Oldham Council Union Learning Centre - Official Opening
The official opening of the Learning Centre at
Oldham MBC saw the Learning Agreement signed by the council,
UnionLearn and the joint unions at the Moorhey Street Depot.
The agreement was signed Councillor Lynne
Thompson and Executive Director Emma Alexander on behalf of the
council while Tony Saunders signed on behalf of UnionLearn, Wendy
Bradbury for Unison, Kevin Flanagan for GMB and John Lea for Unite
the Union.
The process had begun earlier in 2009 with the
joint unions working with Joan Lyall from UnionLearn to put
together a plan to take to the council on the learning
agenda. Joan has worked extremely hard to bring everything
together.
Steve Hewitt ULR for Unite the Union was put
in place to head up the project with funding from a UnionLearn
Skills for All fund. Steve has worked hard with the other
unions and the council to put courses on and people have taken
Skills for Life and IT courses in the Moorhey Street Centre.
Sue Taylor from Oldham MBC Skills for Life department has worked
particularly hard with Steve to head up the courses while Dean
Briody ULO from Unite has provided IT training for employees.
A number of learners were at the event to
receive certificates from Councillor Lynne Thompson and showed
their appreciation of what has been achieved through the
partnership, Also at the event were convenors Paul Dale
from Unite and Peter Duckworth from GMB, Jason Beckett Unite ULO,
Matt Bow GMB ULO and ULRs from all the unions involved.
It is now planned to move the agenda on with
other parts of the council becoming more involved. The
purchase of a bank of laptops funded by the Unite ULF bid was to
ensure they could be moved around the council so allowing everyone
to have the same opportunities in learning.
