TRIBUNE on Union Blacklisting Complicity

STATEMENT FROM BLACKLIST SUPPORT GROUP

When the campaign over blacklisting started, we concentrated our efforts on exposing the conspiracy by big business and the police. It was directors of multinational corporations who ran the notoriously anti-union Economic League and Consulting Association blacklists, in an operation that lasted five decades and involved a two-way sharing of intelligence about union activists between company executives and Britain’s most secretive political police units.

Over the past twelve years, the exposure of corporate and state wrongdoing has led to new legislation, a select committee investigation, record compensation and a public apology in the High Court, and a dedicated union strand in the ongoing public inquiry into undercover policing. The Blacklist Support Group acknowledge the important role played by the trade unions in our campaign for justice.

But there remains unfinished business. It was known from the very beginning that some blacklist documentation included entries where full-time union officials were recorded as the source of the information. blacklistMultiple files include the entry ‘EETPU says NO’, a fact so appalling that the select committee investigation even discussed it. Witness statements prepared by blacklisting managers for the High Court trial claim that some union officials provided them with information.

In his statement, Trevor Watcham—a former chairman of the Consulting Association—claims to have shared a table at an Economic League event with ‘Leon Brittan of the Conservative Party (who had been the main speaker) and Eric Hammond of the electricians’ union together with some members of his union executive’. Norman Tebbit’s recent revelations about secret meetings with the EETPU General Secretary only add to the growing pile of evidence that union collusion in blacklisting took place at the highest levels. This is totally unacceptable, and the union movement needs to face up to this unsavoury aspect of its past.

But this treachery did not occur in a vacuum. To understand why this happened it is necessary to appreciate the industrial relations context of the construction industry. For decades, the leadership of the construction unions adopted strategies that concentrated on winning favour with employers rather than mobilising supposedly ‘self-employed’ workers to take action.

In their hunt for members, the union bureaucracy made sweetheart deals with employers that abandoned the most basic principles of trade unionism. The right wing EETPU was expelled from the TUC following their support of Rupert Murdoch during the Wapping dispute that saw over 6,000 unionised print workers lose their jobs overnight. Branches that opposed the leadership were closed down and leading left-wing members repeatedly disciplined or expelled. As an aside, the Labour MP John Spellar was the Political Officer for EETPU throughout this period.

But it was not just EETPU: other construction unions also adopted overtly business friendly strategies. Bulk membership agreements — where a union official strikes a deal with a manager to pay a set amount of union subs each month without ever talking to the workers—might sound like gangster-style protection money to buy industrial peace, but they were common in the sector.

The phenomenon of appointed convenors, where a union regional secretary and a major employer would jointly agree on who the full-time union representative on a project should be, in the vast majority of cases without any election by the workforce, has existed for decades and continues to this day. Companies guilty of blacklisting union activists were often the most vocal in their support for appointed convenors, who became incorporated into corporate industrial relations and safety structures. The lack of democracy and potential for favouritism in the opaque appointment process is obvious and has no place in any union that claims to be member-led.

To be clear, it is not every union official in construction. Many are honest, value-driven trade unionists who have stood up for workers’ rights. But it is beyond doubt that over a fifty-year period, some general secretaries, some senior union officials, and some appointed convenors formed overly cosy relationships with employers.

Enjoying hospitality in pubs, restaurants, and hotels, or attending sporting events with industrial relations managers from blacklisting firms was viewed as acceptable practice. Press reports from the 1990s actually name UCATT and TGWU officials accused of taking bribes and other inducements from employers, including procurement of prostitutes.

A revolving door exists through which, upon leaving the union, officials regularly take up positions as industrial relations consultants working for the very construction firms they previously negotiated against. It is in this context that gossip about ‘troublesome’ left-wing union activists gets discussed – and appears on blacklist files.

While many cases may be ‘loose talk’ encouraged by alcohol, in some cases the collusion in blacklisting appears more premeditated. It was documentary evidence that forced blacklisted union members to write an open letter in 2016 calling for a fully independent investigation into potential collusion by union officials in blacklisting their own members. The letter states that ‘every union activist in construction knows who the named officials are, as does every major employer’, and describes potential collusion as an ‘open sore’ within Unite.

Branches flooded the Unite Executive Council with motions and in 2019 an independent QC led investigation to look into possible collusion was set up by Len McCluskey. Blacklist Support Group applauded the Unite independent investigation, encouraging anyone with documents or oral testimony that may be relevant to contact lawyers collating evidence.

Solicitors have travelled the country taking witness statements from blacklisted workers who have made serious allegations, including claims that some officials gave evidence at Employment Tribunals in support of the employers, rather than in support of sacked union members. And this is only the beginning, even more documentary evidence has been presented to the investigation by activists.

This includes Subject Access Request disclosures that show that a number of senior union officials were blind copying internal emails about union activists to third parties – including to industrial relations consultants working for blacklisting firms. Searches of Companies House database have discovered that some construction union officials were directors of consultancies providing services to the industry while they were employed by the union. This needs to be fully investigated at the very least.

Yet despite making good progress early on, the Unite investigation appears to have ground to a halt during Covid-19. Jane McNeill QC, the independent lawyer who will write the final report, has only just been formally appointed, and a full search of the Unite ICT system and the archives of predecessor unions has yet to take place. Everyone accepts that the unions and lawyers have been exceptionally busy during the pandemic. But if courts and public inquiries are operating, the investigation into possible collusion should also be able to continue.

The election for the next general secretary of Unite is now underway. The Blacklist Support Group calls upon every candidate to publicly pledge that the investigation into union collusion will continue under their watch, and that if any officials currently employed by the union are criticised in the final QC written report, that they will face appropriate disciplinary action.

The investigation into union collusion in blacklisting is a key battle in the long-term struggle over the very soul of trade unionism in construction. It begs the question: what kind of trade unionism do workers deserve?

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Stuart Christie: an insider's study of an authentic classical anarchist by Brian Bamford - Part Two

ANARCHISM IS not a very well understood doctrine in British politics. I realised this when Tameside Trade Union Council first published a booklet commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War in 2006 with Durruti on the cover. The then delegates of the Greater Manchester County Association of Trade Union Council clearly didn't appreciate the publication at the time, but during the meeting a large party of French trade unionists from the CGT [communist] happened to be present and while many of the local English trade unionists held back the French delegation waded-in to buy up most of the commemorative booklets we had to hand, and even later following me to the toilets to get extra copies.

It struck us at the time how utterly frigid the English trade unionists were compared to their French 'communist' CGT comrades.

This thought occurs to me now as I now with sadness write my friend and comrade, Stuart Christie's obituary. I remember that sometime after Stuart wrote the first volume of his autobiography 'GRANNY MADE ME AN ANARCHIST', I wrote a critique of it entitled 'God Help the Anarchist movement that Needs Heroes'. This in turn led to a bitter altercation between me and Stuart on the website 'Libcom' in which I believe he labelled me 'an arsehole'. However, in 2006, it was a measure of Stuart's nobility that when I invited him to write an introduction to Tameside TUC's Spanish commemorative booklet he had no hesitation in agreeing to do the job.

He probably did it because he knew me from when I first met him in Paris in August 1964, when he was about to go on to embrace the risky venture in his ill-fated journey to Madrid and ultimately to a Spanish jail for his part in a proposed attempt to assassinate General Franco. At that time we were all staying in a 'safe house' with Germinal Garcia at his apartment near Place de la République*. My wife Joan and I were returning from Spain, having first worked in Denia, Alicante throughout 1963, and later on in early 1964 moved on to La Linea on the border with Gibraltar where I worked for the MOD at the Gibraltar airport. While in Denia my eldest lad was born at the clinica there in September 1963. While in Spain and later Gib. we had taken photos of the conditions in the shanty towns in Barcelona and we sent back reports on working conditions over there for the FIJL publication Nueva Senda. At that time we were being debriefed, and thought Stuart may have been on a similar mission to us, but soon found out that they had other plans for him. At one stage he asked for our advice and was naturally interested in our own experiences.

Stuart was still in Carabanchel jail [Madrid] when my family again returned to Spain in early 1967 on our way to work in Gibraltar having had difficulties working as an electrician in Rochdale following my involvement supporting the national engineering apprentice strikes in November 1964 and February 1964. Having been blacklisted by the British MOD and throughout Gibraltar with private companies with contracts with the MOD and other contracts with the British authorities the only place on the Rock that I had a serious chance of work was with the Gibraltar City Council, supported by the Transport & General Worker's Union and Albert Risso who had close links with Sir Joshua Hassan the Chief Minister.

The anarchists on Gibraltar at that time were active within the Transport & General Workers Union and were basically anarcho-syndicalists. Stuart identified with the syndicalists, and had fallen under the influence of Bobby Lynn who he says 'had become the backbone of the Glasgow anarchist movement'. I'd stayed with Bobby Lynn in the Gorbals in 1961 and he gave me his copy of 'The Sexual Revolution' by Wilhelm Reich. Bobby was a member of the Syndicalist Worker's Federation when I stayed with him in 1961. As news leaked of Stuart's arrest Peter Turner [FREEDOM EDITOR] had contacted Bobby Lynn in Glasgow and up there they had assured him that Stuart was so dedicated to the peace movement and that it was not likely that he was guilty as claimed by the Spanish authorities. This may have influenced the report in the syndicalist Direct Action which took the line that he must be innocent, and Wynford Hicks on behalf of the anarchists argued on TV news that he was probably the victim of an 'agent-provocateur'. Another Freedom editor Vernon Richards argued more sensibly that it mattered little whether Stuart was innocent or guilty the anarchist position should be to support him.

For my part I knew what had taken place, but anticipating returning to work in Spain and expecting to continue to help the group of young Spanish exiles of the FIJL involved with the failed attempt, I decided to remain silent. Stuart himself had not been prudent before his departure for Spain and had actually participated in a BBC2 program entitled 'Let Me Speak' hosted by Malcolm Muggeridge. Muggeridge, who had been a friend of George Orwell, had often identified morally and intellectually with Tolstoy and anarchism.

In his autobiography 'MY GRANNY MADE ME AN ANARCHIST'[2004] Stuart documents the sequence of events in the summer of 1964: 'In mid-July Salvador and Bernado [Gurucharri] told me I should be ready to leave for Paris by the end of the month. Everything was now in hand for my trip to Spain. Shortly before I left... I was invited to appear on what later turned out to be, for me, an almost disastrous chat show called Let Me Speak, on ...BBC2. Having a small spectrum of anarchists, with me and another young lad called Vincent Johnson representing the "revolutionary anarchists" Muggeridge asked me if I was sincere in my revolutionary aims...would I, for instance, given the opportunity, assassinate Franco?" It was an unlucky shot in the dark, for that was pretty damn close to what I was hoping to do. What could I say but yes?.'

It is an extraordinary admission for a revolutionary anarchist to make! I doubt that the Spaniards I knew in Paris or in Spain in the 1960s would have made such a confession on the BBC or before going on a mission such as Stuart anticipated. It's almost as if he had a death wish or secretly wanted to get caught. When we knew him in Paris in August 1964 he was hopelessly naive and clearly knew little of the reality of everyday Spanish life or working conditions. He struggled to pronounce the Spanish word for 'workers'.

On page 107 of his autobiography he writes: 'I may not have been wise or competent in what I did or the way I went about it, but I did not have the benefit of hindsight'.

Never mind 'hindsight' given what he had done did he have the benefit of foresight or even a glimpse of common sense? I say this knowing, as Stuart did, that other people suffered as a consequence of what he did and the mistakes that he and his handlers made at the time. I also say this as a friend of Stuart who exchanged correspondence with him regularly over the last few years, and had documented and detailed our differences in my earlier pamphlet. One thing that troubles me is not that he wore a kilt, but that he sported a war resister badge of a broken rifle on his chest while walking around Paris in 1964 as he carried our one-year-old son Deon. He told us that he'd visited Paris the year before in the Spring; it was more 'romantic' than in August. Being romantic was probably what attracted most people to Stuart as it was part on his charm.

Yet, when we had visited Ken Hawkes, then secretary of the Syndicalist Workers Fed., and his wife before we went to Spain in February 1963, the worst winter since 1947, they treated us to a bottle of Champagne as we'd just got married and reminded us to remove our Ban the Bomb badges before we left their house on Parliament Hill for Spain. I wonder why none of us thought to urged Stuart Christie to take off his tell-tale War resister badge?

I suppose that in August 1964, we were all a bit intoxicated by the atmosphere of a time in which Franco had just celebrated 25-years of peace, and a pale-faced Salvador Gurucharri and others had just been released from jail. In Paris, at that time, we were all in high spirits as things seemed to be moving in the right direction.

While there Stuart met other major figures in the exiled Spanish anarchist movement, the organised FIJL [Fed. of young libertarians] around the Internal Defence (DI), and including militants of long standing like Octavio Alberola* and Luis Andres Edo.

In his autobiography he describes what he did as 'the act of an adolescent' and he quotes a verse from Longfellow:

'A boy's will is the wind's will, and the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' [page 120]

On reflection he goes on to admit: 'Now it will seem like to many a foolish, naive, impulsive act...'

and 'I cannot claim, either, that it was entirely altruistic - my motives were certainly in part a desire for excitement and adventure.'

On reflection he goes on to admit: 'Now it will seem like to many a foolish, naive, impulsive act...'

Essentially he was doing what we had done a year earlier when we went to Spain to escape from what then seemed like dreary Manchester; he was he says not satisfied with what would now be called 'gesture politics' of petitions and protests, and sought to engage directly with a struggle in Spain. Foresight or prudence would make cowards of us all; it was not part of his engaging personality at that time. It set Stuart outside the smelly little left wing orthodoxies which he left behind. Yet it led him to get a 'GO TO JAIL' card to a Madrid prison cell, and was for him a life changing event.

Once in Paris Stuart had made contact with the action groups of the exiled Spanish anarchist movement, organised around Internal Defence (DI) and involving militants of long standing like Octavio Alberola and Luis Andres Edo. As such during his disastrous mission he was later arrested in Madrid and charged with the possession of explosives. These were intended for an attempt on Franco’s life and he was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. Thanks to a continuing international pressure he was freed after 3 years.

Why was General Franco and the Francoist regime so susceptible to international public opinion in the 1960s?

I think it was in his book 'The Face of Spain' [1950] that Gerald Brenan tried to explain the mellowing of the Franco regime. In that book he explained how the Falange and those who adhered to Franco began invest in real estate and escape the relative poverty of the 1940s and 1950s. We too quickly forget that it was not just the Spanish working-class that suffered after the Civil War, but the Spanish middle-classes experienced insecurity also. My boss Senor Such told me of how in the 1940s everyone in the fishing village where I lived and worked in 1963-4 had suffered depravation after the war and some had to eat cats. Later on it had become possible to make some progress and by the time we got there in the early 1960s things were looking up as the tourists began to arrive and with the development building work on the costas things were much more prosperous for many including the low-level Falangists. This allowed some softening of the regime which may some helped Stuart Christie escape with what turned out to be a relatively short sentence of 3-years in the end. Had he been arrested some ten years earlier for the same offence it may have been an altogether different story, but by the mid-1960s the supporters of the Franco regime felt much more secure than they had been during the Second World War or in its aftermath when to some extent Spain had been isolated internationally.

* FOOTNOTE: In the early hours of 11 May 2011, 86-year-old Germinal García, a militant of the Juventudes Libertarias (FIJL) and the Paris Local Federation of the CNT in the 1950s and 1960s, passed away (in Paris). At the end of the Spanish Civil War, 13-year old Germinal had been interned in Argeles-sur-Mer concentration camp where an unknown English woman, to whom he was ever grateful, cared for him. Stowing away on a Danish freighter, the Kitty Skov, from the port of Barcelona, he escaped to the United States, where he remained for a time in New York, passing himself off as a French citizen, returning later to France to became active in the anti-Francoist struggle. Shunning the limelight, but always in the background with his strong sense of solidarity, Germinal’s apartment in the Rue Lancry was a safe haven for comrades who had escaped from Franco’s Spain — and for guerrillas such as Quico Sabaté whenever he was in Paris (it was also used by Stuart Christie prior to his trip to Spain in 1964). For that and for his ongoing service to the libertarian movement, Germinal won the respect and friendship of all who knew him. With his passing, we have the satisfying memories and the privilege of having known the friendship of a good comrade. Germinal’s remains were cremated in Paris on 17 May 2011.

Octavio Alberola, May 12, 2011 SEE ALSO https://www.facebook.com/TheOrwellSociety The Orwell Society - Home | Facebook The Orwell Society. 1.4K likes. The Orwell Society aims to promote the understanding and appreciation of the life and work of George Orwell. Join here:... www.facebook.com

STUART CHRISTIE DIES! Intro. by Brian Bamford

PART ONE - THE AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION:

Stuart Christie: a Scottish anarchist writer and publisher. Who when aged 18, Christie was arrested in Madrid while carrying explosives to assassinate the Spanish caudillo, General Francisco Franco. He was later alleged to be a member of the Angry Brigade, but was acquitted of related charges.

Born: July 10, 1946, Partick, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Died: August 15, 2020

Movies: The Angry Brigade: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Britain’s First Urban Guerilla Group Organizations founded: Anarchist Black Cross Federation, Cienfuegos Press

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BEYOND an OBITUARY!:

STUART Christie was an anarchist who had quality and consistency as well as quantity and a prolific output. From the early 1960s when he first engaged with Bobby Lynn and the Glasgow anarchists to his death bed listening to 'Pennies from Heaven' Stuart sternly stuck to his beliefs dedicated to a classical version of anarchism.

My last contact with Stuart was an unusually brief e-mail from him last November in which he wrote: 'Bearing up, Brian. Hope you are too. Un abrazo!.'

However I must offer a health warning, as in the 56 years since we first became acquainted in Paris in 1964, our paths have been very different. His commitment was to internationalist view while mine since the 1960s when I lived and worked in Spain has been mostly more parochial. My engagement with the anarchist movement in Spain and later Gibraltar was very different from that of Stuart even though we were functioning in the same organisation: the FIJL (DI). My role was purely one of propaganda and intelligence, and at no time was I involved in the violent activist deeds which were designed to discourage tourism or strike at General Franco.

My task and that of my then wife, Joan, was the much more humdrum; in my case one of working on the tools as an electrician, and delivering Butane Gas to the villages on the Cabo San Antonio in Alicante. Much more boring than 'daring-do' and prison life, but a way of soaking-up Spanish culture and everyday life as it was lived by many young Spaniards at that time who migrated to the coast from places like Albacete and Andalucia: working a six day week and paid 750 pesetas. Meanwhile, our FIJL campaign against Spanish tourism clearly failed, yet fortunately less tragically than Stuart's failed mission to kill Franco.

Among the many obituaries published on Stuart the most perceptive that I have yet seen has been that of the historian Julián Casanova in El País 'El escocés de la FAI que trató de matar a Franco' Casanova argues that Stuart Christie believed that 'a fusion of different forms of resistance such as the workers, the students, the greens into the language of political anarchism. Just as Bakunin, thought it was possible to harmonise individualism with the socialist collectivism.' Casanova writes: 'He [Stuart] liked the men of action, but in reality he [Stuart] and his wife Brenda went on to propagate forms of idelogy with various cultural manifestations, which demonstrated the force of culture with ideas.'

'

Stuart's wife Brenda died last year aged 70 years, from cancer. Casanova writes: 'The obituaries now record that his prime intention was to kill Franco. Yet he was a committed anarchist using his pen and the engaged in cultural aggitation, in times when the revolutionaries with "consciences" have past into history. Anarchist solidarity, that reflects on the concequences of industrial capilalism, nuclear disarmament, and abuses by the State. He was a Scot who would have loved to live in the golden epoch of Spanish anarchism.'

Julián Casanova knew Stuart Christie from when he met him at Queen Mary College, London, in the Autumn of 1985. At that event were other hispanistas like Ronald Fraser, and he speaks warmly of the seminars, dinners and debates over the Spanish Civil War, Franco, the monarchy, Juan Carlos and the transistion.

It strikes me that Casanova understood Stuart better than most of us.

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José Netto Gibraltarian syndicalist & Jack Jones

José Netto at the Casa de la Memoria in Jimena de la Frontera

by Brian Bamford

Editorial note:  I first met José Netto in 
March 1964, when I, my wife and baby 
6-month-old son (born in Denia, Alicante
had to leave Spain where we had been living 
and working for 12 month, and crossed the 
frontier in order to to comply with the then 
Spanish law. 

We had a 'letter of introduction' when we 
arrived at his council house in a working-
class area on the Rock.  He was living with 
his own young family and then worked on the 
tools in the Her Majesties Dockyard, but being 
an anarcho-syndicalist who had joined the 
then Syndicalist Worker's Federation 
while working in London in the 1950s.  
He and his mates helped to find me a job 
working as an electrician at the airport for
the Ministry of Defence repairing the landing 
lights on the airstrip.

One of José's close mates was Navarro, who was an 
anarchist supporter of the CNT, and had fought
for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War in
following the military insurrection in July 1936.  

Although José was an anarcho-syndicalist in Gibraltar
the syndicalists were not sectarian and had close working
relations with historic labour leaders like Albert Risso*, 
who became the first president of the Gibraltar Confederation 
of Labour which, in 1963, merged with the  
Transport and General Workers' Union, now Unite.



* Albert Risso was one of the first political activists in the British territory of Gibraltar. at a very young age, he was one of the campaigners for the involvement of the Gibraltarian civilian population (and especially its working class) in governing the colony. In 1919, he was one of the members of a so-called "deputation of working men" who went to London to meet the Secretary of State for the Colonies and ask for the creation of a representative body that could succeed the Sanitary Commission, an unelected body whose members, usually belonging to the upper class, were nominated by the Governor. The campaign, driven by the trade unions, brought about the creation of the Gibraltar City Council in 1921.^{[2] 
By the start of World War II,[1] Risso was a foreman mechanic and a City Council employee. When most of Gibraltar's civilian population was evacuated, Risso was one of the few Gibraltarians that remained on The Rock.
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José Netto, the historic syndicalist anarchist trade union leader in Gibraltar in the last half of the 20th Century, visited the Casa de la Memoria in Jimena de la Frontera (Cádiz), on the 28th, January 2019, a few months after the donation of a library of this entidad of five volumes of the encyclopedia El hombre y la Tierra, a history of humanity written by Eliseo Reclus in 1905.  Reclus was a French scientist and creator of the Geografía Social, being one of the first theoreticians of anarchism and a man of action who participated in the Paris Commune, together with other famous historic activists.

These five volumes of El hombre y la tierra were edited in Barcelona en 1933. The translation is by Anselmo Lorenzo, the principle great leader of Spanish anarchism and its representative in the First International.

These volumes form part of the particular library of José Netto, and they were offered up from the hands of a syndicalist of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) when the Campo de Gibraltar had suffered in 1936, and  Spaniards in the area had struggled with death at the hands of the military coup that rose against the Second Republic.

José Netto received the books from a man who had been an exile since the 1950s and a few days after learning that that anarchist had committed suicide. The donation to the Casa de la Memoria was effected months later during the last session of the seminar of the Cursos de Verano de la Universidad de Cádiz in San Roque, the son of José Netto, Michael Netto, in Gibraltar, and was received by the President of the Foro for the Memoria del Campo de Gibraltar, Andrés Rebolledo, to deposit in the Casa de la Memoria La Sauceda.

In his visit to the Casa, José Netto, who now lives in Atajate (Málaga), had also donated two poster images of the Second Spanish Republic. 

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The donación to the Casa de la Memoria took effect during the last session of the seminar

la efectuó meses atrás, durante la última sesión del seminario de memoria histórica de los Cursos de Verano de la Universidad de Cádiz en San Roque, the son of José Netto, Michael Netto, in Gibraltar, and was received by the President of the Foro for the Memoria del Campo de Gibraltar, Andrés Rebolledo, to deposit in the Casa de la Memoria La Sauceda.

El histórico sindicalista de Gibraltar José Netto visita la Casa de la Memoria tras donar a la Biblioteca la enciclopedia de Eliseo Reclus

14/02/2019

Biblioteca para la Memoria, Libro de la semana

José Netto wrote the following obituary for Jack Jones of the T&G:

My relation with Jack stretches back to the late 60s early 70s when I was appointed District Officer in 1972, and he was the TGWU General Secretary.  He has always been my mentor, as we shared common ideology, and has been a tremendous influence in my professional development as a trade unionist.  He was responsible for financing the construction of our premises in Town Range, which at the beginning we used to call?  La Casa del Pueblo?  He played a very leading role in supporting our fight for parity of wages and salaries, against the MOD.  As the British and local government had rejected this claim, on the grounds that it could not be sustained economically, a fact that was later proved wrong.

The intention of the fascist forces in Spain, during the Franco regime, to strangle the economy, with its restrictions and the closure of the land frontier, was defeated by the contribution of the labour movement in Gibraltar, of which I feel very proud of.

I wish to pay tribute on behalf of the working class of Gibraltar, to this comrade, so that we never forget how much we owe to him.

Rest in peace, Bro. Jack.

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Public inquiry says Mark Cassidy was police spy

Undercover police officer HN15 = Mark Cassidy = Mark Jenner 

THE undercover policing public inquiry has finally confirmed that the joiner many of us knew as Mark Cassidy was in truth an undercover police officer.  His real name is Mark Jenner and 

between 1995-2000, he infiltrated the construction UCATT (his subs were paid from a bank account set up by Special Branch) 

He also infiltrated rank and file groups including the Building Worker Safety Campaign, the meetings of which he chaired at the Colin Roach Centre in Hackney. Jenner / Cassidy also targeted RMT, Unison, CPSA, TGWU and was on numerous picketlines including Dahl Jenson at Waterloo, JJ Fastfoods at Tottenham Hale and L.B. Southwark DLO.

Mark Cassidy / Jenner was first publicly named in by an article by journalist & union activist Mark Metcalf and in Blacklisted book by Phil Chamberlain & Dave Smith.  The Met Police issued a public apology to 'Alison', the activist he lived with during the five years of his deployment. It is shameful that the Met and the public inquiry have taken so long to admit that Mark Cassidy was an undercover police officer from the Special Demonstration Squad, something that everyone has known for years.  

'Alison', Mark Metcalf, UCATT (now part of UNITE) and blacklisted workers Brian Higgins, John Jones, Steve Hedley, Frank Smith, Dan Gilman & Dave Smith (who attended meetings, protests and pickets with Mark Cassidy / Jenner) have all been granted core participant status in the undercover police public inquiry. 

This public confirmation about Mark Cassidy comes just a week after the Met confirmed that police provided information to the building industry blacklist. 

Blacklist Support Group send a huge hug to 'Alison' and all the women activist at Police Spies Out of Lives for their inspirational battle to force the authorities to tell the truth about the undercover police officers that abused them.

https://policespiesoutoflives.org.uk/finally-confirms-hn15-mark-cassidy/

Full story on Mark Jenner: http://powerbase.info/index.php/Mark_Jenner

Unite Union Machine Moves to Crown McCluskey

LAST week, with the start of nominations for the new General Secretary of Unite the Union, the Unite bureaucracy moved swiftly to back Leonard David  McCluskey (born 23 July 1950), who has been the General secretary of Unite since 2011.  According to his Wikipedia entry he previously spent some years working on the Liverpool Docks before to becoming a full-time union official.

On the 16th January 2017, Tim Lezard in Union News reported:

'Len McCluskey has swept the board in support from officers and reps in Unite in his bid to be re-election the union’s general secretary.

'McCluskey, who is standing against Gerard Coyne and Ian Allison, has won the backing of nine out of Unite’s ten regions as well as the vast majority of officers, sectoral and regional committee chairs and executive members.' 

Meanwhile, Guido Fawkes on December 22nd, 2016 wrote on his Blog that the 'Pro-Assad agitprop rag the Morning Star has endorsed Len McCluskey for the Unite leadership.'

Guido Fawkes added:  'Their floppy-haired, Oxford-educated editor Ben Chacko explains:  “Mr McCluskey’s support and advice has been of great value to us throughout his leadership”.'

Guido reminds us that 'Chacko’s (Morning Star) paper is in line to receive a good deal more than “advice” should Red Len be re-appointed General Secretary of Britain’s wealthiest union. During McCluskey’s current tenure “support” meant thousands of full-colour Morning Star subscription mail shots sent out to Unite branches across Britain at members’ expense.'

 It seems that in one leaflet Mr. McCluskey decreed:   'There is no substitute for reading the paper but you could also take out a shareholding in the Morning Star and send a regular monthly sum to the paper’s Fighting Fund.'

McCluskey became an officer of the TGWU on Merseyside in 1979, and was its campaign organiser throughout the 1980s, during that time he supported the Militant tendency, but was not a member of it.

McCluskey was elected as the National Secretary of the TGWU General Workers Group in 1990, and moved to London to work at the union headquarters.   In 2004 he became the TGWU's national organiser for the service industries.   In 2007, he was appointed as the Assistant General Secretary for Industrial Strategy of the newly merged Unite the Union.  He defines himself as being on the left of the union, and has been given the label of "Red Len" in the British press.

In 2010, McCluskey stood for election as General Secretary of Unite to replace joint-General Secretaries Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley, who had both announced their retirement.
On 21 November 2010, it was announced that McCluskey had won the election.^[
McCluskey took office as the General Secretary on 1 January 2011.  In 2013, McCluskey announced that he would be running for re-election as General Secretary.^[6] He was re-elected in 2013 with the following results posted. The full election results of those elections are as follows:
Len McCluskey: 144,570 votes.
Jerry Hicks: 79,819 votes.
Number of ballot papers found to be invalid: 1,412.
Total number of valid votes cast: 224,389.
Turnout: 15.2 per cent.

History of mishandling the Falkirk election & disaffiliation threat.

In July 2013, McCluskey accused the Labour Party of 'picking the wrong fight' over the selection of a prospective candidate in the Falkirk constituency.  He described Labour party headquarters' handling of the matter as 'nothing short of disgraceful'.^[8]
In November 2013, McCluskey denied fresh claims that his Unite Union had tried to prevent a Labour Party investigation into alleged vote rigging in Falkirk.
In March 2015, McCluskey threatened to disaffiliate Unite from Labour and launch a new workers' party if Labour lost the 2015 General Election.
After moving to London as part of the T&GWU national operation in 1991 whilst still married, his partner Jennie Formby (née Sandle), gave birth to a child at Princess Anne Hospital in Southampton.

In 1994, McCluskey made headlines after it was revealed that he had received a subsidized loan of £90,000 to buy a house with Formby in NW10, London.  Mr. McCluskey lives with his partner Paula Lace.   In 2013, Jennie Formby was appointed Unite's political director on £75,000, replacing Steve (Stephen) Hart, who was the son of Judith Hart, Baroness Hart of South Lanark.

 Clashes in the current Election for General Secretary

McCluskey and one of the other candidates Kevin Coyne have clashed over the airwaves.  Speaking on the BBC’s Pienaar’s Politics, McCluskey accused his challenger of being a 'puppet of Labour’s hard right'.  Coyne responded, saying:

'Absolutely I am not a puppet.  The reality is I have a vision and a change agenda for our union that is about putting in back in the hand of the members and making the union focus on the issues that are important to them.'

Meanwhile, Ian Allinson in December criticised McCluskey for suggesting that workers could benefit from reforms to the free movement of people when Britain leaves the European Union.


 Princess Anne Hospital in Southampton.^[1][3][11] In 1994, McCluskey made headlines after it was revealed that he had received a subsidized loan of £90,000 to buy a house with Formby in NW10, London.^[12] McCluskey lives with his partner Paula Lace. In 2013, Jennie Formby was appointed Unite's political director on £75,000, replacing Steve (Stephen) Hart, who was the son of Judith Hart, Baroness Hart of South Lanark


TGWU General Workers Group in 1990, and moved to London to work in the union's national headquarters.^[1][3]
TGWU in Merseyside in 1979 and was its campaign organiser throughout the 1980s,^[3][5] during which he supported Militant tendency, but was not a member of it.^[1]

He

McCluskey was elected as the National Secretary of the TGWU General Workers Group in 1990, and moved to London to work in the union's national headquarters.^[1][3] In 2004 he became the TGWU's national organiser for the service industries.^[3] In 2007, he was appointed as the Assistant General Secretary for Industrial Strategy of the newly merged Unite the Union.^[3] He defines himself as being on the left of the union, and has been given the label of "Red Len" in the British press because of his involvement in Unite's dispute with British Airways.^[5]
In 2010, McCluskey stood for election as General Secretary of Unite to replace joint-General Secretaries Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley, who had both announced their retirement. On 21 November 2010, it was announced that McCluskey had won the election.^[3] Derek Simpson retired a few weeks later, in December 2010, and Tony Woodley followed shortly after that, leaving McCluskey to take office as the General Secretary on 1 January 2011.^[5] In 2013, McCluskey announced that he would be running for re-election as General Secretary.^[6] He was re-elected in 2013 with the following results posted. The full election results are as follows:
Len McCluskey: 144,570 votes.
Jerry Hicks: 79,819 votes.
Number of ballot papers found to be invalid: 1,412.
Total number of valid votes cast: 224,389.
Turnout: 15.2 per cent.

'Pro-Assad agitprop rag the Morning Star has endorsed Len McCluskey for the Unite leadership. Their floppy-haired, Oxford-educated editor Ben Chacko explains:

“Mr McCluskey’s support and advice has been of great value to us throughout his leadership.”

Guido concluded his critique:  'Len’s “support” has indeed been of “great value” to the Morning Star, least they can do is repay the favour…'

“We’re backing Len” – McCluskey sweeps board with endorsements from officers and reps

16th January 2017 Tim Lezard   News   No comments

An advert in the Morning Star, showing the nominations received by Len McCluskey

An advert in the Morning Star, showing the nominations received by Len McCluskey

An advert in the Morning Star, showing the nominations received by Len McCluskey

Len McCluskey has swept the board in support from officers and reps in Unite in his bid to be re-election the union’s general secretary.

McCluskey, who is standing against Gerard Coyne and Ian Allison, has won the backing of nine out of Unite’s ten regions as well as the vast majority of officers, sectoral and regional committee chairs and executive members.

He said: “I am deeply honoured to have received the over-whelming support of the people who give their time to build this great union and defend our members.

“Their vote of confidence in me is phenomenal.  It sends a signal to our members that despite what one of my opponents may say, this union has gone from strength to strength under my leadership.

“This sends a clear signal to Unite members that their union is stable and united, determined to deliver for them in our workplaces – and wants to stay on this course.

“I hope now that this will persuade one general secretary candidate to desist from the nonsense claims he is making about our union, assisted all too eagerly by parts of the media who are openly hostile to this movement.

“The truth about Unite is that it is proudly united, democratic, progressive and will never, as long as I lead it, ever turn its back on its members.”

Meanwhile, McCluskey and Coyne clashed yesterday over the airwaves. Speaking on the BBC’s Pienaar’s Politics, McCluskey accused his challenger of being a “puppet of Labour’s hard right”. Coyne responded, saying: “Absolutely I am not a puppet. The reality is I have a vision and a change agenda for our union that is about putting in back in the hand of the members and making the union focus on the issues that are important to them.”

Special Demonstration Squad Spied on Workers

NEWLY uncovered documentary evidence shows how police officers infiltrated campaigns by construction workers protesting against deaths on building sites. The documents include a series of letters written to and from Mark Jenner, an undercover officer from the discredited Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), who during the late 1990s claimed to be a carpenter while infiltrating the construction union UCATT.  Using the cover name of Mark Cassidy, the spycop ingratiated himself with the Colin Roach Centre (formerly known as Hackney Trade Union Resource Centre) and targeted a series of trade unions and union backed campaigns, attending union branches, conferences, picketlines and pay talks.   

The new documents give an insight into how deeply, the police went to embed themselves into even grassroots union campaigns. On 21st March 1997, Cassidy / Jenner  wrote a letter to a number of different organisations regarding the 'Building Workers Safety Campaign',which he describes as a 'rank and file organisation run by building workers', asking for support in getting 'information on deaths on building sites' in order to visit 'the site within one week after the event and ask workers to stop work'. The police authored letter continued: 'We believe that only by hitting production can we hope to stop the killings on building sites'. This was in 1997, when the fatality rates in construction were averaging around 3 deaths a week. 

The identical letter was sent to a number of trade union bodies including Haringey UNISON, Hammersmith UNISON, TGWU North London Textile branch and civil servants in the CPSA union (forerunner to PCS). The police spy also sent the letter to the charity 'Inquest' that provides free legal advice to people bereaved by a death in police custody. Why a charity dealing with deaths in custody would be an obvious source of information about deaths on building sites is difficult to fathom but raises questions of public interest about what the undercover police officer was trying to achieve.   

One response from the local authority funded and well respected safety charity the London Hazards Centre, identifies HSE inspectors, the Coroners Office and the local police as sources of information but highlights that the authorities 'can be very tight lipped when it comes to giving out information' - this no doubt brought a smile to Jenner's face when reading it.  

The documents were uncovered by Brian Higgins, a 75 year old Glaswegian grandfather and blacklisted retired bricklayer based in Northampton who was the national secretary of the rank & file Building Worker Group (BWG). Brian Higgins has been granted 'core participant' status in the Pitchford public inquiry into undercover policing alongside a number of other union activists from the Blacklist Support Group, as information gathered by police officers appears on a number of blacklist files kept on construction workers by the notorious Consulting Association. 

Brian Higgins commented: 

'The police would be infinitely better employed investigating, prosecuting and jailing the corporate criminals responsible for the killing and maiming of many building workers, rather than spying on those of us who dedicate our industrial lives to trying to put a stop to this wanton carnage and the terrible grief which accompanies it. Intelligence gathered by these police spies has found its way onto an illegal blacklist in the construction industry. They say justice never sleeps: time it woke up over this!'

Alison (not her real name) was the female activist that Mark Jenner deceived into a long term relationship and lived with during his deployment.  It was from their shared address in Hackney that the undercover police officer joined the construction union UCATT and became a regular attendee at the Hackney branch meetings.  Alison is one of the women that has received an unreserved apology and compensation from the Metropolitan Police for the abuse and human rights violations they suffered due to the activities of undercover police.  Alison recalls having numerous conversations about the building industry and trade union campaigns which she describes as 'a key part of his work' and 'a big part of what he was doing during this period'.  

Another trade unionist who was spied upon by Mark Jenner and has been granted core participant in the Pitchford inquiry is the RMT Senior Assistant General Secretary, Steve Hedley.  He commented: 

'Mark Jenner gained my confidence and even stayed at my mothers home in Ireland. When I learned that he was a police spy I was dumbfounded .Why the police would be interested in a trade unionist like me is quite frankly astonishing. All my activities were open and transparent and usually even minuted. What kind of a society are we living in, when the state feels it's necessary to employ people at the taxpayers expense to snoop on people carrying out perfectly legal activities?'

Blacklist Support Group

book: http://newint.org/books/politics/blacklisted-secret-war/

video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlCa8yQmZ70

blog: www.hazards.org/blacklistblog

facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/blacklistSG/