To think it was a tactful way of saying ‘working class?’

[BoothsDelivery]

I went to a school in the middle of 2 deprived council estates.

In one of our classes, we were taught a bit about trade unions. Teacher asked us if we had a parent who was in a trade union. When we all looked blank as if he’d just asked had we been to the moon - he asked in a louder voice :

Well, come on, this is a part of the city where people have working jobs. Is anyone’s parent in a trade union?

looking back, do you think he used the phrase ‘working jobs’ because it sounds more tactful than saying “this is a working class area?”

Er- no?

The trades unions that relate to the railways are constantly on the news

@Annabella92 Thank you. Yeah, but I think even back then the concept of being in a union doesn't make you 'working class.' I think it makes you more socialist in your beliefs.
Teachers and doctors were in unions. Shop staff, couriers, catering staff, mechanics, receptionists..all 'working jobs' but nobody would've been in a union for that back then.

I don’t think the teacher was making any point other than disbelief at the political ignorance of his pupils. It wouldn’t have bothered me at all, but then I’d have known what a frigging union was. What does piss me off is the way ‘working class’ is seen as an insult by some on here. The working class built Britain and also fought and died for it in two world wars. I’m the proud granddaughter of a miner even though as a teacher now I don’t really qualify as working class anymore. I’m also a proud union member and have been in a union at every stage of my working life. There’s power in it.

@MasterBeth I don’t mind answering, but the WTF was really rude tbh.

During 1984 - 1985 there was a miners strike. Arthur Scargill was then the leader of the union and without going into unnecessary detail it was long, bitter and bloody. I didn’t know how old the poster was when I replied but if she was growing up in one of the areas most affected and it was 1984 then I’d expect most children in a typical class would know something of it.

I get you might not have been born then (I was only 4 myself) but it’s fairly well known - billy elliott is probably the best known book / film that deals with the issues raised by it.

So hope that answers your polite enquiry

These days Trade Union membership status is special category data under GDPR for a good reason, it is sensitive information and equivalent to asking 'anyone have parents who vote for x party' or 'anyone here from y religion' in terms of intrusiveness.

It's a weird question to ask, would be even weirder now as teachers are generally less intrusive now I think.

I used to think that too until Kier Starmer blew that definition out of the water, now no-one knows…

In 1992 though?

Yeah I had a google too to see which unions had the most members and it's UNISON, for public service workers. Most of my work colleagues in the civil service are in it.

However I can't think of any traditional working person and self-employed worker such as plumber, hairdresser, builder etc who would be in a Union.

It's a very strange question from your teacher OP and wonder why you remember it from over 30 years ago?

There absolutely is, if you end up being (wrongly) disciplined, or made redundant, or.put in a grievance. Unions aren't just about collective action. I have been very, very glad of my union membership at times.

Plus if enough of the workforce join (30%, I think), the employer has to recognise it.

Was it coal mining or steel town?

Ah - very good question actually and no it wasn’t !

"Working jobs" sounds like a bit of inverted snobbery to me. I suspect he may have meant manual labour-type jobs, but some people do seem to think that work isn't work unless it's back-breaking labour, and that people working in office jobs all just sit there in front of a computer twiddling their thumbs

I’d assume he meant the term “working jobs” in regards to the traditional separation between “workers” and “management”.
middle class professionals can be in unions but there’s still a divide between them and the senior management team.

Sounds a bit mealy mouthed tbh. Our teacher just asked what class we thought we were in by show of hands. Virtually everyone chose working class. I expect many of them would be counted lower middle class now - but that term had yet to gain wider currency.
The puzzlement of your classmates reflects the devastation of the trade union movement perhaps?

I’ve worked in non unionised environments and overseen many disiplinaries as a disciplinary manager. In all these work places a number of people had unions (usually TUPE’d from union environments) and their union simply acted as a “friend” would in formal meetings. It’s a lot of money over a career if you never find yourself in these instances

ive also worked in a unionised environment and managed to make 10% of the workforce redundant in record time. The union were useless.

He might have, why does it matter / bother you now? Or did this happen recently and you are quite young?

Edit: Sorry I see now you said this was 1992.

He probably did mean working class, but I don’t see it matters really? If your school were Eton he might not have expected many trade union parents. But in a state school, it’s reasonable to expect there are some? My take on ‘working jobs’ = ‘working people’ … bit like Kier Starmer’s slogan really! People who rely on their own labour for their income basically, not on the labour of others.

no-one says "working jobs". I think you must have misheard or your memory is playing tricks on you.

I was a trade union member all my working life in a succession of very middle class jobs.

No it was definitely that phrase.

With hindsight I really think he was trying to say that the school had a working cksss catchment but was deliberately using more ‘tactful’ language

i can see his point of view and why he said it tbh even if it sounds clunky

OP it’s sad to me that you think like this. The explicit theme is that being or acknowledging you’re working class is shameful. This is not and should never have been the case. If your teacher was trying to be “tactful” that’s because he was an awful snob and classist, which is on a par with racism and massively inappropriate from an educator.

in the 90s in a state school it wouldn't have been common to have any middle class students ergo 99% of his class were working class. It’s only since new labour promoting the idea of “Lower middle class” and the country generally experiencing a period of wealth and growth through the 90s and 00s that there is a (misplaced) belief people like teachers/ office workers/ homeowners/ people with degrees are middle class.

Can I ask why you’re focusing on something over 3 decades ago?

No - it’s not misplaced snobbery.

I’ve not made any negative comments about being working class - everything I’ve said thus far has been totally objective about class

i spent a year in a middle class school as well full of kids of well educated , middle class parents and HATED the

preciousness
Narrow mindedness
hypocrisy of this environment

I much prefer the WC school

"This is not and should never have been the case. If your teacher was trying to be “tactful” that’s because he was an awful snob and classist, which is on a par with racism and massively inappropriate from an educator."

This is an extraordinary attitude! What age of children or young people was he addressing? Presumably he was trying to stimulate discussion about - well what? Class consciousness? He might have been trying to be tactful because he understood that some might be sensitive about it. And this is on par with racism?! I wonder how we're going to talk about real racism once our current language has been completely trivialised and evacuated of all meaning.

Maybe he was going to say 'working class jobs' but swallowed the 'class' bit at the last minute. Or maybe he meant to say 'manual jobs' but had a brain fart, and said 'working jobs'.

Sometimes words just come out in the wrong order, and you hope people aren't still dwelling on them 30 years later.