Remembering Tony Benn

Maybe its because I'm getting older or more probably it is just chance but the last few weeks have been dominated by the deaths of what were to me - important Labour movement figures who helped shape my beliefs and politics.

Today Tony Benn died aged 88, which was not unexpected and who had reached a good age. On Tuesday Union leader Bob Crow who was only 52. The week before Stuart Barber also died unexpectedly. Stuart was a mate and a top UNISON regional officer in London. While last month, West Ham Labour Party lost one of its longest serving and most loyal members Gerry Carlile.

My social media today is dominated by tributes to Tony Benn. I first heard about it by text from a fellow Newham Councillor at 7.22 as I was about to go out and deliver Labour Party leaflets in my ward. "Morning Comrade. A sad day for all socialists with the passing of Tony Benn".

I love this iconic photograph above of Tony Benn. Like many Labour Party supporters I was never a supporter of most of his solutions but I agreed with his analysis of the problems and admired his courage in standing his ground, despite everything thrown at him.

As always in "This Great Movement Of Ours " (aka tigmoo) Labour movement family members will usually agree where we want to go but can't agree on the best way to get there. 

I had the privilege to listen and even speak to Tony Benn on a number of occasions.

He spoke at the AGM of my  branch at the time, Tower Hamlets Local Government UNISON and happily chatted to us all beforehand while drinking a massive mug of tea.

At a SERTUC international meeting in 2007 he reminisced as being on a British troop ship sailing back to “Blighty” after the second world war. He was at the time a RAF pilot and Labour Party parliamentary candidate in the 1945 elections. He remembered the debates on board the troop ship about why was it possible to have full employment when the country was at war killing German’s but not in peacetime when they could be building hospitals and schools?

On a similar theme an UNISON national officer speaking at a branch meeting once recommended  Tony Benn’s simply definition of socialism. “If we have unemployed building workers and homeless people why don’t we get the unemployed to build homes for the homeless”.

I thought his arguments in favour of republicanism were unanswerable. He made it perfectly clear that he had nothing but respect for the present Royal family and especially their service in the second world war and thought it was a complete distraction to attack them personally. He just wanted and demanded as a democrat to have an elected Head of State.

I can remember him talking powerfully about taking a trip on a train in Thatcherite Britain. At the beginning of the journey everyone just sat in their seats, did not have any contact with their neighbours and read their books and newspapers. The train broke down and while the passengers were waiting for it to be fixed they started to talk to each other and share food and drinks. At the beginning the train was a Tory train, selfish and individualistic. When the train broke down it became a socialist train, collective and sharing in adversity.

I suspect that the second world war shaped Tony Benn as much as the first world war had affected Clement Attlee.

One of my favourite recent memories of him is sitting on a panel at a public debate in a hall at Tower Hamlets waiting to speak, happily puffing away on his pipe while sitting directly under a large sign saying "No smoking". No-one dared to ask him to stop.

A good UNISON comrade of mine went to see him speak last year at at a memorial celebration in Bow of the 1888 London Women Matchmakers Strike. Tony convinced him to join the Labour Party in his speech (which I had never been able to do).

My final favourite quote from him is this :-

“We are not just here to manage capitalism but to change society and to define its finer values.”

Public Pensions dispute: do we talk or walk?

Next week I will be attending a national UNISON briefing on the pensions dispute which will be followed by a meeting of those Service Group Executives (SGE) who have members in the Local Government and NHS pensions schemes.

The SGE’s is made up solely of elected lay members. I sit on the Community & Voluntary SGE and we will be debating and making a decision on whether to support the framework agreement on resolving the pensions dispute. I posted here my initial views on the agreement. Whilst I look forward to the briefing and the debate, the more I think about it, the more convinced I am, that we have to see this through. We need to carry on talking and not walk out of negotiations at this point.

Calling for walkouts is one thing but actually getting people out on strike nowadays is very, very difficult. First and foremost you have to convince members that this strike action is an absolute last resort. When all other attempts and means to negotiate have been exhausted. We were able to demonstrate this was the case for the November 30 strike. Members know that there has been concessions made and will expect us to try our best to put together a deal before being called out again.

We also need to raise our game. The strike on November 30 was a great success but in many ways we punched above our weight. We now know where we were strong and were we were not. We need to build upon our strengths and organise in those areas where we simply don’t have the membership density or steward structure to deliver.


Some unions appear to have rejected talking further and want to plough on with further strike action. If that is their decision then fair enough that is their choice, I for one will not interfere with their internal democratic decision making process. I do wish that others would do the same with UNISON! While I accept that some may argue tactically that the talks will not result in an acceptable offer and instead we should organise more strikes. I do not accept for a moment that to keep “Unity” we must refuse to negotiate until we get an offer that all 27 different trade unions in all their different pension schemes find acceptable. This is just nonsense.

The real threat to “Unity” will come if the unions start arguing amongst themselves with the loud mouths braying their “betrayal politics” mantra. The gains and real improvements that have been already won through the decision to strike and the ballot will be forgotten. Such division would only benefit this Tory led coalition. Pensions is not the only dispute that we are going to have to fight in the next 3 long years.

In my previous post I pointed out that some commentators are in danger of cutting off their nose to spite their face. I also think there is a risk that some in TIGMOO would rather indulge in sectarian infighting and point scoring, rather than carry out the hard work of recruiting members and stewards. Now, I am of course, a well known wallflower, who would not dream of indulging in polemic arguments with anyone.. but I would honestly rather be fighting the Tories and not other trade unionists.

However, I can’t resist this story. I met someone recently who told me how he had been hounded out of one of the ultra left sects because of the “crime of pessimism”. He was formally denounced for raising concerns about its support for a particular industrial dispute. As an experienced trade union activist he was surprised that his concerns were ignored because it did not fit the Party line. He was ordered to either repent his “pessimism” or face expulsion. In this case he didn’t talk he walked and left the sect before he was expelled. Needless to say that dispute ended in yet another glorious defeat...

Jon's Union blog: 0 false false false

Jon's Union blog: "...0 false false false..." This is a screen print from the TIGMOO website tonight. Double click to bring up details.

I'm sure that there is some perfectly innocent explanation for this simply outrageous smear on the integrity of our dear sarf London coastal leader.

:)

TIGMOO 2010: “This Great Movement Of Ours”

I’m trying to follow the TUC conference which is taking place this week in Manchester as best as you can from London. I thought the call beforehand by Sally Hunt, General Secretary of UCU for radical reform of the TUC and the wider movement was a breath of fresh air.

Yes, we should have only one union per sector. Easier said than done of course - what sector are private companies in that also run public services? But it is a complete nonsense to have two, three, four or even more recognised trade unions in the same organisation. Good employers are confused and frustrated about who to negotiate with and bad employers openly boast about being able to “divide and conquer”.

I’m not sure about having a directly "elected" TUC General Secretary by all members since essentially Congress is a coalition of independent trade unions who also hold all the TUC purse skins. Sally rather accurately compared the current process of electing a TUC leader with that of the “Pope”. If we did go down the road of direct elections I think you would find if it came to the push, that like the Pope, the TUC Secretary would not have any “divisions” or real power.

Yes, definitely to Sally’s ideas about setting targets and priorities over achieving the holy grail of increasing density and membership. Density and internal organisation (the number of trained local stewards/safety reps backed by effective national union resources) is absolutely the most important issue that should be debated at Congress. Everything else is actually secondly. Without density and organisation we can achieve nothing and resist nothing.

Personally (since I have it on unreliable evidence that I love the sound of my own voice) I wouldn’t get rid totally of the conference “motion based format” but I think we need to change the emphasis to building and organising.

This morning while listening to my Walkman while running (aka jogging very slowly) around my beloved Wanstead Flats I heard TUC Secretary, Brendan Barber, being interviewed on “Today” by a rather over dramatic, John Humphrys, who was on Daily Mail Lite mode trying to provoke Brendan to say something stupid. He didn’t fail into this trap and came over I think very well – as a modern, sensible, thoughtful and constructive trade union leader. He made it very, very clear that TIGMOO will not be bankrupting itself in a series of glorious defeats but can and will, mobilise effective and telling industrial action and political opposition to the cuts.

Some trade unionists (and the Daily Mail) will be disappointed that he did not bang the Radio 4 podium with his shoe and threaten to bury the Condems. But until we build our density and organisation we cannot threaten what we cannot deliver. What the wider Labour Movement and its allies can deliver is widespread, co-ordained and SMART opposition which will include targeted industrial action.

We are ironically facing an opportunity and not only a threat. UNISON General Secretary, Dave Prentis, speaks about the Raison d'être of Unions and that they are there for the bad times not just the good. Surely, now we are all facing this massive threat of cuts that there cannot be anyone in work who cannot say, hand on heart, they do not need to join a trade union? We recruit and organise or die.

(picture is of the first General Secreatry of the TUC - Mr C W Bowerman in a rather modern pose!)

John’s Labour Blog: No 2 (ish) Trade Union Blog 2010

"The horror! The horror! ...despite being toppled by them from Number 1 spot as (tongue firmly in cheek) “trade union blog of the year” I do offer (obviously insincere) congratulations to the new No 1 blog- ToUChstone!

See results here by the trade union supporting website TIGMOO (“This Great Movement Of Ours”) run by New Media wizard, John Woods. This is the forces of light and reason (aka British trade unions) answer to Total Politics and Tory Iain Dale’s “Annual Guide to Political Blogs”.

I’ve been No 1 for the past 2 years but alas this year...

1: ToUChstone (2)

The TUC‟s public policy group blog, offering current affairs comment by the organisation’s policy staffers and guest contributors. Having probably the largest blogging team of any union blog pays off in terms of content and readership.

http://www.touchstoneblog.org.uk/

2: John's Labour blog (1)

Finally deposed after two years at the TIGMOO top spot, this one-man blog by a UNISON convenor has a strong focus on Labour party activism through the UNISON Labour Link and on developments for union pension’s activists.

grayee.blogspot.com

I had thought of asking John W for an affiliate block card vote to decide things but for some reason...anyway, inspired by Ultimate Big Brother I’ve emailed John to warn ToUChstone that - watch out comrades -this time next year ...I’m coming to get you!

:)

John’s Labour blog: The Number One (ish) Trade Union Blog 2009

John’s Labour Blog has for the second year in a row been declared as the “Number One Union” blog by TIGMOO an “aggregator service for blogs about unions and unionism in the UK” which links to 120 UK union blogs.

TIGMOO ranks the 25 top union blogs and describes this blog as

1: John's Labour blog (1)
Last year’s top spot retained again for this blog by a UNISON convenor reporting on his work and union issues in general. The blog has a strong focus on Labour party activism through the UNISON Labour Link and on developments for union pensions activists.
grayee.blogspot.com.

“The blogs in the TIGMOO network have been ranked according to four equally weighted factors: Traffic ratings generated by Alexa.com, number of posts in the last 8 weeks, number of comments in that time, and the number of inbound links found by Google”.

Please note that TIGMOO also state “these measures have a huge margin
of error, especially when dealing with smaller sites, and of course measuring quantity doesn’t always predict quality, though all the 25 listed here are certainly well worth checking out”.

TIGMOO started off this rating last year during the TUC annual congress and state that “This guide is a play on Iain Dale’s Total Politics Guide to Political Blogs, which annually ranks hundreds of blogs from across the political spectrum”

Not that I pay much attention to such stuff – after all - was I at all bovvered that the wreakers and splitters at Tory Boy Iain Dales “Total Politics” sabotaged my top 100 “Left Wing” ranking this year?

No, of course not. All the true bloggers I have ever met have been honest, gentile, mild mannered, consensual, polite, modest, moderate, uncompetitive and contemplative souls, who simply poor scorn on the very idea of such ranking and league tables and surely agree whole heartedly with this very sound sentiment below (but nothing else)

"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same"

World Day for Decent Work: Think Global Act Union

Today is the World Day for Decent Work (WDDW) which is a new designated international trade union campaigning “Day” to promote the concept of decent work.

I went to a series of workshops at the TUC, Congress House. There were events in over 100 countries today.

At Congress house we had international trade union representatives from all over the world, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber (speech here); TUC Deputy General Secretary Frances O'Grady (speech); TUC General Councillor Paul Talbot (and Unite Assistant General Secretary) (speech) and many others.

There were loads of NGO’s speakers and stalls as well.

This is what the WDDW website had to say about the day:-
“As every person should be able to have a job that enables them to live a good life in which their basic needs are met, decent work is the focus for World day for decent Work (WDDW). This is an opportunity for trade unions and organisations to join a broad global mobilisation involving a large number of people and a wide range of activities. The activities can be connected with three major themes: Rights at work, a theme dealing with the rights of working women and men; Solidarity, a theme focused on practical action involving cooperation between affiliates on a bilateral or multilateral basis; and Ending Poverty and Inequality, a theme emanating from the new globalisation”.

I have made some notes and will try and post later on about the workshops I attended. Some very good stuff.

I also met for the first time face to face (as opposed to virtual) top “UK Labor geek” TIGMOO and Johninnit blogger John W, who was rushing around organising a WDDW event on “Second Life”.

I’ve stolen the slogan (and main picture above) “Think Global Act Union” from the “Professionals Union” Prospect. Sue Ferns (head of research) used it at the “Decent Work and Human Rights” workshop. There were jokes made by other panel members that they will also “appropriate” this slogan since it is so absolutely encapsulates the spirit of international trade unionism.

After all if property is theft.....