Monday, December 07, 2009

Rule or Ruin 2

Last week I posted here on the attempt by paid officials of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and their new best Comrades ever in the Socialist Party (SPEW) to take over the grass roots North East Shop Stewards Network (NESSN) and turn it into one of their pointless “fronts”.

It seems that NESSN is seeing off this threat. Even though it now appears that there are two NESSN Facebook groups and that there has been the usual ultra left problem with their financial accountability!

Elected NESSN regional secretary Dave Harker reports “Some hopeless sectarians are seeking to rule or ruin NESSN, but they will fail, and there is no cause for alarm. However, comrades should note the following: …Hannah Walter (SPEW - grayee comment and emphasise) has removed Tony Dowling as an Administrator of the NESSN's original Facebook site. (I was removed a week or so ago.) The real NESSN Facebook site is now (here). This underlines the urgent need for an umbrella organisation like the real NESSN. In solidarity with those in solidarity with the Corus workers and all workers in struggle. Dave Harker, Regional Secretary, North East Shop Stewards' Network.

Minutes: NORTH EAST SHOP STEWARDS’ NETWORK
Committee: Geoff Abbott, Sue Abbott, Dave Ayre, Paul Baker, Ross Carbutt, Derek Cattell, Alan Docherty, Tony Dowling, Dave Harker, Peter Murray, Hannah Walter, Shirley Winter
Regional Secretary: nessnsec@googlemail.com or NESSN, c/o Newcastle TUC Building, 4 Cloth Market, Newcastle, NE1 1EE http://www.nessn.org.uk/

Minutes of the NESSN Committee meeting held in Darlington Town Hall on 2 December 2009
1. Present Alan Docherty, Dave Ayre, Dave Harker, Paul Baker, Ross Carbutt, Shirley Winter
2. Apologies Geoff Abbott, Sue Abbott, Peter Murray, Tony Dowling
Absent without an apology: Hannah Walter (grayee emphasise)
3. The Way Ahead
Dave Ayre was elected to the chair. He remarked that ‘there had been a crude attempt to undermine NESSN’ and that ‘the rest of the Committee deserve a handslap for leaving so much to the Secretaries’.
a) The Regional Secretary reported that several documents had been circulated to the Committee, but he had received no evidence to support any allegations made against him at the 19 November ordinary meeting.
It was AGREED that
(i) the NESSN Constitution includes the NSSN ‘Founding Basis’;
(i) only comrades with an elected lay union office can propose, second and vote on motions at any meeting, including the AGM;
(iii) only comrades with an elected lay union office can propose, second and stand for the Committee at the AGM;
(iv) the attempt to turn the 19 November meeting into an AGM and the ‘motion’ were unconstitutional;
(v) any meeting not called by the elected Regional Secretary is unconstitutional.
b) Alan Docherty tabled a document by Fran Heathcote (as a Socialist Party member) and Elaine Brunskill (as Socialist Party North Regional Secretary), and another from Alan Docherty and Tony Dowling in their personal capacities.
It was AGREED that since both documents were not sent to the Regional Secretary, as stipulated in the invitation to all Networkers, they were out of order.
c) Derek Cattell had thanked Alan Docherty for speaking to GMB stewards about NESSN.
It was AGREED that we invite Derek to join the Committee. (He subsequently accepted the invitation.)
d) Ross Carbutt had circulated a statement as Secretary of Tyne and Wear branch of the IWW. The IWW would seek to change NESSN policy at the AGM in spring 2010 and the event organised by Dave Douglass was a solo initiative.
It was AGREED that the event organised by Dave Douglass in spring 2010 could be advertised on the NESSN website.
e) The former (SPEW - grayee comment and emphasise) Treasurer, Hannah Walter, had been elected at the AGM in spring 2009 and resigned on 12 October 2009. She had not given the Acting Treasurer any documents until 19 November, and did not hand over the chequebook or paying in book. The Acting Treasurer had asked the Regional Secretary to stop the cheque book and spent hours trying to make sense of the incomplete data. The Committee was extremely concerned about his ‘Provisional Financial Record’.
It was AGREED to ask the Acting Treasurer to
(i) circulate a ‘Provisional Financial Report’ to all Networkers;
(ii) send Hannah Walter (SPEW grayee comment and emphasise) a list of queries about the missing documents, receipts, and so on; and (iii) report to the next Committee meeting.
f) Various proposals for future NESSN events were discussed.
g) The next meeting of the elected and co-opted members of the NESSN Committee will take place at 6.00-8.00pm on 13
January 2010, and the Tees Valley District Secretary was asked to book a room in Darlington Town Hall.

Hat-tip thingy Tynesider

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jesus! This isn't the Hannah Walter on the UNISON NEC now, is it? WTF!!!

Taaffey

John Gray said...

Ah - I got her confused with SPEW paid official Elaine Brunskill. I better update.

Gemma said...

You are right JG - Walter is on the NEC and is tightly controlled by her SPEW handlers with scripted interventions.

Thankfully she's not on the Finance Committee!

Anonymous said...

Obvious this is not written by Gray. I wonder who writes this stuff? National or Regional Office?

John Gray said...

Hi Anon
I just love comments such as this. Why don’t you think I write this stuff? Please explain? Are you the same drone who think that “union barons” spend all day writing posts for my blog then all the night googling “john’s labour blog” to explain how many hits it gets?

Tell me are the ultra left naturally stupid or do they have to practice? I suspect it takes a lot of practice since surely no-one can be that…

BTW - May I ask - do you live in East Sussex by any chance?

ModernityBlog said...

Stranger and stranger?

Where's Duncan?

I'd like to hear his take on the matter.