(Guest Post from Comrade Mercader on the “gathering” outside UNISON HQ last week. This was over the outcome of an internal discipline investigation into a leaflet published at the 2007 conference. This has now resulted in 4 members being barred from holding UNISON officer posts for 3-5 years. I would like to make direct comments but since I assume that there is an appeal pending against the outcome it would be best not to comment on the original complaints)
Following on from disputes in this blog's comments, here we see photographic evidence of the 'mass protest' staged by The Monkey Trial 4 and their Socialist Party supporters outside UNISON HQ on Thursday 30th July. The picture was taken at 12.14pm - almost a quarter of an hour after the protest commenced. What do you think? 25 people? 30? (Don't forget the caretaker of the UNISON offices is amongst the crowd monitoring the situation for health, safety, and security reasons. Oh, and there's a community police officer in there too to control the masses.)
Before anyone says that rain dampened the turnout - a truly shocking downpour it has to be said -it arrived bang on midday, i.e. after the handful of protesters arrived, almost as if someone up there wanted to dampen the enthusiasm of these protesters.
Maybe if Socialist Worker had shown solidarity by actually publicising the demo, things might have been different?
Interesting to note further over on the Socialist Unity blog that some of their 'socialist' supporters confuse the chair of the Standing Orders Committee (Clytus Williams) with the newly-appointed West Midlands Regional Secretary (Roger McKenzie).
One wonders if the confusion arises because they is both black? Tut tut.
