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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Fifth Annual Commemoration of events in Jarrow

Including the Fifth Annual Commemoration of events in Jarrow in the 1830s.

SATURDAY, 3rd, JULY, 2021

Assemble at 11am, by Pedestrian Tunnel

SPEAKERS:

MR.ARTHUR SCARGILL Leader Socialist Labour Party, former National President NUM

KATE OSBORNE MP: Member for Jarrow

MR. DAVID JOHN DOUGLASS: Follonsby Miners Lodge Association & former NUM official

Mr. V. WYNNE, NEU,

TRACEY DIXON, Leader of South Tyneside Council and others

Presided over by: Mr. ALAN MARDGHUM, General Secretary Durham Miners Association

Speeches of welcome by The Mayor and Deputy Mayoress of South Tyneside Gladys Hobson and Marie Hobson

Felling Silver Band & Follonsby Wardley Miners Lodge Banner

Followed by Refreshments and Music at the Albion Gin & Ale House

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

FOLKS OF JARROW REBEL TOWN FESTIVAL Follonsby Miners Lodge Banner Heritage and Community Association Secretary: David John Douglass djdouglass@hotmail.co.uk 193 Osborne Ave, South Shields, NE 33 3BY Tyne and Wear,07596 503 360 Treasurer: Dr Lewis Mates

Dave Douglass, libcom comment & Mr. Saunders

N.V. Editor:  the comment below was written on libcom following the Dave Douglass statement by MH who is an editor on the libcom website.  The MH comment seems fair and reasonable.  What is more interesting is the swift breakfast-time response from Rob Ray or Simon Saunders, the somewhat half-baked anarcho-syndicalist editor of Freedom when he's not acting as a hack for the Morning Star.  We have no hesitation in doxing a juvenile pen-pusher such as Simon a former public schoolboy from East Anglia who admitted he had difficulty getting his head around the concept of syndicalism, not having even one working-class bone in his body.  Meanwhile, Rob Ray/ Simon speaks of 'stirring'!  He might well, many people are now saying the FREEDOM COLLECTIVE STATEMENT is feeble minded, and it seems the COLLECTIVE is split over it.
******

MH  Nov 21 2017 00:36

Well those comment pieces/statements on the London Bookfair keep rolling out, although with some glaring ommissions - AFed & SolFed nationally, Freedom collective amongst others?

Anyways here's Dave Douglass writing in Northern Voices on 17 November. He's a former striker in 1984/5 miners strike & NUM activist. He's also spoken at a variety of Bookfair's including London several times. He's toyed with anarcho-syndicalism, and flirted with Class War in the distant past, these days he's more of a historian (i think). He may come over as a bit rough & ready for Libcom towers, but that shouldnt reduce the validity of his viewpoint. So grit your teeth and read on:

Quote: 

SORRY END TO A GREAT INSTITUTION
by Dave Douglass (South Shields}

THE annual Anarchist Bookfare in London was for many many years the highlight of the Anarchist and radical Marxist calendar. It brought together the most splendid , vivid fascinating and eccentric, profound and trivial, exciting and profane, hilarious and spiritual assortments of people. They came in thousands, they bathed in the rainbow variety of factions, tendencies, visions and issues. Workshops and presentations, entertainment and discussion filled the entire day as the crowds crammed past stalls laden with literature and art, T-shirts and stickers, posters and badges, cards and calendars, a myriad of interesting and unique stuff you would never find anywhere else under one roof. The Vegan food commune outside the venues hawked the most interesting of pastries and butties, tatties and cakes, rich wonderful chocolate cakes and angel cakes which tested the will power of the most dedicated of health freaks. In my own judgement the Anarchist bookfare almost vied with the Durham Miners Gala (almost) in terms of ‘not to be missed’ events. Ancient aud Anarchists rubbed shoulders with the Mohican punks of yesterd-a-year, born again hippies, young activist, and what a Glasgow paper talking of the anti polaris demonstrators of the 60’s called ‘ beardies, weirdies and lang lagged beasties’

Read the full piece here - http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/sorry-end-to-great-institution.html
Northern Voices has a couple other bits on the Bookfair - here and here - note the second (Letter in Weekly Worker) contains certain factual errors, the most obvious being that the writer says Helen Steel is a member of the London Bookfair Collective. This is not true, and never has been, as far as i know.

******

Rob Ray [or Simon Saunders] Nov 21 2017 08:33 
I'll break my silence on here briefly to note that Northern Voices are habitual doxxers and liars, and their admin tried quite hard to get someone from Freedom arrested after he himself had assaulted our members. I'm mildly surprised Dave Douglass would want much to do with them tbh [to be honest].

As for "glaring omissions" if groups do or don't want to make statements that's up to them, tbh [to be honest] this smacks of stirring a bit.

David Swallow & the early miner's union

TWENTY eight people attended a Wakefield Socialist History Group meeting on the history of the Yorkshire Miners at the Red Shed in Wakefield on Saturday.
The first speaker, Ken Capstick (former Vice President of the Yorkshire NUM), gave a fascinating account of the life of David Swallow.
Swallow was born at East Ardsley, Wakefield in 1817.   He is credited with being the founder of the first national miners' union -meeting were held at the Griffin Inn, Northgate in Wakefield.   He also played a leading role in the first national miners' strike in 1844.
Ken argued that Swallow was an organiser of "rare quality" and a great orator who drew large crowds wherever he spoke.  It is "time to recognise and honour a great miners' leader who did not receive the recognition he deserved during his lifetime."
The second speaker, radical historian Alan Brooke, then spoke about working conditions in collieries particularly around Huddersfield in the 19th century.
He noted that hurries -as vital to the operation of colleries as the colliers themselves- were "invariably children or women" and their job was to "push or pull the corves full of coal to the pit bottom."   One hurrier, John Dixon -later Secretary of the West Yorkshire Miners' Association- started work in a pit at Briestfield in 1835 at the age of 7!
Alan -who has a website Underground Histories- also spoke about various reforms/ innovations such as the safety lamp, pit ponies, Mine Inspectors and checkweighmen.
The speeches were followed by a lively discussion session with questions in particular about Swallow's life after he was deposed as a miners leader.
The next Group event, a meeting on the Bolshevik Revolution, is on Saturday 11 November 1pm again at the Red Shed.

Fraternally
Alan Stewart
Convenor Wakefield Socialist History Group

Political Righteousness at the Oscars

Ryan Gosling star of La La Land elbowed out during upset at the Oscars

KEN Loach’s film ‘I, Daniel Blake’, against expectation in the UK, failed to get nominated for an Oscar.

Why?
I suspect that it was too plebian and didn’t fit-in with the current sub-prime politics or the now fashionable alphabetic soup: LTBQI or the requirement for what one of my fellow workmates in the local foundry use to call ‘a compulsory Coon’*.
The day before the Oscars were awarded, Damien Thompson in the Mail on Saturday predicted that ‘Moonlight’ ticks ‘every conceivable box, the story of a black child – living in Miami with his crack-addicted mother (Naomie Harris) – who grows up gay. Cue an examination of the difficulties of homosexuality in the ghetto.’
None-the-less, last year the Los Angeles Times reported:
‘Its another embarrassing Hollywood sequel: For the second year in a row, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has nominated an all-white group of acting nominees.‘
In 2016, the civil rights film ‘12-years a Slave’ also failed to land a slot on the director list, spurring the social-media movement #OscarsSoWhite and a pledge from the academy to do better.
This year, Price Waterhouse Cooper (PwC), which has organised the Oscar balloting event for the last 83-years, has had to apologise for mixing up the envelopes:
‘We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred. We appreciate the grace with which the nominees, the Academy, ABC and Jimmy Kimmel handled the situation.’
It is worth mentioning that during the Miner’s Strike of 1984-85, Price Waterhouse Cooper was the company of accountants which did work for the Thatcher government in tracking down the funds of the National Union of Miners (NUM). The Campaign for Press & Broadcasting Freedom has posted evidence from Cabinet papers about the links between the security services MI5 and Price Waterhouse in the pursuit of NUM funds during the Miner’s Strike:
‘Government-backed legal action to seize the £8.5 million that had been transferred to banks overseas was so successful that law officers had to advise that a case involving the sequestrators might have to be abandoned because of fears that the scale of the surveillance would be revealed in open court.
‘Assisted by highly-accurate intelligence about the NUM’s clandestine operation, chartered accountants Price Waterhouse managed to freeze secret accounts in Luxembourg, Zurich and Dublin without the union’s knowledge and before further withdrawals could be made.
‘When senior civil servants realised that evidence of widespread telephone taps had leaked out to lawyers, the Cabinet Secretary warned the Prime Minister that her government would have to be careful.’

'PwC' would seem to have better at pursuing the NUM than managing the Oscars.
*   A coon is a black actor or actress, who takes roles that stereotypically portrays black people. They think theyve made it but they are slaves to the same images.

Joint Trade Union Statement on Police Spies

Joint Union Statement: 

We the undersigned are outraged at the news that despite court orders to the contrary, the Metropolitan Police Service has destroyed evidence required for use in the Undercover Policing Public Inquiry. State spying on trade unions and political campaigns is a human rights scandal that affects millions of British citizens.  

Despite continued reassurances, the Pitchford Inquiry has failed to secure the documents that will be central to the investigation. Trade union core participants are beginning to question whether the Inquiry team has the ability to stop the police from obstructing the pursuit of justice. Lord Justice Pitchford needs to act now to restore our faith.  

We are calling on Lord Justice Pitchford to announce an urgent Inquiry hearing to examine the destruction of evidence by the police. The Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe should be forced to give evidence under oath to explain why, how and under whose authority documents have been destroyed. 

Lord Justice Pitchford needs to take immediate measures to secure all documentation held by the police, in order to prevent future destruction and avoid the entire inquiry descending into a hugely expensive cover-up on the part of the Metropolitan Police.  

SIGNED:

Len McCluskey (General Secretary) and Gail Cartmail (Acting General Secretary) UNITE the Union, incorporating UCATT 

Matt Wrack (General Secretary) Fire Brigades Union

Chris Kitchen (General Secretary) National Union of Mineworkers

Tim Roache (General Secretary) GMB union 

Mick Cash (General Secretary) Rail Maritime and Transport union 

Michelle Stanistreet (General Secretary) National Union of Journalists 

Dave Smith and Roy Bentham (joint secretaries) Blacklist Support Group

No Room at the London Flat for Arthur Scargill!

ARTHUR Scargill today lost his long running fight in the High Court with the National Union of Mineworkers to look after him with his running costs for his London flat for the rest of his life.  He will also lose his claim to fuel allowance at his Barnsley home and the NUM successfully disputed that it should pay for the preparation of his annual tax return.

Arthur Scargill has occupied the Barbican apartment - rented from the Corporation of London - since June 1982.  The rent and other expenses were paid by the union until 2011, except for a period between 1985 and 1991 when Mr. Scargill paid for this upkeep.

Now the London appartment, described to me as 'Arthur's knocking shop' by one NUM miner, and valued at £1.5m, has become too much for the NUM to shoulder because it costs the union £34,000 a year. 

The judge rejected Scargill's claims that the union's payment of the rent on the flat was intended to replace the benefit his predecessors had enjoyed and was therefore a lifetime benefit.  The judge said the claim was not reflected in the original minutes of the NEC, was not backed up by the contract Scargill signed, and pointed out that the union had continued to subsidise the mortgage on his Yorkshire home.  Arthur, for his part, claimed the judgement was 'perverse', and contradicts the evidence in the case.  The judgement will come as a relief to the NUM and the working miners.