RIP Rick Sumner, ex- miner, founder of the Justice for Mineworkers Campaign

by Dave Chapple

Rick Sumner passed away peacefully at home on Saturday while watching his beloved Manchester City contest the FA Cup semi-final.

THOUGH a proud Lancastrian, Rick was for many years a miner at Shuttle Eye Colliery in West Yorkshire but also worked variously as a trawlerman fishing in the icy waters of the North Atlantic, as a scaffolder and steel erector on some of Manchester’s biggest construction sites, being a key mover behind the Building Workers’ Charter, and, later, as a community and grass roots advice worker in Manchester’s Moss Side.

His life, throughout, was that of a principled working class militant, an active trade unionist and dedicated fighter for socialism and workers’ democracy. He did not disdain politics and, for a period, joined the International Socialists.

Immediately after the end of the Great Strike of 1984/85, he and his lifelong comrade and inseparable partner, Christine, saw the need to work energetically to support the more than a thousand striking miners victimised by the National Coal Board.

In doing so, they established the National Justice For Mineworkers’ Campaign (NJMC) – with the support of the NUM – to sustain the sacked men and their families and to run a relentless campaign for their reinstatement and restoration of their pension and other rights. Parallel with this, they co-sponsored the annual, always well-attended, memorial meeting in Barnsley each March to commemorate David Jones and Joe Green, the two miners killed during the strike.

Rick and Chris – and volunteers from the ranks of the sacked miners like Ken Ambler and Keith “Froggy” Frogson who was murdered by a scab – were a firm feature of every labour movement and trade union gathering, with their mining memorabilia stall raising funds for families in truly desperate need.

From 1986 and until recently, they raised thousands and thousands of pounds for the great cause and earned the support, respect and admiration of the NUM and its activists across the British coalfields. Rick and Chris’s commitment to the miners was absolute, it was unbreakable and it never wavered.

Rick had a peerless reputation in another arena of politics: the battle against racism, antisemitism and fascism. When he and Chris lived in Manchester’s Moss Side, they started tenants’ organisations and worked with the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination to oppose racist slum landlords.

Rick’s personal courage, never flinching from direct physical confrontation with fascists, was a byword and inspiration to many young activists. He also played a key role in anti-fascist intelligence-gathering with the comrades who later launched Searchlight magazine.

Rick and Chris, before her death after a long battle against cancer, left the NJMC in good hands and retired to live by the sea on the Yorkshire coast, close to family members, but never lost contact with comrades and friends, always bidding them a warm welcome. In the circumstances of his retirement, he was able to devote more time to following Manchester City and to working hard to support the local lifeboat service.

He will be sorely missed by all who had the honour of knowing him. He is irreplaceable.

Deepest condolences to son Dan and daughter Suze.

By Graeme Atkinson

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One response on “Obituary for Rick Sumner: A miner, a trade unionist and an anti-fascist Written by Graeme Atkinson” 1. Chris Skidmore28 April 2021 at 13:15

“Selfless,Calm, Dignified and Resolute is how I would describe Rick Sumner and feel proud and privileged to have known and respected him. On behalf of my family and the Yorkshire Area NUM who I represent, I wish to add these condolences and richly deserved tributes, Chris Skidmore (Yorkshire Area NUM Chairman)

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WOW-take a deep breath and give this a listen

 Forwarded to NorthernVoices by Dave Chapple

 

WOW-take a deep breath and give this a listen: 

Hope she's active in a trade union!

Can the TUC get Kimberley over to the UK for  BLM speaking tour?

:  https://www.instagram.com/tv/CBGUPgBApio/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

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 Don’t think she’d be too upset about Colston going to a watery grave.

Trevor Noah on Instagram: “@kimberlylatricejones @djonesmedia” 190.5k Likes, 10.2k Comments - Trevor Noah (@trevornoah) on Instagram: “@kimberlylatricejones @djonesmedia” www.instagram.com

Bridgwater Royal Mail Postal Strike

 From Bridgwater Trades Union Council:

100 postman and women at Bridgwater Royal Mail Delivery Office walked out on unofficial strike this morning.

The CWU members are angry that Royal Mail are using the Covid 19 crisis as a screen to attack the strong trade union organisation at the Friarn St office.

Specific grievances are:

1. A manager who has previously twice been removed from Bridgwater DO has been put back in charge.Staff believe this manager's aggressive and anti-union behaviour make him the worst possible choice, when they just want the support of managers to get out and deliver letters and packets to local people as best they can, with many staff on self-isolation and/or sick, and working with, and supporting, some inexperienced casuals.  

2. Staff have been threatened with disciplinary action for "Wilful delay of the mail", which could lead to dismissal, when all they have done is work to their contracted finishing time.

3. Union activists have been followed around the building by managers who have tried to prevent them talking to members at work. 

4. Royal Mail have given notice they wish to rip up all current local agreements with the CWU-agreements that give local postman and women some of the best conditions in the country.

5. The current manager has deliberately tried to provoke trouble by removing the majority of cycles from the office-Bridgwater is the last office in the UK to use them.

The action this morning was supported by 100% of the union members at Bridgwater-a workplace where 99.7% of postman and women are union members

They have taken this action as a last resort-Royal Mail must now re-consider their whole management strategy at Bridgwater and appoint managers who are prepared to work with the union, not try and destroy it.

At 12.30pm this afternoon CWU members voted to go home for the rest of the day.

The strike will now go into its second day.

Senior CWU Officials are now involved to try and resolve this serious situation."

Further info Dave Chapple, Bridgwater Trades Union Council  on 07707869144

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Dave Chapple’s MAY DAY Speech

Wells May Day 2018:

International Worker’s Day greetings from a life-long Somerset trades unionist, a school-cleaner for 11 years, a postman for 38, a shop steward for 35 of those years, to the Wells Constituency Labour Party for organising this, the first May Day March in Somerset for 24 years.

Solidarity, also, to Wells, from Somerset’s working-class capital: Bridgwater.

Bridgwater, a town where, today, 14 out of 16 town councillors; 10 out of 15 district councillors, and 2 out of 3 county councillors are Labour.

Bridgwater, home of 17 pub-based workers Carnival Clubs, which organise, at weekly meetings of 10 to 30 members, on November’s first Saturday, the greatest West Country working class cultural event, one enjoyed by 100,000 people from all over. 

 

Bridgwater:  The home of Robert Blake, Cromwell’s General at Sea, staunch republican if not a regicide, who personally inflicted some of the first Royalist casualties of the Civil War.

Bridgwater, where, after the battle of Sedgemoor in 1685, no member of the Royal Family set foot in the town for over 300 years.

Bridgwater, the town, a century later, that remembered Judge Jeffries sending 800 Monmouth rebels to Barbados sugar plantations, so well, that radicals like John Chubb organised Britain’s first ever petition against the slave trade.

Bridgwater, which, even if the town’s large factories have been replaced by warehouses, still hosts militant trade union organised workplaces, like the Unite union at Refresco-Gerber and ARGOS, who have struck for two weeks and three weeks, respectively, in the last few years. 

 

Like Hinkley Point “C” construction workers, who won back lost bad weather wages recently after a successful and illegal sit-in. 

 

Like my former workplace, the Royal Mail Delivery Office, where, still, national and regional managers are regularly thrown into panic upon rumours of yet another wildcat strike being planned by the CWU Reps and Committee;

But what of the rest of Somerset?  What of the Mendip area?  What of Wells itself? Well, it seems clear now, 33 years after the epic NUM strike of 1984/5, that Tory Governments planned, starting with the miners, to shut down whole industries in order to weaken or eliminate strong trades unions. 

 

Over the next decades, Thatcher, Major and Blair were glad to wipe out 90% of UK manufacturing, to critically wound trades unionism as a whole. So Somerset, too has been almost completely de-industrialised: we now have hardly any large factories that make things. 

 

Think at all those losses: the dozen or so Somerset Clarks shoe factories; Moorland and Bailey sheepskins; printers and packagers like Butler and Tanner, Mardon, Purnells; Cider makers like Showering; Evercreech dairy; Nutricia; St Cuthberts paper mill at Wookey; and for Wells, skilled engineers like Clares and EMI. 

 

So it wasn’t just the cities, not just the NUM: Somerset has, also, descended, within two generations, from a place where working-class people through their union could negotiate reasonable wages, conditions and pensions, to a dog-eats-dog individual race to the bottom: bullying supervisors, zero-hours, no holidays, no sick pay, no pension no rights at all.

But why, then, I am proud to announce, in the last few weeks, has Wells hosted the launch of Mendip TUC, the newest local trades union council in the UK?

Because trades unionism still exists in the Mendips, there are reps and stewards and union branch officers in every town and many villages.

Because rural trades unionism can still thrive: in every village school, every small town Royal Mail Delivery Office, every time you see a BT Openreach worker shimmying up a telegraph pole, shop in most supermarkets, try and find a job in one of the few remaining job centres, you will come across trades unionists: in the CWU, in the NEU, NASUWT, UNISON, in PCS, Unite, GMB or USDAW.

If you are a Mendip area trades unionist, join us at our next Wells meeting in the Lawrence Centre, Union St, 6pm on Monday May 21st!

What of the radical and socialist tradition in Mendip, and Wells itself?

George Howell was a bricklayer, shoemaker, and Chartist.  He was also an auto-didact, a historian, and Secretary of the TUC Parliamentary Committee in the 1870’s and 1880’s. George was born and grew up in Wrington. 

 

Fred Swift was a Writhlington coal miner, an ILP/Independent Labour Party socialist and, with the Bridgwater railwayman James Young, one of the first two socialists elected to Somerset County Council before World War One.

Arthur James Cook: AJ Cook, born at Wookey in 1883, brought up in Cheddar where he worked on Caleb Durbin’s dairy farm, became at 17 a Rhondda miner, a fiery and revolutionary syndicalist orator jailed twice, for sedition and for opposing World War One, and finally, leader of the MFGB during the General Strike and Miner’s Lockout of 1926. 

 

The General Strike, where the local Wells strike committee, led by railwaymen, ordered 200 copies of the TUC’s daily The British Worker during those epic nine days. 

 

From syndicalism to Parliamentary socialism: Only two generations ago, Labour and Tory were almost neck and neck in Wells: In the 1945 General Election, the Tory majority over Labour was reduced to only 2,465.

In 1950 Labour polled 18,000 votes to the Tories 20,600 in a turnout of 87.8%.

In 1951, Dai Llewellyn, former Welsh miner and veteran International Brigader from the Spanish Civil War, the Somerset Miner’s Agent, won 21,500 Labour votes and again came a narrow second.

It wasn’t until 1974 that the Liberals overtook Labour in Wells. 

 

You can never tell me, looking back at that astonishing working-class Labour support, in Wells, a Cathedral City for goodness sake, the “Belly of the Tory Beast” that what happened once, a long time ago, could not happen again, but better still, Labour winning Wells!

Why not? People can sometimes change very quickly! 

 

After all, 50 years ago, a fortnight before the French Revolution of May 1968, were not learned Marxist historians predicting decades of working-class subservience? 

 

To start winning, we do need to organise, campaign, show solidarity, on a Somerset county-wide basis. 

 

From Dulverton to Bath, Portishead to Chard, Burnham on Sea to Frome, Keynsham to Yeovil, Radstock to Wellington, Cheddar to Wincanton.

Poor public transport does make this difficult. 

 

You can get a bus from Clevedon or Wells to Bristol up to 10.30pm at night, yet try and get to Bridgwater from Glastonbury, or Burnham on Sea from Bridgwater, after 7pm, and this is the same First Group bus company! 

 

Reason: the Tory Somerset County Council is the only West Country county that cannot be bothered to have a County Transport Forum: then again, how many Tory Councillors have ever caught a bus? 

 

Somerset needs county-wide independent campaigns, supported by the six Somerset Trade Union Councils and all local Labour Parties:

Against Library Closures; 

Against cuts and closures to NHS Community Hospitals;

Support teaching and other education unions fighting Academy attacks on their pay and conditions;

Against Tory County Council cuts to children centres, children and adult disability learning services;

Against outsourcing of NHS District Hospital non-medical staff: 

 

The list of dismantled Somerset public services is almost endless. 

 

I suggest that, from 2019, trades unionists and socialists in every Somerset town host an event, such as a public meeting, on May 1st, but for all Somerset towns to come together in Wells, the centre of our County, to celebrate International Worker’s Day on this first May Saturday. 

 

Today, we still honour the sacrifices of those anarchist workers in Chicago who in the late 1880’s suffered state execution for fighting for the 8-hour day, but in dying for our socialist cause, they lit a torch that still, if sometimes dimly, burns.

2018 should be the year that Somerset’s workers get of their knees, learn that if you fight you can win, if you never fight you always lose.

Don’t be a drop-out! Get up, get into it, get involved! Refuse to lose! 

Three rap titles from the greatest of all popular musicians, The Godfather of Soul, the Minister of Super Heavy Funk, James Brown.

But, 2018 in Somerset, not Atlanta, Georgia: Get involved in what? Refuse to lose what? Fight for what?

I hope you don’t mind me ending with a personal point of view.

Just remember, I was a Labour Parliamentary candidate a long 31 years ago!

I have been a Somerset socialist agitator for over 40 years, but I’m not tired:

I fight for a country that is run by a radical industrial workplace democracy, that has priority over councils and parliament; 

The fundamental units: Community Assemblies (They were called Soviets);

The old and still un-achieved Chartist demand for annual elections with recallable delegates;

An anti-militarist, non-nuclear federation of the nations, where the rotor blades of Westland/Leonardo PLC really are turned into Bristol Channel wind and underwater turbine blades;

Where swords really can become ploughshares;

Where, here in Somerset and throughout the world, the long-suffering working-class, the peasants and the poor are anything but meek, are so bloody-well organised that they really can inherit the earth.

See you in Wells on our very own First May Saturday in 2019?

07707 869144 davechapple@btinternet.com

Russian Revolution in Somerset

Subject: The Russian Revolution in Somerset

Friends,
Bridgwater Trades Union Council is hosting a special public discussion to mark the October 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.

Date: Tuesday October 31st. Time: 7pm. Venue: The Engine Room, 50-52 High St, Bridgwater, Somerset, TA6 3BL

The meeting is part of the Engine Room's "Bridgwater Together" celebrations, running from Saturday October 28th to Saturday 4th November.

From Tuesday 31st to Saturday November 4th, the Russian Revolution theme continues with an Engine Room exhibition of rare and original Soviet Posters and photographic magazines, organised and curated by Bridgwater's Irena Brezowski.

                                                                     *********************************************************

Dave Chapple, Bridgwater TUC Secretary, said:

‘For millions of people throughout the twentieth century, and for many thousands of socialists in our country today, the overthrow of Kerensky's Government by the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, Trotsky, and Kamenev in October 1917, was a world-changing, inspiring and liberating event.

‘October 1917 was hailed by most shades of left-wing opinion in Britain: the militant shop stewards and syndicalists, South Wales miners, Glasgow engineers, the Socialist Labour Party, the British Socialist Party, Sylvia Pankhurst, John Maclean, and many like George Lansbury in the Independent Labour Party. During the next few years it was British Labour's strike threats against Lloyd George's war-mongering  that helped to ensure that the besieged fledgling "soviet" state survived.

‘However, even before Lenin's death in 1924, many previous admirers world-wide, begun to have doubts about the policies and direction of the new state.

‘As Lenin and Trotsky gave way to Joseph Stalin's murderous dictatorship, and right down until 1989, millions of workers in the Soviet Union and its satellites developed negative, critical or hostile attitudes to communist state authority, attitudes which led some Russians and Eastern Europeans after 1989 to seek intellectual consolation or refuge in the bright lights of western consumer capitalism.

‘In Bridgwater today, still Somerset's premier working-class town, live hundreds of unrepentant and dedicated local socialists, and they are working alongside hundreds of migrant workers from Eastern Europe, including many Russian speakers from Lithuania. Local trades unions have welcomed migrant workers into membership and some are already shop stewards. Of course, many migrant workers retain personal or family memories of pre-1989 days, and so will have their own views on communism and October 1917. 

‘This is why Bridgwater TUC's  public meeting on October  31st is being organised as a serious discussion between different opinions and perspectives,  and not a celebration.’

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Speakers are Liz Payne, President of the Communist Party of Britain; Dave Chapple, Secretary of Bridgwater TUC; and Irena Brezowski, a Bridgwater College lecturer who has family and personal links to the old Soviet Union.

Tuesday October 31st, 7pm, The Engine Room, 50-52 High St, Bridgwater, Somerset, TA6 3BL

Please pass this invite onto any of your contacts who might be interested.

ALL WELCOME!

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Orgreave Campaign & Dave Douglass pamphlet

Friends,

When Barbara Jackson of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign, spoke recently at the AGM of Bridgwater Trades Union Council in Somerset, she was presented with a pamphlet, written by Dave Douglass, which commemorates the replication of the famous old Follonsby (Wardley) Lodge Banner, with portraits of Geordie Harvey, James Connolly, AJ Cook, and Keir Hardie.

Hope this short tribute is of interest!

https://youtu.be/GjR2xdEuU5s

Dave Chapple,

Secretary,

Bridgwater TUC.

Postman Reinstated in Bridgewater

AFTER a two-year 'David and Goliath' battle with the country's second largest employer, culminating with a 24-hour wildcat walkout on November 11th; the 113 CWU members at Bridgwater Royal Mail Delivery Office in Somerset have secured the reinstatement of Andrew Mootoo, a profoundly deaf postman stricken with MS.

Andrew starts back to work on a part-time desk-based computer job, scanning in undelivered packets, on Monday February 15th.

On Thursday, the day after his reinstatement was confirmed, a gate meeting was held, with Andrew and his wife present, to celebrate a remarkable victory for the Communication Workers' Union/CWU.

After the gate meeting, the British Sign Language/BSL interpreter for Andrew, said she had never experienced anything like it, the speeches had given her goose bumps!

Dave Chapple, with Darren Granter one of two Bridgwater CWU Reps still under threat of dismissal for their part in the November illegal walkout, said:

'Monday will finalise a victory that should be celebrated, not just as part of the TUC HeartUnions week, not just as the latest in an amazing series of strike victories at the Bridgwater Delivery Office, not just as a truly-even for Bridgwater-remarkable act of working-class solidarity, but,perhaps most of all, as a victory for disabled workers everywhere.

'How many other workplaces would have held a near-unanimous walkout to support someone who hadn't been at work for nearly two years? 

'The unavoidable fact is that Royal Mail's preferred option was always compulsory transfer out of Bridgwater, or Ill Health Retirement. The most ignorant and prejudiced Royal Mail managers we met, genuinely felt that the dole was the only long-term option. In any other workplace that could or would not risk a lightening strike as a shock tactic, the dole it would have been.'

Andrew Mootoo said: 

'After all this time I didn't expect, suddenly, to find Royal Mail positive about my return to work. I want to say a big thank you to all Bridgwater CWU members who went on strike for me: that was crucial. I cannot believe I have been waiting for 2 years and 1 month to return to work.

I call it "The Longest Road to CWU Victory":  I am so proud of our militant history here at Bridgwater!'

Andrew is available for interviews with the media, disabled, black and ethnic organisations, and other trade union branches."

Dave Chapple

07707 869 144

Crewe Conference of Trade Union Councils

Where Are The Workers?

THE Sunday Times in an editorial following the May 2015 elections declared:

'Trade unionism is a minority cause.  The days of an economy dominated by large manufacturing industries are long past.  The proportion of private sector employees who belong to a trade union is just 14%.' 

Last weekend's Crewe Conference dramatically displayed the gulf between private sector trade unionism, and  public sector unions like the PCS.  Some eight Motions were dedicated to the attacks on trade unions and about half referred to the PCS union.  Other Motions  expressed concern about the representation of the working class following the defeat of the Labour Party in the General Election.   

A Motion 7. from Cardiff noted 'attacks by local government on union branches' and the 'clear intention of (Francis) Maude and the Tories is to destroy PCS financially by withdrawing the check-off from government departments'.  From the building trade, a UCCAT delegate questioned this domination of the public sector when things were so bad on the building sites, and the anarcho-syndicalist trade unionist Dave Chapple from Bridgewater TUC, challenged the call in Motion 17. from Merseyside TUC that the TUC should 'wave affiliation fees from [the] PCS [union]'. 

Similarly the reference to the 'blacklisting and victimisation of union reps' in Motion 7. must strike people working in the British industrial wild west of the building sites as strange, when they have suffered for donkey's years from blacklisting on a massive scale.  To a former blue collar worker like myself; the delegate from UCATT; the thousands of workers in the British building trade; and even a postman like Dave Chapple, the Secretary of Bridgewater TUC who said that his delegates 'would be displeased if the PCS delegates had their affiliation fees waved'; the plight of the PCS would seem somewhat feather-bedded.


In Spain, in the famous anarchist trade union, the CNT, there were times when the land-labourers of Andalucia had their union dues waved because of the hardship they suffered through the irregular work pattern in the field with unpredictable harvests:  the anarcho-syndicalist industrial workers in the factories of Catalonia and Barcelona were more than willing to shoulder the costs of their Andalucian brothers and sisters. 

But, comparing the English PCS union today to the Spanish trade union confederation the CNT of the 1930s is like comparing a white-collar pygmy to an industrial giant: it just doesn't bear comparison on any scale of reference. 
In 1966, I led a raid with group of Manchester anarchists on my local dole office in Rochdale to obtained a my labour exchange file.  When we examined my file compiled by Labour Exchange staff (the kind of people who are now members of the PCS) we found that it contained a section marked 'Derog' in this derogatory dossier, as part of my labour exchange record since I was involved in the national apprentice strike in 1960, there was a stream of derogatory references entered by those law abiding employees at the Rochdale Labour Exchange who had interviewed me over the years after I'd been sacked after the apprentice strike up to 1966 when we purloined my dole documents. 

It's nice to know that the people in the Labour Exchanges of the 1960s, and would now be members of the PCS union working in Job Centres, were routinely black-balling me back then and for all I know may still be blacklisting claimants now.  Yet, these people in the PCS, who operated as willing blacklisters of working people in the 1960s, are now asking me and my Trade Union Council for support because the Government, to which they have been for years the loyal  servants of the State is getting at them. 
I have a heart, but isn't this kind of cant and humbug asking rather too much of me under the circumstances?

Triumph of the Right!

THE National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) has just announced in a recent e-mail that:
'In the splendour of the unelected House of Lords, through the mouthpiece of a hereditary monarch, the Tories who were elected by 24% of the electorate have announced plans for new anti-union laws.'


Indeed, the Government's Queen's speech did state plans to introduce more anti-union laws, but if recent history is anything to go by the establishment will have little to fear from the body which entitles itself the National Shop Stewards Network.  In fact the above quote just shows just how much the far left as well as the Labour Party delude themselves. 


The Tories may well have cornered merely 24% of the overall electorate; yet the figures show that combined vote share of the parties of the right (Conservatives, UKIP and the Ulster Unionists) increased to 50.5% of all votes cast.  And if the Liberal Democrats are included as a right-wing party then the figure is 58.4%.  The parties that may be classed as on the left (Labour, SNP, Greens, Plaid Cymru and the SDLP) got 39.8% of all the votes cast.


Years ago, the NSSN demonstrated its political impotence after the General Election in 2010, when it split-up, formed itself into an anti-cuts campaign, and became essentially a front for the Socialist Party.  At that time under the influence of some independent socialists, the then Chair of NSSN, Dave Chapple, and some independent syndicalists, many genuine trade unionists left the NSSN when it developed into a political runt supported by the RMT.  Since then it has failed to prevent any Government cuts.


The NSSN has shown itself to be a political irrelevance by participating in the recent elections in May 2015:
TUSC stood 135 parliamentary candidates across England, Wales and Scotland, and it had 619 candidates in the local elections.  The party gained 36,327 votes in the election, or 0.1% of the popular vote. No parliamentary seats were gained and no deposits were saved.


But if TUSC is a political irrelevance, the main stream Labour Party is now being describe as being in 'existential crisis'.  That means that the Labour Party ought to be questioning the very foundations of its own existence.  Thus we have a far left that is virtually non-existent, and a main-stream left in the Labour Party that has as I, and others, have said has outlived its mission.


Part of the problem, which needs further examination, is that the left in this country is patronizing towards the white working-class.  Left-wing politics here is based upon crude formulas, lazy analysis and cookbook thinking.


In The Observer, Nick Cohen wrote:
'The universities, left press, and the arts characterize the English middle class as Mail-reading misers, who are sexist, racist and homophobic to boot.  Meanwhile, they characterize the white working class as lardy Sun-reading slobs, who are, since you asked, also sexist, racist and homophobic.'


The trouble with the English left is that it has got itself stuck in a kind of idée fixe, a mind-set or what Mr. Cohen calls a trance from which it needs to escape if it is going to have any impact on society. 

Fruit Juice Strikes in Bridgewater

UNITE the Union demonstrators have been a familiar sight at the Express Park roundabout at the north end of the Bristol Rd in Bridgwater for months now.  This week's demo was their seventh 36-hour strike protest against plans by Refresco-Gerber to radically worsen pay and conditions at the factory, which produces household-name fruit juices.

At least three more stoppages have been planned for the next two weeks, and yesterday local Unite the Union officer Roy Winter said:
'Our members contribute their working lives to this factory, which makes a handsome profit for Refresco-Gerber.  Unfortunately, under new owners whose HQ is now in Rotterdam, those profits are not enough: the plan is to double or treble them at the expense of Unite members sick pay, shift allowances, pay protection. We are talking here of corporate greed, nothing more or less.  Refresco-Gerber is making a bad mistake. There has been a recognised union organisation here for nearly fifty years: Unite the Union will not walk away from this dispute until the company agree an acceptable settlement.'

Two mass meetings will be held on the 16th & 17th March to inform Unite members involved in the dispute of the latest negotiations.

Dave Chapple, Secretary of Bridgwater Trades Union Council, has said:

'This is a David and Goliath struggle against a vicious multi-national company going all out to weaken or smash trade union organisation.'

Future 36-hour strikes are set for Wednesday /Thursday the 18th/19th March, 0645am to 1900pm; Tuesday/Wednesday 24th/25th March, 0645am to 1900pm; Wednesday/Thursday 1st /2nd April, 0645am to 1900pm. Trades unionists are welcome at picket lines, key times are 7am/7pm.

For further information please contact Roy Winter on 07720 705078 roy.winter@unitetheunion.org

 

Dave Chapple,

Bridgwater Trades Union Council

Working-class education?

A day conference for all trades unionists including Union Learn reps, trade union branch officers, TUC/ Trade Union Studies tutors, WEA/adult education lecturers, and mature students, organised by Trade Union Solidarity magazine and Bridgwater Trades Union Council
11am to 4pm, Saturday 2nd August GWRSA/Railway Club, Wellington Rd, Bridgwater, Somerset, TA6 5HA.

Speakers:
Marie Hughes South West TUC Regional Education Officer
Trish Lavelle CWU National Education Officer
Becca Kirkpatrick Co-editor Trade Union Solidarity
Shan Maidment TU studies tutor, City of Bristol College
Carole Vallelly GMB Southern Region/TUC tutor
Nigel Costley, Secretary, South West TUC
Dave Chapple, Bridgwater TUC
Ian Manborde, Ruskin College
Richard Ross London Metropolitan University
Cost is £5 per person which includes buffet lunch. Places are limited: please register in advance if possible, make cheques out to “Bridgwater Trades Union Council” and send to Dave Chapple, Conference Organiser, 1 Blake Place, Bridgwater, Somerset, TA6 5AU. Further details phone 07707 869 144 or e-mail davechapple@btinternet.com

Programme
10.30am to 11am: registration tea and coffee
11am: welcome: Vicki Nash, Somerset NUT and President Bridgwater TUC
11.05am: First session: Chair, Andy Newman, GMB, White Horse (Wiltshire) TUC
Speakers: Marie Hughes, Trish Lavelle, Dave Chapple
11.50am: discussion
12.30pm: Second session: Chair, Glen Burrows, RMT, Bridgwater TUC
Speakers: Nigel Costley, Shan Maidment, Richard Ross
1.15pm: discussion

2PM BUFFET LUNCH AND LICENSED BAR
2.40pm: Third session: Chair: Richard Capps, PCS, vice-Chair South West TUC
Speakers: Carole Vallelly, Ian Manborde, Becca Kirkpatrick
3.25pm: discussion including conference follow-up
4pm: Close of conference

The last few generations have seen, overall, both a crisis and decline in the general field of what used to be called working-class education. Despite substantial government Union Learn funding, now of course under severe pressure, and some impressive internal trade union shop steward programmes, the subsidised and ‘liberal’ adult education sector where many of us learned the theory and practice of socialism has almost disappeared.

This conference is a ground-breaking attempt to address this crisis, asking these questions amongst many others: would the internet have destroyed adult ‘liberal’ education without any government cuts?  Do any trade unions educate their members for socialism or merely effective trades unionism? Can a volunteer/community-led strategy restore cuts to Union Learn and adult evening courses?
 
What about the left-wing political parties, including Labour and the Greens?  What are the strategies to restore a once-thriving Independent Working Class Education as part of the workers’ emancipation project?  Do TUC courses succeed in teaching solidarity between workers in different unions?  Could local trades councils play a new educational role?

These of course are only a few possible ways of approaching our conference subject: make sure you raise yours!  Our speakers will all, hopefully, give us personal reflections of all their years teaching workers, as well as their own ideas for future education campaigns.

Bridgwater GWRSA/Railway Club is 100 yards from Bridgwater rail station at the east end of Wellington Rd.  Car parking in adjacent station car park. Bridgwater station is served by an hourly train service throughout the day, arriving from Bristol at 40 minutes past the hour and from Taunton at 15/20 minutes past the hour. Bridgwater is also easily accessible from the M5 motorway with two junctions: north (Dunball/Junction 23) and south (Huntworth/Junction 24).  The GWRSA/railway club itself is one of the national network of railway clubs which in themselves are an important part of working-class history-they were funded by the employers, and so can be understood both as social concession or dangerous palliative.   However, you will find the Bridgwater GWRSA a friendly, thriving but last-surviving local working class club.  We look forward to seeing you on 2nd August!

The Future of Working-Class Education?

Does working-class education

have a future?

A day conference for all trades unionists including Union Learn reps, trade union branch officers, TUC/ Trade Union Studies tutors, WEA/adult education lecturers, and mature students, organised by Trade Union Solidarity magazine and Bridgwater Trades Union Council

11am to 4pm, Saturday 2^ndAugust GWRSA/Railway Club, Wellington Rd, Bridgwater, Somerset, TA6 5HA

Speakers:

Marie Hughes South West TUC Regional Education Officer

Trish Lavelle CWU National Education Officer

Becca Kirkpatrick Co-editor Trade Union Solidarity

Shan Maidment TU studies tutor, City of Bristol College

Carole Vallelly GMB Southern Region/TUC tutor

Nigel Costley, Secretary, South West TUC

Dave Chapple, Bridgwater TUC

Ian Manborde, Ruskin College

Richard Ross:  London Metropolitan University

Cost is £5 per person which includes buffet lunch. Places are limited: please register in advance if possible, make cheques out to“Bridgwater Trades Union Council” and send to Dave Chapple, Conference Organiser, 1 Blake Place, Bridgwater, Somerset, TA6 5AU. Further details phone 07707 869 144 or e-mail davechapple@btinternet.com

Programme

10.30am to 11am: registration tea and coffee

11am: welcome: Vicki Nash, Somerset NUT and President Bridgwater TUC

11.05am: First session: Chair, Andy Newman, GMB, White Horse (Wiltshire) TUC

Speakers: Marie Hughes, Trish Lavelle, Dave Chapple

11.50am: discussion

12.30pm: Second session: Chair, Glen Burrows, RMT, Bridgwater TUC

Speakers: Nigel Costley, Shan Maidment, Richard Ross

1.15pm: discussion

2PM BUFFET LUNCH AND LICENSED BAR

2.40pm: Third session: Chair: Richard Capps, PCS, vice-Chair South West TUC

Speakers: Carole Vallelly, Ian Manborde, Becca Kirkpatrick

3.25pm: discussion including conference follow-up

4pm: Close of conference

The last few generations have seen, overall, both a crisis and decline in the general field of what used to be called working-class education. Despite substantial government Union Learn funding, now of course under severe pressure, and some impressive internal trade union shop steward programmes, the subsidised and ‘liberal’ ‘adult education sector where many of us learned the theory and practice of socialism has almost disappeared.

This conference is a ground-breaking attempt to address this crisis, asking these questions amongst many others: would the internet have destroyed adult ‘liberal’ education without any government cuts? Do any trade unions educate their members for socialism or merely effective trades unionism? Can a volunteer/community-led strategy restore cuts to Union Learn and adult evening courses?

What about the left-wing political parties, including Labour and the Greens? What are the strategies to restore a once-thriving Independent Working Class Education as part of the workers’ emancipation project? Do TUC courses succeed in teaching solidarity between workers in different unions? Could local trades councils play a new educational role?

These of course are only a few possible ways of approaching our conference subject: make sure you raise yours! Our speakers will all, hopefully, give us personal reflections of all their years teaching workers, as well as their own ideas for future education campaigns.

Bridgwater GWRSA/Railway Club is 100 yards from Bridgwater rail station at the east end of Wellington Rd. Car parking in adjacent station car park. Bridgwater station is served by an hourly train service throughout the day, arriving from Bristol at 40 minutes past the hour and from Taunton at 15/20 minutes past the hour. Bridgwater is also easily accessible from the M5 motorway with two junctions: north (Dunball/Junction 23) and south (Huntworth/Junction 24). The GWRSA/railway club itself is one of the national network of railway clubs which in themselves are an important part of working-class history-they were funded by the employers, and so can be understood both as social concession or dangerous palliative. However, you will find the Bridgwater GWRSA a friendly, thriving but last-surviving local working class club. We look forward to seeing you on 2^nd August!

Bristol CWU: 'Definitely undefeated!'

AFTER nine days of strike action postal workers at the Royal Mail Delivery Office in Friarn Street Bridgwater have voted to end their summer-long dispute about oppressive managers and working conditions.

This follows a mass meeting of workers last night where a proposed agreement was endorsed by a 3:1 majority.

Bristol CWU Branch Secretary David Wilshire said: 

'Following lengthy and difficult negotiations an agreement has been accepted that places the Union back at the centre of all decisions that are made in Royal Mail Bridgwater.  Crucially it states that future changes will not be made until agreement is reached.  In addition Royal Mail must realise that unless the management of the office seriously improves in the near future more disputes are inevitable.'

On the basis of the vote taken yesterday evening the planned week of strike action that was scheduled to take place for a week commencing 9 September 2013 has been cancelled.

Dave Chapple, Bristol CWU Branch Chair and Bridgwater Rep said: 

'110 postmen and women have sustained what is possibly-that epic Burslem struggle apart- the longest and most bitter official dispute in a Royal Mail Delivery Office for 20 years. What were we up against? First, up to 150 Royal Mail managers breaking our every picket line; second, our so-called free country's laws that makes solidarity strikes illegal. Had it not been for the amazing financial support from CWU Branches and other trades unionists nationwide, we would have struggled. Thanks to all those who supported us, we remain defiant and definitely undefeated!'

 

For further information please contact : 

 

David Wilshire on 07909 525740 or Dave Chapple on 0777 6304 276 davechapple@btinternet.com  

Bridgewater Delivery Office Appeal

RE: Bridgwater Delivery Office Official Dispute – Financial Support Needed

110 CWU Members out of 120 Postal Workers at Bridgwater Delivery Office are currently under severe attack from Royal Mail. They have taken five days strike action so far, following a 79.3% “Yes” vote. 

The main issues are Royal Mail's un-agreed implementation of a drastic summer savings plan, also allegations about bullying and a “Performance Management” regime and refusal to pay monies owed for mail sequencing savings. These issues have involved Royal Mail selectively breaking both local and national Agreements with the CWU.

Local representatives, officials from the Bristol & District Amalgamated Branch, CWU Divisional Representatives and Bob Gibson National CWU Officer have attempted to come to an acceptable compromise agreement, including substantial summer only savings, only to be rebuffed by the employer.

Meanwhile Bridgwater CWU Reps Darren Granter, Dave Chapple, CWU Committee Members and striking postal workers are allegedly being harassed on a daily basis. There is a feeling that this is to try and provoke wildcat walkouts in order to weaken the official balloted action. Furthermore, CWU members have complained of being watched during their deliveries, during grace breaks, and at gate meetings with officials, and even at a toilet cubicle. They have had overtime denied for spurious reasons and been summarily taken off their delivery. Some new temporary contracts staff feel they are being placed under severe pressure to attend work on strike days.

Attendances on the Bridgwater picket lines have been excellent and have ranged from 35 up to 70 people; the membership's continued solidarity has shocked Royal Mail. Consequently, the CWU and wider trade union movement cannot afford to stand by in the light of the Con-Dem Government's privatisation attempts and let the strong CWU membership at Bridgwater Delivery Office be starved back to work.

Further strikes are planned to continue the pressure on Royal Mail to negotiate a fair settlement.

Therefore to assist workers who are involved in this protracted dispute please can you help and ensure that you give all you can to the official 'Bridgwater Delivery Office Dispute Fund' this will keep morale to a maximum during the next crucial few weeks.

Please can you make out cheques to –

'Bridgwater Trades Union Council' and sent to –

Dave Chapple CWU,

1 Blake Place,

Bridgwater,

Somerset

TA6 5AU
You can also send messages of support to Dave Chapple at davechapple@btinternet.com  or telephone 0777 6304 276 or to
Dave Wilshire Branch Secretary, CWU Bristol & District Amalgamated Branch at davewilshirecwu@btconnect.com  or telephone 07909525740
Finally, we are requesting speakers from the Trade Union movement and supporters of the Postal Workers to contact Dave Chapple to make arrangements to attend picket lines and also for CWU Reps to speak at your meetings.

Review: The Cleavage in 'Trade Union Solidarity'

Trade Union Solidarity:  Send for 1 for a 20-pages copy of 'Solidarity' on the basis of 4 issues per year: £7 inc. - P&P.  Make cheques out to 'Solidarity' and send to Glen Burrows, 1, Blake Place, Bridgewater, Somerset, TA6 5AU.

I WAS sitting at a Tameside Trade Union Council meeting last year when Derek Patterson, the President, swept into the room and ceremoniously pulled out a crumpled up copy of the 1st issue of Trade Union Solidarity out of his pocket and promptly put it on his chair to keep the dust off his trousers. Seating himself comfortably, he said:
'It gives me no great pleasure to say this, but this is all it's fit for!'
Whereupon, he promptly began picking his nose with one hand and conducting the meeting with the other. 

Is this a fair assessment of this trade union publication; put out mostly by the radical left syndicalists down South and in the Midlands? The early issues I think lacked a certain sexiness and resembled too much the dreary sheets put out by the main stream unions in this country: photographs of picket-lines, union flags and banners.  I say this having done an interview with the blacklisted electrician, Steve Acheson, in the 1st issue, and having helped obtain trade union contacts at Park Cakes in Oldham for the 2nd. 

Somehow, I didn't get to see the 3rd issue so I can't comment on that but this week I received a copy of the 4th issue, and my first impression is that it's vastly improved. I say this, while looking at the cleavage of a voluptuous French woman, a supporter of the CGT with red hair, on the front page. It's not just about cleavages, of course, this issue of T.U. Solidarity covers 'The angry summer of the Spanish miners' in the Asturias in Spain by Emy Castelao, a USDAW Rep. at Primark in Taunton; an account by barrister, Dave Renton, of a redundancy case and his claim that 'redundancy dismissals are almost impossible to win...'; an interview of Keir Snow with French CGT trade union activist, Oliver Delous; a report on the use of prison labour, including an interesting interview with a Category 'D' prisoner on prison labour; and in another article Keir Snow has an interview with a lad from Dundee.

I must confess to being a bit troubled by the suggestion in the piece by Dave Chapple on the PCS that a '15-minute strike' gives members of trade unions the feel good factor and that 'one member said to me “even if we lose in the end at least I feel like I tried...'  Well that's one view!  Another view may be that these kind of actions, and the two big marches by the TUC demonstrate the impotence of the trade unions and create a lowing of worker morale with inconclusive actions. Nor does the window breaking by the Black Bloc do much good either. One feels like Mother Courage in the Brecht play of the same name when she said to that malcontent soldier: 'Get back to your post I can see you're not angry enough!'  The state of the British trade union movement is closer to that captured in an interview by Becca Kirkpatrick with Sophia James, a UNISON Young Members' Officer at Aberdeen Universities Branch on page 2:  where Sophie says:
'The trade union movement to me is crucial... but it's dying out.  There is a significant gap in young members and a substantial risk of apathy leaving a young person open to the erosion of workplace rights...'

What struck me was the prominence on page 3 given to an interview with Carlos Mondaca, a Chilean 'libertarian historian' and environmental campaigner, conducted by Beck Hillman. Senor Mondaca says: 'Reports on trade unionists' cultural and recreational activities should be a must in any trade-unionist publication: we must break up apathy and begin to socialize the trade unions. This means strengthening relations with all sorts of cultural associations that share similar class-struggle horizons...' He then reinforces this with the following: '... there is way too much text in TU Solidarity. This, of course, depends on the reading capacity of target audience, which I don't personally know. But in Chile, that amount of text would be unacceptable for any trade-unionist publication. So it is good to look for other ways to communicate the same messages: cartoons, drawings, photos, and humour all encourage creativity and make links with wider society.' 
Most left-wing publications in this country have too much text, and not enough grapgics or humour.

This 4th issue of TU Solidarity does show signs of taking this on-board with a page of coverage of Bill Douglas's film 'Comrades' by Kevin Leeiton. There's also another Keir Snow interview with Liam Young about films and especially about his film 'Faces of Glasgow' on the back page. Give us cleavages, give us nipples – anything that stops Derek Pattison from sitting on the publication and picking his nose at Trades' Council meetings.