SPECTATOR: In praise of the Batley binmen

by Brendan O’Neill

If you need someone to support your right to freedom of speech, forget the teaching unions. Don’t look to the commentariat. And don’t even bother with the Labour party, many of whose younger, angrier members will often be found in the ranks of cancel-culture mobs calling for someone or other to be erased from polite society for having blasphemed against a trendy new orthodoxy.

No, it’s the binmen you want to turn to. It’s the nation’s fine refuse collectors who will back you up when your liberty to speak is being pummelled.

Consider the case of the Batley Grammar schoolteacher who was suspended for showing his pupils an image of Muhammad during a religious studies lesson. Alarmingly, that teacher is still in hiding, fearing for his life. He has received death threats simply for doing what all good teachers should do: challenge their students to consider difficult moral questions.

The supposedly liberal establishment behaved shamefully in response to the demonisation and harassment of the teacher. Batley Grammar itself, in the face of angry protests outside the school gates, suspended him. The school essentially ‘threw him under a bus’, the teacher’s family said.

The teaching unions stayed almost entirely schtum about the case for ages. ‘It would not be appropriate to make any further comment’ while the school is investigating the incident, said the National Education Union. Not appropriate for a teaching union to comment on the fact that a teacher had received threats to his life and is now, according to his father, ‘devastated and crushed’, an ‘emotional wreck’?

In which case, why do teaching unions even exist?

The political class wasn’t much better. Tracy Brabin, then the Labour MP for Batley, now the Mayor of West Yorkshire, praised the school for dealing swiftly with this incident that had caused so much ‘offence' and 'upset’. She essentially sided with the protesters who wanted a teacher punished for blasphemy — these days referred to as ‘offence' and 'upset’ — rather than with the teacher and his right to free expression.

But not everyone has turned their backs on this persecuted teacher. Enter the binmen of Bury. Shaming the intellectual elites, these workers have taken a principled stand on behalf of the teacher and his right to free speech in the classroom.

The Bury branch of Unite, which represents refuse collectors, has put forward a motion championing the Batley teacher. The emergency motion, submitted for consideration at the National Conference of Trade Union Councils in June, urges all unions to back the teacher.

The motion points out that England’s blasphemy laws were formally abolished more than a decade ago and insists there should be no ‘dogmatic restraints’ on our right to discuss religious matters, including Islamic matters.

The proponent of the motion is Brian Bamford, secretary of Tameside Trade Union Council and a retired electrician. He says:

‘This is a motion which has come in from binmen, from ordinary working people… Freedom of expression is very important. I don’t feel guilty in any way for taking a stand on this issue.’

Bamford says an NEU official contacted him and asked him to consider withdrawing the motion. Apparently the official told him the motion ‘risks inflaming what is an extremely sensitive and very complex situation’. An NEU spokesperson said: 'It is a sensitive issue and the NEU did ask for the motion to be withdrawn. With every viewpoint that is expressed our members face yet more public exposure.'

Got that? Binmen and other working-class union members want to express support for a teacher who has been hounded into hiding for a supposed speechcrime, and a teaching union official is reportedly saying to them, ‘Please don’t do this’. This is bonkers.

These binmen have shown us what true solidarity looks like. Their support for the Batley teacher is in keeping with the best traditions of working-class activism. They saw someone being harried and silenced merely for displaying a religious image and they’re not having it. More power to their elbow, and their motion.

They have also shown up what passes for the liberal establishment these days. Too many people in positions of power treat freedom of speech as a negotiable commodity rather than as a core principle of democratic life. Too many turn away — or nod along — as people are shunted out of polite society merely for criticising Islam, or asking questions about transgenderism, or making an un-PC joke. Get 12 weeks for £12

Plus a free bottle of Digby Fine English fizz

Many so-called liberals now consider the right not to be offended to be more important than the right to free expression. So when they saw that fuss outside Batley Grammar, they instinctively sided with the right of the protesters to glide through life without ever having their religious beliefs called into question, rather than with the right of a teacher in a pluralistic democracy to use his freedom of expression to challenge and enlighten his pupils.

Thankfully, there are still people, like those Bury binmen – and of course like the Free Speech Union – who understand that no one has the right not to be offended. Who understand that freedom of expression is more important than any individual’s feelings or any religion’s diktats? Binmen for Free Speech — it’s exactly the campaign we need right now.

Written by Brendan O’Neill

Brendan O’Neill is the editor of Spiked, the online magazine.

CommentsShare Topics in this articlePoliticsSocietybatleybatley grammarbinmen

Recycling centres & tips in Manchester to close

The centres will remain closed ‘until further notice’ - 

Recycle for Greater Manchester announced

It means that places like recycling centres will not remain open.
An announcement was made on the Recycle for Greater Manchester website.
It read: “Following on from the Prime Minister’s announcement on March 23, all Recycling Centres are closed until further notice. Please stay at home.”

Residents are urged to check their local council’s website for up to date information about how the announcement would impact collections from homes.

Manchester

According to the Manchester City Council website, food and garden recycling bins will be collected every two weeks instead of every week. All other collections remain unaffected.

Bolton

A post on the Bolton Council website says: “At this stage priority will be given to the collection of grey bins, food waste containers and green bins. Recycling bins will be emptied where possible so please continue to present all bins on the appropriate collection day. If your bins are not emptied please take them back onto your property until your next scheduled collection day, as we will not be able to return for any that have not been emptied.”

Bury

The Bury Council website says they are ‘unable to carry out as many collections as usual’.
It says: “Brown bin collections are cancelled this week (23-27 March) and next (30 March to 3 April) while we prioritise emptying grey, green and blue bins instead.”

Oldham

The Oldham Council website asks residents not to place any garden waste out for collection. They are urged to use green bins and caddies for food waste only.
The website adds: “Place all bins out for collection as normal. Should we not collect your bin on its scheduled collection day please take it back onto your property and put it out again on your next collection day.”

Rochdale

People in Rochdale are being urged to put out their bins as normal. “If we’re not able to collect your bin on its scheduled collection day please take it back onto your property and put it out again on your next collection day”, the website says.

Stockport

People in Stockport should put their bins out as normal.

Tameside

For information, visit https://public.tameside.gov.uk/forms/bin-dates.asp

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Confessions of a Market User

by Les May

MY wife and I visit three markets every week.  Thursday is Todmorden for the ‘flea’ market. Today I spent the princely sum of 40p. But as usual we also bought meat, magazines, newspapers and coffee, either on the ‘inside’ market or in the town.  Total spend about £25-£30.   Friday is Heywood market for food for my pigeons, bread and cheese.  There’s also newspapers in one of the local shops and frequently a visit to a building society.  Total spend about £10 plus helping someone kept in employment at the building society.  Next stop each Friday is Bury market for fruit, vegetables, and usually fish and toiletries.  Add in coffee and a few odds and ends in the town, plus a supermarket visit and total spend is £35-£40+.  So every week we are taking £70-£80 out of the town which we could be spending in Rochdale, adding to the town’s prosperity and halting its decline.  So why don’t we?

The answer is simple.   There’s little or nothing to interest us in any longer visiting Rochdale town centre, unless we have to.  It wasn’t always like this.  In the past it was our regular Saturday destination.  For me the crunch came when the market stalls were kicked out of the site they had occupied since the mid 1970s.   Ironically the vegetable stall I use in Bury, moved there after that enforced move.  If you cannot attract people like me to visit the town centre I’m not going to be around to spend money in any of the new shops or indeed in the superabundance of old shops from the last ‘development’.

Would a six month reprieve for Rochdale market do any good?  Probably not and for a very good reason.  My brother ran a fruit and vegetable stall on Rochdale market for 35 years, first on the ‘old’ Yorkshire Street/Toad Lane site and then on the ‘new’ mid 1970s site.   For the first two years after the move business was slow. But once the ‘new’ market got established it gave him a very good living. What market traders need is the certainty that having put the effort into building up a regular trade it’s not going to be wasted by someone pulling to plug on them.

A town that cannot maintain a successful market is unlikely to be able to maintain a successful clutch of large stores.   It’s all about ‘footfall’ and too many people are voting with their feet.

*************** 

ROCHDALE: THE LAST RITES*

 Is this the end for Rochdale Market?
by Trevor Hoyle

MY ten pen’orth, Brian, for what it’s worth, is that we’re decades too late to do anything about reviving Rochdale’s market. I have fond memories from the 50s of both outdoor and indoor markets — the latter especially where I used to buy ninepenny SF paperbacks from the book stall. A very warm and welcoming place, especially on a winter’s day.  Somebody told me that Todmorden’s market is very much how ours used to be, and that it’s a pleasure to visit. We tore it down and ripped out the heart of the town.

For some reason Bury has kept its market going over the years and even has coach parties coming from places like Stoke and  towns in Yorkshire to spend a day there. Any hopes that Rochdale can emulate that is pure fairyland.  When the council boasted that the Metro would bring in floods of eager visitors, my immediate thought was that the Metro would make it easier for Rochdale folk to escape to Manchester and Oldham. 

A few wind- and rainswept stalls on the Butts was never going to succeed, any fool could see that. A town centre that can’t sustain a McDonalds is on a hiding to nothing.  When I say I don’t know what the answer is, I’m really saying there is no answer.  We’re building, for god’s sake, another shopping centre when we have two that are half-empty to begin with — so then we’ll have THREE half-empty shopping centres (more like threequarters empty) which the rate-payers will be paying for for the next forty years. It’s madness. 

Over ten years ago (when I was involved with saving Touchstones from being massively underfunded by Link4Life) I put forward a strategy for the town based on its heritage of the Co-op, cotton and Gracie Fields. The idea was to turn our magnificent town hall into a cultural heritage centre with exhibits telling the story of cotton and the industrial revolution. Included would be a Gracie Fields Experience showing off all  the artefacts held in the museum archives of Gracie’s stage costumes, films, original recordings and her life story (like the one already in Touchstones but on a much grander scale). Also there would be a smaller John Bright display showing the furniture and books we have in the archive.

Alongside this you’d have the Pioneers store on Toad Lane — but greatly enlarged to include several shops and stalls done up as they were in the 1800s with shopkeepers dressed in costume.  The idea would be to focus on the cultural and historical romance of Rochdale’s past and let the commercial side take care of itself. If people started coming to experience it — via advertising and word-of-mouth — this would quickly feed through to shops and cafes opening up to cater for the visitors. The point here is not to build the shopping centre first — there are shopping centres everywhere — but to launch a genuine attraction that people want to visit and then tell their friends about.

Someone asked me if enough people would be interested in such a venture. I pointed out that the ‘grey’ pound of pensioners and retired folk amounts to billions in this country, and just such a historical heritage of cotton mills and Gracie Fields would appeal to that generation.  But it would have to be on a grand scale, worth the visit, designed and staged by a professional company, and not just a few tatty exhibits inside dusty glass cases. 

Anyway, it’s probably too late now to try this idea, we should have done it 10 or 15 years ago when I first suggested it.        

* Last rites - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Last_rites

The last rites, in Roman Catholicism, are the last prayers and ministrations given to an individual of the faith, when possible, shortly before death. The last rites go by various names. They may be administered to those awaiting execution, mortally injured, or terminally ill.

‎Roman Catholic Church · ‎Orthodox and Eastern ...

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

Culture, Coffee and Socialism

by Les May

I HAVE voted Labour all my life.  The reason is simple. Growing up in the 1940s and 50s I benefited directly from two things the 1945 Labour Government put in place; the NHS and the 1949 National Assistance Act which kept our family out of poverty when my father was hospitalised more or less permanently. It was policies like these and not headline grabbing policies like Public Ownership which had the biggest impact on peoples lives. What a Labour government had to do in 1945 was obvious and it did it.

But in my lifetime the Tories have re-invented themselves at least three times. The rejection of Churchill in the 1945 election was so complete that they had to accept and work with the changes Labour had made. The result was Butskellism, perhaps more properly called ‘The Post War Consensus’ (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-war_consensus ).

Then we had hard nosed Thatcherism which amongst other things saw unemployment as a useful policy lever and was a mix of economic and social conservatism. Remember her enthusiasm for Clause 28

(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_28 .

The result was that the Tories became ‘The Nasty Party’. By sleight of hand David Cameron tried to shake off this tag with a mix of social liberalism, same sex marriage, and economic conservatism in the form of austerity and attacks on the poorest groups in society.

Labour’s attempt at re-invention gave us the Blair years. Now the search is on for how to re-invent Labour yet again. But things are more complicated now. There are those of us who see the Labour project as one of promoting economic and social justice, and there are those, I’m not one of them, who see being ‘of the Left’ as fighting, usual vicarious, battles against racism, sexism, homophobia, (add in your favourite -isms or -phobias here). If, like many newspaper columnists, you are of the latter persuasion remember how Cameron managed to hide the vicious policies of George Osborn behind a veneer of social liberalism.

I’ve told you where I stand but if you want to feel part of shaping Labour’s ‘soul’ and live in the area, you might like to visit ‘Seriously Red’, at Bury’s Socialist Cafe ‘Ground Up’. It’s hosted by Bury Momentum with Bury South Socialists, 7-9pm every third Tuesday of the month and promises debates, campaigns, culture and coffee.

You’ll find Ground Up at 8 Market Street, Bury, just opposite the Peel Monument.

*********

TINA'S TRANSGRESSIVE TEA-TIME!

by Christopher Draper

I'VE just come back from a fascinating trip to Bury Museum and was particularly amused by my visit to the first floor cafe, or 'TINA'S TEAROOMS' as it is now denominated.  I was initially impressed by the non-gender-binary signage marking the location of "TINA'S TOILETS", regrettably not quite as positive or joyful as the sign illustrated above but nonetheless adequate and appropriately enlightened.  Less enlightened however was Tina's binary-gender-specific afternoon tea menu! (illustrated below)

Whilst GENTLEMEN (for £15) are offered 'Doorstopper Sandwiches' and 'A Big Wedge of Cake', LADIES (£13) get 'Finger Sandwiches' and 'Mini Cakes and Fancies'.  Are us NON-BINARIES expected to starve?

***********

'Fifty Shades of Grey' at Bury Unite Branch

ALLEGATIONS that 'pressure' was put on the Bury Unite Commercial Branch to nominate Len McCluskey, the current General Secretary of Unite the Union, for re-election in the forthcoming elections for Unite's top job have been rebutted by the local branch secretary Brian Bamford.   The claim was made on Twitter by one of the candidates that the presence of two Unite full-time organisers at last Monday's branch meeting was a failed attempt to influence the Bury branch to vote for Mr. McCluskey, a strong backer of Jeremy Corbyn the Labour Party leader.

The Unite union at present funds the Labour Party to the tune of many millions of pounds every year.

The row about the Bury branch being 'pressurised' to back McCluskey arose because of a Tweet on Ian Allinson's Twitter account after the branch meeting, implying that the organisers were there to influence the result.  Mr. Allinson is one of the three candidates standing for the top position of Unite General secretary. 

Since then, Mr. Bamford has insisted that 'the Bury Unite Branch blooms with binmen not shrinking violets and there is no way we could be leaned on by the union bosses'. 

The two organisers were allowed to participate in the discussion over the nomination, but not to dominate the discourse or to vote.

The organisers were permitted to speak but naturally not to vote, because the Bury Unite Branch  passionately believes in 'free speech' and 'lively debate'.

It was suggested during the discussions that the nomination of Ian Allinson to appear on the ballot paper would have the effect of 'splitting the left vote' between McCluskey and Allinson.  Gerard Coyne, who is a Unite full-time organiser in the Midlands, is the third candidate and is reputed to be a 'right-wing Blairite'.

This was contested by the branch secretary Mr. Bamford, who said that the membership should have 'the widest possible choice' between the different candidates, and he claimed that the critics of Allinson by using the 'split-vote' argument were seeking to shrink the choice before the membership.  In contrast 'we' the Unite Bury branch, wanted to 'open things up and not to narrow things down'.  Bamford claimed that even though he may possibly vote for Len McCluskey it was still vital to have someone like Ian Allinson on the ballot sheet.

To argue that there should be only two choices between 'left and right' is to create a thread-bare bipolar dichotomy of 'cowboys and Indians' or 'black and white'.  This is a thoroughly 20^th century mentality, and in essence the Bury branch was preferring to embrace the spirit of 'Fifty Shades of Grey' in their approach; what they wanted, if I am interpreting the spirit of the meeting correctly, was the broadest possible discussion, debate and openness within the realm of liberty.

Those at the meeting who took the 'split vote' view then went on to say that we should look to the established experienced of experts like Mr. McCluskey from Liverpool, a professional official with many years of in the saddle of officialdom, rather than a new boy such as a shop-floor activist like Mr. Allinson from Blackley, Manchester. 

This faith in the expertise of the office-holder is as feeble-minded as the bipolar dichotomy, and is just another mediocre left-over of the old 20^th century modernity.  It is so full of holes that the average bin-man can see through it without so much as looking up from his football results. 

The bin-men of Bradley Fold, and the others on the branch committee, eventually came to a carefully calibrated conclusion, and were in no way confused or overwhelmed by any hypothetical 'hierarchical pressures' from above.

This was demonstrated by the branch's clear unanimous vote to nominate the local Manchester lad, Ian Allinson, for the position as General Secretary of Unite the Union.  We must now await to see how many Unite members vote for him.

Bury Binmen back Ian Allinson in Unite's Top Job

YESTERDAY afternoon, a Bury Unite Commercial Branch meeting of mostly binmen in the Queen's Hotel on Bradley Lane, became one of the first Unite Branches to nominate Manchester lad, Ian Allinson, for the next General Secretary of Unite the Union. 
In putting forward Mr. Allinson for the Bury branch's nomination the Branch Secretary, Brian Bamford, said that he was not so keen on 'coronations' in matters of political or union issues, and that he felt that it was important that the Unite membership get as wide a choice as possible to lead them. 
Mr. Bamford made it clear that while he respected the current leader Len McCluskey he did not think it was healthy for the union to have a narrow choice of candidates. 
There was some debate about if by putting Ian Allinson on the ballot paper the Bury Branch would be splitting the so-called 'left-vote', and one or two people at the meeting said 'Who's heard of Ian Allison outside of Manchester?'
Someone else claimed that Len McCluskey was a well-established experienced officer, and Mr. Allinson was a new boy on the block, so wouldn't it be better to support someone more knowledgeable?
In response it was then argued that many people hadn't heard of Jeremy Corbyn before he was elected as the Labour leader.  Others thought that some officers spend too long in office, and thereby lose contact with the rank and file membership.  Ian Allison, who is a convenor at Fujitsu in Manchester, is not a paid official.
The only other candidate for the General Secretary's job, Gerard Coyne, is a Unite regional officer in the Midlands.
After considering the proposals of all three candidates the meeting voted unanimously to nominate to nominate Ian Allinson for General Secretary.
For more go to:
www.iansunitesite.org.uk/

Michael Burke: Danczuk Critic Charged

NORTHERN Voices, having today approached the Greater Manchester Police Press Office about the recent arrest of Michael Burke, the brother of Karen Danczuk the wife of the Rochdale MP, Simon Danczuk, received the following responses: 
'Michael Burke (03/09/1978) of College Bank, Rochdale has been charged with breach of bail. He appeared at Bury Magistrates Court on 6 January 2016 where he was released with further bail conditions. 
'Shortly before 1pm on Monday 4 January 2016, police in Rochdale received a report that a man had been intimidated by a number of people following an incident in Rochdale town centre earlier that day.'   
The GMP Press Office also reported below that a 37-year-old man believed to be Michael Burke, had been arrested together with a man aged 34-year-old on 'suspicion of witness intimidation':
'A 37-year-old man and a 34-year-old man who were arrested on suspicion of witness intimidation have been bailed until 2 February 2016.
'Shortly before 1pm on Monday 4 January 2016, police in Rochdale received a report that a man had been intimidated by a number of people following an incident in Rochdale town centre earlier that day.'  
The police point out that no-one has yet been charged with 'witness intimidation', and that an investigation into this is continuing.  
Last Monday morning, it seems Mr. Burke and the other man had participated in a well publicized protest outside the Rochdale Labour Party office of Simon Danczuk following strange revelations in the media about the MP's private life, which has shocked some of the MP's constituents. 

Karen Danczuk's Brother on Sex Charges

YESTERDAY Michael Burke, the elder brother of Karen Danczuk was charged with 11 counts of rape, five of indecent assault and one of attempted rape.  Mr. Burke, 37, works as a security guard and was first arrested in February this year when his sister Karen Danczuk gave an interview claiming she had been sexually abused as child by a 'family friend'.  At that time the father of three waved anonymity saying:

'The allegations are false.  I'm just so shocked and disgusted by it all.'

Later, he was held again following claims of 'new information' before again being released on police bail.  It seems that two other women had come forward.

Yesterday, when Mr. Burke appeared before magistrates in Bury, his solicitor Zoe Gascoyne said:

'These are all allegations this defendant denies and will go to a trial at the crown court.'

The prosecutor, Shazia Aslam said that there was no objection to Burke having bail as he had already been on police bail for the last nine months without incident.

Mrs Danczuk is a former Labour Councillor in Rochdale, who came to fame as the 'Queen of the Selfie' after posting seemingly endless photographs of herself on Twitter.  Her husband is the MP, Simon Danczuk, from whom she is now separated, is the controversial Rochdale MP who has made his name campaigning against historic child sex abuse. 

One woman and two girls are involved in the current allegations, with the incidents allegedly taking place between May 1990 and March 2010.

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

One woman and two girls are involved in the allegations, with the incidents allegedly taking place between May 1990 and March 2010.

Burke, who lives in Rochdale and works as a security guard, is currently held in remand. Greater Manchester Police said he was set to appear at Bury and Rochdale Magistrates Court on 27 October.

Three-weekly Bin Collections & the Mess!

The letter below was published in

last Thursday's Bury Times & a report on
page 6. of the same paper
 alleges that the Labour Council in Bury
may have considered juggling the waste
collection figures to improve on targets:

Dear Editor, 

In regard to the leading article in the Bury Times (Thurs. 22^nd, Jan) on the perils of Fly Tipping, I should like to say that some union members in Street Cleansing have been concerned about the increased amount of overflowing waste locally, owing to the change to 3-weekly collections for non-recyclable waste since the new system was introduced last October.  I see Bury MBC claim:

'Fly-tipping is not a new problem and has not increased due to the recent changes to the household-waste collection service.' 

 

Yet, the lads on the streets cleaning up the mess are telling us that they are doing extra work, owing to the scattering of the waste from overflowing bins.   

Fortunately, I understand, the cost of this extra labour by the street cleaners is being booked on the refuse coding rather than on the street cleansing bill.  Hence, it ought not to be possible for the Refuse Dept. at Bradley Fold to shunt the extra cost for this work onto the Street Cleansing Dept., and thereby distort the figures to show a false improvement in the cost of waste removal.   

 

Yours,  

Brian Bamford:  Secretary of Bury Unite Commercial Branch

The Bins in Bury!

CONCERNED residents say controversial changes to waste collections are encouraging neighbours to fill their bins with the wrong rubbish.   Karen Unsworth said she is furious that rubbish has been left strewn near her Bury home after someone stuffed her recycling bin with two bags full of household waste.    The bags were left behind when binmen collected her rubbish and have now been left in unsightly piles in the alley behind the house in Chesham Crescent, Freetown.  

But Miss Unsworth, aged 53, said a council initiative to collect non-recyclable household waste every three weeks, which kicked in earlier this month, means this sort of neighbourly behaviour will become 'inevitable'.   

She said:  'I do my recycling and leave the correct bins out at the right time.  I cannot live like this, with rubbish everywhere, and I should not have to.  Already the smell is horrendous as the rubbish is spread all over – it is absolutely disgusting. ' 

Miss Unsworth, a Debenhams store worker, said she has also noticed more large rubbish items including bags of nappies, bricks and white goods are being fly-tipped on the land behind her home.

 She added: 'The new collections have only been in place a matter of weeks and already there is more fly-tipping than ever.'

A Bury Council spokesman said the authority had no evidence to suggest non-recyclables being put into recycling bins had become a particular problem.   

Mike Owen, executive director of resources and regulation at Bury Council, said:

'If any resident does identify contamination of their bin by a neighbour, or anyone else, they should report it to the council and it will be investigated discreetly by a waste management officer. Confidentiality will always be respected.   To reduce the risk of this happening  residents need to be vigilant.  If possible do not put your bins out for collection until as close as possible to 7am on the scheduled day of collection and retrieve them as soon as possible after they have been emptied.   Residents should also number all bins, to make it clear to which address they belong.' 

(First reported in Bury Times: Wednesday 22 October 2014)

Asbestos Deaths in Greater Manchester

TOWN hall bosses throughout Greater Manchester are facing a ‘ticking timebomb’ of mounting claims from people struck down with conditions linked to deadly asbestos.

Manchester council paid out almost £600,000 in damages to victims in the last year alone, an M.E.N. investigation has found.
The 2013/14 claims had to be settled using taxpayers’ money, rather than through insurance as the cases predated the 1980s when the council did not have asbestos cover.
Figures obtained under Freedom of Information requests reveal victims of asbestos-related diseases have won a total of £1.8m in damages from councils in Greater Manchester in recent years.
Campaigners believe payments are likely to soar over the coming decade as more people fall ill and die after being exposed to the material.

Mesothelioma in numbers

1,500

Number of mesothelioma deaths in GM in last 30 years

90

Number of deaths in 2011

£1.8m

What our councils have paid out in damages

The compensation claims came from victims who breathed in asbestos fibres in buildings like schools, offices and community centres.
It can cause mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer, which attacks the lining of organs and is always fatal.
The number of people killed by the disease has soared by 500 per cent in the last 30 years – with new cases expected to peak in 2020.
The number of people killed by the asbestos-related cancer has soared by 500 per cent between 1982 and 2011.
Figures, released by the Health and Safety Executive, show that 90 people died of mesothelioma in Greater Manchester in 2011 – compared to 15 in 1982.
Deaths from the asbestos-related cancer, which is always fatal, peaked at 100 in 2010, according to the statistics.
Graham Dring, coordinator of Greater Manchester Asbestos Victims Support Group, said: “Compensation payouts will probably rise as new mesothelioma cases continue to increase.
“The dangers of asbestos have been known about for decades but too often ignored.
“The epidemic we see now was a man-made disaster and avoidable. Profits were put before the health and safety of working men and women who are the ones paying the price for employer and political negligence.”

Mesothelioma in figures

700: Number of schools which still contain asbestos

£150k:  Amount Bury council paid to a fireman exposed to asbestos

500%:  Rise in cases since 1982
 

At least 1,600 of the region’s local authority buildings – including 700 schools – still contain asbestos, which was widely-used in the construction industry from the 1950s until the 1990s.
It is thought the majority of asbestos victims to date will have been construction workers - although Mr Dring said he expected professions like teachers, office workers and caretakers to be increasingly affected in the future.
Between them, the region’s councils have spent millions managing asbestos over the last five years – including carrying out repair work on buildings and surveys in schools.
But Mr Dring said: “The risks will continue if the dangers of asbestos in our public buildings is not taken seriously.
"In an ideal world, asbestos should be stripped from all public buildings, especially schools, where there is risk of children being exposed. In an era of financial restraints, this may not be realistic in the short term.
“However, we think local authorities should have a programme and targets for removing asbestos where and when they can.”
The Asbestos Victims Support Groups Forum UK organised a lobby at this week’s Labour conference in Manchester - calling for guaranteed research funding, paid for by a levy on insurers and matched by Government funding, to find a cure for mesothelioma.
They are also demanding full compensation for victims who cannot find an employer or insurer under the ‘Diffuse Mesothelioma Payments Scheme’ - rather than the current 80 per cent paid out.

My husband was pleased to see the town hall accept blame before he died 

  A retired heating engineer who contracted mesothelioma through work found out he had won damages from Manchester council just three weeks before he died.
William Berisford was exposed to asbestos while fitting and repairing boilers during his 30 years at the town hall’s direct works department.
He was diagnosed with mesothelioma in May last year and doctors at Wythenshawe Hospital gave him 12 months to live.
The 75-year-old survived for only eight months - just long enough to see the council agree to pay him compensation.
His widow Joan Berisford, from Heald Green, Stockport, described the sum as ‘reasonable’ and said her husband was pleased to see the town hall accept blame before he died.

But she added his death had left her angry because their retirement together had been ‘snatched away’.
Mrs Berisford said: “He could have had another 10 years. We were at the stage where we were going on holiday often and going out often, just generally enjoying our retirement. That has been snatched away from us now.”
Grandmother-of-two Mrs Berisford, 74, told how the cancer diagnosis ‘devastated’ the couple, who would have been married 55 years this year.
She added: “That first day we found out we both cried all day. But after that, Bill took it on the chin.
“The last two to three months were awful. He was on oxygen and every time he stood up he fell over. In the end, we were just glad to see him not suffer any more.”

Mrs Berisford said she had ‘strong views’ about asbestos and believed it should be stripped from public buildings, especially schools, to prevent more people suffering like her husband did.
Pauline Chandler, a specialist in asbestos disease cases at Manchester law firm Slater & Gordon, which represented Mrs Berisford, said: “We have successfully concluded a number of cases against the council for asbestos-related claims, many of them like Mrs Berisford’s are sadly fatal.
“The widespread use of asbestos, in and on council premises in the 1950s right through to the 1980s, mean we expect to see even more people coming forward with claims.
"It is hoped the council faces up to its responsibilities regarding such cases and settles them as quickly as possible for the sake of those affected.”

Mesothelioma: Deaths in 2011

1. WIGAN: 16
2. TAMESIDE: 15
3. STOCKPORT: 14
4. TRAFFORD: 12
5. MANCHESTER: 9
6. BOLTON: 7
7. BURY: 7
8. MANCHESTER: 9
9. OLDHAM: 5
10. ROCHDALE: 4
11. SALFORD: 1

Total: 90

How much has been paid to victims so far

Bolton council: £440,000 for exposure to asbestos dating back to 1960.
Bury council: £150,000 in 2013 to a fireman exposed to asbestos between 1958 and 1974.
Salford council: £118,000 in compensation for exposure going back to 1959.
Tameside council: £165,000 on two claims – one in 2012 and one in 2014.
Trafford council: £50,000 in 2013/2014 following a claim of exposure to asbestos at a community centre in Sale around 1949.
Wigan council: The council and its insurers paid out £295,000 since 2001 on six claims relating to exposure between the 1950s and 1980s in local authority offices, schools and sites.
Oldham, Rochdale and Stockport councils have not paid any damages relating to asbestos-related diseases.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/ticking-timebomb-asbestos-compensation-crisis-7832859

Questions for Bury Council Leader

Questions for the full Council Meeting of Bury MBC relevant to the proposed change to three weekly collections of Grey Bins:

Given that in anticipation of what Bury MBC may regard as 'teething problems' in relation to the proposed change to the collection of 'grey waste', Waste Management has recently issued an instruction for bin operatives:

1     i)     Not to collect side-waste left beside bins.

2     ii)    To only to remove bins with raised lids if if it is deemed safe to do so at the discretion of the operative.

3     iii)   To only remove over-weight bins at the discretion of the operative.

The question then arises as to who will remove the 'side-waste' and bins that are left stranded in the streets?

If the answer in the case of 'side-waste' is that the 'side-waste'left behind will be removed later by other operatives from the Streets Cleansing Department, doesn't this mean that the whole procedure is simply a conjuring trick that is transferring the collection of the waste from one department (Waste Removal) to another (Street Cleansing)? Thus, the cost of removal of the waste is merely shifted from one department to another by a bureaucratic slight-of-hand.

Please will you also enlighten me as to what happens regarding the over-weight bins and those with raised bin lids, and as how this represents a saving?

Please can you acknowledge these questions.

From:

Brian Bamford (Secretary of Bury Unite Commercial Branch),

 

e-mail: northernvoices@hotmail.com

Bury Petition! What Petition?

LAST night's Bury MBC full Council meeting turned out to be a bit of a damp squib when Daniel Barkness from Radcliffe, who was supposed to present an on-line petition of more than 2,500 signatures opposing the local authorities decision to reduce grey bin collections from every fortnight to every three weeks, failed to turn up.  Staff at Bury Town Hall were slightly upset at the non-appearance of anyone to present or argue the case for the petition, as the authorities had brought in extra security support to police the event.

 

Had Mr. Barkness or anyone else supporting the petition put in an appearance, the Leader of the Council would have been forced to respond, and that would have opened up a debate amongst councillors as to the wisdom of the Labour administration's proposed change.  While it was certain, given the Labour Party majority on Bury Council, that the measure would have been voted through by not showing up the campaigners against the change to three weekly collections of non-recyclable waste in grey bins let the Council bosses off the hook.

 

Had the case against the three weekly collections been put the Council members would have had the following options:

 

i)     To recommend to Cabinet that the request made in the petition be agreed to;

ii)    To not to agree to the request made in the petition;

iii)   To refer the matter to the Cabinet for further consideration;

iv)   To commission further investigation into the matter by the Overview & Scrutiny Committee.

What must strike readers here is the impressive way in which an on-line petition can accumulate names in the thousands against a proposal like Bury Council's absurd 'zero waste' policy, but if this virtual world of electronic media can't turn up in person to finish the job the whole project becomes a damp squib.  Nobody expected a repeat of the Arab Spring at last night's full council meeting in Bury, but we did anticipate some reasoned arguments and debate on the issues.

Bury MBC Boss's Boob Ban at Bradley Fold

Unite Union Reps Rejected at 'near miss' Health & Safety Confab

 

THIS morning two Unite union officials, Steve Acheson and Lee Lomas, a Unite branch secretary, Brian Bamford, and a former shop steward, Dave Lord, were shown the door at a health and safety get-together called by Glenn Stuart, Head of Waste management at the Bradley Fold Waste depot of Bury MBC.   The meeting had been called at 6.45am prompt by Mr. Stuart to consider the findings of a Health & Safety Executive (HSE) investigation into a 'near miss' reversing incident by a refuse vehicle.

 

In his wisdom Mr. Stuart thought it better that the Unite union officers were not present at the event, at which, he said that he 'needed to communicate these (findings by the HSE)' to the workforce.  The inspector from the HSE had been to Bradley Fold on the 7th, November, to speak to Mr. Stuart, and had interviewed the driver and operative who had been involved in the 'near miss' incident in which a lady putting her wheelie bin out had come close to being run-over.

 

Fully suited and standing teetering acrobatically on a chair Mr. Stuart treated his staff, all garbed in their yellow high-vis jackets, to a sermon on safe working practices while his sturdy colleague and right-hand man, Terry Nieland, solemnly guarded the door.  The memorandum from Glenn Stuart reminded his men that:

'This is classed as mandatory health and safety training and it is therefore vitally important that everybody working on the collection service attends the briefing.  A register will be taken.'

 

Perhaps Mr. Stuart was too nervous to have the Unite union reps. present in the room when he gave his treaty on safe working; after all he may well have fallen arse-over-tit off the chair on which he was so deftly standing, and how would that have looked?  In his way he was only setting an example, for he often expects his staff to be equally acrobatic when they go about their rounds.

 

As for the poor lady who nearly got squashed by the bin-wagon, it seems that she was so incensed and put out by the poor unsympathetic staff response when she called-in to give her complaint, that she felt the need to go to the HSE.  One can well imagine some of those sympathetic functionaries in the public relations office saying: 

'What do you expect, if you don't get your bin out before 7am sharp, you always run the risk of being run-over by a bin wagon.'
 

_________________________________________

The current printed issue of NORTHERN VOICES No.14, is now available for sale at all our usual outlets in the North of England and beyond - see below. This issue N.V.14 has a Tameside Eye story about how Tameside has a history of involvement in blacklisting, it also contains an interview by Barry Woodling with George Tapp - the Salford electrician injured in May on an anti-blacklist picket. The Voices has been in the forthfront of the campaign against the blacklist since 2003 and the DAF dispute at Manchester Piccadilly, its editor, an electrician, was on the blacklist of the Economic League in the 1960s, and there was an attempt to blacklist him while he was working in Gibraltar in both 1964 and 1967, but at the time this intervention by the Foreign Office was resisted by the Gibraltarian authorities, and the Gibraltar Transport & General Workers Union.
Postal subscription: £5 for the next two issues (post included). Cheques made payable to 'Northern Voices' should be sent c/o 52, Todmorden Road, Burnley, Lancashire BB10 4AH.
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Black Puddings & the Food Program

YESTERDAY Radio Four's Food Program broadcast Charles Campion's report from Normandy in France on the World Black Pudding Championships, which featured not only the classic Lancashire black pudding and the french bodin noir, but also entries from Japan, Austria and Ireland.  This year close on six hundred butchers from all over the world competed and celebrated this ancient dish which most of the great food cultures have created over the centuries in some form of blood sausage.

The program reported that though this dish has been made in this country since the arrival of the Romans, in many areas of Britian it has fallen out of favour.  In Bury, and Lancashire it still holds its own however, and every week Bury market is flooded with folk from other parts in search of the famous traditional Bury Black Pudding. 

It seems that the French version Boudin Noir is softer with a thinner skin and more like a Pâté in texture, while the typical Lancashire black pudding has lumps of fat in it and a thicker skin.  The advice given was that many English people tend to cook the pudding to death, and that it should take long to cook.  Up here in Lancashire it is recommended that we boil them for a brief period. On the program it was suggested that it could be combined with tomato ketchup or even piccalilli.

My view is that the best way I have found is the one suggested by Elizabeth David in her book French Provincial Cooking for grilled black pudding with apples:
'Boudin, black pudding, or blood pudding which, in France, is nearly always heavily flavoured with onion and much less insipid than the kind found in Engalnd, is cut into lengths of about 5 inches, painted with olive oil or pork fat and grilled about 5 minutes on each side.  Serve it on a bed of peeled, cored and sliced sweet apples, six to a pound of sausage, gentlly fried in pork fat.'

Sixteen-year-old Bury Apprentice Dies!

Greater Manchester Hazards Centre,
Windrush Millennium Centre,
70 Alexandra Road,
Manchester M16 7WD
Also Hazards Campaign Secretariat
and Families Against Corporate Killers:
mail@gmhazards.org.uk 
0161 636 7557

Greater Manchester Hazards Centre and Families Against Corporate Killers Statement

on the death of Cameron Minshull, 16, at an engineering company in Bury Thursday 10th January 2013

WE are so very sad for Cameron Minshull, who was only 16 years old when he was killed at an engineering company in Bury, where he had worked as an apprentice for only a matter of weeks. We would like to send our condolences to his family who are naturally devastated.

When anyone goes to work they should be safe from both immediate threat to life and to long term health, and we expect inexperienced apprentices and young workers to be protected by extra measures of supervision and care, as the law requires. We do not expect to send out child to work, to be a ‘striver;’ not a ‘skiver’, and for them to be killed at work and never come home. Until there has been a full investigation we do not know if this was a rare accident, something unforeseeable and unpreventable, or whether, like the over 80% of workplace deaths and injuries, it was due to a failure to manage health and safety properly.

Daily we are fed a press and media diet that health and safety at work is excessive, ‘gorn mad’ and echoing the government’s accusation that good health and safety is a ’burden on business’. It is false and it should concern us all. Every worker should be safe at work and come home alive and well, and especially our children who are young and inexperienced and need greater protection. But the government’s attacks on our hard won health and safety laws and their enforcement, which are intended to keep us safe, and the daily rubbishing of the value of health and safety, is in fact putting us all at much greater risk.
The Prime Minister spoke this year at the Media Factory 'enterprise hub' at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and cited health and safety regulations as one of the reasons behind a lower number of companies offering work experience placements, and told the audience this was “very, very bad news”. He said: “We need to encourage businesses to offer that work experience, we need to simplify health and safety rules, we need to say to schools, ‘every school should have a plan for how you are going to teach children about enterprise and business’.”

We suggest that before the Prime Minister mistakenly labels health and safety rules too burdensome, he looks at the facts: over the last decade, at least 5 under 19s have been killed each year and up to 5,000 seriously injured at work. This is not due to too much, but too little health and safety. I would ask him whether he would send his own children to work in workplaces which his government has now falsely classified as ‘low risk’ such as manufacturing and engineering, and exempted them from preventative inspections, and especially those which are following his explicit advice, to treat H&S less seriously and not to bother about “dotting all the i’s and crossing the t’s”.

The truth is that good health and safety saves lives and money for employers while bad health and safety is a terrible burden on those killed or injured and made ill, and on their families. We must stop the government rolling back the laws and enforcement that prevents our children being killed at work. No-one should die simply for going to work to earn a living, and especially not a 16 year old with his whole life ahead of him. Rest in peace Cameron and much love and sympathy to his family who now have to live without him.

For more information contact Hilda Palmer 0161 636 7557 or 079298 00240 

Hilda Palmer:  Co-ordinator of Greater Manchester Hazards Centre and Facilitator of Families Against Corporate Killers