In Brussels today and tommorow for a conference looking at the challenges of organising professional and managerial staff .

I'll be speaking tommorow about the role the TUC Organising Academy has played in helping UK unions, including BALPA, organise professional staff.

While unions in the UK, such as BALPA, Connect and the NUJ have quite successfully developed this area of work, there is still a very clear public/private split - one which reflects a wider challenge for unions in the UK.. Why is it scientists working for central government or univerisites join unions while their counterparts in Proctor and Gamble do not? How can we begin to make unions a natural option for whole layers of managerial and professional staff who have little or no experience of trade unions (never mind 'trade unionism')?