacy of trade union overseas study visits appears unequalled. The impact upon participants reflects Mezirow’s (2000) initial transitional phases of disorientation and dilemma, leading to self examination and critical assessment of previously held assumptions. The centrality of experience appears based upon shared values and to some extent a shared discourse between visitors and hosts. When the barriers of language and lack of resources can be overcome, the transformative experience seems to translate into creative, dynamic, agential activity upon return. The powerful influence of this learning experience, if combined with related formal learning prior and post visit, presents itself as the optimum learning provision.