The discovery of a time capsule left in the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh by joiners in 1909 has thrown a fascinating insight into where the workers of the day got their news.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-30552613
It contained a copy of ‘The Labour Leader: A Weekly Journal of Socialism, Trade Unionism and Politics’, a paper set up by Keir Hardie in 1888. Stories covered in the 19 March 1909 edition included the Paris Strike of postal and telecoms workers, ‘The Liberal Betrayal’ (what’s new?), ‘Welsh Notes’ on the threatened coal strike and the Russian Azeff Affair.
They take care of photos and documents and they even have a yearly festival. Although the coal mining industry has disappeared the community spirit is still alive in Kent. "We are not going to let us be forgotten as miners, in spite of that awful woman Thatcher", Gary Cox says. "We are proud to say that our mining communities are still alive and as strong today as it ever was, despite that awful woman dragging innocent workers into a political war.." Swedish journalist Ann-Christin Sjölander writes at
http://acsjolander.se/? p=399 See more about the Kent ex-miners community at
http://www.movetheminer.org/
2012 marks the centennial anniversary of the Great Lawrence Strike of 1912 in Massachusetts, USA - popularly known as The Bread and Roses Strike. With original footage, the inspiring video "Collective Voices" tells the story of this important moment in the collective history of the working class:
http://www.massaflcio.org/
node/198811
Philip Wolmuth, a freelance photographer, writes about the lack of representation of people at work in contemporary union journals, citing the example of the former NUPE Journal which frequently used photographs of members at work which ‘were very often unposed, documentary shots taken in workplaces – something that is now rare’. He cites as the main reason for the demise of ‘privatisation of so many services – from the railways and other public utilities, to hospital porters and school dinners – has made access difficult’
http://londonphotographers.org/2010/09/what-has-happened-to-workplace-photography/
The work-in began 40 years ago today..“We’re taking over the yards because we refuse to accept, that faceless men, or any group of men in Whitehall or anywhere else, can take decisions that devastate our livelihoods with impunity. They’re not on...The Shop Stewards on behalf of the workers are in control of this yard. Nobody and nothing will come in and nothing will go out without our permission” Jimmy Reid, John Brown's Shipyard 30/07/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0wSoRu-Sko
Many trade unionists have heard of the famous Burston School Strike, and the brave stand made by the teachers and children against the squirearchy of that small village near Diss, Norfolk which started in 1914. However few have heard of the Strike schools of Lowestoft involving over one hundred teachers and 1,500 school students.
At yesterday's Compass Conference Professor Huw Benyon of Cardiff University made the following contribution to a seminar on 'How can trade unions be agents of the social change we need today?':
Rodney Bickerstaffe and the late Ken Gill were trade union contemporaries in battles against a former Conservative government, fighting for social justice and jobs and against attacks on employment rights and public services. Now chair of a non-charitable trust to celebrate and continue Ken’s legacy, the former UNISON general secretary reflects on the life of his long-time friend and says the struggles they fought together are in many ways no different than the struggles of today.
The Theatre Workshop Scotland is progressing an important working class film initiative - Once Upon a Time in Fife - which depicts the events of the 1926 miners' strike and is being made with members of the ex-coalfield community. An impressive trailer for the film can be viewed here:
http://www.theatre-workshop.com/fife/story/ Donations to this important work in progress can be made via the same link.
Will you cheer for "more work and less pay"....Will you cheer to be taunted that your want of work at such times means "you won't work"? Will you cheer for all manner of insult and abuse, when, in distress, you approach those who are in authority? Cheer these things and you lick the feet that kick you.
(Extract from a leaflet entitled "Anti-Humbug". distributed in the Haymarket, Bristol in 1888 when the Freedom of the City was conferred on Prince Albert) http://ourhistory-hayes.blogspot.com/2010/12/why-lick-feet-that-kick-you.html
The government has announced that funding will be cut to eight “non-national” museums. The North West will be particularly badly hit, with funding chopped from the People’s History Museum, the Museum of Science & Industry, and the National Football Museum.
"Stop the Funding Being Cut for the People's History Museum [in Manchester] and other 'non-national' Museums" hosted on the web by PetitionOnline.com, the free online petition service, at:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/MancPHM/ UNISONActive readers are urged to take a look, and consider signing yourself.
Kevin Maguire of the Daily Mirror, writing in Tribune, takes stock of new Labour leader Ed Miliband’s unfolding relationship with trade unions and cautions him against falling into ‘the trap of attacking workers and unions involved in..strikes’.
http://www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2010/11/kevin-maguire-5/
UNISON members leafletted to save NHS Direct at the Burston Rally, Diss, Norfolk on Sunday. There was a record attendance with speakers including Tony Benn, Ed Balls and Diane Abbott. The rally takes place on the first Sunday in September and commemorates the longest running strike in British history. The strike began when teachers at the village's Church of England school, Kitty Higdon and her husband, Tom Higdon, were sacked after a dispute with the area's school management committee and schoolchildren went on strike in their support.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burston_Strike_School
"We will not go back to a New Labour agenda based on privatisation, and fragmentation and globalisation that we have had over the past few years” said Dave Prentis in a no holds barred interview with the Observer newspaper yesterday.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/05/david-miliband-unions-labour-leadership
A rat race is for rats. We're not rats. We're human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice, lest you jeopardise your chances of self-promotion and self-advancement. This is how it starts. And before you know where you are, you're a fully paid-up member of the rat pack. The price is too high. It entails the loss of your dignity and human spirit. The words of Jimmy Reid 39 years ago when he addressed Glasgow University. Today, several newspapers will print the speech in full - almost 40 years after the New York Times spotted its significance and reportedly printed it in full.
Jeremy Corbyn MP poses three key questions to the next Labour Party leader:
On Saturday 13 March 2010, the International Brigade Memorial Trust held a celebration of the life of Jack Jones (1913 - 2009), at the Imperial War Museum in London. Manus O'Riordan, Head of Research at the leading Irish trade union SIPTU and son of Irish International Brigade member Michael O'Riordan, introduced 'a rebel song' by James Connolly:
