What follows is an eyewitness account of the tumultuous events in Manchester last night Tuesday August 9th, 2011. It is in the best traditions of citizen journalism following in the footsteps of George Orwell.
As I was travelling into Manchester for a CND-organised event for Nagasaki Day I had my first inkling of trouble when I noticed from the 36 bus a massive police presence in Salford Precinct. Clearly something major had kicked off there in terms of social conflict. The bus continued as far as the Salford Crescent Pub and then stopped. Passengers were given the choice of returning from whence they came or making alternative arrangements to get into Manchester. We were told by the driver that there was "rioting" in the City Centre. I attended the 7 p.m. meeting at the Friends Meeting House, Mount Street which was ended prematurely on police advice.
I then headed down Cross Street towards Victoria train station. There were groups of young people throughout the area and clear evidence of shop fronts having been smashed in.
Surprisingly, there was little evidence of a massive police presence except on Market Street. Every so often, one witnessed large groups of young people racing around the City Centre, witnessed by many spectators taking pictures on their mobiles. Occasionally, one heard the sound of police or fire-engine sirens, although no ambulances.
I stayed in the City Centre for about an hour and felt no threat to my person at all. The atmosphere was electric and one can fully understand why many youngsters felt a sense of excitement and even exhilaration as the "liberation" of goods from the shops proceeded. One commentator subsequently used the phrase "acquisitive entitlement" to explain this phenomenon.
It was impossible to get a bus back to Swinton so I waited at the train station for the 9.10 p.m. but this was cancelled due to the driver refusing to take it out apparently worried about his car parked nearby. I eventually got home and watched the news coverage on TV. The knee jerk reaction of leading Councillors and the Police completely failed to comprehend what the motivation and causes of this unprecedented social unrest were.
Law and order solutions involving robust policing (including water cannon and plastic bullets) will only escalate the problem. The social and economic deprivation occasioned by draconian attacks on social fabric and public provision by the Tory-Lib Dem Government aided and abetted by a supine opposition offer very little hope that "normality" can be restored to the streets quickly.
One last subversive thought entered my head last night the aphorism of the French anarchist Pierre Joseph Proudhon "All Property is Theft".
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
Marilyn Monroe and Radical Politics
Whilst acres of print have been devoted to Marilyn Monroe as a screen Goddess and films such as "Some Like it Hot", "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", and "The Seven Year Itch" are classics of the genre very little is known about her political views. Anthony Summers' biography "The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe " is revealing in this respect.
In 1956 the House Un-American Activities Committee summoned Arthur Miller the left-wing playwright who Marilyn had married. Miller admitted to having "signed some form or another" at a Marxist study course in 1939. He had no knowledge of applying for membership of the Communist Party. Miller refused to name names. The House of Representatives voted him in contempt of Congress. He was convicted, appealed and acquitted 2 years later.
The fight was conducted with the support of Marilyn Monroe. She never doubted the outcome. "Because I have been studying Thomas Jefferson for years and according to him this case had to turn out this way". In 1960 she told the British writer W. J. Weatherby "Some of these bastards in Hollywood wanted me to drop Arthur, they said it would ruin my career. One reason I wanted Kennedy to win is that Nixon is associated with that whole scene."
Danny Greenson the student son of Marilyn's psychiatrist Ralph Greenson commented that she would say to Miller "Youve got to stand up to those bastards" . He went on to say she was unsophisticated politically, but her instincts were always with the underdog and that there was more to Marilyn than meets the eye. Marilyn's closest associates in the 50s context were of the far left. The House Un-American Activities Committee had records on Lee and Paula Strasberg, Marilyn's acting coaches.
In 1956 the House Un-American Activities Committee summoned Arthur Miller the left-wing playwright who Marilyn had married. Miller admitted to having "signed some form or another" at a Marxist study course in 1939. He had no knowledge of applying for membership of the Communist Party. Miller refused to name names. The House of Representatives voted him in contempt of Congress. He was convicted, appealed and acquitted 2 years later.
The fight was conducted with the support of Marilyn Monroe. She never doubted the outcome. "Because I have been studying Thomas Jefferson for years and according to him this case had to turn out this way". In 1960 she told the British writer W. J. Weatherby "Some of these bastards in Hollywood wanted me to drop Arthur, they said it would ruin my career. One reason I wanted Kennedy to win is that Nixon is associated with that whole scene."
Danny Greenson the student son of Marilyn's psychiatrist Ralph Greenson commented that she would say to Miller "Youve got to stand up to those bastards" . He went on to say she was unsophisticated politically, but her instincts were always with the underdog and that there was more to Marilyn than meets the eye. Marilyn's closest associates in the 50s context were of the far left. The House Un-American Activities Committee had records on Lee and Paula Strasberg, Marilyn's acting coaches.
Tuesday, 9 August 2011
LONDON'S SEMANA TRAGICA (Tragic Week)
Man Shot; Riots Ensue; Parliament Recalled!
IN some ways what people believe is more important than what actually happened: this morning on BBC News, the Afro-Caribbean writer, Darcus Howe, claimed that last week the police in Tottenham 'Blew Mark Duggan's head off'. This was later refuted by someone from Scotland Yard on Sky News, who said that Mr. Duggan was killed by 'a single shot to the chest'. Mr Howe also insisted that what we are witnessing in London is not 'riots' but 'insurrection'. Meanwhile, the British political class went into a chorus of condemnation, piling painful platitudes onto the long suffering British public. Little attempt has yet been made to seriously analyse these events which are now spreading across the country. I hope that my local MP, Jim Dobbin, will not add to this mountain of half-baked muck when Parliament reconvenes this Thursday.
The nearest comparison to the London events, to my mind, was the Semana Tràgica that took place in Barcelona in 1909, after the Spanish War Office in Madrid, in a provocative move, called up the army reserves from Catalonia to fight in North Africa - then after tearful scenes at the railway station as the troops left - Gerald Brenan wrote in his book 'The Spanish Labyrith' that '... the next day the whole city rose'. Mr Brenan described the Semana Tràgica thus: '... the Jovenes Barabaros or "Young Barbarians" as they called themselves, let themselves go ... the result was five days of mob rule, in which the union leaders lost control of their men and twenty-two churches and thirty-four convents were burned. Monks were killed, tombs were desecrated and strange macabre scenes took place, as workmen danced in the street with the disinterred mummies of nuns.'
With the Semana Tràgica in Barcelona of 1909, as with the London Riots of today, it was difficult for the authorities to understand why it happened when it did. Of course, the people in Barcelona were reacting against the war in North Africa that was being promoted by the Government in Madrid and Gerald Brenan writes: 'Since the disastrous war in Cuba and the return of thousands of starving and malaria-ridden troops, the whole country had been strongly pacifist.' But there was something else; Brenan describes an important class distinction: 'The reserves consisted of married men of the working classes, for in Spain no one who could afford the small sum required to buy himself out was ever conscripted.' At the same time, because many poor Spaniards and Catalans saw the Catholic Church as part of the boss class, in times of disquiet people would attack the clergy.
The situation in London is different, in so far as while Barcelona in 1909 was a relatively modern developing industrial city that was reacting against the traditional authorities in the Government in Madrid as well as the Church hierarchy, the youth in London are like everyone else - hooked on consumerism and shopping. And yet, they are both similar in so far as just as in Barcelona 'the unions lost control of their men', in London, none of the political parties or Social Workers seem to have any influence over the people in the streets today. In 1909, the veteran anarchist Anselmo Lorenzo commenting on what he described as 'A social revolution ... in Barcelona' in a letter to a friend, confirms that it was the same: 'No one has instigated it. No one has led it. Neither Liberals, nor Catalan Nationalists, nor Republicans, nor Socialists, nor Anarchists.' In London today the Home Secretary, Theresa May, dark roots showing beneath her bleach blond locks, lipstick and make-up applied in abundance yet insufficient to hid the bags hanging beneath her hawk-like eyes and crimson beak, denounced what she called 'sheer criminality'.
In the end what is happening in London is a perverse embrace by young people of our modern places of worship as our youth prostrate themselves before today's new secular cathedrals: the shops; the Malls; the Department Stores etc. No one on the streets of London is doing what the Catalan workers did in 1909 - dancing with the 'mummies of nuns' - instead they are prancing with the electric gear of what passes for our new religion: consumerism.
Valerie Groves on John Mortimer: the Sleeping Juror & the Oz Trial
2 more vignettes from "A Voyage Around John Mortimer" by Valerie Grove:
1) The Sleeping Juror which was related by Richard Eyre in his published diary.
There was a sexual harassment case in which a woman witness was too shy to say what had been said to her. The Judge told her to write it down. She duly concurred with the words "Do you want a fuck?" The note was passed around the court and ended up with a dozing juryman who was sitting next to an attractive woman. The woman prodded the Juryman awake and gave him the note. He read it, looked at her, smiled and put the note in his pocket. The Judge asked for the note to be returned. "Merely a private matter my Lord" said the Juryman
2)The OZ trial. OZ #28 The School Kids issue 1971.
The 3 defendants were Richard Neville, Jim Anderson and Felix Dennis. George Melly, the renowned Anarchist and surrealist, was giving evidence. Judge Argyle a dyed-in-the-wool reactionary commented. "Well pardon me for those of us who did not have a classical education, what do you mean by the word 'cunnilinctus'?" (as if it were a cough medicine Geoffrey Robertson the libertarian QC later pointed out). Melly elucidated for him. "Sucking, blowing or going down or gobbling or, as we said in my naval days, 'Yodelling in the Canyon'." In 1997 the British entry in the 'Song for Europe' Contest was "Yodel in the Canyon of Love" (sic).
1) The Sleeping Juror which was related by Richard Eyre in his published diary.
There was a sexual harassment case in which a woman witness was too shy to say what had been said to her. The Judge told her to write it down. She duly concurred with the words "Do you want a fuck?" The note was passed around the court and ended up with a dozing juryman who was sitting next to an attractive woman. The woman prodded the Juryman awake and gave him the note. He read it, looked at her, smiled and put the note in his pocket. The Judge asked for the note to be returned. "Merely a private matter my Lord" said the Juryman
2)The OZ trial. OZ #28 The School Kids issue 1971.
The 3 defendants were Richard Neville, Jim Anderson and Felix Dennis. George Melly, the renowned Anarchist and surrealist, was giving evidence. Judge Argyle a dyed-in-the-wool reactionary commented. "Well pardon me for those of us who did not have a classical education, what do you mean by the word 'cunnilinctus'?" (as if it were a cough medicine Geoffrey Robertson the libertarian QC later pointed out). Melly elucidated for him. "Sucking, blowing or going down or gobbling or, as we said in my naval days, 'Yodelling in the Canyon'
Monday, 8 August 2011
Torn from Thatcher's Womb
RIOTS on the ENGLISH STREETS DOWN SOUTH
AMID a weekend of riots in Tottenham, North London, I ponder that within my lifetime a substantial social transformation has taken place as English urban riots led by young people on the streets replace trade union industrial action in factories and workshops as a safety valve in British society. The triumph of Thatcherism in the 1980s, that succeeded in smashing the old order with Arthur Scargill, the NUM and the miners, and later the political effectiveness of the British trade unions throwing the TUC into retreat, did also inadvertently set into motion a more subversive community-based and potentially insurrectionary force in the form of the street riot. Yesterday, a barber in riot strewn Tottenham told Ravi Somaiya of the International Herald Tribune: 'This country has changed ... we've lost something' and he was referring to the recent scandals in which the media, the politicians and the police are implicated. Another man, a bus driver who didn't want to give his name, blamed it on endemic youth unemployment and said: 'This will happen again'.
In a talk I gave on the 20th, June on the Spanish Civil War at Haringey Labour Club to the Radical History Network of North East London (RaHN), I said: 'I couldn't help but notice that the big trade union strikes have more or less disappeared from the post-modern scene and that they have been replaced by the street riot from the time of Thatcher.' I explained this radical social change according to a comment in Ignazio Silone's book 'School for Dictators', published in 1939, where he has one of his characters pose this question:
Even without Margaret Thatcher's supreme efforts in the 1980s these social changes disrupting the culture of working life and taking us back mentally to an earlier age would probably have come about anyway; because the decline of the big factories and manufacturing industry would have thrown Silone's concept into reverse: shifting work patterns from modern mass man in the factories with his trade unions, strikes and industrial action back (or forward) to riots, insurrections and individually initiated act of violence to what some would call a post-modern world.
GOD SAVE MARGARET THATCHER!
AMID a weekend of riots in Tottenham, North London, I ponder that within my lifetime a substantial social transformation has taken place as English urban riots led by young people on the streets replace trade union industrial action in factories and workshops as a safety valve in British society. The triumph of Thatcherism in the 1980s, that succeeded in smashing the old order with Arthur Scargill, the NUM and the miners, and later the political effectiveness of the British trade unions throwing the TUC into retreat, did also inadvertently set into motion a more subversive community-based and potentially insurrectionary force in the form of the street riot. Yesterday, a barber in riot strewn Tottenham told Ravi Somaiya of the International Herald Tribune: 'This country has changed ... we've lost something' and he was referring to the recent scandals in which the media, the politicians and the police are implicated. Another man, a bus driver who didn't want to give his name, blamed it on endemic youth unemployment and said: 'This will happen again'.
In a talk I gave on the 20th, June on the Spanish Civil War at Haringey Labour Club to the Radical History Network of North East London (RaHN), I said: 'I couldn't help but notice that the big trade union strikes have more or less disappeared from the post-modern scene and that they have been replaced by the street riot from the time of Thatcher.' I explained this radical social change according to a comment in Ignazio Silone's book 'School for Dictators', published in 1939, where he has one of his characters pose this question:
'40 or 50 years ago if you read the history of the working class movement the masses could produce men bold enough to fight violently to assassinate monarchs, and groups if men bold enough to fight violently during strikes ... how do you explain that loss of dynamism, that spirit?'The character representing Silone's own view answer in this way:
'Perhaps it is one of the consequences of the growth of big industry ... in moving from the artisan's workshop and small plant to the great factory the worker undergoes a considerable transformation. His mental horizon is broadened and his class consciousness increased, but at the same time, he looses taste for freedom and his readiness for individual action - the factory worker is mass man par excellence and the growth of big industry forced workers German workers especially towards "Zusammenmarschieren".'"Zusammenmarschieren" means "marching together". For Silone this characteristic in the Germans, born of their different life style to say the Spaniards, explains how it was that the Spaniards put up stronger resistance to Fascism than did the Germans with their mass Socialist, Communist Parties and trade unions. Silone concludes: 'Inter-party struggles of the Germans are essentially struggles between different party machines, individual initiative has been reduced to zero.'
Even without Margaret Thatcher's supreme efforts in the 1980s these social changes disrupting the culture of working life and taking us back mentally to an earlier age would probably have come about anyway; because the decline of the big factories and manufacturing industry would have thrown Silone's concept into reverse: shifting work patterns from modern mass man in the factories with his trade unions, strikes and industrial action back (or forward) to riots, insurrections and individually initiated act of violence to what some would call a post-modern world.
GOD SAVE MARGARET THATCHER!
Anti-Blacklist Campaigner Steve Acheson's Picket Pledge
By Lucy Ewing BBC News
Steve Acheson has vowed to picket outside Fiddlers Ferry power station until he secures what he calls meaningful employment
"I had a choice - I could either sit in my front room growing old, wishing I had done something, or I could actually do something," electrician Steve Acheson said.
The 58-year-old has spent the past two-and-a-half years protesting outside Fiddlers Ferry power station in Cheshire. It is the continuation of a battle against "blacklisting" in the construction industry - where firms allegedly compile files on workers that include notes of their trade union activities and can lead to them being refused work.
For all that time, he has been standing outside the giant plant - one of the North West's most well-known landmarks with its huge cooling towers looming over the outskirts of Warrington - accompanied by dozens of banners. "By hook or by crook I will not move from here unless I get meaningful employment," he said quietly. "I've not been out of work because I'm a bad electrician - but because I cared about health and safety and was an active union member."
Hundreds of CVs:
In 2008, Mr Acheson was offered a job by sub-contractor BMSL, working as a supervisor at Fiddlers Ferry. Within four hours, he said, it was withdrawn. He was eventually taken on. But less than six months later, on 18 December, he lost his job. Mr Acheson took the company to an employment tribunal last October. His claim for unfair refusal of employment - where his job offer was withdrawn after four hours - was successful but BMSL is currently appealing against the decision.
Mr Acheson places banners outside Fiddlers Ferry at least twice a week. But the tribunal also found he was not unfairly dismissed when he lost his job after six months. It stated that while Mr Acheson had been monitored on the blacklist while working at the site, BMSL had not been involved in a blacklist or had in any way been influenced by it.
A spokesman for the company said it had never been part of the blacklist.
"We were the only people for many years to employ Mr Acheson on the Fiddlers Ferry project," he added. "We would employ him again if any opportunities arose."
But as Mr Acheson, from Denton in Greater Manchester, is pledging to continue his picket until he gets a job, it would appear he may face a long wait. He eventually managed to gain possession of his own blacklist file by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) after officials raided Consulting Association, in Droitwich, Worcestershire, in March 2009. It included his name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number, mobile telephone number and the fact he was "probably EPIU" - referring to his union membership.
'Behaving himself' !
There were scores of entries from sources and clippings from the left-wing press. It monitored where he was working and included some places he had never been employed. Among the entries were: "Is behaving himself, now a foreman… Lads don't pay as much attention since he's not on the shop floor" and "Stephen (sic) Acheson is known to be currently visiting agencies looking for employment in the Liverpool area".
Officials from the ICO discovered a database which had details of 3,213 workers. Forty firms had subscribed to the list. Ian Kerr, one of four employees, pleaded guilty to breaching the Data Protection Act and was fined £5,000 in July 2009. Mr Acheson has argued the 40 subscribers should have faced a harsher punishment - they were given a warning by the ICO. He said that although having sent out about 100 CVs over the past two years, he had not had any offers of work. This is compared to 20 years ago when he would receive regular calls, he said. As well as highlighting his own plight, Mr Acheson is also campaigning against the blacklisting of other workers.
Mr Acheson lost his job at Fiddlers Ferry in December 2008. He said he was aware there was a blacklist long before he was able to hold his own file in his hand. His union activity started in 1996, after the death of a 21-year-old colleague at a site on which he was working.
From then on, he said he was determined to ensure companies for which he worked complied with health and safety legislation.
'Blacklist exists'
In 2000, he lost his job working on a plant after raising health and safety concerns about the site.
Unbeknown to him at the time, that incident marked the opening of his file on a blacklist. He was described as "one of the ringleaders" of a dispute. He was thrown out of work on several occasions on sites across England between 2000 and 2006. He won three cases of unfair dismissal at tribunals - including one in 2007, which he said proved crucial when it judged that a blacklist did exist.
"A blacklist exists within the electrical industry and has on it names of various individuals considered for various reasons to be unsuitable for employment," the judgement said.
"Union activity is a reason why individuals are entered on to that blacklist.
"The claimant Steven Acheson has appeared on that blacklist for a considerable length of time." That gave further weight and energy to Mr Acheson's campaign, which eventually led to the ICO taking up his case.
"Union activity is a reason why individuals are entered on to that blacklist.
"The claimant Steven Acheson has appeared on that blacklist for a considerable length of time." That gave further weight and energy to Mr Acheson's campaign, which eventually led to the ICO taking up his case.
'Ruined lives'
The government introduced new regulations against blacklisting in 2010, making it unlawful to operate a list and to compensate those who suffer loss as a result of being blacklisted.
But Mr Acheson believes this does not mean the end for the blacklist. A manager in the construction industry has told him it still exists, he said. He also cited a dispute at the Olympic site, where two workers have claimed they lost their jobs because of a blacklist.
"I don't want to be here doing this. I would rather be working every day”
But Mr Acheson believes this does not mean the end for the blacklist. A manager in the construction industry has told him it still exists, he said. He also cited a dispute at the Olympic site, where two workers have claimed they lost their jobs because of a blacklist.
"I don't want to be here doing this. I would rather be working every day”
Dave Smith, spokesman for the Blacklist Support Group, said blacklisting "ruined family lives".
"The only reason I or Steve Acheson have been blacklisted is because we have raised concerns about health and safety issues," he added. Mr Acheson said his campaign had had a huge effect on his family - his wife Debra, 44, works full time to support him. And his 21-year-old daughter has not seen her father in continuous employment since she was 10. "I don't want to be here doing this. I would rather be working every day," he said.
"The only reason I or Steve Acheson have been blacklisted is because we have raised concerns about health and safety issues," he added. Mr Acheson said his campaign had had a huge effect on his family - his wife Debra, 44, works full time to support him. And his 21-year-old daughter has not seen her father in continuous employment since she was 10. "I don't want to be here doing this. I would rather be working every day," he said.
The support group is now taking its campaign to Europe.
It recently raised the issue with the European Commissioner for employment, social affairs and inclusion László Andor.
The UK Contractors Group said its members were "well aware of their obligations under data protection regulations".A spokesman for the ICO said: "If anyone has evidence that blacklisting is continuing then they should inform the ICO."
It recently raised the issue with the European Commissioner for employment, social affairs and inclusion László Andor.
The UK Contractors Group said its members were "well aware of their obligations under data protection regulations".A spokesman for the ICO said: "If anyone has evidence that blacklisting is continuing then they should inform the ICO."
Thursday, 4 August 2011
BBC: Anthropology of Excuses
Meanwhile, the BBC is insisting on its right to make staff compulsorily redundant while it still refuses to meet the National Union of Journalists at the conciliation service ACAS. Yesterday, managers took over the work of journalists while the strike was on. It is said that some of them prefer doing jobs as presenters, more than their own jobs, if only it wasn't for the money. The NUJ claims that the BBC should put its own house in order because 'money has been wasted by the BBC management'. A report published in March 2011 by the Public Accounts Committee on BBC's Digital Media initiative showed 'that failings in the project cost the licence fee payer £26 million which had to be saved in "efficiencies" (cuts) within the BBC divisions.'
Yet, top pay at the BBC is, according to the NUJ, '...21.5 times the average salary and 47 times the lowest salary'. Some journalists see themselves as rugged individualists who can best negotiate for themselves rather than using the union. Egotism seems to be part of the culture at the BBC and the NUJ says in a leaflet: 'Money should be spent on staffing core services, not wasted on vanity projects.' Tomorrow, a work-to-rule will be set in motion by the union but some worry that journalists will find it hard to enforce a work-to-rule given the ethic of professionalism at the BBC. The union urges people to write to the BBC asking them to go to ACAS and look for a solution to the dispute.
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
Academics & anarchists: on doing hacking & phone taps
'A Company of Bastards' & the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act
RECENT comment on the ethics of phone-hacking and the media reminded me of our practices in the 1970s, during the time of the alternative press and counter-cultural journalism in the North of England; not to mention what we got up to in the name of our academic interests. We didn't actually go in for phone-hacking as such but we did tape-record telephone conversations of various parties without their knowledge. Usually we did it with people that we did not like, such as slippery union bosses like Arnold Belfield (a Rochdale Magistrate and Secretary of the National Union of Textile & Allied Workers) or Albert Hilton (President of the Rochdale Branch of the National Union of Textile & Allied Workers) or as the publication Rochdale Alternative Paper did when it recorded the boss of the Weavers & Winders Union, others did it on the odd local employer or manager. We did this at the time mainly for practical reasons because, when it suited these people, they tended to have memory lapses and that could be troublesome for trade union activists on the shop-floor. In the early 1970s, Albert Hilton, then President of Rochdale National Union of Textile & Allied Workers, had to have his memory jogged by the production of a tape recording to prove that he had had a telephone conversation with me some weeks before the committee meeting at which he and the Secretary were trying to expel me from the union. He then made himself look guilty by responding thus: 'anyone can fake a tape recording!'
We didn't only limit these activities to tape recordings of telephone conversations either, sometimes we would engineer a tape recorder into a briefcase and take it to a meeting with the bosses or union officials to make covert recordings of the proceedings. These recordings would sometimes provide us with an aide-memoire so that we could fill in reports or to produce articles. But mostly they would be produced to undermine our enemies among the bosses and union leaders in the 1970s and beyond. A bloke called Brendan - close to the anarchist movement - was a bobby-dazzler at making these secret recordings and even Derek Pattison, who is now on the editorial panel of Northern Voices and is a life-long anarcho-syndicalist, in the 1980s got another anarchist called Ian Smith to ring up one of his ex-employers pretending to be a boss asking for a reference and expecting him to give a bad one so that he could later discredit that boss. Some of the material thus obtained may have been used for articles in Freedom, the anarchist weekly, when in the 1970s it was edited by Peter Turner, also a member of UCATT and Secretary of Hammersmith TUC.
Yet, this kind of surreptitiously acquired material had other uses besides wrong-footing dodgy employers and union bosses, it could be used for academic research. My own dissertation for my B.A. was based on one such confrontation between myself and a union official, Arnold Belfield, then, in the 1970s, Secretary of the National Union of Allied Workers: the thesis was entitled 'Members & Officials: Some Aspects of a Trade Union Dispute' and was based on a recording taken with Mr Belfield's knowledge on the premises of the union. One Friday evening I just tuned up at the office before it closed and slapped the tape-recorder down on his desk and started to interrogate him; there was a bit of an altercation of course, a bit of pushing and shoving, and then he rang for one of his union cronies for support. When that didn't work and I still refused to leave, Arnold Belfield, who was also a Magistrate in Rochdale, called in the police, and then when I still refused to leave until I got a proper answer to my questions from Arnold, the copper with the help of Arnold began to try to carry me out: it was all there on tape the shouting, the cries of 'get his other leg' and from the police officer: 'I sick of this, I'm finishing work at 6pm, and I don't want to be messing about with you!'
All this recorded data later proved useful for studying power relationships and how people relate to each other in argumentative situations while I was later doing my degree in 1976. A particular school of sociology in Manchester 'ethnomethodology', which was very fashionable in the mid-1970s, lent itself to this kind of material. Harold Garfinkel, who died on 21st April this year and was professor emeritus in sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, had coined the term 'ethnomethodology', meaning 'people's methodology' in the 1950s. Michael Lynch who wrote Garfinkel's obituary in The Guardian in June wrote: 'In the social sciences, methodology usually refers to systematic techniques for collecting data but, following Garfinkel, ethnomethodologists identified it with a broad range of ordinary abilities, such as taking part in conversational exchanges, navigating through traffic situations and recognising what is happening in specific social environments.' Lynch says: 'Garfinkel's major work, Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967), challenged 'top down' theories which proposed that society was structured around relatively limited sets of rules and overarching values.' Garfinkel proposed an alternative 'bottom up' picture of society built from what Lynch says are 'innumerable occasions of improvised conduct adapted to particular situations'. The tape recorder and later the video recorder proved a useful tool for collecting such data.
Was this ethical anymore than the conduct of the News International journalists? Some of this data was collected in a sneaky and covert manner to make it more authentic because the subject of the study would act more naturally if he or she didn't know they were being recorded. Garfinkel even got his students to probe the assumed existence of social order by using 'disruption or breaching experiments' and sending them out to upset commonplace routines in households and public places. My experience with the Magistrate and union boss, Arnold Belfield, and the Rochdale policeman was one such way of delving into the relationship between union officials and their members, authority figures and citizens. Only half in jest, was Garfinkel later in his life to describe the field of ethnomethodological endeavour as 'a company of bastards' - some of the things we got up to were a bit rum to be sure and Michael Lynch writes: 'Like a stand-up comic, he (Garfinkel) had a knack for exposing the strangeness of everyday routines.'
I suppose both Garfinkel, the ethnos and the anarchists at the time in the 1960s and 70s, would have argued that it was in the public interest to acquire this kind of information through tricks and wire taps. We would have said these methods were justified given what we were trying to find out, and in the case of the anarchists, dealing with employers and bosses, that it was our way of getting the edge of the employers and the union bosses. But whatever the ethics of doing this kind of thing, these past practices, both by academics and anarchists, have probably now all been made illegal under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act [RIPA 2000] in the year 2000. Today, I'm not even sure that Ervin Goffman would in England be allowed to secretly insert himself in a mental institution in order to collect information to write a book like Asylums. But RIPA 2000 did let employers and councils do some authoritarian things such as at Bury Council, where in 2006, they secretly filmed a team of their own binmen employees doing their work, and later tried to use the film footage to prove that three had been taking bribes off some shopkeepers: all these binmen ended up getting a significant sum in an out-of-Court settlement and payment which was later commented on in the Mail on Sunday and the Bury Times. In an unrelated case a security guard from Bury MBC told Northern Voices that the Council had covertly used audio recording gear in their work's car to record the conversations of their Bury MBC security staff going about their duties on the night shift. This kind of thing reminds one of the old East Germany under the Stasi or secret police. The signs are that the RIPA 2000 didn't really stop the abuses as it set out to do; I don't know if the academics or anarchists have now been intimidated by the RIPA 2000.
RECENT comment on the ethics of phone-hacking and the media reminded me of our practices in the 1970s, during the time of the alternative press and counter-cultural journalism in the North of England; not to mention what we got up to in the name of our academic interests. We didn't actually go in for phone-hacking as such but we did tape-record telephone conversations of various parties without their knowledge. Usually we did it with people that we did not like, such as slippery union bosses like Arnold Belfield (a Rochdale Magistrate and Secretary of the National Union of Textile & Allied Workers) or Albert Hilton (President of the Rochdale Branch of the National Union of Textile & Allied Workers) or as the publication Rochdale Alternative Paper did when it recorded the boss of the Weavers & Winders Union, others did it on the odd local employer or manager. We did this at the time mainly for practical reasons because, when it suited these people, they tended to have memory lapses and that could be troublesome for trade union activists on the shop-floor. In the early 1970s, Albert Hilton, then President of Rochdale National Union of Textile & Allied Workers, had to have his memory jogged by the production of a tape recording to prove that he had had a telephone conversation with me some weeks before the committee meeting at which he and the Secretary were trying to expel me from the union. He then made himself look guilty by responding thus: 'anyone can fake a tape recording!'
We didn't only limit these activities to tape recordings of telephone conversations either, sometimes we would engineer a tape recorder into a briefcase and take it to a meeting with the bosses or union officials to make covert recordings of the proceedings. These recordings would sometimes provide us with an aide-memoire so that we could fill in reports or to produce articles. But mostly they would be produced to undermine our enemies among the bosses and union leaders in the 1970s and beyond. A bloke called Brendan - close to the anarchist movement - was a bobby-dazzler at making these secret recordings and even Derek Pattison, who is now on the editorial panel of Northern Voices and is a life-long anarcho-syndicalist, in the 1980s got another anarchist called Ian Smith to ring up one of his ex-employers pretending to be a boss asking for a reference and expecting him to give a bad one so that he could later discredit that boss. Some of the material thus obtained may have been used for articles in Freedom, the anarchist weekly, when in the 1970s it was edited by Peter Turner, also a member of UCATT and Secretary of Hammersmith TUC.
Yet, this kind of surreptitiously acquired material had other uses besides wrong-footing dodgy employers and union bosses, it could be used for academic research. My own dissertation for my B.A. was based on one such confrontation between myself and a union official, Arnold Belfield, then, in the 1970s, Secretary of the National Union of Allied Workers: the thesis was entitled 'Members & Officials: Some Aspects of a Trade Union Dispute' and was based on a recording taken with Mr Belfield's knowledge on the premises of the union. One Friday evening I just tuned up at the office before it closed and slapped the tape-recorder down on his desk and started to interrogate him; there was a bit of an altercation of course, a bit of pushing and shoving, and then he rang for one of his union cronies for support. When that didn't work and I still refused to leave, Arnold Belfield, who was also a Magistrate in Rochdale, called in the police, and then when I still refused to leave until I got a proper answer to my questions from Arnold, the copper with the help of Arnold began to try to carry me out: it was all there on tape the shouting, the cries of 'get his other leg' and from the police officer: 'I sick of this, I'm finishing work at 6pm, and I don't want to be messing about with you!'
All this recorded data later proved useful for studying power relationships and how people relate to each other in argumentative situations while I was later doing my degree in 1976. A particular school of sociology in Manchester 'ethnomethodology', which was very fashionable in the mid-1970s, lent itself to this kind of material. Harold Garfinkel, who died on 21st April this year and was professor emeritus in sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, had coined the term 'ethnomethodology', meaning 'people's methodology' in the 1950s. Michael Lynch who wrote Garfinkel's obituary in The Guardian in June wrote: 'In the social sciences, methodology usually refers to systematic techniques for collecting data but, following Garfinkel, ethnomethodologists identified it with a broad range of ordinary abilities, such as taking part in conversational exchanges, navigating through traffic situations and recognising what is happening in specific social environments.' Lynch says: 'Garfinkel's major work, Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967), challenged 'top down' theories which proposed that society was structured around relatively limited sets of rules and overarching values.' Garfinkel proposed an alternative 'bottom up' picture of society built from what Lynch says are 'innumerable occasions of improvised conduct adapted to particular situations'. The tape recorder and later the video recorder proved a useful tool for collecting such data.
Was this ethical anymore than the conduct of the News International journalists? Some of this data was collected in a sneaky and covert manner to make it more authentic because the subject of the study would act more naturally if he or she didn't know they were being recorded. Garfinkel even got his students to probe the assumed existence of social order by using 'disruption or breaching experiments' and sending them out to upset commonplace routines in households and public places. My experience with the Magistrate and union boss, Arnold Belfield, and the Rochdale policeman was one such way of delving into the relationship between union officials and their members, authority figures and citizens. Only half in jest, was Garfinkel later in his life to describe the field of ethnomethodological endeavour as 'a company of bastards' - some of the things we got up to were a bit rum to be sure and Michael Lynch writes: 'Like a stand-up comic, he (Garfinkel) had a knack for exposing the strangeness of everyday routines.'
I suppose both Garfinkel, the ethnos and the anarchists at the time in the 1960s and 70s, would have argued that it was in the public interest to acquire this kind of information through tricks and wire taps. We would have said these methods were justified given what we were trying to find out, and in the case of the anarchists, dealing with employers and bosses, that it was our way of getting the edge of the employers and the union bosses. But whatever the ethics of doing this kind of thing, these past practices, both by academics and anarchists, have probably now all been made illegal under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act [RIPA 2000] in the year 2000. Today, I'm not even sure that Ervin Goffman would in England be allowed to secretly insert himself in a mental institution in order to collect information to write a book like Asylums. But RIPA 2000 did let employers and councils do some authoritarian things such as at Bury Council, where in 2006, they secretly filmed a team of their own binmen employees doing their work, and later tried to use the film footage to prove that three had been taking bribes off some shopkeepers: all these binmen ended up getting a significant sum in an out-of-Court settlement and payment which was later commented on in the Mail on Sunday and the Bury Times. In an unrelated case a security guard from Bury MBC told Northern Voices that the Council had covertly used audio recording gear in their work's car to record the conversations of their Bury MBC security staff going about their duties on the night shift. This kind of thing reminds one of the old East Germany under the Stasi or secret police. The signs are that the RIPA 2000 didn't really stop the abuses as it set out to do; I don't know if the academics or anarchists have now been intimidated by the RIPA 2000.
Sunday, 31 July 2011
John Mortimer's biography
One relates to the genesis of the TV series Rumpole of the Bailey created and written by Mortimer. There was an Old Bailey Trial in which Mortimer defended the Mile End Boot Boys - football hooligans - who killed an innocent bystander at Charing Cross Station. He was assisted by James Burge QC (defender of Stephen Ward of the Profumo affair). Burge told Mortimer at the start of the trial "As a matter of fact I am an anarchist. But I dont think even my old darling Prince Peter Kropotkin would have approved of this lot." "There I had Rumpole" Mortimer thought. The original title suggested by John Mortimer was "My Darling Prince Peter Kroptkin", but this was vetoed.
The second anecdote concerns Lord "Boofy" Arran and may not be strictly PC. Arran introduce 2 bills in the House of Lords, one to reduce the age of homosexual consent to 18 and the other for the preservation of badgers. "I cant understand it" said Boofy as he lay dying, "Hardly anyone showed up for the badgers Bill. When we passed the buggers bill the place was packed". "Have you considered" he was asked, "there are very few badgers in the House of Lords".
Thursday, 28 July 2011
Beer in the evening. 'The Ash Tree' in Ashton-under-Lyne. Is this the worst Wetherspoon`s in the country?
For the last several weeks, the pub chain J.D. Wetherspoon, have been running their first-ever national summer (2011) cider festival. At value-for-money prices, twelve excellent festival ciders have been on sale including 'Sheppy`s Farmhouse Draft', 'Devon Scrumpy' 'Weston`s Cider Twist' and the award winning, 'Black Dragon' from Glamorgan. It is to be hoped, that this is the first of many cider festivals to come.
In recent years, Wetherspoon`s have also organised a number of real ale festivals which have proven to be extremely popular with customers. They also sell on a regular basis, a variety of cask real ales and have a policy of supporting local micro breweries. With the average price of a pint now standing at £3.05, you can get a pint of real ale in many Wetherspoon outlets for around £2.20 or less, but prices do vary, between Wetherspoon pubs.
Though I rarely buy the food, which is served all day, the meals are popular (including the curry nights) with many customers and are sold at a reasonable price. There are facilities in many places for indoor and outdoor drinking, hotel accommodation, TV and Wifi provided, and children are allowed in with families, when buying a meal. At a time when many pubs are closing (1,300 last year), and pub beer sales are down due to huge tax increases, the Wetherspoon pub chain, have continued to expand and are opening more pubs.
Of course, there are some people who would not choose to drink in a Wetherspoon pub even though it is cheap. The pubs themselves can be noisy and overcrowded and the swearing in some places, can be atrocious. Similarly, in some pubs the standard of service can also be atrocious, but this varies from pub to pub. However, over the years, a common complaint about Wetherspoon`s, is that it suffers from poor service.
Certainly, the worst Wetherspoon pub that I have been in, is 'The Ash Tree' in Ashton-under-Lyne. On the entrance to this pub, they ought to inscribe in big letters: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here", so bad is the service. Rarely have I seen bar staff, so ignorant, clueless, and miserable, as in this place. In this establishment there is an attitude among some staff that proclaims: 'we couldn`t give a toss.' The staff are also inclined, to ignore customers that they take a dislike to, as well as, those who complain.
A friend of mine, told me recently that he`d been speaking to someone who`d bought a meal at 'The Ash Tree'. On being served his meal, he`d noticed that the waiter had his thumb in the gravy and he told him, that he didn`t want it. When asked by the waiter why he didn`t want the meal, he told him that his thumb had been in the gravy, whereupon, the waiter replied: "Would you prefer my two fingers?" Speaking personally, I once bought a meal in this establishment and found greasy fingerprints all over the plate. That was the last meal I purchased in 'The Ash Tree.'
Judging from comments left on websites such as 'Beer in the Evening', I'm not the only one who has a low opinion of this drinking establishment. Each drinking establishment is given a rating out of ten and 'The Ash Tree', scored 2.5/10. A comment left on site in April 2011, says this of 'The Ash Tree':
"Pub has improved since I was last in. Some of the staff show willing but those who have been there a while, are still lazy and ignorant...Speaking to some of the regulars, who told me of this establishment closing early on the whim of the staff."
A comment posted in January 2011 says: "If you`re not in 15 minutes before the last orders bell, there`s a good chance they wont serve you. keep an eye on your watch, as often the bell is very gently rung, as one or two staff seem to delight in saying you`ve missed last orders - hopeless...I go in less and less these days, it seems the management are determined to drive customers away."
In July 2010, a disgruntled customer says: "Staff seem to be going through the motions, seem irritated by customers. Bottles chucked into the bottle skip every two minutes, shattering.
In June 2010, another disgruntled customer says: "Worst Wetherspoon`s in the country and its on my doorstep."
Other comments left on the site, refer to "staff bone idle and ignorant", "Surly and ignorant bar staff", "Service still crap and staff ignorant as ever", "The staff are absolutely ignorant and lazy", "The staff just couldn`t care less."
Unlike 'The Ash Tree' which wont be winning any awards for customer services, 'The Cotton Bale' in Hyde, is listed in the Good Beer Guide (2011) published by the Campaign for Real Ale'(CAMRA). The pub which was rated 4.4/10 by the 'Beer in the Evening' Website, offers up to 12 handpumped real ales. On my visits to this establishment, I have always found the staff friendly and polite and the beer in excellent condition.
In Stalybridge, 'The Society Rooms', the Wetherspoon`s pub on Grosvenor Street, was rated 5.6/10 by 'Beer in the Evening'. A comment left on the website in February 2011 says:
"Ten handpumps all in use...service was fast and friendly. Quite a decent Wetherspoon`s - a lot better than 'The Ash Tree' in Ashton. Good cask ales at excellent prices. Service can be slow at busy times."
On my visits to this establishment, I`ve always found the standard of service excellent and the staff friendly and polite. Until recently the pub did sell Millstone beers but I`ve not seen any on sale for a while which is a pity. Nevertheless, there are always a good range of cask ales on sale for £2.10 or less, if the ABV is below 5%.
The chairman and founder of J.D. Wetherspoon, New Zealander, Tim Martin, is what you might call a hands-on type of bloke. He can often be seen in one of his many pubs chatting to staff and customers, with his notebook in his hand and his mullet-style haircut. Perhaps on one of his next trips to his rapidly expanding empire, he should pay a visit to 'The Ash Tree' and while he`s there shake the staff up a bit, or better still, transfer some of them to one of his pubs in Outer Mongolia, where they will find life, far more agreeable.
Police turn up at Tameside picket
THIS morning, the picket at Denton Community College on Corporation Road, Denton was visited first by Tameside Council's security police at 8.30 a.m. The Council's security men asked the picket's spokesman, Steve Acheson, to take their banners off the trees as they were on Council property. Mr Acheson then began to quote from the relevant case law and decisions by Lord Denning in the Appeal Court on the right to protest on the highways of England, whereupon the security guards were so taken aback that they withdrew for a conference with their employers.
This picket is part of a national campaign by building workers and electricians against the blacklisting of workers and trade unionists in the construction industry. Carillion, the main contractor on this site, has been accused of being part of a major racket by British building firms to create data bases of workers' names and to enforce them, so they can't find any work. This has been described as an attack on family life.
Later this morning at about 10.30am the Northern Voices' office received further reports of community police being brought to the site to question the pickets. In the end a compromise was worked out and the pickets agreed to put their banners on the company fence instead of the trees which 'belong' to the Council.
Northern Voices rang the site's Construction Manager, Joseph Hammerton, at about 10.45am while the police were still present, but as soon as I said I was from Northern Voices, the phone went dead. When I immediately redialled the number the answer phone was activated, saying that Mr. Joseph Hammerton was not available and asking me to leave a message. I promptly did so, leaving the details of Northern Voices and saying we were doing a story on blacklisting in the British construction industry.
This picket is part of a national campaign by building workers and electricians against the blacklisting of workers and trade unionists in the construction industry. Carillion, the main contractor on this site, has been accused of being part of a major racket by British building firms to create data bases of workers' names and to enforce them, so they can't find any work. This has been described as an attack on family life.
Later this morning at about 10.30am the Northern Voices' office received further reports of community police being brought to the site to question the pickets. In the end a compromise was worked out and the pickets agreed to put their banners on the company fence instead of the trees which 'belong' to the Council.
Northern Voices rang the site's Construction Manager, Joseph Hammerton, at about 10.45am while the police were still present, but as soon as I said I was from Northern Voices, the phone went dead. When I immediately redialled the number the answer phone was activated, saying that Mr. Joseph Hammerton was not available and asking me to leave a message. I promptly did so, leaving the details of Northern Voices and saying we were doing a story on blacklisting in the British construction industry.
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
James Keogh's Sister Clare: a Stalybridge neighbour pays her respects
EULOGY: NEIGHBOURS BY CHANCE; FRIENDS BY CHOICE
by Julie Aney
I HAVE been a neighbour of Clare & Arthur [Jackson] on Moorfield Avenue my whole life, almost 27 year! Moorfield Avenue is one of those rare places which houses [no pun intended] a real community spirit; we look out for each other and are not only neighbours but many of us would call ourselves friends. It's for this reason that I have many memories of Clare; some which I'll share now.
Moorfield Avenue didn't need Home Watch with Clare around; she was our eyes and ears, no matter what time of day or night! We'd get weekly update of who'd been where, who had had what delivered and the details and full description of any mysterious callers! More often than not she'd know where we were before we did; quite often I'd hear the words 'you were out last night' or 'have you not been to work today, I saw your car up the drive?'. We always said nobody would get away with having an affair or truanting from work or school with Clare around!
But, on the flip side of the coin, her curiosity was what made Clare a wonderful neighbour; if we were at work she'd look out for the postman to take in any parcels to save us going to the sorting office and she'd keep an eye on the houses to make sure they were kept safe whilst we were out. She would bring a weekly magazine delivery to our house which she continued to do during her illness and during her days at Kerry Foods, we would get food and toiletry deliveries too! Her kind and caring nature will be missed by so many.
Clare loved a drink and one of my favourite memories is Boxing Day get-togethers at Clare and Arthur's with all the neighbours. Arthur and Clare were so generous and would organise drinks and food for us to celebrate the festive season. Anyone who had the pleasure of being invited would find the drinks flowing and I'm sure I speak for many when I say Boxing Day evenings was usually feeling the effects!
Clare never lost this sense of humour, even when she was very poorly and indeed my last memory of Clare is one of laughter. My Mum, me and Clare's friend Nell spent a Friday evening with her and were given some of the biggest measures of alcohol you've ever seen; this was straight from work before I'd eaten and needless to say we ended up in fits of laughter at some of Clare's stories. This memory will stay with me forever and is how I will remember Clare!
Clare was fiercely independent and fought her illness with the courage of a lion. Never once did she complain about being unwell and would always insist on making the drinks whenever we visited regardless of how poorly she was. Her fighting spirit and character will be missed from Moorfield Avenue for many years to come.
Wherever she is now, no doubt she will have a whisky in her hand so there's only one thing left for me to say and that's 'Cheers Clare - it's been a pleasure.'
by Julie Aney
This year it is the 75th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War. In November, the Arts & Events Department of Tameside MBC will be awarding a Blue Plaque to local lad James Keogh for his part in volunteering to fight in the Spanish Civil War along with others from the Tameside towns. James Keogh died in March 1938, fighting for freedom and democracy with the International Brigade in Spain. His younger sister, Clare Jackson, was born on 27th June 1932 and died on 11th July 2011, and was assisting Tameside Trade Union Council in its campaign to get her brother James a blue plaque until the end of her life. It is a tragedy that she did not survive to see it installed. Below, a neighbour of Clare's, Julie Aney, gives her appreciation.
 |
| Clare Jackson, reading Northern Voices |
Moorfield Avenue didn't need Home Watch with Clare around; she was our eyes and ears, no matter what time of day or night! We'd get weekly update of who'd been where, who had had what delivered and the details and full description of any mysterious callers! More often than not she'd know where we were before we did; quite often I'd hear the words 'you were out last night' or 'have you not been to work today, I saw your car up the drive?'. We always said nobody would get away with having an affair or truanting from work or school with Clare around!
But, on the flip side of the coin, her curiosity was what made Clare a wonderful neighbour; if we were at work she'd look out for the postman to take in any parcels to save us going to the sorting office and she'd keep an eye on the houses to make sure they were kept safe whilst we were out. She would bring a weekly magazine delivery to our house which she continued to do during her illness and during her days at Kerry Foods, we would get food and toiletry deliveries too! Her kind and caring nature will be missed by so many.
Clare loved a drink and one of my favourite memories is Boxing Day get-togethers at Clare and Arthur's with all the neighbours. Arthur and Clare were so generous and would organise drinks and food for us to celebrate the festive season. Anyone who had the pleasure of being invited would find the drinks flowing and I'm sure I speak for many when I say Boxing Day evenings was usually feeling the effects!
Clare never lost this sense of humour, even when she was very poorly and indeed my last memory of Clare is one of laughter. My Mum, me and Clare's friend Nell spent a Friday evening with her and were given some of the biggest measures of alcohol you've ever seen; this was straight from work before I'd eaten and needless to say we ended up in fits of laughter at some of Clare's stories. This memory will stay with me forever and is how I will remember Clare!
Clare was fiercely independent and fought her illness with the courage of a lion. Never once did she complain about being unwell and would always insist on making the drinks whenever we visited regardless of how poorly she was. Her fighting spirit and character will be missed from Moorfield Avenue for many years to come.
Wherever she is now, no doubt she will have a whisky in her hand so there's only one thing left for me to say and that's 'Cheers Clare - it's been a pleasure.'
BLACKLIST PICKETS HIT TAMESIDE
AT 7.50am this morning, pickets put up banners calling on British construction companies to 'Stop Victimising Trade Union Workers' outside the Denton Community College in Denton, and protesting at Tameside Council for harbouring and encouraging a firm accused of blacklisting: that firm is the construction company Carillion. Carillion was named together with more than 40 other building companies as being affiliated to the Consultancy Association; the director of the Consulting Association, Ian Kerr, pleaded guilty to compiling an illegal database without a proper license at Knutsford Crown Court. Tameside MBC is currently Labour controlled, and since Roy Oldham died, has been led by Kieran Quinn, a Droylsden East councillor, who is a member of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and a former postal worker: according to this biography. Councillor Quinn has outside interests in bodies like New Charter Building Company and he is a member of the Commission for the New Economy.
Today's pickets outside the Denton Community College are disgruntled members of Unite the Union who regard themselves as being blacklisted by companies like Carillion. Carillion won a contract for £300 million in Tameside in 2008 for a joint venture project on schools in the borough when Roy Oldham was still the Executive leader of Tameside MBC. At the time that Carillion won this work to build and rebuild schools in Tameside, Councillor Oldham was quoted as saying: 'Tameside will be the envy of other cities and towns across the country.' If Carillion turns out to be a big-time blacklister this may yet come back to haunt Tameside MBC and it is understood that Tameside Trade Union Council is writing to councillor Quinn to question his role in continuing the local authority's business links with Carillion, given that it has been accused of blacklisting.
Northern Voices was told in April that Tameside MBC had set up Local Education Partnerships and was actively out-sourcing work to Carillion. Local Education Partnerships give work on schools: both building and maintaining schools. As part of a Local Education Partnership, Carillion don't have to tender for other work such as catering in schools, cleaning across the Council, caretaking, security in schools and council buildings. Reliable sources close to the Council suggest that Carillion want to take over Dukinfield Town Hall to use as a flagship for weddings and functions, and possibly a hotel. Currently, the Town Hall is used as a Registry Office and for administrative purposes.
Given that Carillion has well and truly got its feet under the table with the Council in Tameside, it will be highly inconvenient if a bunch of whingeing local electricians who claim that they are being blacklisted get in the way. These kind of anti-blacklist campaigners have trodden the streets of Manchester for the best part of a decade and don't seem to want to go away. If they start doing regular pickets in Tameside they might damage the commercial prospects of Carillion: I'd better sell my shares in the company!
Today's pickets outside the Denton Community College are disgruntled members of Unite the Union who regard themselves as being blacklisted by companies like Carillion. Carillion won a contract for £300 million in Tameside in 2008 for a joint venture project on schools in the borough when Roy Oldham was still the Executive leader of Tameside MBC. At the time that Carillion won this work to build and rebuild schools in Tameside, Councillor Oldham was quoted as saying: 'Tameside will be the envy of other cities and towns across the country.' If Carillion turns out to be a big-time blacklister this may yet come back to haunt Tameside MBC and it is understood that Tameside Trade Union Council is writing to councillor Quinn to question his role in continuing the local authority's business links with Carillion, given that it has been accused of blacklisting.
Northern Voices was told in April that Tameside MBC had set up Local Education Partnerships and was actively out-sourcing work to Carillion. Local Education Partnerships give work on schools: both building and maintaining schools. As part of a Local Education Partnership, Carillion don't have to tender for other work such as catering in schools, cleaning across the Council, caretaking, security in schools and council buildings. Reliable sources close to the Council suggest that Carillion want to take over Dukinfield Town Hall to use as a flagship for weddings and functions, and possibly a hotel. Currently, the Town Hall is used as a Registry Office and for administrative purposes.
Given that Carillion has well and truly got its feet under the table with the Council in Tameside, it will be highly inconvenient if a bunch of whingeing local electricians who claim that they are being blacklisted get in the way. These kind of anti-blacklist campaigners have trodden the streets of Manchester for the best part of a decade and don't seem to want to go away. If they start doing regular pickets in Tameside they might damage the commercial prospects of Carillion: I'd better sell my shares in the company!
Monday, 25 July 2011
Spanish Revolution 75th anniversary: Meeting Report
The Radical History Network of North East London (RaHN) kicked off again last Wednesday with a well attended meeting to celebrate the Spanish revolution of 1936. The military invasion by General Franco, aided by Hitler and Mussolini, sparked off the immediate resistance of much of eastern Spain. Everyone took to the streets, disarmed the troops, stormed the barracks and prisons then occupied their workplaces in factories, depots, mines and the land. It took nearly three years of civil war to dislodge them, aided even so by the so-called helpers of the communists who also turfed out occupiers. People paid tribute to the International Brigades who went to the country to defend the people’s action. In the end, the fascists won, and this became a curtain raiser for WW2 a few months later.
The speaker, Brian Bamford from Manchester, gave an interesting discourse on the events, covering various historical sources and views. Speakers from the floor emphasised what was – and still is – the greatest mobilization of ordinary people fighting to control their lives. There were people at the meeting from the Haringey Solidarity Group, some visitors from Walthamstow and two Spanish students who were able to add details about the recent big demonstrations all over Spain.
There was a good supply of literature available including Alan Woodward's recently published booklet on workers control in this period and a pamphlet on the war from Manchester. A reprint of a booklet on Women in the Spanish Revolution had been made. The RaHN blog was publicized which has had many hits on this subject . Housmans of Kings Cross supplied a bookstall.
The forthcoming RaHN programme was announced :
14 Sept: The Closure of the Post Office. After one and a half centuries when the PO finally replaced private structures, we now face reverting to this absurd and expensive method. Local resident Rowland Hill introduced the national system. Merlin Reader, a union rep for the Communications Workers Union, keeps us up to date with the history and the current struggle.
12 October: Joe Jacobs. To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the famous Cable Street events of 1936, we remind people that Joe’s magnificent struggle against the fascists is recorded in detail in a working class classic Out Of the Ghetto. Alan Woodward has written up the second half of his life after 1940 and introduces his booklet.
22 October: Anarchist Bookfair, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London, E1
4NS . All day Saturday, 10 am to 7 pm. We have a stall.
9 November: to be arranged
14 December: The Luddites Remembered. It is 200 years since the clothing workers smashed up the machinery that was destroying their jobs. Many regard modern technology as similarly destructive, but a better way is needed to deal with it this time round . We examine the prospects .
Report, 21 July 2011-07-22, Any reply to ; alan@petew.org.uk
Tuesday, 19 July 2011
Before Christie:
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE - IN OUR PAGES 75 YEARS AGO
LONG BEFORE the Scottish Anarchist, Stuart Christie, went to Spain to aid a plot to assassinate General Franco in August 1964, indeed years before he was even born, the campaign of military sedition by a group of Spanish Generals that eventually installed Franco as the Caudillo of Spain began in Africa. Today's International Herald Tribune reports:
1936 Spanish Army Seizes Morocco:
The Spanish army in Morocco rose in revolt late Friday night and by yesterday morning [July 18] it was in control of the whole of Spanish Morocco. Fierce fighting broke our between the insurgents and the civil element of the Spanish population, causing heavy loss of life. Arab natives are not taking part in the movement. Late last night rebel troops were said to have landed in southern Spanish ports to carry the revolt into Spain.
The third edition of our Spanish Civil War booklet is still available: price £4.60/€5.00 post included, cheques payable to 'Tameside Trade Union Council' from c/o 46, Kingsland Road, Rochdale, Lancs. OL11 3HQ.
LONG BEFORE the Scottish Anarchist, Stuart Christie, went to Spain to aid a plot to assassinate General Franco in August 1964, indeed years before he was even born, the campaign of military sedition by a group of Spanish Generals that eventually installed Franco as the Caudillo of Spain began in Africa. Today's International Herald Tribune reports:
1936 Spanish Army Seizes Morocco:
The Spanish army in Morocco rose in revolt late Friday night and by yesterday morning [July 18] it was in control of the whole of Spanish Morocco. Fierce fighting broke our between the insurgents and the civil element of the Spanish population, causing heavy loss of life. Arab natives are not taking part in the movement. Late last night rebel troops were said to have landed in southern Spanish ports to carry the revolt into Spain.
Wednesday, 13 July 2011
Statistics, Official Statistics & Reports:
Doubt & uncertainty from the BLACKLIST FILES to the SPANISH CIVIL WAR RECORDS...
LAST night, just before the meeting of Tameside Trade Union Council in Ashton-under-Lyne, I and Derek Pattison - President of Tameside TUC - were handed the recently released MI5 files on the 4,000 or so British volunteers who have been recorded as going to fight or work as medical aid in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. On top of the pile was George Orwell's file which read as follows:
Reference: PF 62,162.
Name: BLAIR, Eric. ORWELL, George.
Address: 77, Parliament Hill, N.W.
Born: 25.6.02. Motihari, Bengal.
Occupation: Journalist and author.
General History.
30.4.37. Member of the I.L.P. (Independent Labour Party) fighting with the International Brigade in Spain. (cutting from "The New Leader".) 1938. Was one fo (sic) the signatories to a Joint Peace Manifesto, issued by the P.P.U., No More War Movt., etc. Resigned from the Indeian (sic) Police, and when in Paris took an interest in the activities of the French C.P. (Communist Party)
21.1.50. Died.
This is immediately recognisable as an inaccurate record in so far as all the evidence shows that George Orwell never joined the International Brigade in Spain and that he fought with the POUM militia as a member of the I.L.P. He resigned from the Indian Imperial Police as from 1st, January 1928 and went to Paris in the spring of that year. According to Peter Davison in his book on Orwell 'Facing Unpleasant Facts: 1937-39', Orwell 'is said to have "paid a membership subscription to the Peace Pledge Union (PPU)" in December 1937.' Davidson believes that '... the evidence he (Orwell) joined the PPU is based on a misreading of a receipt in the Orwell Archive.' It seems this misreading is based on an acknowledgement of a 'receipt for 2s 6d, dated 12th, December 1937, from Mrs E. Blair - Eileen, not Eric', and Davison thinks that she was buying pamphlets for her husband. No mention in Davison's book of Orwell signing the Peace Manifesto, though he may well have done so even if he had not been a member of the PPU.
The moral of this is that we should approach all these documents with caution. Whether it be the dodgy blacklist files of the unlicensed data bank of Ian Kerr's Consulting Association, the MI5 files and official records, the contents of the Moscow Archives, the lists of volunteers in the Marx Memorial Library or the oddly assembled booklet, written by Bernard Barry, 'From Manchester to Spain', published in 2009 by the Working Class Movement Library. Ian Kerr's blacklist files on the workers and trade unionists in the British building trade were full of errors; the current MI5 records on Spanish Civil War volunteers are at times speculative and flawed; some of the material in the Moscow Archives is 'bitchy' about people from Tameside like Lillian Urmston and James Keogh; and Bernard Barry's 2009 booklet on the local volunteers from Greater Manchester has a poorly categorised and misleading 'Roll of Honour'. The ethnomethodologists urge us to study how lists, files, Rolls of Honour and official statistics are assembled by the people collecting the data. One consideration should be the motives of the data collectors in these cases, whether it be the blacklister, Ian Kerr, or Bernard Barry on behalf of the Working Class Movement Library, or the spies snooping on their comrades fighting in Spain to send stuff to Stalin and the Moscow Archives, or the agents employed by MI5 counting how many went to Spain and who was in the Communist Party: all of these parties may have an incentive to exaggerate and inflate their figures.
In the light of the recently released MI5 new data and the fact that Tameside TUC may have been misled by the 'Roll of Honour' in Bernard Barry's booklet 'From Manchester to Spain' to include people in the 3rd edition of our booklet commemorating the Spanish Civil War who did not qualify for recognition, it ought now to be revised in the production of a 4th edition later this year.
LAST night, just before the meeting of Tameside Trade Union Council in Ashton-under-Lyne, I and Derek Pattison - President of Tameside TUC - were handed the recently released MI5 files on the 4,000 or so British volunteers who have been recorded as going to fight or work as medical aid in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. On top of the pile was George Orwell's file which read as follows:
Reference: PF 62,162.
Name: BLAIR, Eric. ORWELL, George.
Address: 77, Parliament Hill, N.W.
Born: 25.6.02. Motihari, Bengal.
Occupation: Journalist and author.
General History.
30.4.37. Member of the I.L.P. (Independent Labour Party) fighting with the International Brigade in Spain. (cutting from "The New Leader".) 1938. Was one fo (sic) the signatories to a Joint Peace Manifesto, issued by the P.P.U., No More War Movt., etc. Resigned from the Indeian (sic) Police, and when in Paris took an interest in the activities of the French C.P. (Communist Party)
21.1.50. Died.
This is immediately recognisable as an inaccurate record in so far as all the evidence shows that George Orwell never joined the International Brigade in Spain and that he fought with the POUM militia as a member of the I.L.P. He resigned from the Indian Imperial Police as from 1st, January 1928 and went to Paris in the spring of that year. According to Peter Davison in his book on Orwell 'Facing Unpleasant Facts: 1937-39', Orwell 'is said to have "paid a membership subscription to the Peace Pledge Union (PPU)" in December 1937.' Davidson believes that '... the evidence he (Orwell) joined the PPU is based on a misreading of a receipt in the Orwell Archive.' It seems this misreading is based on an acknowledgement of a 'receipt for 2s 6d, dated 12th, December 1937, from Mrs E. Blair - Eileen, not Eric', and Davison thinks that she was buying pamphlets for her husband. No mention in Davison's book of Orwell signing the Peace Manifesto, though he may well have done so even if he had not been a member of the PPU.
The moral of this is that we should approach all these documents with caution. Whether it be the dodgy blacklist files of the unlicensed data bank of Ian Kerr's Consulting Association, the MI5 files and official records, the contents of the Moscow Archives, the lists of volunteers in the Marx Memorial Library or the oddly assembled booklet, written by Bernard Barry, 'From Manchester to Spain', published in 2009 by the Working Class Movement Library. Ian Kerr's blacklist files on the workers and trade unionists in the British building trade were full of errors; the current MI5 records on Spanish Civil War volunteers are at times speculative and flawed; some of the material in the Moscow Archives is 'bitchy' about people from Tameside like Lillian Urmston and James Keogh; and Bernard Barry's 2009 booklet on the local volunteers from Greater Manchester has a poorly categorised and misleading 'Roll of Honour'. The ethnomethodologists urge us to study how lists, files, Rolls of Honour and official statistics are assembled by the people collecting the data. One consideration should be the motives of the data collectors in these cases, whether it be the blacklister, Ian Kerr, or Bernard Barry on behalf of the Working Class Movement Library, or the spies snooping on their comrades fighting in Spain to send stuff to Stalin and the Moscow Archives, or the agents employed by MI5 counting how many went to Spain and who was in the Communist Party: all of these parties may have an incentive to exaggerate and inflate their figures.
In the light of the recently released MI5 new data and the fact that Tameside TUC may have been misled by the 'Roll of Honour' in Bernard Barry's booklet 'From Manchester to Spain' to include people in the 3rd edition of our booklet commemorating the Spanish Civil War who did not qualify for recognition, it ought now to be revised in the production of a 4th edition later this year.
Blacklist Support Group: how to help fight the Blacklist
We reproduce the latest from the Blacklist Support Group below:
Stephen Hughes MEP and Glenis Wilmott MEP are taking up the issue of blacklisting in the European Parliament. You can support the campaign and make it more likely that new EU wide anti-blacklisting legislation is introduced by spending just a minute or so doing the following:
1. Contact your MEP
It would be useful to mobilise other MEP's. If you don't know the name of your own MEP's you will be able to find them on the European Parliament's website:
2. Tell your MEP
Whether you arrange a face to face meeting (this is best) or send an email / letter, keep it short and to the point - MEPs receive a lot of correspondence.
Highlight the European nature of the problem - The companies involved are often based in many EU countries - Skanska (Sweden), Bam (Netherlands), Vinci (France), Laing O’Rourke (Ireland), Sir Robert McAlpine, Balfour Beatty, Kier, Costain, Carillion (UK)
Stress the health & safety issues around blacklisting of safety reps which impedes the proper implementation and enforcement of EU safety laws
Also make it human, give a specific, typical example of someone blacklisted - the reason for blacklisting, the periods of time denied work, the sort of intrusive information gathered, the infringement of basic rights and so on.
3. Ask your MEP
Ask your MEP's to demand action to end blacklisting by writing to both:
Commissioner Laszlo Andor, responsible for Employment and Social Affairs
Vivian Reding, Commissioner for Justice and citizenship
Stephen Hughes MEP and Glenis Wilmott MEP are taking up the issue of blacklisting in the European Parliament. You can support the campaign and make it more likely that new EU wide anti-blacklisting legislation is introduced by spending just a minute or so doing the following:
1. Contact your MEP
It would be useful to mobilise other MEP's. If you don't know the name of your own MEP's you will be able to find them on the European Parliament's website:
2. Tell your MEP
Whether you arrange a face to face meeting (this is best) or send an email / letter, keep it short and to the point - MEPs receive a lot of correspondence.
Highlight the European nature of the problem - The companies involved are often based in many EU countries - Skanska (Sweden), Bam (Netherlands), Vinci (France), Laing O’Rourke (Ireland), Sir Robert McAlpine, Balfour Beatty, Kier, Costain, Carillion (UK)
Stress the health & safety issues around blacklisting of safety reps which impedes the proper implementation and enforcement of EU safety laws
Also make it human, give a specific, typical example of someone blacklisted - the reason for blacklisting, the periods of time denied work, the sort of intrusive information gathered, the infringement of basic rights and so on.
3. Ask your MEP
Ask your MEP's to demand action to end blacklisting by writing to both:
Commissioner Laszlo Andor, responsible for Employment and Social Affairs
Vivian Reding, Commissioner for Justice and citizenship
Monday, 11 July 2011
Tony Blair: 'I had a friend called Faust ...'
YESTERDAY, The Mail on Sunday ran a headline declaring 'Blair Bid To Silence MP Who Exposed Murdoch' followed by an article claiming 'Tony Blair urged Gordon Brown to persuade the Labour MP [Tom Watson] who led the campaign to expose the News of the World phone-hacking to back off ...' It is reported that Gordon Brown refused to do this, but in a two-year long struggle Tom Watson MP, by employing parliamentary privilege, has played a crucial role in challenging Rupert Murdoch's company News Corporation over its use of phone-hacking at the News of the World. The Mail on Sunday further alleges: 'Mrs [Rebekah] Brooks begged Blairite ex-Cabinet Minister Tessa Jowell to help "stop this madman Tom Watson" - and also sought help from her friend, Mr Blair.'
In the paperback version of his autobiography 'A Journey', published last month, Tony Blair writes: 'In June 1995 we had further outraged sensibilities by accepting an invitation ... to address Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation conference on Hayman Island in Australia ...' Mr Blair explains his decision to accept Rupert Murdoch's offer thus: '... the country's most important newspaper proprietor, whose publications have hitherto been rancorous in their opposition to the Labour Party, invites us into the lion's den. You go, don't you?'
Of Murdoch, Blair wrote that he found him to be an 'enigma' and that the more he got to know him the more he felt this. Blair's judgement of Murdoch was that '[i]n the end ... I came to have a grudging respect and even liking for him.' Blair concludes that although he does not share Murdoch's views on Europe, social policy or gay rights, he he admired his 'balls' and 'outsider' attitude to the Establishment.
Curiously, after these comments on his early experience of Murdoch on pages 96, 97 and 98, and despite what we now know of the intimate relationship between Blair, his New Labour government and Murdoch and his acolytes, there is surprisingly little further reference to Murdoch in Blair's autobiography until we get to page 655, and the time of Blair's departure and Gordon Brown's coronation. On page 655 Blair writes: 'There was no contest for the leadership ... John Reid could have stood, but the Murdoch papers, I fear at Rupert's instigation, just wrote him off ...' Blair considers: 'This is where Gordon's strategy of tying up Rupert [Murdoch] and Dacre [editor in chief of the Mail Group] really paid off - any likely contenders didn't get a look-in; they got squashed.'
In the paperback version of his autobiography 'A Journey', published last month, Tony Blair writes: 'In June 1995 we had further outraged sensibilities by accepting an invitation ... to address Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation conference on Hayman Island in Australia ...' Mr Blair explains his decision to accept Rupert Murdoch's offer thus: '... the country's most important newspaper proprietor, whose publications have hitherto been rancorous in their opposition to the Labour Party, invites us into the lion's den. You go, don't you?'
Of Murdoch, Blair wrote that he found him to be an 'enigma' and that the more he got to know him the more he felt this. Blair's judgement of Murdoch was that '[i]n the end ... I came to have a grudging respect and even liking for him.' Blair concludes that although he does not share Murdoch's views on Europe, social policy or gay rights, he he admired his 'balls' and 'outsider' attitude to the Establishment.
Curiously, after these comments on his early experience of Murdoch on pages 96, 97 and 98, and despite what we now know of the intimate relationship between Blair, his New Labour government and Murdoch and his acolytes, there is surprisingly little further reference to Murdoch in Blair's autobiography until we get to page 655, and the time of Blair's departure and Gordon Brown's coronation. On page 655 Blair writes: 'There was no contest for the leadership ... John Reid could have stood, but the Murdoch papers, I fear at Rupert's instigation, just wrote him off ...' Blair considers: 'This is where Gordon's strategy of tying up Rupert [Murdoch] and Dacre [editor in chief of the Mail Group] really paid off - any likely contenders didn't get a look-in; they got squashed.'
'Fear and Loathing' in Staly Vegas. The towns night life is killing business, says Councillor!
On their way home after a heavy day boozing, two Dukinfield yobbos (pictured), decided to end their birthday celebrations by launching a vicious and unprovoked attack on an helpless young man who they found sleeping in a bus shelter in Stalybridge, also known as 'Staly Vegas', the popular night spot in Tameside, Greater Manchester.
David Hayward, a 26 year old labourer from Astley Street, Dukinfied, and unemployed 27 year old Dane Simms, from Inverness Road, Dukinfield, brutally attacked their victim punching him about the head and body and then kicking him in the face. Having rifled his pockets, stealing his wallet, mobile phone and cigarettes, they then scurried off like two rats up a drainpipe.
Giving evidence at Minshull Street, Crown Court, Manchester, their victim said:
"The attack was brutal. I didn`t stand a chance."
The court was told that the incident took place in February of this year when Simm`s, had been out celebrating his birthday with Hayward who has a partner and three year old son. The court was also told that the partner of Simm`s, had been forced to take two jobs in order to support him.
As usual in these cases, 'intoxication' was put forward to explain their actions. Shirlie Duckworth, defending' said:
"Hayward was very intoxicated which isn`t an excuse but is perhaps the only way to explain why a young man who`s ordinarily a hard-working family man behaves in a way completely out of character."
Defending Simm`s, Carolyn Smith, said: "that her client had committed one of the biggest mistakes of his life."
Sentencing both men to two-and-half years imprisonment, Judge Michael Blakey, told them:
"This was a horrifying and sickening, prolonged attack, on a defenceless man who was in drink and was clearly afraid of you. One of you held him while the other punched him, kicked him and kneed him in the face. One of you was seen to kick him in the face. This offence is so serious that only immediate custody is justified..."
Nowadays, scenes like this would be commonplace throughout many towns and cities across the country. As in this case, alcohol is often cited as the underlying reason for why many youths resort to this kind of mindless street violence. While there may be some truth in this, I nevertheless, consider it a poor excuse. Surely, it`s not the drink that causes the problems but the burk who`s doing the drinking, that causes the problems. Even when sober, some people are not safe out on the streets.
Some argue that Britain`s boozing culture has got worse since the introduction of 24 hour drinking in 2005, but anyone acquainted with a smattering of English history, would know, that drunkenness has been rife in this country throughout the ages. We have even invented colloquialisms to describe this practice of over indulging in alcohol - 'on the razzle', 'going on a bender', 'a blow out', 'out on the piss'.
Undoubtedly, cultural influences play a part in all of this. Britain`s boozing culture is often compared unfavourably, with the way in which alcohol is consumed by people in the Mediterranean countries, who consume alcohol with food and are less interested in getting drunk. Yet it is argued, that in Northern European countries, consumption of alcohol is often characterised by heavy bouts of prolonged drinking, followed by periods of abstinence. In Britain, not only do many people drink with the intention of getting drunk, but drunkenness, is more or less accepted. This equally applies when the British go abroad. The popular fly-on-the-wall TV documentary, 'Boozed Up Brits Abroad', is about British youths who take advantage of cheap flights to visit European cities, to go on drinking binges.
We know that people`s perceptions about street violence (real or imagined), can have devastating consequences for local economies. The nearby town of Ashton-under-Lyne, has never really recovered from the spate of street killings (four murders in three months) that took place in the town in 2002. This once lively and busy Lancashire town, is now a shadow of its former self, with many pubs and shops now closed. But opinion varies as to why many of our northern towns appear to be in terminal decline.
Cllr. David Sweeton, executive member for business and community development at Tameside Council, believes that Stalybridge suffers because of its 'Staly Vegas' tag as the town struggles to cope with the recession. The town`s night life he believes, is decreasing the town`s status and has affected the town`s daytime business, because people`s perceptions of crime in Stalybridge, puts them off from shopping in the town and also puts off investors. In an interview with the Tameside Reporter, in June, he said:
"We were a thriving community when we had had the 'first generation' bars like the Pavillion and the Millpond. It was like cafe' culture. They had new exciting ideas which attracted the right kind of people, but the recession has hit... We want to attract nice, well mannered people. We`re trying to work with bar owners to stop this 'happy hour' mentality where alcohol is sold at a low price and at an alarming rate. It is unacceptable and is decreasing the town`s status."
To blame low price alcohol, perceptions of crime, the Staly Vegas tag, and the vulgar rabble who drink in the town, for a downturn in the towns economy, does seem to be like clutching at straws and is somewhat disingenuous. One does wonder how often Cllr. Sweeton visits Stalybridge for a night out? Since reading the interview, I have searched in vain for a bar in Stalybridge town centre that does a 'happy hour' where "alcohol is sold at a low price and at an alarming rate." Alas! I have yet to find such a place. As for violence, Stalybridge, doesn`t seem to be any worse than many towns and might be considered better than most. I gather that Yorkshire Street, in Oldham, is known locally as The Gaza Strip, because of the amount of violence on the street at weekends.
Anyone who visits Stalybridge town centre during the week, on an evening, would be aware that the town is dead. Apart from fast-food outlets, and a couple of restaurants, many pubs only open for the weekend. A spokesman for the Warfsteiner pub told the newspaper, that:
"Business was now scarce and that Stalybridge was a ghost town."
Certainly this is an exaggeration, but the town like many other northern towns, has been badly hit by the recession. However, there may be other reasons why people choose not to shop in the town. If you`re looking for a butchers shop you wont find one. The last family butcher closed down a while ago. Indeed, in terms of shopping, there isn`t a great deal on offer. But if you`re into gambling, you wont find it difficult to place a bet: there a now four bookies on one street in the town. No wonder they call the town Staly Vegas.
Some people complain about the influence of TESCO on the town. Since the store came to the town, many local shops have struggled to cope with the decline in customers and many shops have now closed. Others, complain that there are too many pubs, too many bookies, and that the town needs a facelift. Responding to this criticism, Cllr. Sweeton, told The Reporter:
"Licensing legislation does not allow us to say 'no' when it comes to restricting the number of bars and bookies in the area... shopping at TESCO is more convenient, and we need a product that will encourage people to come into the area."
A recent study by 'Simply Business', predicts that 10,000 shops in the UK will close this year. One-in-six high street shops now stand empty as many stores struggle to compete with supermarkets and larger chains. What is on the increase on our high streets, are poundshops, bookies and pawnbrokers. Real wage levels are falling as pay fails to keep up with the rise in the cost of living and people spend less, which leads to business failure and more unemployment. While pay for the rich has soared, incomes for the rest, have stagnated. A survey by the TUC, published in May, showed that pay for middle income workers in Britain, has gone up by 56% since 1978 even though GDP has risen by 108% over the same period. For the low paid, the results are even worse. Their income has risen a mere 27% over the last 30 years. The only group to have seen their incomes rise in line the GDP, are the highest paid 10%.
Britain is now one of the most unequal societies in Europe. Serious social deprivation now exists in many northern towns, including Tameside. In South Shields (one of the poorest town`s in Britain), some households haven`t seen a wage packet in twenty years. The seaside resort of Blackpool, has the highest level of alcohol related deaths in England and the highest population of heroin and crack addicts.
In May, The Guardian, reported that North Yorkshire police had recently advertised 60 jobs and had received 300,000 applications. Some have suggested that Britain is becoming a nation of ghettos and what we are witnessing, is a 'pandemic disease of working-class poverty'( Peter Dunn - The Independent 5/5/11). If this is so, the future looks bleak for many.
Tuesday, 5 July 2011
Latest: Blacklist goes to Europe
LAST Thursday, 30th June 2011, a delegation of blacklisted trade unionists and safety representatives from the Blacklist Support Group held private talks in Brussels with László Andor, European Union Commissioner with responsibility for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion to discuss potential EU wide legislation to outlaw blacklisting. The delegation declared: "the genuinely positive response from Commissioner Andor exceeded all our expectations"
During the 45 minute meeting, Commissioner Andor was presented with documentary evidence from Brian Higgins, Steve Acheson and Dave Smith in the form secret blacklist files kept about their activities as union safety reps in the UK construction industry. The files were compiled by the Consulting Association and provide damning evidence that major multi-national building firms systematically dismissed and victimised workers who raised concerns about health & safety issues or unpaid wages (see Editors Notes).
The secret blacklist files (up to 49 pages long) contain appalling levels of personal intrusion with sensitive information including; names, addresses, national insurance number, work history, medical history, press-cuttings, union meetings attended, speeches made, political affiliations. Many entries on the blacklist files are supplied by senior Industrial Relations managers from major construction firms relating to when an individual had spoken to their site managers about safety breaches such as asbestos or poor toilet facilities. The information in the blacklist files was circulated amongst multi-national building firms and used to deny workers employment on major construction projects. For many blacklisted workers this resulted in repeated sackings and long-term unemployment merely because they had raised concerns about safety on building sites.
Brian Higgins (blacklisted bricklayer - Secretary Northampton UCATT) said after the meeting:
'The Blacklist is an economic, social and political prison. I have served a life sentence and other workers continue to be imprisoned. In cases like my own, the Blacklist effectively takes the form of house arrest because of its effect on a person’s social life. My wife was also deeply affected and badly scarred. More often that not, she was forced to financially support me, and our two children, on her low wage as a care worker. This has had a devastating effect on our standard of living. To her great credit my wife supported me and our family unstintingly. She held us together when things got really tough – which it did quite often. We kept our dignity intact and just managed to keep our heads above water by almost completely sacrificing our social life. My wife had to take out loans, which we could not afford, since my credit rating was zero due to very long spells of unemployment. All of this is the direct result of the building employers deliberately using the Blacklist, time and again, to deny me the right to work and to earn a living.'
The construction companies identified as participating in the blacklisting operation include household names based and operating across Europe including: Skanska (Sweden), Bam (Netherlands), Vinci (France), Laing O’Rourke (Ireland), Sir Robert McAlpine, Balfour Beatty, Kier, Costain, Carillion (UK) to name but a few. (See Editors Notes)
The right to join a trade union and not be be victimised because of it is enshrined in Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights but lack of any specific EU wide legislation against blacklisting of individuals for safety reasons means that thousands of workers have suffered appalling financial and family hardship because of the covert actions of multi-national building firms.
Steve Acheson (blacklisted Electrician - Secretary Manchester Contracting Branch - UNITE) said:
'We have been victimised by these firms just because we have stood up for safety issues; a cabin to dry wet clothes, asbestos, holiday pay, basic electrical checks. For many of us this conspiracy has meant years on the dole and family strains. But we are not just fighting for ourselves. This evil practice is almost certainly taking place in other industries and in other countries across Europe. I refuse to sit in my front room at home and turn into an old man, instead I choose to campaign on behalf of young workers in Poland, Spain, Greece, Ireland and any workers in Europe who are prepared to stand up for their basic human rights.'
Also attending the meeting was Professor Keith Ewing from Kings College London (a leading academic in international law and human rights issues) who presented possible legislative options open to the European Union highlighting the fact that many of the companies involved in the blacklist were European based. He also drew attention to the fact that blacklisting violates many provisions of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, and that the EU had the authority and responsibility to respond to this major violation of health and safety standards.
The meeting was arranged by Stephen Hughes MEP and Glenis Willmott MEP (Labour’s Leader in Europe Parliament) who are taking up the issue in the European Parliament.
Stephen Hughes MEP said:
'Blacklisting is a genuine issue which affects all member states and I will work with colleagues to address this serious concern and apply parliamentary pressure to trigger action.
This meeting is the beginning, not the end, of a process. Once we have planted the seed with Commissioner Andors, we will follow up with action in the European Parliament's Employment Committee and the full Parliament. It will take time but we don't give up easily!'
Notes to Editors:
1. For individual interviews with the delegation about the talks with EU Commissioner Andor & their personal experience of blacklisting contact blacklistsg@gmail.com
2. Attached photo shows (Left to Right): Professor Keith Ewing, Brian Higgins, Stephen Hughes MEP, EU Commissioner László Andor, Steve Acheson.
3. The blacklisting of trade unionists in the construction industry was only exposed after an investigation by the Information Commissioners Office (UK data-protection watchdog) in 2009. The companies identified by the Information Commissioners Office as using The Consulting Association secret blacklisting are all household names including:
Amec, Amey, B Sunley & Sons, Balfour Beatty, Balfour Kilpatrick, Ballast Wiltshire, Bam Construction (HBC Construction), Bam Nuttall (Edmund Nutall Ltd), C B & I, Cleveland Bridge UK Ltd, Costain UK Ltd, Crown House Technologies, Carillion, Tarmac Construction, Diamond M & E Services, Dudley Bower & Co Ltd, Emcor (Drake & Scull), Emcor Rail, G Wimpey Ltd, Haden Young, Kier Ltd, John Mowlem Ltd, Laing O’Rourke, Lovell Construction (UK) Ltd, Miller Construction Limited, Morgan Ashurst, Morgan Est, Morrison Construction Group, N G Bailey, Shepherd Engineering Services, Sias Building Services, Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd, Skanska (Kaverna / Trafalgar House Plc), SPIE (Matthew Hall), Taylor Woodrow Construction Ltd, Turriff Construction Ltd, Tysons Contractors, Walter Llewellyn & Sons Ltd, Whessoe Oil & Gas, Willmott Dixon, Vinci PLC (Norwest Holst Group)
4. Blacklist Support Group was set-up to act as a support network on behalf of the 3216 individuals on the Consulting Association database following a meeting held at the House of Commons in June 2009 organised by John McDonnell MP. The Blacklist Support Group has led the campiagn against blacklisting by organsing fringe meetings at union conferences, entered submissions to proposed legislation, organised direct action, produced campaign video's and is currently involved with a variety of legal challenges.
During the 45 minute meeting, Commissioner Andor was presented with documentary evidence from Brian Higgins, Steve Acheson and Dave Smith in the form secret blacklist files kept about their activities as union safety reps in the UK construction industry. The files were compiled by the Consulting Association and provide damning evidence that major multi-national building firms systematically dismissed and victimised workers who raised concerns about health & safety issues or unpaid wages (see Editors Notes).
The secret blacklist files (up to 49 pages long) contain appalling levels of personal intrusion with sensitive information including; names, addresses, national insurance number, work history, medical history, press-cuttings, union meetings attended, speeches made, political affiliations. Many entries on the blacklist files are supplied by senior Industrial Relations managers from major construction firms relating to when an individual had spoken to their site managers about safety breaches such as asbestos or poor toilet facilities. The information in the blacklist files was circulated amongst multi-national building firms and used to deny workers employment on major construction projects. For many blacklisted workers this resulted in repeated sackings and long-term unemployment merely because they had raised concerns about safety on building sites.
Brian Higgins (blacklisted bricklayer - Secretary Northampton UCATT) said after the meeting:
'The Blacklist is an economic, social and political prison. I have served a life sentence and other workers continue to be imprisoned. In cases like my own, the Blacklist effectively takes the form of house arrest because of its effect on a person’s social life. My wife was also deeply affected and badly scarred. More often that not, she was forced to financially support me, and our two children, on her low wage as a care worker. This has had a devastating effect on our standard of living. To her great credit my wife supported me and our family unstintingly. She held us together when things got really tough – which it did quite often. We kept our dignity intact and just managed to keep our heads above water by almost completely sacrificing our social life. My wife had to take out loans, which we could not afford, since my credit rating was zero due to very long spells of unemployment. All of this is the direct result of the building employers deliberately using the Blacklist, time and again, to deny me the right to work and to earn a living.'
The construction companies identified as participating in the blacklisting operation include household names based and operating across Europe including: Skanska (Sweden), Bam (Netherlands), Vinci (France), Laing O’Rourke (Ireland), Sir Robert McAlpine, Balfour Beatty, Kier, Costain, Carillion (UK) to name but a few. (See Editors Notes)
The right to join a trade union and not be be victimised because of it is enshrined in Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights but lack of any specific EU wide legislation against blacklisting of individuals for safety reasons means that thousands of workers have suffered appalling financial and family hardship because of the covert actions of multi-national building firms.
Steve Acheson (blacklisted Electrician - Secretary Manchester Contracting Branch - UNITE) said:
'We have been victimised by these firms just because we have stood up for safety issues; a cabin to dry wet clothes, asbestos, holiday pay, basic electrical checks. For many of us this conspiracy has meant years on the dole and family strains. But we are not just fighting for ourselves. This evil practice is almost certainly taking place in other industries and in other countries across Europe. I refuse to sit in my front room at home and turn into an old man, instead I choose to campaign on behalf of young workers in Poland, Spain, Greece, Ireland and any workers in Europe who are prepared to stand up for their basic human rights.'
Also attending the meeting was Professor Keith Ewing from Kings College London (a leading academic in international law and human rights issues) who presented possible legislative options open to the European Union highlighting the fact that many of the companies involved in the blacklist were European based. He also drew attention to the fact that blacklisting violates many provisions of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, and that the EU had the authority and responsibility to respond to this major violation of health and safety standards.
The meeting was arranged by Stephen Hughes MEP and Glenis Willmott MEP (Labour’s Leader in Europe Parliament) who are taking up the issue in the European Parliament.
Stephen Hughes MEP said:
'Blacklisting is a genuine issue which affects all member states and I will work with colleagues to address this serious concern and apply parliamentary pressure to trigger action.
This meeting is the beginning, not the end, of a process. Once we have planted the seed with Commissioner Andors, we will follow up with action in the European Parliament's Employment Committee and the full Parliament. It will take time but we don't give up easily!'
Notes to Editors:
1. For individual interviews with the delegation about the talks with EU Commissioner Andor & their personal experience of blacklisting contact blacklistsg@gmail.com
2. Attached photo shows (Left to Right): Professor Keith Ewing, Brian Higgins, Stephen Hughes MEP, EU Commissioner László Andor, Steve Acheson.
3. The blacklisting of trade unionists in the construction industry was only exposed after an investigation by the Information Commissioners Office (UK data-protection watchdog) in 2009. The companies identified by the Information Commissioners Office as using The Consulting Association secret blacklisting are all household names including:
Amec, Amey, B Sunley & Sons, Balfour Beatty, Balfour Kilpatrick, Ballast Wiltshire, Bam Construction (HBC Construction), Bam Nuttall (Edmund Nutall Ltd), C B & I, Cleveland Bridge UK Ltd, Costain UK Ltd, Crown House Technologies, Carillion, Tarmac Construction, Diamond M & E Services, Dudley Bower & Co Ltd, Emcor (Drake & Scull), Emcor Rail, G Wimpey Ltd, Haden Young, Kier Ltd, John Mowlem Ltd, Laing O’Rourke, Lovell Construction (UK) Ltd, Miller Construction Limited, Morgan Ashurst, Morgan Est, Morrison Construction Group, N G Bailey, Shepherd Engineering Services, Sias Building Services, Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd, Skanska (Kaverna / Trafalgar House Plc), SPIE (Matthew Hall), Taylor Woodrow Construction Ltd, Turriff Construction Ltd, Tysons Contractors, Walter Llewellyn & Sons Ltd, Whessoe Oil & Gas, Willmott Dixon, Vinci PLC (Norwest Holst Group)
4. Blacklist Support Group was set-up to act as a support network on behalf of the 3216 individuals on the Consulting Association database following a meeting held at the House of Commons in June 2009 organised by John McDonnell MP. The Blacklist Support Group has led the campiagn against blacklisting by organsing fringe meetings at union conferences, entered submissions to proposed legislation, organised direct action, produced campaign video's and is currently involved with a variety of legal challenges.
Monday, 4 July 2011
Death of Salford Class War Veteran - Ken Keating!
THE following obituary for Salford Class War Veteran, Ken Keating, appeared on Ian Bone's blog earlier this week:
Just received sad news from Sean Keating from Salford:
R.I.P KEN KEATING. 24/01/38 - 28/06/11, Legend, Friend, Father, Grandad. My dad Loved by many, hated by authority but respected by all. Safe journey to mum old timer x
Ken was the prime mover in Ordsall Class War in the 1990s and i think it would be safe to say none of us had ever seen the likes of Ordsall Class War! There are others who knew Ken far better than me and I hope to be publishing their thoughts when they are ready. In the meantime best wishes to Sean and family.
See picture of Ken and his ‘Grasswatch’ van here.
What did Ken think about the Lowry Arts Centre:
Oh yeah in an interview with Ken Keating I asked him about Lowry: He gave me a contemptuous look and said “Lowry he was just a f******g rent collector.”
Here’s an account from Practical History of Ordsall Class War in July 1992:
On the Ordsall Estate in Salford (near Manchester), in the space of several days in the first week of July, fires were started at a council neighbourhood office, a housing office, a careers office, a Department of Health office, a MacDonald’s restaurant, and several other buildings. Shots were fired at police vehicles and a petrol bomb thrown at a police station. Also in Salford, eight people in balaclavas attacked a police car that they had lured into an ambush by setting off an alarm. Local youths complained of police violence, with one saying: “There’s people who can’t pay for electricity. And they’re at home in bed, in the dark, and the door’s kicked in and all they can see is big torches coming up the stairs and the Bill [the police] is saying ‘Stay where you are or you’ll get your heads blown off’”. Another said: “It’s just like Belfast. The police don’t relate to the kids. Why are they dragging them in, beating them up?”
********************
Saturday, 2 July 2011
Scab Labour - which Northern Labour MPs heeded Red Ed's call to cross picket lines this week?
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham)
Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield)
Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) - ex-BECTU & GPMU member, ex-Labour Party Trade Union Liaison Officer
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) - GMB member
Jamie Reed (Copeland)
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) UNISON member
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) ex-NUS National Executive member
Ivan Lewis (Bury South)
Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) - ex deputy branch secretary of SOGAT
Helen Jones (Warrington North)
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) ex-NUS National Executive member
Lindsay Hoyle (Deputy Speaker; Chorley)
Edward Balls (Morley and Outwood)
Denis MacShane (Rotherham) ex NUJ president, ex International Metal Workers' Federation policy director
Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside)
George Howarth (Knowsley)
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton)
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) ex NUS president, patron of Workers Educational Association
Nicholas Dakin (Scunthorpe)
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North)
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford)
Kevan Jones (North Durham) ex GMB officer
Friday, 1 July 2011
Who fought in Spain and how many really fought?
Earlier this week, both I and the President of Tameside TUC, received the email below from Joe Bailey, a trade union activist and delegate from Manchester Trade Union Council on the Greater Manchester County Association of TUCs, declaring:
In an interview on Radio4, Ken Loach said that he was not surprised that the figures of those going to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War had been underestimated because the authorities always do this on protests and demos. It may well be that the numbers have been underestimated, even by those who participated, but it may be worth considering the possibility of list inflation in some cases. A book written by Bernard Barry, published in 2009 by the Working Class Movement Library in Salford and entitled 'From Manchester to Spain' concluded with a Roll of Honour purporting to show those who fought in Spain in the 1930s. Several of those listed on that Roll of Honour were later found by Northern Voices to be listed elsewhere on an 'official list' as deserters, turn-coats, shirkers and unfit to serve. It may be that even these recently released National Archive documents and the MI5 files should be approached with some caution.
Brian Bamford: Secretary of Tameside Trade Union Council
'More people from Britain and Ireland fought in the Spanish Civil War than previously thought, according to documents at the National Archive. James Cronan of the National Archive and Ken Loach, director of Land and Freedom, discuss[ed] (on Radio4) why Brits were so intent on fighting for the republic.'
In an interview on Radio4, Ken Loach said that he was not surprised that the figures of those going to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War had been underestimated because the authorities always do this on protests and demos. It may well be that the numbers have been underestimated, even by those who participated, but it may be worth considering the possibility of list inflation in some cases. A book written by Bernard Barry, published in 2009 by the Working Class Movement Library in Salford and entitled 'From Manchester to Spain' concluded with a Roll of Honour purporting to show those who fought in Spain in the 1930s. Several of those listed on that Roll of Honour were later found by Northern Voices to be listed elsewhere on an 'official list' as deserters, turn-coats, shirkers and unfit to serve. It may be that even these recently released National Archive documents and the MI5 files should be approached with some caution.
Brian Bamford: Secretary of Tameside Trade Union Council
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