On Wednesday the 7th of October, The Northern Region TUC will be marking ’World Day for Decent Work’ (WDDW) with a seminar event at the new City Library in Newcastle.

Last year, in partnership with the Regional Refugee Forum NE, we highlighted the denial of the right to work for Asylum Seekers and this proved a great starting point for a year of joint campaigning and awareness raising of the issue. At this years seminar, we shall again be joining forces with RRF to focus on the ‘lost’ or ‘untapped’ skills of new migrants and refugees in the UK and looking at how we can address these issues as trade unions and community organisations. This issue was covered briefly in the Northern TUC’s magazine in July:

http://www.tuc.org.uk/extras/unionn...

However, we hope the dialogue started by this event will both highlight the barriers around ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages), learning and skills and be the building blocks to a joint approach between the trade unions and the wider community on these issues.