Bedroom Farce at 'Theatre by the Lake'

ALAN Ayckbourn's play 'Bedroom Farce' is really situation comedy and it left me wondering if I ought to have opted for Ibsen's 'A Doll's House' showing in a different studio of Keswick's Theatre by the Lake last Thursday night. In his critical analysis of 'Six O' the Best - Northern Theatres' in Northern Voices No.13, Chris Draper placed Alan Ayckbourne's own theatre in Scarborough low down on his list and excluded Keswick's Theatre by the Lake entirely, although I know that he would have dearly liked to have included it. Last Thursday's showing of 'Bedroom Farce' was in the main theatre at Keswick in Cumbria.

I am not an expert on Ayckbourne's work, although Mr. Draper wrote in NV13 as follows: 'London claims to have invented everything but after theatre-in-round was devised by the Greeks it took 2,500 years for it to arrive in England... By passing London and the South it was hauled ashore at Scarborough (and) it was left to ... Alan Ayckbourne to establish Scarborough's worldwide reputation.' Ayckbourne, having premièred his first play in 1959, was artistic director of the Scarborough theatre until 2009.

Chris Draper in his NV13 review of northern theatres suggests some social or political content in Ayckbourne’s 75th play ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ showing earlier this year in Scarborough in the former Odeon cinema building, but I could find little of this in ‘Bedroom Farce’ for it was, for me, more in the style of a Brian Rix’s farce. Amusing but not ‘twitchy’, or troubling or enlightening. Alan Ayckbourn comments:‘Everything about bedrooms but copulation, something which I believe is hardly practised in the British bedroom anyway.’ So it’s another ‘No sex, please we’re British!’

The stage is set out with three bedrooms and features four couples.  Each bed and bedroom is highlighted by a spotlight as the play progresses and the actors interact.  Only one of the women is remotely fanciable and my partner tells me that none of the men would arouse any passion in her.  So we are in the realm of one husband, Nick, bed bound with a bad back; his wife sharing a kiss with Trevor the husband of Susannah only to get caught by Susannah who goes off to tell her mother-in-law Delia all about it.  This all happens in the early hours after Delia and her husband Ernest have just eaten pilchards in bed.  I suppose it tells us something about relationships in the modern world, and left me in a good humour to walk back to our holiday apartment on the far side of Keswick.  But I don't think I'll be in too much of a rush to see another Ayckbourn play.

Bedroom Farce is showing at Theatre by the Lake, Keswick until Wednesday 7th, November 2012.
Box Office:  017687 74411.
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The printed version of NORTHERN VOICES 13, now on sale with all sorts of stuff others won't touch and may be obtained as follows: Postal subscription: £5 for the next two issues (post included). Cheques payable to ‘NORTHERN VOICES’ at c/o 52, Todmorden Road, Burnley, Lancashire BB10 4AH.

Tel.: 0161 793 5122. Email: northernvoices@hotmail.com

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No.5:  Blacklisting is still going on in 2012.

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The printed version of NORTHERN VOICES 13, now on sale with all sorts of stuff others won't touch and may be obtained as follows: Postal subscription: £5 for the next two issues (post included). Cheques payable to ‘NORTHERN VOICES’ at c/o 52, Todmorden Road, Burnley, Lancashire BB10 4AH.

Tel.: 0161 793 5122.  Email: northernvoices@hotmail.com

Carillion unsuitable for public work: Will this effect Councillor Quinn's Tameside Contracts with dodgy company?

Since August last year, Tameside Trade Union Council which includes delegate from the UNITE union, has been asking the leader of Tameside Council to comment on the awarding of contracts to Carillion a company accused of having paid affiliation fees to an outfit, The Consulting Association, that has pleaded guilty to keeping an illegal data base or a 'so-called blacklist'.  Up to now Councillor Quinn has had difficulty responding to our questions or justifying his Council's position to the local media. _________________________________________________________
THE GMB union is writing to public sector clients claiming Carillion’s record on blacklisting makes the company unsuitable for government-funded work, it has told MPs.

GMB officer Justin Bowden told the Scottish Affairs select committee on Tuesday that the union suspects Carillion is still involved in the practice, which was partially exposed when a blacklist of 3,200 people held by the Consulting Association (CA) was exposed in 2009.

The committee, which is examining whether laws on blacklisting should be tightened, also heard allegations from the Unite union that Balfour Beatty Engineering Services (BBES) continues to be involved in blacklisting.  Both firms strongly deny the allegations.

The developments came as the TUC Congress, which begins on Sunday, prepares to raise the issue of blacklisting amid ongoing preparations for two separate High Court cases on behalf of blacklisted individuals.

Bowden claimed 224 of those on the Consulting Association’s list were blacklisted by Carillion and that the firm is working on, or tendering for, £2bn worth of public work in Scotland alone.  He told MPs: “There is absolutely no doubt in our mind that Carillion continues to hold information on people…the individual who was responsible for administering the blacklist and the relationship with the Consulting Association, the head of HR Liz Keates, continues to work for the company.  'A public apology is overdue…it seems ludicrous to us that public money should be going to companies that are clearly guilty of this behaviour,' he added.  Bowden understands that clients written to by the GMB include PPP giant Semperian, which employs Carillion for FM work on the Great Western Hospital in Swindon, and the Gladys Aylward Academy in Enfield, where Carillion is preferred bidder for a £10m construction job.

Carillion hit out at the claims, which it said presented a 'grossly distorted and misleading portrait of Carillion insofar as blacklisting is concerned.'

A spokesman said: 'It is specifically untrue that Carillion indulges in blacklisting itself or that it condones or tolerate such practices in its supply chain.  To the best of our knowledge and from our own internal investigation, there was only ever limited use of the Consulting Association’s database by one Carillion subsidiary, Crown House.  This took place almost ten years ago. Another subsidiary, John Mowlem, made limited use of the database prior to its acquisition by Carillion in 2006. At that time the practice was not unlawful.  Using the Consulting Association’s database at Crown House was discontinued by Liz Keates, then an HR manager, because she felt uncomfortable with continuing to use a system she had inherited and she therefore chose to end it.'

UNITE assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail told the committee that Unite believes that BBES and its head of HR, Gerry Harvey, continue to be involved in blacklisting.

But committee chairman Ian Davidson MP called on the unions to produce written evidence to support their claims.  A spokesperson for Balfour Beatty said it 'does not condone the use of blacklists in any circumstances and has taken steps to ensure that none of our companies use such services.'
She said it would not be appropriate to comment further.

Carillion’s statement in full:
A spokesman said:  'It is a disgrace that the GMB persists in presenting a grossly distorted and misleading portrait of Carillion insofar as blacklisting is concerned. The union deliberately conflates and confuses different laws and regulations, periods of time and geographies. Everyone needs to treat what the GMB says on this matter with great care.  To the best of our knowledge and from our own internal investigation, there was only ever limited use of the Consulting Association’s database by one Carillion subsidiary, Crown House. This took place almost ten years ago. Another subsidiary, John Mowlem, made limited use of the database prior to its acquisition by Carillion in 2006. At that time the practice was not unlawful.   Using the Consulting Association’s database at Crown House was discontinued by Liz Keates, then an HR manager, because she felt uncomfortable with continuing to use a system she had inherited and she therefore chose to end it.  No unlawful activity ever occurred at any time. It should therefore come as no surprise that Carillion has recently been dropped in one class action related to blacklisting.  It is specifically untrue that Carillion indulges in blacklisting itself or that it condones or tolerate such practices in its supply chain. Carillion is in no way anti-union: we have positive working relationships – and formal recognition agreements - with a number of unions across the country.'

Copyright Kid: The One That Got Away in 2006

'Baptism of Ire':

'With the aid of ... hindsight it seems obvious that any event bringing together Britain's most litigous MP and the countries most writ-happy photographer would be fraught with possibilities' 

(EPUK Editorial Photographers UK & Ireland:  20th, July 2006)

FREELANCE photographer David Hoffman has failed to win his business dispute against MP George Galloway, after he refused to pay for blurry pictures.  Mr Galloway failed to pay Mr Hoffman his £715 fee for photographs taken at the christening of the MP's granddaughter last year, claiming that the quality of the pictures was so bad that they left a 'scar on the memory' of the special occasion.  The 61-year-old photographer argued at Central London County Court that one of Mr Galloway's assistants had employed him with the brief of producing images purely to be used for public relations purposes.  Yet, Mr Galloway countered that it was 'inconceivable' that he would hire a photographer not to record the event as a cherished family memento.

Judge Margaret Langley ruled that Mr Hoffman had been in breach of contract, as he had admitted that, if his pictures were taken in response to a commission to cover a family christening, 'then they are inadequate, I accept that'.

Outside the courthouse, Mr Galloway said:  'Never can so much court time have been wasted on a vexatious claim.  Mr Hoffman should be ashamed of himself.  We are relying on throw-away cameras and pictures taken on mobile phones because of the inadequacy of Mr Hoffman's work.'

Businesses in Britain and Northern Ireland should make sure that any contracts they undertake are clearly set out, otherwise they may face a trip to the solicitors, which could be a waste of time if they have no written contract to make up their claim.  (From website of Wilson Nesbitt Solicitors, Belfast)

Brown Bins & Bury Belly

FROM last November, the Bradley Fold Refuse Depot in Bury, Greater Manchester, has not had a Safety Representative working with the Bury binmen, because he was suspended on the pretext of a breach under the Bury MBC's Dignity at Work Policy and alleged threatening behaviour.  Earlier this year, after six months of being suspended amid a fishing experdition trawling for witnesses to prove a case against him, the Safety Representative appeared before an internal disciplinery investigation and was fully cleared of any serious wrongdoing.  Yet, because of all the stress the lad is still off on the sick.  Recently his union, UNITE, has complained of bias and unfair practices by the main Human Resources investigator, this complaint is still ongoing. 
One unforseen consequence of the absence of a Safety Representative at Bradley Fold Refuse Depot seems to have been increased absences owing to stomach bugs among the operatives emptying the Brown Bins in Bury.  It seems that during the hot humid weather in August that the fortnightly waste cycle (instead of weekly) encouraged the multiplication of maggots and other insect pests leading to illnesses among the binmen.  Had there been an active Safety Representative on the job to flag this danger up, this might have been avoided.  Managements often see Safety Representatives as undermining production at a plant but this may be shortsighted attitude.  Bury Belly is no use to anyone.

Blacklisting is still going on in 2012.

GLASGOW electrician, Stewart Hume, is being victimised because of his trade union activities during the recent BESNA dispute. Stewart was one of the leading UNITE rank and file activists in the country whilst working for Balfour Beatty Engineering Services (BBES) at the Strathclyde Fire & Rescue Training Centre and Ineos Grangemouth Oil Refinery.
In a blatant act of victimisation Stewart was transferred away from Grangemouth during the second Unite ballot for strike action and has now been made 'redundant' at a time when Balfour Beatty are taking on new starters across Scotland and employing agency labour at his previous Grangemouth contract in complete disregard of the construction industry nationally negotiated agreements. He has also watched other operatives on redundancy notice have their notices recinded. Stewart is the ONLY electrician employed by BBES to be made redundant in the entire country. He also appears to be the only person to actually come out of a redundancy appeal meeting with a worse Redundancy Matrix score than what he went in with!
Stewart said:
'I'm disappointed that after 16 years service with the company that they have used my opposition to BESNA against me. I did what was right, the threat of de-skilling our industry was something that I wasn't prepared to stand by and allow to happen due to the fact that my dad, who was a skilled operative, was electrocuted and killed 28 years ago. Accidents can happen to anyone, however my concern was that the industry would be filled with inexperienced operatives making things more dangerous for us all. I'm now extremely concerned that with the recent information regarding Balfour Beatty's involvement with the Consulting Association blacklisting scandal, that my future employment in the industry could be affected as I could be on a present day "Blacklist". If this is the case, companies who are still using such practices should remember that it's not just the individual they are blacklisting, it's their whole family! I have a 21 month old daughter and a partner, who has been totally supportive throughout the whole situation, to look after and provide for.'

The site based managers have admitted to Stewart that they have plenty of work left for him but it's clear Balfour Beatty Human Resources Department want to get rid of him at all costs. The Director of Human Resources at Balfour Beatty Engineering Services is Gerry Harvey - a proven blacklister of trade unionists after being exposed in court, the Westminster parliament and media for his active participation during the Consulting Association scandal.

At the Scottish Affairs Select Committee in Westminster parliament today, Gail Cartmail, UNITE Assistant General Secretary, said that Gerry Harvey has 'form for blacklisting' and she was 'absolutely convinced' that blacklisting was still ongoing and 'spying is the standard operating procedure' at BBES.

Full video footage of the oral evidence (starts at 1hour 50mins) http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=11332

At a recent demonstration outside BBES headquarters in Glasgow Jim Sheridan MP said:
'It is a long time since the days when trade unions and trade unionists were seen as the enemy within. You don't have to get into blacklisting. You don't have to get into undermining terms and conditions of employment that have been negotiated over the years peacefully. How much profit do they want to make before they stop attacking people at the workplace?'

His closing message to Balfour Beatty was:  'If you're gonna keep blacklisting people - then we're coming after you.'

Eddie Current (leader of the sparks rank & file) has said:
'Its simple. If Balfour Beatty don't reinstate Stewart Hume by 10th September then we'll consider that a declaration of war. Every Balfour Beatty project in the country will be a legitimate target. The only person to blame for this situation is Gerry Harvey. If the company had an ounce of decency, it would be that blacklisting wretch they would be sacking.'

REINSTATE STEWART HUME

Julian Assange: The Withdrawal Method or a season ticket?

LAST week, Louise Mensch, Tory MP, wrote in the Daily Telegraph challenging George Galloway for saying:   'Not everybody needs to be asked prior to each insertion'.  Mr. Galloway, the Bradford MP, had reasoned:  'Some people believe that when you go to bed with someone, take off your clothes, and have sex with them and then fall asleep, you're already in the sex game with them.'  Ms Mensch wrote:  'While we were mentally vomiting at the term "sex game" used by Mr. Galloway in any context, he made matters worse' for Madam Mensch, by saying 'It might be really bad manners not to have tapped her on the shoulder and said, "Do you mind if I do it again?' It might be really sordid and bad sexual etiquette, but whatever else it is, it is not rape or you bankrupt the term rape of all meaning.'

Louise Mensch then argues:  'Sexual consent is not football; you can't buy a season ticket.'   The participant inserter must clock-in, it seems, on each separate occasion.  And Ms. Mensch concludes her piece entitled 'Still Getting it Wrong on Rape' by arguing:  'This week shows us what so many male politicians really think about consent and sex, and the rights of a woman to withold it, or attach conditions to it (my bold italics)... There is still a long way to go.'

I recent read E.L James long popular porn book 'Fifty Shades of Grey' and was struck by the endless pages relating to negotiation of the sexual act and by the contractual nature of the content covering health and safety, butt plugs and nipple clamps etc.  At the same time I was reading Mary Midgley 'Evolution as a Religion' and came across this quote by Fredrich  Nietzsche:  'From a doctorate exam. - "What is the task of all higher education?" - To turn a man into a machine - "By what means?"  He has to learn how to feel bored.  "How is this achieved?" - Through the concept of duty....  "Who is the perfect man?"  The civil servant.'

This triumph of the civil servant in the post-post-modern society is indeed curious and perplexing.  I recently encountered a version of it while helping a member of my UNITE Branch - a binman - fight a claim that he was guilty under Bury MBC's 'Dignity at Work Policy', because he had raised his voice and engaged in an altercation; a charge which would have been laughable only ten years ago.  Now the bureaucracy has come of age in all its stupefying glory even in the bedroom as well as on the shopfloor.

In August 1936, George Orwell wrote a letter to Henry Miller telling him how he liked his book Tropic of Cancer:  '... first of all (I liked) a peculiar rhythmic quality in your English, secondly the fact that you dealt with facts well known to everybody but never mentioned in print (e.g. when the chap is supposed to be making love to the woman but is dying for a piss all the while),'.  Now Orwell raises the problem of withdrawal or when to clock-out of an encounter or close the contractual participation.  Decades ago, I'm sure that I used to clock-out far to early for the other party to the process, and what if the bloke is dying for a piss, does then have to ask for consent before disengaging?  How does Madam Mensch suggest we get our lady love to give us permission to leave the room in an emergency?

Scottish MP's Threat to Blacklisters

Jim Sheridan MP has called for construction firms that blacklist trade unionists to be barred from publicly funded projects. Speaking at a protest organised by the Blacklist Support Group and the UNITE Scottish rank & file outside Balfour Beatty HQ in Glasgow the Labour MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North said he would lobby government:

'Any contracts from British tax payers money: don't give them to criminals like Balfour Beatty who are blacklisting people'

The MP told the demonstration that years ago he had been blacklisted by the notorious Economic League because of his trade union activities and it was 'Soul destroying' being out of work for 3 years, especially when ....'the only reason you're not getting a job is because you are standing up for your fellow workers and to make a safe environment.

'I want to send a message to Balfour Beatty and the big construction firms. It really doesn't have to be this way. It is a long time since the days when trade unions and trade unionists were seen as the enemy within. You don't have to get into blacklisting. You don't have to get into undermining terms and conditions of employment that have been negotiated over the years peacefully.  How much profit do they want to make before they stop attacking and victimising people at the workplace?'

His closing message to Balfour Beatty was:

'If you're gonna keep blacklisting people - then we're coming after you.'

Protesters blocked the main road outside the Balfour Beatty offices in Hillington Park, Glasgow making traffic back up onto the M8 motorway after police had refused them permission to deliver a letter of protest to the Balfour Beatty premises.  

Pix avaiable on our facebook page.

The protest had been called to expose the role played by Balfour Beatty in the Consulting Association blacklisting scandal. One of the Directors of the company Gerry Harvey came in for particular criticism after it was recently revealed in parliament that he was one of the senior managers who attended the Consulting Association blacklist meetings which resulted in trade unionists losing their jobs.

Colin Trousdale, a blacklisted electrician and UNITE member from Manchester, told the crowd that in 2008 he had taken an Employment Tribunal against Balfour Beatty and that Gerry Harvey had sent a letter to the court saying that 'there is no blacklist, we are not blacklisting you, you are paranoid'.  Years later when the blacklist was finally uncovered the incident appeared on his blacklist file with the information supplied by the firm.

Colin said: ' Perjury is a crime. Being a union rep is not. We need to see these people in court. We need to see these people in prison.'

The protesters also highlighted the case of a young electrician and UNITE union activist  who has been on notice of redundancy for around 4 months and was told to finish up on Thursday 23rd August by a member of Balfours HR team, although his official finishing date was 31st August, he had requested holidays from the 24th of August and returning to work on the 10th of September. They told him that he would not be required back, even though Balfour Beatty are currently taking on new starters (including agency workers) across Scotland. The HR repesentative, after delivering this news to our comrade, added insult to injury by saying 'Have a good holiday.'  UNITE the union are calling on Balfour Beatty to 'Play by the Rules' and comply with the Nationally negotiated Agreements for construction.

Willie Black, blacklisted union activist said: "We are serious and we are going to defend anybody who we consider has been victimised" 

Jim Harte, spokesperson for the Scottish UNITE rank and file, gave an even starker warning regarding the fate of the victimised union member:

'We have to send a clear message: If he is not reinstated by 10th september, then action will be taken by the rank and file and by the workers at Grangemouth to make sure he is reinstated.'

Blacklist Support Group

UNITE Scottish rank & file

North West TUC Conference Report:

For a future that works:

Trade Unions and the Environment

A NW TUC Conference 

Report & Recommendations

The NW TUC held a conference dedicated to Trade Unions and the Environment on 21^st July 2012 at the Savoy Hotel, Blackpool. The speakers included Chris Baugh, Assistant General Secretary PCS, Derek Wall, former principal speaker for the Green Party and Clara Paillard, Merseyside TUC Green Officer. The Conference attracted over 50 delegates, a third of them being Green Reps and half of them representing Trade Councils. The main unions represented were PCS, Unite, UNISON and UCU and NUT, RMT, UCATT and BFAWU also had representatives. Also present were members of the local community (Residents Action against Fylde Fracking), the Green Party, the University of Lancaster and Friends of the Earth.

The main plenary session explored the Trade Unions roles within the environmental agenda along three key messages:

•        Green Reps – the TUC Greening the Workplace initiative has encourage Trade Unions to appoint Green Reps in order to advance environmental awareness and negotiating in the workplace

•        Politics & Economy – the austerity agenda of the current government needs to be challenged using the idea that economic and environmental crisis can be resolved simultaneously by investing in jobs that will support a sustainable and just economy – an argument being put forward by the One Million Climate Jobs campaign.

•        Local Environmental struggles – the Trade Union movement need to act in support of local environmental campaigns in conjunction with environmental groups and the local community.

The plenary session was followed by workshops on four themes: fracking, food, transport and waste incineration. The rest of this note set out an outline of each theme and suggestions / recommendations made in each workshop

Fracking

The workshop introduced the issues raised by the controversial 'fracking' gas extraction technique which has recently caused earthquakes in Blackpool.  A presentation put together by the campaigning group Frack Off as well as the short film 'Fracking Hell' quick-started the discussion.

Suggestions & Recommendations:

•        Support a fringe meeting at TUC Congress in Brighton in September to highlight the anti-fracking motion and campaign.

•        Support to the anti-fracking campaign at national and local level, including the production of quality leaflets and support of events, including Camp Frack 2 in the Autumn.

•        Support to the anti-fracking activists trialled after occupying the Banks fracking site

•        Encourage all Trade Unions to adopt anti-fracking policies and support the One Million Climate Jobs strategy as an alternative.

•        Call our Trades Council to demand “Frack-free zones” in their locality and support the One Million Climate Jobs strategy as an alternative.

•        Lobby for a ban of Fracking (not only on the grounds of safety but also on the grounds that gas is not a carbon free energy source) along with positive campaigning in support of the expansion of renewable energies and policies.

For more information visit: -

http://stopfyldefracking.org.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/frackoffuk

Food

A presentation outlined the number of issues related to food and climate change along the entire production chain (agriculture, processing, distribution, consumption and disposal) as the food industry is responsible for up to 20% of UK CO2 emissions. 40% of world’s agricultural land is degraded because of poor farming practices and the use of chemicals and GM food may constitute a threat to the environment and people’s health. Food processing involves the use of many chemicals, has generated many food scandals and is an industry where workers are often exploited. Food transport and import /export generate mass of CO2 emissions and refrigeration contribute to green house gas emissions. Obesity and malnutrition are two side of unbalanced food consumption across the world while 30% of UK food is wasted.

Suggestions & Recommendations:

•        Existing campaigns supported by Trade Unions and campaigning group to be investigated and summarised in a report (Bakers’ Union, Farmers’ Union, USDAW, Education unions, Unite Community Branches, War on Want, COOPs, Incredible Edible, Food Future, Organic Farmers Association) and a round table to be organised by the NWTUC inviting the different stakeholders.

•        NWTUC to support the creation of a resource booklet for Green Reps on the topic of food (including case studies on the “life cycle” of specific products on the model of The Story of Stuff) and consider funding initiatives led by Green Reps / Trades Councils.

•        Work to be done on alternative policies around the theme of “food democracy / right to healthy food”, including coops, urban gardens, community schemes (ie. on composting, anaerobic digestion, tool hire), land reform & reclaim public land projects.

•        Investigate how a campaign against supermarkets can be supported

Waste incineration

HAGATI (Halton Action Group Against the Incinerator) explained their 5-years campaign to oppose the construction of an incinerator by multinational Ineos Chlor that will burn 820,000 tons of waste per annum with all electricity produced going to the company. A ‘gate fee’ of £100 is charged to local authorities (such as Greater Manchester) tight up in 25-years contract, out of which 60p goes to Runcorn Council. Health concerns are numerous about the effects of micro-particles, mercury and dioxins and the process will detract from recycling as the waste needs to be rich in plastic to be energy-efficient.

Suggestions & Recommendations:

•        Awareness raising – NWTUC to support the production of a quality leaflet explaining the issues arising from waste incineration

•        Contracts & Contractors – NWTUC to encourage unions/green reps to identify workplaces’ waste contractors and to request information from City Councils about their waste contractors, contract renewal timescales and methods of waste management.

•        Lobby – Lobby City Councils not to enter long-term contracts with incinerators / Lobby Parliament for incinerators to be submitted to the Carbon Tax

•        Local groups – Encourage Trades Councils to establish links with local anti-incineration groups and support their campaigns.

For more information and resources, see:

http://ukwin.org.uk/oppose-incineration

www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/dirty_truths.pdf

www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/changing_climate.pdf

Transport

This workshop was closely linked with the Action for Rail campaign led by ASLEF / RMT. Kevin Morrison, RMT Exec for NW introduced the workshop and highlighted that the government's McNulty report called for job cuts, service cuts and allowing rail firms to raise fares as much as they like.  Buses nationally have suffered from 28% reduction income.  So while public transport is vital for dealing with climate change it is being threatened by the coalition government's cuts.

Suggestions & Recommendations:

•        Challenge closures – through the use of Quality impact assessment (particularly on grounds of disability access) and Freedom of Information Act to gain information to stop closures.

•        Free public transport – suggestion of running surveys to show that free public transport might save money by reducing pollution and congestion.  

•        Linking with other campaign – such as Cycle Use groups and the Campaign for Better Transport (http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/)

•        Action & Democracy - The importance of democratic and active trade unions was stressed by many participants and the RMT was seen as an inspiring example in this regard.  In a wide ranging discussion ideas from fighting the sale of Britain's roads to the idea of guerilla fly posting of timetables were also mentioned.

Concluding Comments

The Conference concluded with a commitment for the recommendations to be presented to the NWTUC Council / Executive for consideration and to consider the possibility of an annual conference on the Environment. A group photograph was taken at the front of the Hotel (see below).

TUC Motion on Illegal Corporate Bullying 2012: Final Version

Motion 15 - Illegal corporate bullying


Congress agrees the maintenance of secret lists of individuals or groups, (so-called 'blacklisting'), is illegal corporate bullying causing misery for individuals and their families.

Congress:

i condemns activities exposed in 2009 when the Information Commissioner’s Office raided the Consulting Association, which operated lists on behalf of over 40 UK companies including Carillion, Balfour Beatty, Mowlem, Laing O’Rourke and Wimpey, and maintained records on trade unionists, politicians, journalists, lawyers and academics.

ii agrees with Keith Ewing this was 'the worst human rights abuse in relation to workers' in the UK in 50 years

iii is alarmed that only a fraction of the 3,213 listed are aware of their inclusion

iv believes the ICO list is evidence of an endemic, systemic and deep-rooted culture

v agrees the level of wrong-doing and abuse exposed in the construction industry is equivalent to newspaper phone-hacking

vi welcomes assurances won by Labour MEPs from the European Commission on 'blacklisting' of trade union activists.

Building on the resolution agreed by Congress 2010, Congress instructs the General Council to:

a campaign to expose these illegal activities

b enable the ICO to reveal the names of the known victims of the Consulting Association

c call on politicians to bring social justice for the victims and their families

d encourage public bodies to review whether public contracts be awarded to companies involved in such activities

e call for a public enquiry on a par with the Leveson Inquiry and changes in the law to make “blacklisting” an imprisonable offence with unlimited fines for damages.

GMB

Amendment

» In paragraph 3, at end of sub-paragraph a, add: “including a day of action”

» Insert new sub-paragraph b and re-number subsequently:

'b campaign for stronger legal protection, including for agency workers'

» Add a new final sub-paragraph (g) at end:

“g support a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of blacklisted workers in

respect of a breach of their Convention rights – Article 8 on privacy and Article 11 on freedom of association.”

UNITE

Amendment

» In paragraph 2, add new sub-paragraph vii:

“vii welcomes the attempt by Liberty to get the ICO to reopen an investigation into the construction companies involved in blacklisting. This could lead to criminal prosecutions, fines and enforcement notices.”

Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians

Amendment

» Add final paragraph at end:

'Congress welcomes the recent intervention by Liberty which has written to the Information Commissioner accusing him of inaction over a privacy scandal it compares to phone hacking. Congress also welcomes and supports those blacklisted workers who have recently commenced legal action for damages against construction industry giant Sir Robert McAlpine.'

Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association

New Charter takes over Tameside Reporter. Is this a sad day for local democracy?

IN an exclusive report, Northern Voices, can reveal for the first time, that New Charter Housing Trust Ltd, has bought the ailing local newspaper, the Tameside Reporter which was first established in 1855.

In our report on July 14, we informed our readers that the newspaper was facing closure after being in business for 157 years and was looking for a buyer. We also reported that it was rumoured that New Charter was interested in buying the newspaper to add to its rapidly expanding business empire.

For some years now, New Charter have been diversifying into other areas unrelated to housing provision. In March 2000, Tameside Council transferred all its remaining council housing to New Charter who purchased the homes after a previous transfer, of housing stock, to Ashton Pioneer Homes. The housing company have ambitions 'to own and manage 30,000 homes by 2020.'

Since acquiring housing stock in Tameside, the company have rapidly expanded its interests beyond the boundary of Tameside by acquiring 'aksa' homes (Oldham), 'Gedling Homes' (Nottinghamshire) and 'Threshold' a charitable organisation that helps the homeless with 'pathways to independence'. The company also have an interest in 'New Charter Academy', a school/sports college, and recently acquired ownership of Tameside Radio.

In his speech to delegates at the 'Business of Social Housing' conference in April, held at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, Tony Powell, an Executive Director for New Charter, told the meeting that the housing company was continually 'delivering more than just housing' and was focused 'on a number of areas including community safety, jobs and lifelong learning, and the environment.'

Why a housing company with no previous experience of running a newspaper and with very, very, close links to Tameside Council, would want to buy a local newspaper, is to say the least, highly suspect. But because of its corporate influence and close links with council, one might also question whether New Charter, is an appropriate and suitable organization, to run a local newspaper.

At a recent Tameside County Court hearing held in July, a judge strongly criticised the housing company for seeking an injunction against a Tameside resident that in his view, was 'ridiculously wide' and a 'significant breach of freedom of speech' aimed at protecting New Charter from legitimate criticism.

In another case, Steve Fisher, a 56-year-old New Charter tenant from Dukinfield, was so incensed by his treatment at the hands of New Charter that he set up his own blog known as 'New Charter Housing Watch'. Mr. Fisher's problems arose in 2006 when the housing company took legal action against him for his allegedly unkempt garden. After several articles about his case appeared in the local Tameside Advertiser, we understand that the housing company threatened the newspaper with legal action demanding an apology and a ban on letters from Mr. Fisher. Mr. Fisher told Northern Voices:


'I am absolutely appalled to hear that New Charter are being allowed to buy the Tameside Reporter. This is indeed a sad day for democracy. Following my court case in 2006, I subsequently phoned the former editor of the Tameside Advertiser about why the newspaper had ceased to publish my letters. I was told that the housing company had threatened legal action unless the newspaper stopped publishing my letters and apologised. Since this spat with New Charter, I've been banned from entering any of their premises and they will not allow me to stand as a Tenant Director as is my right, and which is a breach of my human rights.'
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The printed version of NORTHERN VOICES 13, now on sale with all sorts of stuff others won't touch and may be obtained as follows: Postal subscription: £5 for the next two issues (post included). Cheques payable to ‘NORTHERN VOICES’ at c/o 52, Todmorden Road, Burnley, Lancashire BB10 4AH.
Tel.: 0161 793 5122. Email: northernvoices@hotmail.com

Robert Hughes on 'God's Architect', Antonio Gaudi - 'Visions of Space'.

Robert Hughes, the historian, writer, and art critic, died recently. Although he wrote extensively, he will certainly be remembered for his excellent documentary television series 'The Shock of the New' in 1980, and 'Visions of Space' that was first aired by the BBC in 2003 and which dealt with the lives of three architects - the NAZI, Albert Speer, Mies van der Rohe, and the Catalan, Antonio Gaudi.
Although Hughes referred to Gaudi( 1852-1926) in this series as 'God's Architect' and pointed out that Gaudi's work such as the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona (Church of the Holy Family) is revered world wide today, and is one of Barcelona's most popular tourist attractions, this was not always the case. In July 1936, at the outset of the Spanish Civil War, Catalan anarchists set fire to to the crypt and destroyed the workshop and models. Of the 58 churches destroyed in Barcelona, only the cathedral was spared. It also seems that many of the Catalan intelligensia also disliked Gaudi's masterpiece.
Construction of the Sagrada Familia commenced in 1882 and Gaudi took over the project the following year. Gaudi spent the remainder of his life on the project until his death in 1926, when less than a quarter of the building was complete.



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The printed version of NORTHERN VOICES 13, now on sale with all sorts of stuff others won't touch and may be obtained as follows: Postal subscription: £5 for the next two issues (post included). Cheques payable to ‘NORTHERN VOICES’ at c/o 52, Todmorden Road, Burnley, Lancashire BB10 4AH.

Tel.: 0161 793 5122.    Email: northernvoices@hotmail.com

Civil liberties group 'Liberty' threatens legal action if ICO doesn't prosecute companies for blacklisting!

The civil liberties group 'Liberty', have written to the Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, demanding that the Information Commissioners Office (ICO), prosecute 44 building firms that have illegally blacklisted 3,213 workers. In their letter to the Information Commisssioner, Liberty say:  'The limited action you have taken so far is completely inadequate.'

The letter also says that it is 'unlawful' for the Information Commissioner not to use his Data Protection Act and Human Rights Act powers and adds:  'You should seek to prosecute firms involved or hand over the results of your investigation to the police to enable them to bring prosecutions.'

Although 44 major UK construction companies including Carillion and Sir Robert McAlpine, have been linked to a clandestine organisation known as the 'Consulting Association'( C.A.) that was found to be operating a blacklist of workers following a raid by officers of the ICO in February 2009, and sharing this information illegally, with these companies for a fee, none of the companies involved with the C.A. have been prosecuted. Former Special Branch officer, Ian Kerr, who ran the C.A. from an office in Droitwich, was subsequently fined £5,000 after being prosecuted by the ICO.

Corinna Ferguson, a 'Liberty lawyer' told the Daily Mirror newspaper:"We can't believe the inaction of the Information Commissioner on a human rights violation of such wide public interest. If we cannot persuade the commissioner to discharge his public duty, we will consider seeking assistance from the courts."

The ICO told the newspaper that they had received the letter from Liberty and would be responding in due course. The GMB trade union is also taking legal action to force the ICO to contact people who they know are on the blacklist. The GMB estimates that that there are 2,863 people still unaware that they were on the list and being blacklisted for their trade union and political activities.

Northern Radical History Network October 2012 Meeting

The 3rd Northern Radical History Network meeting will take place on Saturday 6th October 2012 at Manchester Metropolitan University.

The day will run from 11am to 4.30pm in the John Dalton Building (Rooms E244 & E246), Manchester Metropolitan University on Oxford Road, Manchester.

Speakers include:

• Bill Williams, respected historian of Manchester and author of ‘Jews and other foreigners’: Manchester and the Rescue of the Victims of European Fascism, 1933-1940

• Steve Higginson, researcher and writer, who will be discussing his work ‘Writing on the Wall' and other Liverpool projects

The day will also include opportunities to share project work, concluding with open discussion around the themes of the radical history and its uses.

Programme for the day:

11am-11.30am Welcome, Introductions, Network business

11.30am-12.30pm Speaker 1- Paper plus discussion

12.30pm-1.30pm Lunch

1.30pm-2.30pm Speaker 2- Paper plus discussion

2.45pm-4.15pm ‘What is Radical History?’& projects

4.15pm-4.30pm Feedback, Comments, Close of Meeting

A map of the Manchester Metropolitan University All Saints campus is here (opens PDF).

A map of Manchester Metropolitan Map is available at http://www2.mmu.ac.uk/travel/allsaints/  and http://www2.mmu.ac.uk/media/mmuacuk/content/documents/howtofindus/mmu_maps_allsaints_aytoun_old.pdf
Any queries, please contact us.

BLACK ROSES: The Killing of Sophie Lancaster

IN Northern Voices No.13 - the Summer 2012 issue, I interviewed Sylvia Lancaster about her daughter  Sophie Lancaster, who on 11th, August 2007 was beaten unconscious in Stubbeylee Park, Bacup and later died from her injuries in hospital. Sophie then was 20 years old, had just passed her A-Levels and was working out what to do with her life:  She was killed because she was different.

On the 19th, September The Studio of the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester will be putting on a performance of 'BLACK ROSES' with words by Sylvia Lancaster; Poetry by Simon Armitage.  The production will be co-directed by Sarah Frankcom and Susan Roberts.  In Northern Voices No.13, our arts correspondent, Christopher Draper placed the Royal Exchange among the top six theatres in the North of England.  BLACK ROSES continues showing until the 29th, September:  Box Office 0845 450 4808.
Website www.royalexchange.co.uk

 

A MOVING RESPONSE TO THE DEATH OF YOUNG GAP-YEAR STUDENT SOPHIE LANCASTER

BLACK ROSES is an elegy for Sophie in which she tells her own story through a series of poems by the award-winning poet Simon Armitage, alongside the words of her mother, Sylvia Lancaster, remembering her daughter’s shortened life.

The piece provoked an unprecedented response when it premiered on Radio Four last year, winning the BBC Audio and Music Best Speech Programme of the Year Award.

Now re-imagined for the theatre with Rachel Austin and Julie Hesmondhalgh (CORONATION STREET), BLACK ROSES is co-directed by Royal Exchange Artistic Director Sarah Frankcom and award-winning BBC Radio Drama Producer Susan Roberts.
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The printed version of NORTHERN VOICES No.13, now on sale with all sorts of stuff others won't touch and may be obtained as follows:

Postal subscription: £5 for the next two issues (post included). Cheques payable to 'Northern Voices' at c/o 52, Todmorden Road, Burnley, Lancashire BB10 4AH.

Tel.: 0161 793 5122.

email: northernvoices@hotmail.com

From Paris plages to River Roch, Rochdale

IT is some months now since Colin Lambert, leader of Rochdale Council, and I, were both sitting on a 471 bus as it began its depressing descent down Drake Street, past the wire-netting landscape that surrounds the high-vis jacketed labour force planting the new Metro tracks, approaching Rochdale Town Centre (see posting Tuesday, May 29, 2012:  'No threat to Touchstones').  On that very day Councillor Lambert, disturbed in his game of Sudoku, had assured me that by this Christmas the River Roch and its Medieval Bridges, covered by concrete early in the last century, would be uncovered and at last be visible to the townsfolk to enjoy. 

In 2010 in Northern Voices No.11, I argued that the River Roch ought to be exposed in the Town Centre, basing my argument on an article in the International Herald Tribune on July 16th, 2009 by Andrew C. Revin, in which he wrote:  'The restoration of Cheonggyecheon (river in Seoul) is part of an expanding effort in cities around the world to "daylight" rivers and streams by peeling back pavements that was built to booster commerce and serve automobile traffic decades ago.'

If Rochdale's Labour Councillor Lambert carries through his promise to open up the River Roch and creates his socalled 'culture corridor', he will, perhaps unwiitingly, be reflecting what the current Socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, is now intending to promote with 'Paris plages (beaches)' and other planning decisions.  Bertrand Delanoë is reversing a previous era of urban planning in Paris brought about in the 1960s under president Pompidou, in which both banks of the Seine were paved to become urban expressways.  Mr. Delanoë says:  'We are committed to transform the road along the riverbank into a place of life, beauty and culture.' 

In September, a kilometre, or just over a mile of the right bank, starting at the City Hall, will be sharply narrowed, with a series of six new traffic lights designed to slow traffic.  Along the riverside, there will be more pedestrian walkways, pontoons for electric boats, riverside cafes and bars.  Next spring, two and a half kilometres of the left bank will be shut entirely to cars, from between Musée d’Orsay and the Pont de l’Alma, converted into an 11-acre park with volleyball courts, sundecks, and floating gardens perhaps including a branch of the well-known cafe and restaurant from the Buttes Chaumont Park in the 19th arrondissement, Le Rosa Boheur:  this has been nicknamed 'guinguette' and is an informal place for eating, drinking and dancing.   Elsewhere in France there are other attempts to take back the city rivers as in Bordeaux under Mayor Alain Marie Juppé, in Lyons and Toulouse, where there is a project to build a riverside park the size of Central Park in New York.  I wonder if Councillor Lambert's 'culture corridor' and the Council's exposure of the River Roch in Rochdale, will match any of these French projects?   
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The printed version of NORTHERN VOICES No.13, now on sale with all sorts of stuff others won't touch and may be obtained as follows:
Postal subscription: £5 for the next two issues (post included).  Cheques payable to 'Northern Voices' at c/o 52, Todmorden Road, Burnley, Lancashire BB10 4AH.
Tel.: 0161 793 5122.
email: northernvoices@hotmail.com

Workers sacked and replaced by prison labour. POA says government's use of prison labour, is immoral and disgusting!

Earlier this year the Daily Mail newspaper, ran a story that the Swedish company IKEA, had used political prisoners in STASI camps in East Germany during the 1970s and '80s to make the IKEA sofa. Mail readers were told that prisoners working three shifts a day were used to assemble cheap furniture for the company whose founder, the Swedish billionaire, Ingvar Kamprad, had been an active recruiter for a Swedish NAZI group the SSS, while a young man. In 1987, IKEA had also ordered 45,000 tables to be manufactured in Cuba, most of which, had also been made by prisoners. The newspaper stated that all this had been revealed on Swedish national television and that Kamprad, had apologised and doubled his charitable donations to £100m.

Now, as we all should know, the former GDR (East Germany) and Cuba, are Communist country's and amongst other things, what is implicit within this story written in a right-wing English newspaper, is the view that the use of prison labour is what you might expect from any beastly communist regime that imprisons its citizens for their political opinions. We are expected to be shocked by this, because we're being led to believe, that such a thing could never happen in a country like little old England.

Of course, prisoners have always undertaken work within prisons and are often glad of it. But as Britain heads towards a triple dip recession, the clueless Con-Dem government, have latched onto a novel way to boost the profits of companies which has the potential to undercut the wages of those in work, and to put more workers on the dole.

Increasingly, what we are now seeing in Britain is the use of prison labour to work outside of prison for a pittance, for the benefit of private companies, which is euphemistically described by the government as 'training' or 'work experience'.

Last week, the Guardian newspaper revealed that dozens of prisoners from Prescoed prison in Monmouthshire, Wales, were being ferried in busses to go to work in Cardiff for a call-centre that is operated by a company called 'Becoming Green' a roofing and environmental refitting company. The prisoners are being paid the princely sum of £3 per day and according to the newspaper, since being taken on, the company has fired 17 paid members of its staff. Although not 'political prisoners', the Guardian says their convictions range from murder to fraud and drug offences. A former employee of the company told the newspaper:

"As they started bringing more and more in, they (the company)started firing people... They would have kept their jobs if it wasn't for the prison thing... Everyone was pretty miffed because at the end of the day there's no way you can compete with £3 a day."

The company confirmed that since starting the prisoners, it had sacked other workers for "performance issues" but denied that they had been sacked because it was cheaper to hire prison labour. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ), said they had sought assurances from the company that the prisoners would be put into "genuinely vacant" posts.

Steve Gillan, the General Secretary of the Prison Officer's Association (POA), said:

"For any company to rely on the cheap labour of prisoners was 'immoral and disgusting'. The POA wants to see prisoners working and leading law-abiding lives, but not at the expense of other workers being sacked or laid off to facilitate it."

GMB Blacklisting Motion for Trades Union Congress 2012

Page 15:  Illegal corporate bullying

Congress agrees the maintenance of secret lists of individuals or groups, (so-called 'blacklisting'), is illegal corporate bullying causing misery for individuals and their families.

Congress:

i.  condemns activities exposed in 2009 when the Information Commissioner’s Office raided the Consulting Association, which operated lists on behalf of over 40 UK companies including Carillion, Balfour Beatty, Mowlem, Laing O’Rourke and Wimpey, and maintained records on trade unionists, politicians, journalists, lawyers and academics.

ii.  agrees with Keith Ewing this was ‘the worst human rights abuse in relation to workers’ in the UK in 50 years.
iii.  is alarmed that only a fraction of the 3,213 listed are aware of their inclusion.

iv.  believes the ICO list is evidence of an endemic, systemic and deep-rooted culture.

v.  agrees the level of wrong-doing and abuse exposed in the construction industry is equivalent to newspaper phone-hacking.

vi.  welcomes assurances won by Labour MEPs from the European Commission on ‘blacklisting’ of trade union activists.

Building on the resolution agreed by Congress 2010, Congress instructs the General Council to:

a.  campaign to expose these illegal activities.

b.  enable the ICO to reveal the names of the known victims of the Consulting Association.

c.  call on politicians to bring social justice for the victims and their families.

d.  encourage public bodies to review whether public contracts be awarded to companies involved in such activities.

e.  call for a public enquiry on a par with the Leveson Inquiry and changes in the law to make 'blacklisting' an imprisonable offence with unlimited fines for damages.

Rob Ray's Response to 'Tales of Hoffman' etc

This reply has been a while in compiling, as Hoffman has, for a man regularly protesting how little he cares about the opprobrium of the anarchist set, been remarkably hardworking in his efforts to send letters to pretty much anyone who will listen to him say what a great guy he is and how Freedom is basically Dr No's richer, more unscrupulous successor.

I'm dealing here only with direct allegations Hoffman has been making over the last couple of weeks, in an effort to clarify matters.  The issue of how the broader left deals with intellectual property, which is often the only way for writers, photographers etc to make a living out of capitalists but which also opens us to pathetic in-fighting over an issue that Proudhon pretty much put to bed over 120 years ago, is a much bigger argument which really deserves its own post.  That's something I can't dedicate time fully to now, as I have more practical matters around helping sort out the Press to attend to, but which I hope to come back to sometime.

In this case, the nutshell version of our position is: We got photos from the authors of 'Beating the Fascists' which they said were theirs and fine to use, which we believed.  We scanned them, gave them back and published. Hoffman then came in demanding the photos, which we didn't have, and the names of the authors, which we couldn't give as they were confidential sources who could be endangered if their names were officially linked to a book about street-level fighting.  Eventually, maintaining they had the right to them (fwiw I believe that although the law says otherwise they are probably telling the truth), the authors did us a favour and handed the folder over, though allegedly not with all the pictures. Hoffman responded by demanding we pay £4,000 and, not being able to afford a court case or put individual collective members at serious financial risk, we paid.

There is some disjointed and semi-repetitive stuff below, which is in the nature of the diverse sources from which it is cobbled, but hopefully it should cover the majority of the issues raised.  Other than for Hoffman himself as the person I am responding to, I have removed full names throughout, as is standard practice to avoid outing radical comrades permanently in the public domain.

Finally, as a little disclaimer, I'm only writing as an individual here.  As a collective Freedom has resolved to leave matters with the original statement and will make no further comment.

Quote:

'I have 104 items in my "Freedom" robbers folder, that's 10 times what there should be and that's because I bust my balls trying to find them a cheap easy way out.'

It is quite possible that other mistakes have been made over the last few decades of Freedom's existence, as of the many collectives which have kept it running only a limited number included people with the time, energy and expertise to properly check up on photos used. If there are a load of other copyright infringements in our body of publications, it would be good to know about them. However at present I have no idea what he’s talking about here.

Quote:

'It seems that the current collective hasn't sufficient conviction in their own case to allow any of this on their site.'

Actually he was offered the chance to send in to the collective for a decision on right to reply on three separate occasions (https://twitter.com/Freedom_Paper ) and never did so, to the best of my knowledge. I’ve only been able to respond to the points below, which are from an email Hoffman has been circulating to people making inquiries, because a friendly comrade passed it on.  At this point my guess is more people have seen his many, many posts on the matter than have actually seen our statement (not that he offered us right to reply...)

Quote:

'They are in no danger of bankruptcy.'

Actually we’ve been behind on our gas bills, the business rates and have been unable to pay for basic repairs to the building. We’re hopeful that donations we've been receiving due to this debacle will keep us running for now, but the only major assets we have are three rooms full of books, which sadly aren’t recognised as legal tender.

Quote:

'I'm told that FOFP has paid bookshop wages and met other expenditure. If true that would break their 'dormant' shield.'

I doubt anyone 'told' Hoffman any such thing, because it’s nonsense. All wages are paid by the Press via proceeds from donations, sales of books, papers and such. The collective also pays the balance of the rates that rent from other groups doesn’t cover, hence having had to put off things like paying for gas and electric recently, or our inability to replace broken windows, or the fact we’ve been unable to stump up a £365 bill to put an A-board out on the high street, or the pay cuts that our few remaining paid members have had to take.

Anyone who’s visited Freedom at any point over the last few years will be able to testify to the generally run-down nature of the building, the foreshortened store stock etc. It’s not because we like keeping it that way while we sit on a hoard of gold upstairs, but because we have very little money.

Quote:

'Freedom also owns a holding company with the building worth well over £1m (they deny that but had it valued recently - let's see the valuation?)'

The building is worth £400,000 according to an estate agent we got in in 2007 or so - they don’t give written valuations. The figure, which is lower than others in the borough, is due to its position in an industrial area and lack of planning permissions. It's almost certainly worth less now.

However, Freedom Press couldn’t sell the building if we wanted to, it’s owned by the Friends of Freedom, which is a different collective with a responsibility to not just the Press, but the other six or so groups involved and the wider London movement, which uses it for a huge variety of events and meetings. There is literally no way we could replace the building with something similar elsewhere and even if we could, it would have taken substantially longer to find somewhere else and get a buyer in this market than Hoffman is suggesting.

Either way even if we could sell the building to pay for his snaps, it certainly isn't his "ethical" right to demand the destruction of one of the few remaining bricks-and-mortar assets of the anarchist movement to pay for a single error by the 2011-2012 collective. Even if the 12 members of the current Press were Bane, the Joker and Ra's al Ghul rolled into one (we aren't), most of us will almost certainly be gone in a decade or less, as is always the case for volunteer-run organisations, and his only "victory" from it would be a legacy placing him in the unenviable position of having achieved what Combat 18, the combined efforts of the secret state and a grab-bag of other nasties have been unable to do.

Quote:

'There have been a few hints at much larger sums than my £4k going adrift in one of the threads I saw. Maybe M's Crow Kollective, not sure, they blocked me when I tried to post.'

This is just clutching at straws – M doesn’t take any money whatsoever and is simply a volunteer in the collective. I can understand Hoffman wanting to discredit him though, after his little stunt posting up a picture of a dead crow with a prominent copyright notice up on M’s Facebook page (M was the only collective member whose Facebook he was actually on) went so badly wrong.

Quote:

'Re your "it was a honest mistake on their part." that's not the case. The question of copyright was raised at the collective meeting that decided to publish the book and just brushed aside.'

Because as far as we knew the photos were AFA’s (Anti-Fascist Action's).

Quote:

'Sometimes they say "it was a honest mistake". Other times they say that they thought they had permission - if that had been so then how come they never even told me they were publishing or gave me a credit?'

Because we thought they were AFA’s, ie free to use however we liked. We didn’t credit the authors either as it happens – guess why? I’m not sure how more simply to put this. Our mistake was not to investigate further, and we’ve held our hands up to that.

Quote:

'The initial correspondence which would have settled it for a few hundred.'

Actually, as far as the person who was dealing with it at the time recalls, Hoffman took an extremely long time to even point out which photos were his, let alone put in a price. When he did so, it was on condition that we hand over photos we didn’t have and failing that, the names of the authors, which we couldn’t give as it goes against every journalistic ethic to out confidential sources who could face serious jail time as a result.

Quote:

'W claims I tried to make him reveal his sources but then little of what he says holds up to examination. I have an email from him asking if I am trying to get him to name sources and my reply saying that I am not.'

From a Trading Standards letter we got in April:

"Again as you are aware, Mr. Hoffman is demanding that the prints of the offending photographs used in the book, together with any others from the file to which he owns the copyright, are returned to him forthwith. However, to date, the authors have refused to comply with this request.

"Hence in order for me to further my investigation into this matter it would now seem necessary that I speak to the authors or those representing them. I am therefore formally requesting from you the names and contact details for the authors or their representatives."

Now not only does this bely his claim that W is lying, not only would doing so have potentially opened the way for court cases, this is documented evidence that Hoffman reckoned we didn't have the photos - making his "they could have settled early" claim utterly meaningless.

Quote:

'Left me looking for other ways to track down my prints - which required getting more info on the people concerned.'

Well that’s the crux, isn’t it. Hoffman was putting us in the invidious position of having to choose between ratting out confidential sources and paying out substantially larger sums of money than NUJ rates. What he appears to be taking an “ethical stand” on for not inconsiderable cash gain is his right to force radical publishers to break their codes of ethics (not to mention those of his own union (No.7)).

Quote:

'Since I'm being so widely monstered anyway I might find time for a bit more research and another claim or two. If it really is true that they've been ripping me off for 20 years then it's a tribute to their ineffectuality. I've been on dozens of demos every year and have never seen a single one.'

Or more plausibly, their story is pretty accurate and Searchlight originally gave the photos away so no-one bothered to track them, and it’s only now as Hoffman is approaching retirement and (so I hear) has managed to alienate pretty much every picture desk in the country that he reckons he has nothing to lose by cashing in as fully as possible. For a man as “ethically” litigious as Hoffman, it seems inconceivable that he would have simply not bothered to check up on a group that had actively stolen his copyrighted material for upwards of two decades, or even mentioned the loss.

Quote:

'Then it turned out that many of the photos in the book had been scanned from prints that AFA [our bold italics: Northern Voices] or RA had stolen from a magazine.  A worker there had drink and mental health problems and they'd exploited him.  That pissed me off and, more professionally, I wanted to recover those stolen prints (my property, loaned to the mag) to stop them being used again.'

Again, not the way they tell it, which was that the photos were in return for intelligence. Now I can’t say for certain who’s telling the truth, but again, why did no-one bother to go after the photos once they’d been “stolen”? And why would AFA even bother going after them in the first place if it was highly likely any publication using them would get into trouble for breaching copyright, as we did?

It’s the 20 years of total inaction that made (indeed makes) AFA’s assurances so plausible, while Hoffman seems to be suggesting he simply didn't notice that they were gone (which I can’t help but circle and link to other lines of his elsewhere about these photos being his much-cherished “life’s work”).

Quote:

'Freedom refused to do anything to help, claimed they had no idea where they were, couldn't contact the people etc.'

There’s no “claim” about it.  We didn’t have them as we’d handed them back, and weren’t about to turn over the names of the authors.

Quote:

'I was still keen not to issue a summons until everything else had been tried so I brought in Trading Standards as the lightest of my heavy weaponry. That brought about an agreement to bring the file of prints into the office for me to identify my ones and take them back.'

ie.  To spare us worse we were given prints to hand back.  And note the second part.  By Hoffman's own words he hadn't even identified which ones were his - surely a simple matter of picking up the book, given how important to him they are - until after he'd brought in Trading Standards [our bold italics- NV] to demand names and addresses.  Which somewhat undermines his claim that we were made a realistic offer early on.

Quote:

'There were many empty pockets that still had the marks of the prints that had been in them.'

Again, there may or may not have been missing shots but that's nothing to do with us, why would we hold back something we can’t use and which we’ve already admitted Hoffman has a legal claim on?

Quote:

(Hoffman’s “quotes”)

DH:  'Maybe you can put some pressure on them [AFA / Anti-Fascist Action] to come up with this file [containing the prints of mine that AFA had stolen] then?'

Collective member:  'I think we should. We made no effort to clarify whose photographs they were.'

What he’s done there is conflate the views that he says one member expressed with those of the collective. Even so, it actually somewhat corroborates our version of events, as his “insider” - indeed his one and only quoted source of information - suggests that we didn’t have the prints and thus couldn’t initially give them all to him in return for his “reasonable rates”.

Personally, I was under the impression that they were AFA’s, as was the rest of the collective. We have all since admitted that we should have checked further, but that’s far from the conspiracy to defraud and steal that Hoffman is accusing us of, let alone a justification for the punitively high damages he demanded.

Fiveleaves

Now, moving on to his somewhat shorter piece on  fiveleavespublications.blogspot.co.uk.  I’ve already answered most of his allegations there, and afaict the majority of the post is about how 'hurt' and 'betrayed' he feels (all of which would assume a deliberate malicious intent to steal on our part that, as I hope I’ve shown above, wasn’t there) but there’s a couple of new ones.

Quote:

'Several of the photos were marked clearly “Copyright David Hoffman”.'

The sub doesn't remember them having clear copyright notices but assuming they did, in any case this would ...

a) be irrelevant if ownership has been given away (as we were told it had been by the people actually holding them at the time),

b) assume that the layout person was checking for such (which they wouldn’t if they believed the pics had been freely given to AFA) and

c) suggest that we might actually decide to proactively put the real name of an anti-fascist photographer in the public domain - something which is traditionally rather frowned on given that naming journalists has historically often seen them targeted for reprisal. It may be his legal right to force us to stamp every single book with "some of these photos are by David Hoffman," but it's not normal practice.

Quote:

'I support anti-racist and anti-fascist activism. I make no money from that.'

Fact is he's made his living from photographing far right v far left for over 30 years, saying he "made no money" from it is farcical. And in this case Hoffman has walked away with around £4,500 from suing people who have tried to get important anti-fascist works into the public domain (and as he admits, we actually made a loss from doing so). I haven’t heard of that sum dropping into any anti-fascist bank accounts yet, though doubtless it would be much-appreciated.

Quote:

'Freedom spun that as me trying to get the “names of sources”.'

'Spin' would suggest that this is not in fact what the line in the Trading Standards letter saying 'I am therefore formally requesting from you the names and contact details for the authors or their representatives' actually means.

Hoffman: a profile

Now on to who Hoffman really is. I don’t think I actually need to use my own descriptive powers, or report what I’ve heard from his colleagues about his behaviour on demos, or on how he’s regarded within the NUJ generally – anyone with some mates in the union can ask around and get the skinny. I’m just going to post three links and let you judge the reality of this 'left wing sympathiser'.

First, this is a link to an incident in 2009 during the election campaign to decide on an editor for the Journalist, the in-house magazine of the NUJ:

http://jonslattery.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/nuj-left-accused-of-trying-to-take.html

Second, this is a link to Hoffman successfully suing a charity for use of his pictures, even though it was accepted they had done so in error, rather than deliberately:

http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/2141623/photographer-wins-copyright-infringement

Third, this is a link to a conversation about Hoffman’s background. While it gets distracted a lot and is mixed in with some vitriol against his actions in suing Freedom, the explanations and observations on his potential motivations are, shall we say, interesting.

http://libcom.org/blog/freedom-must-be-saved-19072012

And that's it from me for the moment, if you made it this far congratulations. You're clearly made of stern stuff, because frankly if I hadn't had the motivating factor of putting right a laundry list of inaccuracies and self-serving paranoia I doubt I would have.

http://libcom.org/blog/lengthy-reply-david-hoffman-11082012
Posted By Rob Ray: Aug 11 2012 13:40