Bristol TUC motion on the Bristol protests

March 30th 2021

Forwarded to NV by Dave Chapple

This Council strongly oppose the ill-conceived and dangerous Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill being proposed by the Home Secretary. To push through repressive legislation under the cover of the pandemic is awful politics and will make dreadful law. As it stands, the Bill seeks to:

· Erode fundamental rights of protest including vital trade union actions and activities that support working people

·

Draw false links between violence and the Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion protests

·

Attack those marginalised from society, such as traveller communities and other minority groups

·

Create a fake ‘culture war’ where moves to establish a more tolerant and diverse society is somehow destroying our history.

We are saddened by the violent scenes in our city. As a trade union movement, we believe in the right for workers to be able to protest without police harassment or violence. We condemn the police violence towards peaceful demonstrators and members of the press. Furthermore, we note with concern the reports of police intimidation towards journalists as they are trying to carry out their job, as well as preventing independent media coverage. These incidents need to be fully independently investigated and those responsible held to account.

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

Trades Unionists reject Covid cuts & pay freeze!

TRADE Unionists in Greater Manchester are calling on Metro Mayor Andy Burnham and the leaders of all ten Greater Manchester local authorities to unite together with them and the city region's MPs in demanding a Government U-turn on the relaxation of the covid lockdown, planned £500 million cuts to Greater Manchester local Government coffers for 2021-22, and the mooted pay freeze for public sector workers, ahead of Wednesday's spending review by Chancellor Rishi Sunak.

They are additionally calling on trades unionists and other Greater Manchester residents to e-mail Andy Burnham, their local councillors, MPs, the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, to put as much pressure as they possibly can on the Government to make an about turn on these proposed policies, which the Greater Manchester Assoc. of Trade Union Council President Stephen Hall says: '.... will result in a much higher death toll from covid 19 than it might otherwise do; lead to increased mental stress and anguish as a result of needless additional job losses, and much reduced incomes for most people, not to mention potential financial ruin, homelessness and countless other social problems which will cost us all considerably more in the long run, than the supposed financial savings from the Government's currently proposed course of action and staggering costs already borne by the public purse.

'The safety of the people is always the first consideration of any Government, so the economic cost of that principle should always be a secondary issue no matter how much it might amount to financially. However, had the Government been prepared, and acted more decisively at the beginning of the covid outbreak then much of the so far huge cost of the measures implemented by the Government would not have been incurred and we would not now be discussing the additional costs still to be borne by the Government as a result of a clearly failed on-off-on national lockdown with various tiers of restrictions in between, and a 'leaves-a-lot-to be desired' national test, track and trace system, all of which despite the advent of a vaccine, could still go on for many more months. No instead what we would have more likely been talking about is Christmas and New Year celebrations without restrictions and all of us being financially better off than we currently are.

'We believe the Government should abandon its present course, which will only prolong the covid crisis and instead immediately adopt a Zero Covid strategy as done by such countries as Taiwan, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, South Korea and China. Their success speaks for itself. A key element of it has been the protection of the livelihoods of EVERYONE adversely affected by lockdown. As a result, the overall economic impact of Covid in those countries has been considerably less than in Britain. Their Governments have also spent substantially less than the British Government has, and still has to spend as a result of not acting decisively earlier and not financially looking after everyone throughout, and by not bringing the virus under control as in those countries. Further, in this country however generous it has been claimed the Government's package of financial support has been, we have additionally seen many thousands of jobs lost, many thousands of household incomes slashed by 20% or more, many thousands of families now in huge rent arrears and facing potential eviction and almost four million people provided with little or no support at all. This latter national figure equates with around 200,000 people in Greater Manchester.

'Concerning the Government's proposed cuts to Greater Manchester local council coffers of around £500 million for 2021-22, Mr. Hall said: 'Our Metro Mayor and Council leaders, should make it clear to the Government that any proposed cuts at this time are simply unacceptable and will only pour more misery into Greater Manchester households at time when we should be investing in long term 'more-than-pay-for-themselves' projects such as building thousands of new hi-spec zero carbon council house and other social housing, insulating people's homes, and expanding local renewable energy generation, etc., all of which will help to create thousands of new jobs as others are being lost due to covid, and which will additionally allow us to intensify our fight against the even bigger threat to us all than covid, which is the threat of irreversible catastrophic climate change. This additional spending would not be wasteful expenditure burdening future generations, but on the contrary, in helping to tackle the huge housing shortage, climate change and alleviating the widespread financial pressures presently on millions of households nationally caused by the covid pandemic, possibly represent the best investment we could presently make in the interests of our children and future generations. We could also re-train people to equip them to do the increasing number of new jobs that need creating, in addition to training and employing more social care workers, mental health professionals, teachers, and nurses, etc., etc., to better look after everyone's social, health and mental wellbeing.

'What the Government are proposing won't help us to achieve anything positive at all, and will ultimately just suck money and spending power out of the Greater Manchester economy at the same time as impoverishing many thousands of households. What they are proposing is also a completely false economy, which will lead to greater financial and social costs be borne by the public purse at a later date. Local trades union councils across the city region stand ready to fight alongside residents, workers, and service users, to oppose any such cuts in Greater Manchester and to work with all those who support the fight for a turnaround in Government policy.'

'In relation to the mooted pay freeze for public sector workers other than NHS staff, who may get a paltry pay rise to help them pay to park at work, as a reward for their efforts over the last 9 months" Mr. Hall said: "It is simply outrageous to suggest that many 'key workers' such as care home staff, teachers, bin men, and school cleaners, many of whom are in receipt of in-work benefits because they are so poorly paid should see their pay frozen at any time let alone under the present circumstances. If anything we should be rewarding them all with a hefty pay rise. What the Government needs to remember, and private businesses and self-employed people need to bear in mind is that without ordinary people having money to spend they can't afford to buy the products and services they sell and the more disposable income workers' have the more money they can spend in the local economy all of which has a local economic 'multiplier' effect. Opposing pay rises for public sector workers also does not help to achieve anything for private sector workers who if they think they are currently hard done by should join a union and fight to improve their own situation. Across Greater Manchester the trades council movement stands ready to support them.'

PRESS STATEMENT ENDS

23-11-2020

Issued by Stephen Hall, President, GMATUC

Stefan Cholewka, Secretary, GMATUC

Virtue Signalling & Petitioning Governments?

by Brian Bamford

ON the 14th, April Charles Charalambous commented: 

'We seem to be talking at cross-purposes.  An editorial 

in a political publication does not aim to be a philosophical tract, 

and by definition its starting-point is a particular worldview 

(which, evidently, you don't share).'

Charles Charalambous represents a body affiliated to the 

4th International and is editor of Labour Internationalist.

Northern Voices doesn't favour the kind of petitioning

culture which Mr. Charalambous credits by describing

this practice as a 'world view'.  We do not want to 

be a wet blanket, but we believe this approach could 

have unintended consequences.  Charles is a lead
signatory of the petition we publish beneath my critique.

BELOW A BODY of trade unionists have emerged in the current crisis to call upon the government to institute certain changes and to submit to a list of demands in  a campaign to relieve the pressures upon us.

Is it a wish list?  Or is it merely virtue signalling by persons who are simply displaying their own impotence?

It might be as well to recognise that there are more than one type of petition:

Protest petitions generally aim mainly to show discontent; they play the same role as demonstrations: safety valve, expression of dissatisfaction in relation to an act, decision or policy. In an age of internet and social media, protest petitions can gain traction very quickly.  The Trump petitions some time ago when 2 million people signed a petition opposing Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK are but one example of this type, as was the one that received over 4 million signatures asking for a second EU referendum.

Substantive petitions aim primarily to change a situation.  This tends to
relate to issues that people feel very strongly about, either because they are personal and affect them directly, or because they are part of a very strong
set of convictions held over a period of time.  So these are very different to protest petitions.  Recent examples include the petitions on Meningitis B,
the one(s) on Grouse shooting, and the one asking that stillborn babies are 
given a birth certificate – the latter one with far fewer signatures.   Ultimately, this type of petition aims to change a situation, but in the process of doing so it aims first and foremost to raise awareness.

Cristina Leston-Bandeira situates the process within a broader policy-
making context.  She explains that petitions are an effective way of raising awareness or showing discontent, and that the adoption of public demands
into policy remains subject to the usual political process.


She writes:
'As we know, it is very rare for policy change to happen quickly; if not 
originated by the government, it is usually the result of sustained campaigning through a variety of means. Whether a substantive petition achieves a change 
in policy is often not the main question.  The key starting point is whether it raises awareness of the issue, and whether it raises the profile of a specific 
issue enough to lead government to eventually agree for change.  After all, 
one of the most famous cases of petitioning – votes for women (if you prefer 
a more grown-up account then try here) – took a few years and more than 
one petition before it actually led to any change.  So, different petitions have different purposes and perform different roles.  Petitions also enable what is known as the “fire-alarm” role: an opportunity to raise issues bottom-up, 
outside the political agenda.'

In the case of the petition below this slow process in policy change may
simply serve to display the helplessness of the proponents of the demands.
Thus it could have the reverse effect to that intended by the signatories.

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

Trade Union Petition Covid-19:

Let’s come together to push for the basic emergency measures 
that democracy requires.

We reject “One rule for the rich, another for the rest”!

Protect working people, not the banks and big business!

The working class must defend its own interests, and on an independent basis!

Requisition the £350 billion given to the banks and businesses 
and apply it to these emergency measures to directly protect the population:

– All personal protection equipment (PPE) of the necessary standard to be 
sourced immediately, including by requisition, and delivered immediately 
where needed by NHS staff and care-home staff;

– Requisition big companies to serve in the production of ventilators, masks,
testing kits, healthcare beds and everything that is lacking today in the NHS;

– Free diagnostic testing for all, free antibody testing for all. All private testing
and processing facilities, as well as all other private healthcare resources,
to be immediately requisitioned and incorporated into the NHS.

– Free distribution of masks to the whole population;

– Ban “temporary” lay-offs and job-cuts;

– Ban bogus self-employment;

– Full pay immediately, not in May or June, for all self-isolated workers, 
whatever their work status;

– Paid time off to care for children when there is no other option available;

- All employers to be legally bound by the Health and Safety at Work etc. 
Act 1974, the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, 
and the Employment Rights Act 1996, which together give employees the 
right to leave their place of work if they feel they are in “serious 
and imminent” danger;

– Financial security for all: scrap Universal Credit;

– Moratorium on all debt and the payment of rent and rental charges
(utilities, etc.);

– All social benefits and support allowances to be paid immediately, 
not in May or June;

– Staple foods and basic goods to be distributed for free to people in difficulty;

– Requisition vacant/available premises to provide accommodation to
the homeless and poorly-housed;

– Scrap all Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contracts, which have been
a tool for commercialising education and privatising the NHS;

– Repeal the Coronavirus Act 2020, replace it with properly scrutinised
measures that do not restrict civil liberties.

We, workers (full-time and part-time, on secure and insecure contracts), homemakers, pensioners, students and youth, say: These 
are immediate measures that are needed to avoid medical and economic carnage. They cannot wait.

We will not accept more of the same – what is happening now cannot be allowed to happen again.

First signatories:

Mike Calvert, Deputy Branch Secretary, Islington UNISON, London (pers. cap.)

Charles Charalambous, ex-President, Torbay and South Devon TUC (pers. cap.), Editor of Labour Internationalist

Stefan Cholewka, Secretary, Greater Manchester Association of Trades
Union Councils ((on behalf of GMATUC)

Sheila Coleman, Unite Community, Liverpool (pers. cap.)

Jane Doolan, UNISON NEC member, Branch Secretary, Islington
UNISON, London (pers. cap.)

Paul Filby, Labour Party member, Liverpool (pers. cap.)

Stephen Hall, President, Greater Manchester Association of Trades
Union Councils

Diana James, Assistant Branch Secretary, Islington UNISON, London
(pers. cap.)

Paul Kelly, Vice President, Greater Manchester Association of
Trades Union Councils

Doreen McNally, Unite Community, Liverpool (pers. cap.)

Henry Mott, Branch Secretary, Southwark Unite, London (pers. cap.)

Billy Murphy, Unite Community, Liverpool (pers. cap.)

Tony Rimmer, Vice-Chair, Unite 567 Branch; Chair, Bootle CLP;
Liverpool47 surcharged Labour councillor (pers. cap.)

John Sweeney, Labour Party member, Leave activist, London (pers. cap.)

Margaret K. Taylor, Labour Party member, Treasurer, Rochdale
Metropolitan Borough Trades Council (on behalf of RMBTC)

Matt Webb, general secretary, Brighton & Hove District
Trades Union Council (on behalf of B&HDTUC)

Sarah Wooley, general secretary, The Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union (on behalf of BFAWU) 

I endorse these demands

In a personal capacity / On behalf of my organisation

Climate Change Strike

Dear Trades Council,

There are now less than 3 weeks to go to the Global Climate Strike on 20 September.  School students in the UK and across the world are going out on the streets to call for urgent climate action and have asked that adults join and support them.

You may have already met and passed a motion/are part of the local organisation/working with the local authority or are planning something exciting for the day.   We would love to hear what you are doing so please let us know of any actions so we can share these with fellow trade unionists.

But if you haven't yet had time to get involved there many ways to support.  There are over 100 events already on the UK Student Climate Network website and many more still being added so check what's happening in your area. If there's not one set up yet, you can still mobilise, using the ideas below.

There are some resources on our website including flyers and a template motion to adapt.
Please show your support for the UCU motion to September TUC Congress, asking the TUC for a 30 minute workday stoppage in solidarity with the global student strike. Sign up here

Young people understand that we are desperately short of time to tackle climate change, and that we need radical action. Workers can stand by them by:
- Holding local workplace or branch meetings to raise awareness - invite a school student to speak if possible - and plan action up to and including walkouts.
- If and where there is any legal industrial action scheduling if possible to coincide with 20th September.
- Lobbying employers for time off to take part in local rallies organised by school students, bringing campaign messages, flags and banners. Or even organising a lunchtime rally outside the workplace.
- Linking existing campaigns with the climate strike. Young people see the climate crisis as a social justice issue. Trade unions can highlight the connections campaigns such as energy democracy, fuel poverty, public ownership of an integrated public transport system, housing and many more.
- Demanding employers act on the climate emergency, with a clear plan to cut their emissions. Other actions can include divesting pensions, adapting employees’ terms and conditions to the changing world (e.g. including an upper limit for work temperatures, and additional holiday for sustainable travel).
- Lobbying our local authorities to act and participate especially where they have called a climate emergency.

In solidarity

Fliss Premru

Secretary

Campaign against Climate Change Trade Union Group

climatetradeunion@gmail.com

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

While the cat's away, the mice will play!

COMMUNITY UNION'S HOT HEADED COMRADES

Comrade Pritchard (in flat cap) GMCUB Chairman

WHEN Sheila Coleman, the Unite union Community Membership Officer, failed to attend the branch meeting of  the Greater Manchester Unite Community Union Branch (GMCUB), on Tuesday 24th April at Unite Salford Quays Office trouble erupted.  Sister Coleman seems to act as a kind of chaperone for this troubled and wayward union branch.

In consequence without her loving and caring attention all hell broke lose, with one robust and militant branch member, Paul Kelly, taking to flailing with his fists at a fellow branch member.  So seemingly frenzied and demented was the Kelly outburst that he had to be restrained briefly by colleagues, while he recovered his composure.  

The Unite Greater Manchester Community Branch has gained a such a reputation of wayward conduct of late, that it has been the subject of special investigation and has had the undivided attention of the Unite officer Ms. Sheila Coleman, who has a distinguished background on Merseyside for campaigning for the victims and families of Hillsborough. 

Last month, it was hoped that with the successful banishment of two disgruntled branch members by suspending them just before the branch AGM, the climate of the branch would cool down a bit.

Alas, it was not to be!  

Last month's suspensions seem merely to have excited people like Mr Kelly, to try to create the conditions for further suspensions and havoc.  

The taste of the blood of the earlier suspensions was apparently too rich for Mr Kelly, and he seems to have become overwrought as the report below of recent allegations in the Salford Star  suggests:

'The President of Salford TUC Paul Kelly has been reported to the Unite Regional Office. The substance of the complaint is that he verbally abused a Unite member prior to a meeting of the Greater Manchester Community Branch on Tuesday 24th April at Unite Salford Quays Office. Furthermore he raised his fists in a threatening and menacing manner and threatened to beat the member up!'

None of this bodes well for May Day and worker's solidarity.  Indeed next Monday, the excitable Mr. Kelly will be speaking on such issues as international comradeship at a May Day event in Salford's Bexley Square alongside the delightful Labour shadow business secretary, Rebecca Long-Bailey MP.  

****** 

Liverpool Anarchists say: 'Have a happy bookfair!'

SHADES of  GEORGE ORWELL's 'MINISTRY OF LOVE'
by Brian Bamford

ARRIVING at the Black-E at 11,45am for last Saturday's Liverpool Anarchist Bookfair, I was greeted by the organiser 'Maria' of the 'News From Nowhere' Radical & Community Bookshop.  She set about scolding me saying severely:  'We sent you an e-mail and you can't attend!'  

Then up pops Pablito from Salamanca, who works in 'hospitality', who asks me 'Are you going to leave!'

I comply but only after noting down their utterances and swallowing a blood pressure pill.

As I picked up the bookfair program I observe on the front page the cheerful words 'Have a happy bookfair!'

Not so happy!

One of the local activists who came to address the talk on blacklisting at 3 o'clock, ended up saying that he would never attend an event 'like this again'.  

The spokesman from the Merseyside Trades Union Council, who came in a personal capacity to speak on blacklisting told me that he was 'disappointed at (the) lack of comradeship' at the event, and that regarding 'The individual concerned from the Blacklist Support Group' it was time to 'move on and make progress'.

The blacklist talk had been broken-up after a man was asked to leave because he supported Helen Steel in her dispute with the trans community.  At this point Pablito from Salamanca, as part of the squad for the defence of safer spaces, ended up with a kick in his backside flank. 

Others at the blacklist meeting complained that the bloke had been chucked out without proper consultation about the leaflet he had been distributing, and to which some people had objected.  The justification for excluding the individual was presumably rooted in the 'Safer spaces policy' of the 'Liverpool Anarchist Book Fair' which naively claims 'aims to be a welcoming, inclusive and safe space'.

What presents itself as a 'Safer spaces policy' is a charming catechism  which innocently enunciates a programme worthy of Big Brother and his thought policemen with beautiful elegance.  What is demanded in the text of this scheme is a censorship of language and thought such as Orwell's 'Newspeak' predicted in the 1940s.  

To survive the trauma of such linguistic cesspit one would have to bleach all natural thought processes of any original ideas to sink into the realm of stunted dialogue thus squeezing out all human passions and originality, for fear of making an odd unorthodox remark or stuttering some unintended outburst.  

Conversational Analysis of 'Safer Space' & 'Thought Crime'

A conversational analyst would be delighted with the text offered by the Liverpool Anarchist Book Fair 'Safer Spaces Policy'.  The text is rich in the straight-jacket of thought control.  

The 'Safer spaces policy' states 'Abusive, violent, threatening or harassing behaviour will not be tollerated'.

It then gives some examples:  'Oppressive language, literature or attitudes that insult, express prejudices or reinforce preconceptions about a group of people that are marginalised, disadvantaged or oppressed by mainstream society are not welcome.'

Then the organisers typically offer us a list of taboo topics:  'racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and classism' .

The dogma of what can only be defined as a totalitarian epistle to the glories of  'thought crime' is delightfully documented  in the final paragraph where it says:  'Don't make assumptions (based on, for example, race, pronouns, class, sexual orientation etc.)  
 

One would be tempted to say all this is characteristic of medieval thinking that one might find in the Catholic Church before Martin Luther to having wayward and sinful thoughts, but it is more totalitarian than that in that it seeks to extend its bans and gags in a style of Soviet proportions in which the required terminology may change from overnight if not sooner.

The Safer spaces document says 'we refuse to normalise prejudice, reinforce oppression or recreate hierarchies' but instead on the ground yesterday Pablito and Maria engineering an good impression of a Fred Karno's Circus or the Keystone Cops* with the thought-policemen / women / transgender / creatures or whatever wading-in to exclude folk without any fair trial or due process.  Where is the justice in that comrade Pablito (the hospitality worker) or Compañera Maria (from News from Nowhere bookshop)?  

Of course, justice is not what is going on here.  

What's going on?  Anarcho-Bossism!

What's going on here is 'Malas linguas' (bad mouthing); false accusations; victimsation and yes, if you like blacklisting.  We could call this anarcho-Bossism and Blacklisting.

At one point as I stood outside looking like a drowned rat in the Liverpool rain, Compañera Maria suggested I go a cafe to warm-up.  I told her that in Manchester we were used to standing in the rain on picket lines with Steve Acheson to combat blacklisting at sites like MRI (Manchester Royal Imfirmary) or Fiddler's Ferry.  She said this is not the same kind of blacklisting!  

I asked her to please explain how this differs from the blacklisting by the bosses?

Compañera Maria didn't reply but looked very uncomfortable.

Later Maria told Milan Rai, the editor of Peace News, that the Liverpool Anarchist Collective had decided to ban me because of an obituary I wrote in 2012 about the former AF member, the teacher Bob Miller in 2011, and something about putting Simon Saunders from the Morning Star / Freedom  in a neck-lock on the 22nd, June 2016, following having been dragged out of the Freedom Bookshop by him and Andy Meinke and then being pinned to the wall in Angel Alley by Compañero Saunders and ten other comrades. 

The trouble with this argument is that the original application to do a talk on blacklisting came from me as Secretary of Tameside TUC, and by banning me they Liverpool Anarchist Bookfair is blissfully unaware that it is blocking the participation of a North West trade union body.  In short, the Liverpoll Anarchist Bookfair Collective failed to cover itself with glory yesterday.

*  The Keystone Cops (often spelled "Keystone Kops") were fictional, humorously incompetent policemen, featured in several silent film slapstick comedies produced by Mack Sennett for his Keystone Film Company between 1912 and 1917.

******

More Details On Roberts Arundel Strike

 by John Pearson

John Pearson is a delegate on Stockport Trade Union Council, which in 2017 opened an exhibition commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Roberts Arundel Strike.   The post below is written in a personal capacity.

THE organisation of solidarity for the strike was exemplary.  Within a month of the strike starting a weekly levy of engineering workers across Stockport, Manchester and Ashton had been set up.  Over the 16 months of the strike the levy raised £75,000 and other donations £20,000.  This is equivalent to £1.5 million today, according to the Bank of England's inflation calculator.

Strikers travelled across the country visiting hundreds of factories, warehouses, haulage companies and docks to ask workers to refuse to handle Roberts Arundel products or send them supplies. Tracker teams of strikers followed company waggons.  These were so effective that the company responded by sending an empty 42 ft. trailer waggon out to closely follow their goods waggon in an attempt to throw the trackers off the trail.  At Manchester Airport, ground staff told KLM to remove a Roberts Arundel machine from a cargo plane, or no KLM flight would ever take off from Manchester Airport again.  This was accepted by KLM and the airport management.

In February 1967, 800 people marched through Stockport on a Saturday afternoon in support of the strike.  The following Wednesday, 2000 marched on the factory, including hundreds of local engineering workers from local factories such as Mirrlees and Hawkers and a similar number from the Shell Petrochemical site at Carrington.  The following month, local union reps organised a programme of sympathy sit downs in workplaces with a half day strike and demonstration on Wednesday 29 March.  This escalated to a week of action, organised by Stockport Trades Council at the end of August with workers joining the picket every weekday, morning and afternoon and a 3000 strong march on the Saturday.  There were 13 arrests.   A further week of action was organised in October.  The Chief Constable asked the Council to approve a ban on all demonstrations during that week but the Council voted by 32 to 30 to refuse to give its agreement.  Thousands of Stockport trade unionists stopped work in solidarity on Friday 27 October and a 2000 strong march took place.  There were nearly 400 strikers and supporters at the anniversary picket at the factory on 28 November 1967.

Publicity too was handled in an exemplary manner.  The strike made the headlines of national newspapers on several occasions and there were many column inches of coverage in the local and regional press.  The BBC screened a documentary on the strike as an episode of their Money Box programme.

******

Roberts Arundel Strike

STOCKPORT Trades Council will be hosting an evening of discussion about the Roberts Arundel strike fought in Stockport from November 1966.  The strike saw militant picket lines and 30,000 engineering workers from accross the north-west of England stopped work in support of the Stockport workers.

Jim Arnison, author of The One Million Pound Strike, described the dispute as one of the 'biggest strikes in the history of the trade union movement and involved the most basic freedom of all workers — the right to organise.'

Geoff Brown will deliver a short presentation on the strike using archived footage and then we will encourage further discussion.

Venue : 7 Miles Out Cafe, 20 Market Place, Stockport, SK1 1EY, Thursday 16 November

Doors open 7.00 p.m. for 7.30 p.m. start. All welcome. Refreshments will be available.

******

The Leeds Soviet – 1917!

by Christopher Draper

HISTORY's most remarkable social experiment began one hundred years ago. As the Russian war effort disintegrated, autocratic Czarism was abolished and a revolutionary SOVIET system substituted.  Soviets were collectives of workers and soldiers organised to end the war and radically democratise Russia.  In March 1917 (February in the old Russian calendar) the PETROGRAD SOVIET led the revolution and despatched a four-man delegation to England to encourage British workers to follow their lead.  On 3 June 1917, over a thousand workers’ representatives met at LEEDS COLISEUM, Cookridge Street to emulate their Russian comrades and organise a British network of ”extra-parliamentary Soviets with sovereign powers”. 

Powder Keg

The War Cabinet was worried.  A strike started at a Rochdale engineering company already affected 48 towns and involved over 200,000 workers.  Colonial Secretary Edward Milner confided fears about the Leeds Soviet to the PM, 'this Convention will begin to do for this country what the Russian Revolution has accomplished in Russia…and I fear the time is very nearly at home when we shall have to take some strong steps to stop the rot in this country unless we wish to follow Russia into impotence and dissolution.'

Breaking the Mould

Convened by the “United Socialist Council”, the Leeds gathering included delegates from Trades Councils and Unions, local Labour Parties, the British Socialist Party and the Independent Labour Party as well as independent Socialist Societies, Women’s organisations, local Co-ops and assorted Peace  Groups.

The Yorkshire Evening Post more colourfully described the congregation as, 'a heterogenous crowd of Pacifists, republicans, Pro-Germans, Socialists, Industrial Unionists, Syndicalists and Anarchists.'

With the anarchist movement divided over Kropotkin’s support for the war, both factions nevertheless welcomed the Russian Revolution.  Despite issuing no formal invitations to anarchists, libertarian ideas received full expression from delegates disenchanted by the compromising, careerism of professional Labour Party politicians and Trade Union Officials.  

Four Steps to Heaven…

There were just four resolutions to be voted upon at Leeds, with no amendments permitted. After speeches and debate, all resolutions were enthusiastically supported. They were (in abbreviated form);
a)  'This Conference of Labour, Socialist and Democratic organisations of Great Britain hails the Russian Revolution'
b)  'This Conference...shares with the Provisional Russian Government…the pledge to work for an agreement with the international democracies for a re-establishment of a general peace…a peace without annexations or indemnities'
c)  'This Conference calls…for full political rights for all men and women, unrestricted freedom of the Press, freedom of speech, a general amnesty for all political and religious prisoners…'
d)  'The Conference calls upon the constituent bodies at once to establish in every town, urban and rural district, Councils of Workmen and Soldiers…'

Delegates, Messages and Speeches

An opening message was read to the delegates from an army unit recently returned from France:
'We should very much like to see the establishment of a society on lines similar to those of the Council of Soldiers and Workmen in Russia for we are quite convinced that the great majority of men in the Army are in sympathy with the Russian aims (Cheers).'

Ramsay MacDonald, Noah Ablett, Ernest Bevin, Charlotte Despard, Bertrand Russell and Tom Mann all made stirring platform speeches but the pithiest comments came from Willie Gallacher, Sylvia Pankhurst and Fred Shaw of Huddersfield.

Gallagher presciently advised delegates that the Russian Revolution was far from settled.  Their Russian comrades, 'have the biggest fight on, not against the capitalists of Russia but against the capitalists of other countries who have determined that the Socialists of Russia have to be beaten back.  Give your own capitalist class in this country so much to do that it will not have time to attend to it.'

Sylvia Pankhurst underlined the inspirational importance of solidarity amidst the senseless carnage, 'I am very glad to feel that at last we shall come out of this slough of despond and that the workers will be united in common action'.  She saw Soviets as, 'a straight cut for the Socialist Commonwealth we all want to see'.

Fred Shaw expressed shop floor enthusiasm for 'WORKERS AND SOLDIERS COUNCILS' -  'As one of the rank and file I support this resolution because of its revolutionary possibilities. The time is ripe for the working classes to take things into their own hands and follow Russia. This war has driven out of the minds of the workers many of the old middle-class ideas about the State.'

The Next Step

The Leeds Convention set dates and venues for regional follow-up meetings to create a national network of a dozen 'SOVIETS' or 'WORKERS AND SOLDIERS COUNCILS (WSC)'.

The NORTH comprised 3 SOVIETS or WSC, based respectively at Newcastle (“North East Coast”), Leeds (“Yorkshire”) and Manchester (“Lancashire, Cheshire & North Wales”).

As soon as dates and locations were advertised for these founding meetings there were serious problems. Leeds Council had already created difficulties for the June Convention by cancelling the organisers’ original booking of Leeds’ Albert Hall. Delegates were also turned away from Leeds hotels despite having reservations and many had been forced to sleep overnight in railway carriages. When the Government learned of the outcome of the Leeds Convention they determined, in Milner’s memorable phrase, “to take strong steps to stop the rot”. As a result only 3 of the 12 WSC Districts were able to successfully organise meetings without suffering cancellations, bans, violence or arrests and none of these were in the North.

Stopping the Rot - Leeds

When the August date of the follow-up Leeds WSC meeting was announced no specific venue was advertised prompting gleeful press speculation that no-one was prepared to provide a venue for the occasion. Refused once again by the local authority, the press crowed, “the local pacifists must surely have been at their wit’s end to find a hall or they would never have taken the course of asking the Corporation to grant them the use of the Town Hall”.

The Government was even more at its wit’s end that the Council might finally relent so it stepped in and peremptorily banned the meeting under the draconian provisions of DORA (“Defence of the Realm Act”). “His Majesty’s Secretaries of State, in pursuance of Regulation 9a of the Defence of the Realm Regulations…do hereby prohibit the assembly of persons for the holding of a meeting to promote Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils which is proposed to be held in the City of Leeds on Saturday 25th August 1917 or on whatever other date it may be proposed the same.”

Selection of a Yorkshire delegate to the Central WSC had to then be conducted by postal ballot. David Blythe Foster, a founding member of Leeds Tolstoyan Brotherhood Workshop was duly elected.

Stopping the Rot – Newcastle

The Newcastle WSC meeting was one of the first advertised, 'Saturday 28th July, 3pm, Newcastle Town Hall'.  Then Newcastle Council stepped in and cancelled the booking.  Fortunately the local committee were able to secure an alternative, though smaller venue, Newcastle Central Hall for the same date.  As the Daily Mail reported, it was a lively meeting:
'Violent scenes were witnessed at the conference in Newcastle promoted on Saturday afternoon promoted by the Workers and Soldiers Council… The platform party was about to take their seats when several interrupters broke into the meeting and it was found that the doors had been rushed by a crowd of noisy demonstrators following a succession of free fights.  Mrs Despard made a successful effort to restore order but by that time a young Navy man and others who had mounted the platform endeavoured to address the meeting.  One of the interrupters who wore a gold stripe on his civil uniform divested himself of his coat and baring his arm showed a wound and shouted, That is what I got for fighting for traitors. Colonial soldiers afterwards stormed the platform and a wild scene ensued, during which there were violent altercations and free fights on the platform…It was found impossible to continue the meeting.'

Ashington miner, George Henry Warne, was subsequently selected by postal ballot as the District’s delegate to the Central WSC 

Stopping the Rot – Manchester

The Manchester WSC meeting was scheduled for Saturday 11th August 2.30pm at Milton Hall, Deansgate. By then, violent attacks by soldiers on WSC meetings were commonplace and it was clear this disruption was tolerated if not encouraged by civil authorities who prosecuted the victims rather than the perpetrators. The possibility of such violence was cynically exploited by the authorities as an excuse to cancel WSC bookings.

When Manchester Council banned the Deansgate meeting the booking was quietly transferred to Stockport Labour Church in the hope of avoiding disruption – no such luck! “Lively scenes were witnessed at Stockport on Saturday afternoon at a meeting to elect a delegate to the Workers and soldiers Council. A hostile crowd attempted to rush the hall…Footpaths to the hall were chalked, This way to the traitors’ meeting. On leaving the hall the delegates were set upon on all sides, the women smacking the faces of their pacifist sisters…stalwart men looked most humiliated as they were bowled over and battered on the ground…the rioting continued for over an hour.”

Charlotte Ann Findlay was eventually selected as WSC delegate. She had little political profile but her husband was a well-known lecturer at Manchester University and campaigner for progressive education.

Cracking the Convention

The State’s determination to prevent the Sovietisation of the British labour movement exacerbated pre-existing cracks in the fragile workers’ coalition. Reservations about the whole SOVIET project were expressed at the Leeds Convention by Joseph Toole, who claimed, “There are already sufficient organisations to do the work which has been outlined – Trades Councils, local Labour Parties, Socialist organisations and various other organisations. Russia and this country suffer from entirely different sets of circumstances”. Toole and his fellow Labour bureaucrats, MP’s and Councillors resented intrusion into their petty fiefdoms. The national Labour Party directed members not to have anything to do with the WSC initiative and the Government piled on the pressure. 

In July 1917 the War Cabinet decreed that no soldier must play any part whatsoever in any WSC and to counteract the anti-war appeal of the Soviet initiative the Cabinet agreed to pour government money into building a nominally “independent” national network of pro-war groups under the umbrella of a “National War Aims Committee” directed by the spy and novelist, John Buchan.  When Prime Minister Lloyd-George spoke for the NWAC on August 4th he exemplified this anti SWC obsession, assuring listeners :  'The Nation has chosen its own Workmens’ and Soldiers Committee (cheers) and that is the House of Commons. We cannot allow sectional organisations to direct the war or dictate the peace (cheers)'.

According to David French (OUP) “The Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch MI5 and Military Intelligence were directed to watch militant trade unionists, peace and anti-war campaigners and socialist activists and isolate them from the rest of the organised labour movement and armed forces.” “By Spring 1917 MI5 had compiled 250,000 cards and 27,000 personal files, going well beyond the estimated 70,000 adult enemy aliens resident in Britain at the outbreak of war.” (Christopher Wrigley).

Voice from the Trenches

Despite the best efforts of the authorities some brave soldiers continued to organise WSC. The Midlands’ WSC representative Private Charles James Simmons(CJS), 2nd Worcester Regiment proved most determined. The Government could hardly brand CJS a disloyal coward as he’d volunteered for the army four years before war was declared and had served in uniform ever since. Severely wounded at Vimy Ridge, one of his legs had to be amputated below the knee and he was sent home as unfit for service but “of good character”. As an evangelical Christian and Socialist CJS fearlessly voiced his conscience and back home in England in 1917 Private James tirelessly campaigned for the WSC in the press, on the streets and on repeated tours around the North.

On Saturday 29th September 1917 the Rochdale Observer reported:
'The campaign that Private C J Simmons has been conducting at Rochdale has been brought to an abrupt conclusion.  On Tuesday he was warned by the police against speaking on account of the nature of his remarks the previous evening but the soldier paying no regard to the caution addressed a large gathering.  Private Simmons should have spoken at a similar meeting at Town Hall Square on Wednesday evening. Mr J W Chadwick, who was in the chair, was in the act of calling on the soldier to speak when two military policemen appeared and arrested him.'

Simmons was held in Rochdale police cells overnight before being taken under military escort to incarceration at Chester Castle. After his case was raised in Parliament he was released and discharged from the army in November 1917.  'Ex-Private Simmons” immediately resumed his anti-war campaigning.  Returning to Rochdale the following month, the local Socialist Society advertised his talk in the “Pioneers Assembly Room” with the strap line, “We sang the Red Flag to him last time. Come and sing it with him this time”!

Continuing his tour into the new year, “Ex-Private Simons” got as far as Burnley before in March 1918 the authorities caught up with him again and he was charged under DORA (“Defence of the Real Act”) that, “On the February 21st he did by word of mouth, at the Cooperative Hall, York, make statements likely to prejudice the training, discipline and administration of His Majesty’s Forces”!

Sentenced to three months hard labour at Leeds’ ARMLEY GAOL he was subsequently employed as an ILP organiser and advised conscientious objectors at military tribunals. By then the authorities were confident they had the militants under control.

Wot no Revolution?

Lance Corporal Dudley was initially more effective than even Private Simmons in declaring a Soldiers’ Soviet at Tunbridge Wells on 24th June 1917!  Representatives of half-a-dozen battalions cooperated with Dudley in approving a Soldiers’ manifesto and declaring a WSC.  The Tunbridge WSC proved short lived as an acting Brigadier rigorously enforced military discipline and dispersed the units with Lance Corporal Dudley promptly posted to active service in France. 

Despite all these interventions by the end of September 1917, all dozen WSC districts had managed to elect delegates to the central body. At the beginning of October Britain’s formally constituted national “WORKERS’ AND SOLDIERS’ COUNCIL” met for the first time.

The central WSC subsequently published a seven point programme laying out its formal objectives. It’s sufficient to consider the first to realise how far the body had retreated from its initial revolutionary ambitions; 
'1. THE WORKERS’ AND SOLDIERS’ COUNCIL has been formed primarily as a propaganda body, not as a rival to, or to supplant,  any of the existing working class organisations but to infuse into them a more active spirit of liberty.'

After expressing six more similarly pious hopes the programme added, “A Sub-Committee is preparing a manifesto on A Plea for a People’s Peace and a vigorous campaign is about to be inaugurated”!

The authorities must have been quaking in their boots! “A Plea for Peace” and “A Vigorous Campaign” disturbed no-one. The Grand Old Dukes of the Labour Party and Trade Unions had stifled the movement with bureaucracy whilst the State had exerted its customary range of repressive measures.  Militants were conveniently constrained by red-tape and the movement emasculated.  The resultant WSC programme so lacked vigour and inspiration that that the delegates never even bothered to reconvene.

Lessons from History?

Besides Private Simons only two other WSC delegates fought on for militant socialism, Sylvia Pankhurst in East London and John Maclean on Clydeside. Of the three Northern delegates, both David Foster and George Warne became run-of-the-mill Labour Party MP’s whilst the third, Charlotte Findlay simply returned to political anonymity (her husband made two unsuccessful attempts to become a Labour MP). 

Private Charles James Simmons also represented Labour as an MP but as the Oxford ONB records, 'Simmons was considered a firebrand by political opponents and allies alike…critical of the Chamberlain government for its rearmament policy, failure to support Republican Spain and appeasement of Hitler.'

After Lenin’s November 1917 coup-d’etat Russian Soviets were subordinated to the Diktat of the Bolshevik Party and the four delegates of the Petrograd Soviet, Genrikh Erlikh, Iosif Goldenberg, Alexander Smirnov and Nikolair Rousanov sent to Britain became persona non-grata in Russia. Iosif
Goldenberg, an ex-Bolshevik critic of Lenin perished in 1922, Smirnov and Rousanov emigrated and survived whilst Erlikh emigrated to Poland only to be executed on Stalin’s orders in 1948.

The Russian Revolution was an experiment that failed and Lenin no more than a mad scientist.  Paul McCartney is right and Sylvia Pankhurst was wrong, there is no “straight cut to the Socialist Commonwealth”, only “a long and winding road”. 

Christopher Draper – January 2017

Trade Unionist Martin Larkham Dies

Dear Brothers & Sisters
I have been contacted by Martin Larkham’s son in the last few minutes. He has informed me that Martin died over the weekend.
As we all know he was suffering from throat cancer and had only been given 12 months to live. 
He was with us for nearly 2 years and continued to attend Rochdale TUC meetings and  GMATUCs as a delegate and vice chair.
His son will contact be with information concerning the funeral arrangements
 Yours
 Stefan Cholewka
GMATUC secretary

TUC Crown's Representative to TUC-JCC

AFTER it was decided that Alec McFadden was not eligible to stand for election as the new interim North West representative on the TUC-Joint Consultative Committee, Stephen Hall from Bolton Trade Union Council was appointed to serve in Mr McFadden's place.  This replacement follows a dispute over an internal complaint against McFadden by a member of the Unite union.*  Details of this story have already been published on this Blog.  Tameside TUC in Greater Manchester also submitted a nomination for the post but it was claimed that this arrived too late for consideration.
No-one it seems, least of all Stephen Hall, wanted a coronation, but it could be that the TUC preferred a coronation rather than an election because it is cheaper.


*  Rule 27 Investigations:
The Regional Secretary advised that with regard to the disciplinary of Mr. Alec McFadden, the Rule 27 Panel had decided that there was a case to answer.  Following Mr. McFadden's appeal in London, the appeal committee found that he had been found guilty of inappropriate behavior and that he be removed from office, with a bar on holding office both for the remainder of the present electoral period and for the next electoral period and that he be required to attend an Equalities Training Course.

Trade Unionist Disciplined: Alec McFadden case

Below is a campaign statement that has been sent to Northern Voices
by the Campaign to defend Alec McFadden.  Though we have made some
investigations about this problem, Northern Voices does not have enough
information to justify us taking sides at this stage.  In the light of this it has
been decided to publish the statement below in full without comment, which
was sent to us by Liz Epps on behalf of the campaign to defend Alec McFadden.

ALEC McFadden, a stalwart of the trade union movement for over 50 years, has been the victim of a miscarriage of justice which is having terrible repercussions. He needs your support. Alec is known and respected throughout the country for his work as a union organiser, and for his role since 1996 in running the Salford Unemployed and Community Resource Centre which has provided help and assistance to thousands of people. He is a committed campaigner against sexism, racism, fascism and opposition to benefits sanctions. He suffered a serious facial wound when a fascist attacked him with a knife at his home on the Wirral.

Alec organised a very successful Anti- Austerity March in October 2015. At the end of the protest, on 3rd October 2015, the marchers had a meal at Smith’s restaurant in Eccles, Salford where Alec was the compere for the evening with a number of speakers including Rebecca Long Bailey MP for Salford, Steve North Unison branch secretary and the then Mayor of Salford Ian Stewart. Also present were other local councillors and the press.  Five weeks later Alec was informed by Unite (13 November) that it ‘had received a formal complaint from one of our members about your actions during the March against Austerity from Thursday 1st October to Sunday 4th October.’ It was alleged he had breached Unite’s Dignity and Harassment Policy. No further details were divulged. Two weeks later Alec had received a further letter from Unite (25 November) which told him no more than the identity of the complainant and that she had made a complaint which ‘relates to alleged incidents which took place between 1st and 4th October 2015 towards another Unite member’.

Investigation

Unknown to Alec, witness statements were made by the complainant and two supportive witnesses.  On 6 January 2016he complainant and one witness were interviewed by a Unite Investigation panel on 6 January 2016, again without the knowledge of Alec. So Alec had no opportunity to challenge them, nor was the panel able to put any response from Alec to the witnesses, since the panel had not disclosed the witness statements or even the nature of the allegation to Alec.  It had certainly not asked him for his side of the story.

Alec was then called to attend before the Investigation Panel on 22nd January.  By then all Alec knew was what was in the two letters he had received. He had no idea what was alleged against him.  The Investigation Panel chose not to share with him the statements it had obtained from the complainant and her witness or the notes made of their interviews by the panel. So Alec had no idea of the case against him and no chance to prepare a defence.   When the interview with Alec commenced he was still in complete ignorance of the date, time, place and nature of the alleged ‘incidents’.  It was not until half way through the interview that he was shocked to be told that he was alleged to have slapped the complainant on the bottom at the dinner in the middle of the restaurant.  He was not told that the complainant’s witness had added ‘the lights were quite bright and we were very visible to our fellow marchers and other guests’.  Alec denied the allegation.  The panel asked no further questions about it.  Neither the complainant nor her witnesses were present when Alec was interviewed, and since he had not been provided with their witness statements or notes of the interview, he had no opportunity to point out inconsistencies or contradictions in their evidence.  Nevertheless, the investigation panel found that there was a case for him to answer.

Disciplinary

Next Alec was called to a formal Unite disciplinary hearing on 15th April 2016. Before hearing Alec’s defence or his witnesses, he was startled to be told by the Chair of the Disciplinary Panel: ‘From what has been presented to us, in all probability, some misconduct has taken place.’ This conclusion was based on solely on their reading of the report of the Investigation Panel.

The Disciplinary Panel refused a request that the complainant and her witnesses should attend and give evidence to the Panel because it would be ‘inappropriate.’ So Alec and his representative were denied the chance to question them, put his case to them or explore the serious inconsistencies in their account of the alleged incident. Likewise, the Panel denied itself the opportunity to hear the complainant and her witness in person so as to weigh up the credibility of their account. Even Alec’s offer that the complainant be questioned without Alec being present was refused.

Perhaps, not surprisingly, the Disciplinary Panel reached the same conclusion at the end of the hearing that it had before the case began: ‘that in all probability, Mr McFadden did commit the offence of slapping [the complainant] on the bottom.’ The conclusion was expressed to be based solely on the evidence of the Complainant’s witness, since it said that to disbelieve her statement ‘would be tantamount to an accusation of lying.’ How the Panel could determine whether she was lying or not without hearing and seeing her give her evidence and being questioned about it was not explained. Nor was it explained on what basis the Panel were able to disregard the evidence of Alec and his witnesses (that they had neither seen anything untoward nor heard anyone speak of such a thing during the course of a long evening during which both Alec and the Complainant were present, at one stage sitting next to each other.) The Disciplinary Panel decided that Alec must be banned from office in Unite and attend Unite’s Dignity and Respect Training Course.

Appeal

Alec appealed to an Appeal Panel of Unite’s EC. Again Alec’s rep asked that the complainant and her witness attend, give their evidence orally and be subject to questions from him and the Panel. He emphasised that inconsistent and contradictory evidence of the Complainant and her witnesses should be subject to at least some questioning and scrutiny as no such questioning or scrutiny had occurred at the Investigation or Disciplinary stages. This request was dismissed out of hand and the Panel refused to hear for themselves the evidence against Alec or allow it to be questioned.

Alec provided the panel with even more witness statements of those present in the restaurant including the MP and even the Restaurant manager and staff, all of whom clearly stated they saw or heard nothing of the alleged incident which according to the complainant took place in view of everyone.

Particularly significant was that Alec’s rep also sought to introduce the evidence of a Mr S who had, in August 2016, been told by the complainant that she had not been assaulted by Alec and that she had been pressurised into making the complaint.  The Appeal Panel refused to entertain this evidence on the ground that ‘it was an unsubstantiated account of an alleged conversation with the complainant that had been compellingly and comprehensively rebutted by her.’   This appears to be false.  There was no evidence that Mr S’s account had ever been put to the complainant - let alone that she rebutted it.  As noted, Alec’s request for her attendance had been refused. It was not suggested that she had made a further, undisclosed statement rebutting Mr S – such a statement would surely have been produced had it been made.

The Appeal Panel’s refusal to entertain this crucial exonerating piece of defence evidence can only have been because it fundamentally undermined the prosecution case. That is a travesty of justice.

In the light of that it was no surprise that the Appeal panel upheld the decision of the Disciplinary Panel. When his rep asked how long Alec would be suspended from Office he was told it was for at least 5 years! That is until Alec is 75.

Breach of Confidentiality + Media Smears

If that were not bad enough, what followed will shock and concern every trade union activist. Confidential details of the case, including a statement by the complainant were leaked to the media. This could have only come from someone within Unite.  The angle the media took was to attack Alec and link him to Jeremy Corbyn so as to undermine him.  Alec had been one of Corbyn’s biggest supporters and articles in the Telegraph, Times, Liverpool Echo and Guardian were spun to try to damage Corbyn and denigrate Alec.

The TUC

In September 2016, the TUC informed Alec that in addition to the sanctions imposed by Unite, the TUC also banned him from holding his elected position representative to and as chair of the TUCJCC. That is not an ‘office’; it is certainly not an office in Unite and besides Alec’s position on the TUCJCC is also because he is a member of Unison.  More significantly still, the TUC has no power to prevent Trades Union Councils nominating who they wish to represent them on the TUCJCC, the TUC has no disciplinary powers over members of affiliated unions and had held no hearing to allow Alec to present a case before imposing such a penalty.  But the penalty imposed by the TUC went yet further than that imposed by Unite: Alec was barred from unofficial pre-meetings of the TUCJCC and from attending any TUC event, including those open to the public!

Questions have even been raised about Alec’s employment.

Facebook Lies

Now new evidence has emerged from the Facebook postings of the complainant.  She has changed her mind again and decided to revert to claiming that the incident did take place and she has broadcast details of the allegation along with grossly offensive comments about Alec.  Even more disturbingly, having linked to an article about an (unrelated) Employment Tribunal case against UNITE for sexual harassment she made the following comment in relation to her own case:

‘In my experience the equalities officer was invisible, the questioning that I was subject to would not be out of place among rape apologists, the concern for the person making the complaint was non–existent’.

This is a quite remarkable claim since one of the most unjust features of this drawn out disciplinary process is that the complainant was never questioned about her allegation - let alone in the manner she describes.  She was never present to face any questions put to her by Alec, his rep or the Disciplinary or Appeal Panels which took the decisions.  Before the Investigatory Panel the notes show that she was never asked even to describe the alleged incident; her prepared statement was simply accepted as fact. The sole questions about the alleged incident were: ‘…you had to ask him to move is this when the incident happened? And if so what kind of a slap was it?’  To which the answer was ‘Yes.  It was a hard slap; I was shocked and carried on walking…’  The allegation that the Unite Investigation Panel were behaving like ‘rape apologists’ is both a very serious allegation and one that is totally refuted by the notes.

This Facebook posting casts further serious doubt on the credibility of the complainant.

Unfortunately there is no further appeal under Unite rules and Alec appears to have no alternative but to take his case to the Certification Officer, given the appalling consequences that he is facing.

Every trade unionist should fight to root sexual harassment out of our movement and ensure our events are safe places for all members. But there is also no place in our movement for those who make false accusations against individuals and the union, then broadcast false and wholly misleading details of the matter on social media. More than that, no-one should be convicted without a fair trial.

Defend Alec

Alec has a long and proud record of promoting and encouraging women to get active in the union movement, he has never been subject to these kind of accusations in over 50 years of service in the movement.  Natural justice is a requirement of Unite’s disciplinary rules (rule 27.2) but Alec has been denied it.  Here, that denial was in refusing Alec the right to question those who made allegations against him and in refusing to hear a witness who had vital evidence for his defence.  The witness statements of many respected people present at the restaurant where the alleged incident took place have been simply ignored or discounted.  He has had confidential details of an internal union matters leaked to the press where it was spun to attack Jeremy Corbyn.  He has now discovered that his accuser has put on social media claims which are clearly both untrue and bring the union into disrepute.

He has been removed and suspended from office for over 5 years and the TUC has tried to remove him from elected positions that are completely unconnected to his membership of Unite.

Questions for Unite

We call on the Executive Committee of UNITE and the General Secretary to review this case as a matter of urgency.  As trade unionists we fight on a daily basis against injustice; we cannot allow this to happen to Alec.  Please support our call for a review of this decision and an investigation into the scandalous claims made by the complainant and the manner in which confidential information was leaked to the Tory media to be used to attack both Alec and Jeremy Corbyn.

Email: defend.alec.mcfadden@hotmail.com   10th October 2016

Printed and Published by defend Alec McFadden campaign

North West Union Boss Banned From Office

ALEC McFadden, a prominent figure in the North West trade union movement, has been forced out of office following allegations of 'inappropriate behaviour’ on a march from Wirral in Merseyside to the Tory Party Conference in Manchester last year. 
Mr. McFadden, as well as being a leading member of the Unite union in the North West, has been for many years the North West regional representative on the Joint Consultative Committee of the Trade Union Councils in the UK*.   It is now clear that Mr. McFadden has also had to stand down from this position on the TUC-JCC, and that nomination papers have been sent out for the affiliates to the Trade Union Councils in the North West to nominate a replacement for this position as well. 
Talking to the Liverpool Echo on the 13th, September this year, Mr. McFadden, a high profile member of Unite, strongly denied any wrong doing. 
But following a disciplinary hearing of the Unite union Mr. McFadden has been told that he can’t hold any position of power within the union. 
Speaking to the Liverpool Echo McFadden said: 
‘It is correct that I was subjected to a disciplinary process in relation to charges I firmly denied and continue to reject in their totality.’ 
McFadden added: 
‘There was an agreement that I should attend an equalities training course which I am delighted to do.  I have sought details of available courses and am awaiting responses.  My membership of Unite was never in doubt and the fact that I remain a member of Unite has been confirmed in recent correspondence from the union.’ 

He said that he had been contacted by national newspapers ‘which report having been told that I was expelled from my trade union Unite’.

He said:  ‘That allegation is false.’ 

The 4-day People’s March Against Austerity 2015 began in Holylake in the constituency of former Tory MP Ester McVey.

Organised by trade unions, including Merseyside TUC & MrMcFadden, they joined a group of marchers who had started in south Wales.

A  Unite union spokesman said:  ‘Unite does not tolerate sexual harassment in any form.  Unite can conform that the matter has been dealt with in line with the union’s disciplinary procedures.  We are supporting the victim & the individual concerned has been removed from holding office in Unite.’
At the time of writing Northern Voices does have the precise details of the alleged offence Mr. McFadden is supposed to have committed, and while we do not condone any form of sexual harassment, we cannot at this moment comment on the basic justification for the charge against Mr. McFadden.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/mersey-union-firebrand-alec-mcfadden-11881611#ICID=sharebar_facebook

*  Trades Union Councils' Joint Consultative Committee:

Trades Union Councils represent an important form of union organisation: local trade union branches acting together in pursuit of a common agenda within the community. The capacity for a reinvigorated Trades Union Council to take action and to mobilise workers in support of campaigns is vast. Trades Union Councils should act on this by working with trade union branches to build organisation locally, but they must also take a lead in forging links with other parts of the community. Crucial to this is identifying issues on which unions and other organisations share a common agenda – an agenda based on the pursuit of social justice.
Our argument has to be that only through union strength can we win rights at work and deliver a better quality of life for people throughout society. Trades Union Councils need to make the case for a broad coalition, which tackles injustices, both in the workplace and in the community. 

Greater Manchester Trades Councils condemn 'Devo Manc'

Monday 26th October - Manchester Town Hall - From 8.00am onwards

Lobby of Communities & Local Government Parliamentary Select Committee in Manchester 

'DEVO MANC' campaigners condemn Parliamentary Select Committee's proposals to provide 2.8 million people with just one hour to "share their thoughts and experiences", and for the Committee to "gather evidence" from them, on the extensive devolution deal announced between the Government and Greater Manchester Combined Authority almost a year ago, and which now includes the NHS.

The campaigners, who are seeking a wider public debate, consultation, and scrutiny of the controversial Devo Manc devolution deal, and who are wanting a Greater Manchester wide referendum on any new governance arrangement before it is implemented, say the one hour time allocation for the entire 2.8 million population of Greater Manchester to give evidence to their 'Devolution Bill Inquiry', makes "a complete mockery of democracy" and continues in the same vein as the 'Devo Manc' agreement between The Chancellor and Greater Manchester's 10 local Council leaders, in that "it shows nothing but contempt for the public" throughout the entire exercise.
Speaking on behalf of the cross party and trades union supported Greater Manchester Referendum Campaign for democratic devolution, Greater Manchester TUC President Stephen Hall said:
'That the Parliamentary Select Committee, meeting at Manchester Town Hall on Monday 26th October from 8.50pm until noon, will only be providing an hour for the public of Greater Manchester Public to 'provide evidence' and 'share their thoughts', which the publicity for it says is 'crucial' to inform the Committee's inquiries, is quite simply outrageous, and beggars belief. Surely, if the Select Committee was even slightly serious, they could at the very least extend their proceedings to an afternoon session to allow more submissions from the general public, and from civic and community groups including the trades unions?
'Though this would still not do the Greater Manchester devolution issue or the wider public the justice they deserve, such a step would at least allow more people and organisations from Greater Manchester to submit evidence, and for their views on the issue to be heard by the committee, rather than just the small 'Bubble' of locally based professional politicians, local Government bureaucrats and 'business leaders' who are likely to be the only ones who will get any kind of hearing.
'As it stands the Parliamentary Select Committee meeting in Manchester appears to us as nothing other than a poorly contrived and disguised cosmetic exercise, to make it look like that the people of Greater Manchester have some kind of input into this whole shoddy, undemocratic so-called devolution process, when the reality is the very opposite. It is also part farcical in that almost a year on, most of our local MPs and Councillors don't even know the precise details of the proposed new set up, especially in relation to the NHS and social care, other than in general, it won't involve either them or the very people of the English regions it is alleged to empower.
'As the public session of the event is already fully booked up, the reality is, other than for a no doubt pre-selected few, who might get to say something for more than five minutes, the rest of the people of Greater Manchester will again get no say whatsoever.
"From that point of view, given how few people are likely to be involved in the proceedings from the Greater Manchester area, and the likely huge cost of the Select Committee, and its accompanying entourage, coming to and holding its meeting in Manchester, one has to wonder why they didn't just agree to buy those few people rail tickets to travel to London and hold their meeting in Parliament instead, as it would surely cost a lot less to the public purse, and likely have all the same people participating in the proceedings anyway. In fact why they are bothering to have a meeting at all? It is no far off a complete charade as it stands!
'We believe as a very minimum, that in order for the Parliamentary Select Committee to do its work in what most of us might consider a serious way, that as well as extending its sitting on the 26th at Manchester Town Hall to include an afternoon session to receive further submissions from the public, they should also make a tour of all ten local authority areas in Greater Manchester, and extend their timing there to also include further sessions in the afternoon to which local civic and community groups, local charities, the unions, political parties, and business organisations, as well as the wider public, might be especially invited to submit evidence, and their views on what the so-called 'Northern Powerhouse' and 'devolution' means for them. 

Failing that, one has to wonder why they even bothering with the pretence of even asking what local people's views are.'

Stephen Hall,  President, Greater Manchester Association of Trades Union Councils