UNISONActive is an unofficial blog produced by UNISON activists for UNISON activists. Bringing news, briefings and events from a progressive left perspective.

Friday 11 March 2011

Spooks & Unions

Alan Jinkinson
rebuffed MI5 approach
In today's Morning Star Solomon Hughes exposes the activities of the Special Branch in snooping on print unions and their supporters during the 1986 Wapping Dispute with Rupert Murdoch's News International:
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/
index.php/news/content/view/full/102070
Recent revelations which exposed undercover police infiltration of the environmental movement have made this a topical issue.

It's an interesting but little known fact that the first UNISON General Secretary Alan Jinkinson had been a target for the security services during the early years of his employment with our union. In a 1980's interview with the activists weekly Nalgo News Jinkinson revealed all about MI5's failed attempts to recruit him as an agent: http://www.mi5.com/security/mi5org/index.htm