Lobby of Swindon Council

These hardy souls above braved heavy downpours to lobby the Swindon Council in opposition to transfer of our Council houses to a Housing Association. There is another row at the back of shy and retiring types not visible owing to the angle of the shot and their flagrant refusal of the photographer’s instructions to move forward.

The good news was that the Council’s ruling Tory group agreed to withdraw their motion (to ballot tenants for transfer of the town’s Council Housing) until they can examine the details of the government’s consultation on a new Housing system. For analysis of this see Swindon TUC’s website at:

http://swindontuc.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/swindon-tuc-breifing-government-consultation-on-new-housing-finance-system/

“Mere gambling transactions”

I sat down the other night to watch a DVD of one of the old Ealing studio comedies, ‘Kind Hearts And Coronets’. It was a break from all the feverish media reporting on the global financial crisis. Or so I thought. The film follows the success of Louis Mazzini (played by Dennis Price) in reclaiming what he considers his birthright. His mother was abandoned by the family for the crime of marrying an Italian of no social standing. He aims to murder his way to the title of Duke of D’Ascoyne, clearing his path of the individuals in the line ahead of him one by one.

“Straight from impossible to inevitable”

This is the first of a series of pieces examining the global financial crisis.

 

Socialists are often accused of overstating the extent of the periodic crises of capitalism. However, today it is difficult to overstate the scale of the current global financial crisis. Supporters of the system are out-bidding each other in hyperbole. One shell shocked “senior banker” in London told the Times that there was no future left for the traditional investment bank.

Keeping your cards close to your chest – or at least somewhere they couldn’t be found

Shenanigans down at the TUC. Thankfully, there are no smoke-filled rooms these days, but what’s this? According to UNISON NEC member Jon Rogers, blogging live from this august event,  UNITE abstained on a POA amendment to the public sector composite which sought to add the word “strike” to “day’s of action”. According to Jon UNITE’s delegation had voted overwhelmingly to support the addition of the word “strike”, but mysteriously when the moment of truth was reached, UNITE’s voting card had gone AWOL!

 

Far be it for me to suggest that somebody or other at the top of UNITE didn’t think that the delegation had voted the “right” way and tactically misplaced the said card. Perhaps there is a more prosaic explanation. Either way members of UNITE are owed an explanation.

 

Jon also informs us that the GMB voted for the POA amendment despite the contention of the UNISON leadership at the delegation meeting that “nobody else would support it” so clearly UNISON couldn’t. Heavens above they couldn’t be in a minority could they?

 

Foregive my confusion here, but why, in a resolution calling for coordinated industrial action, would anybody oppose the inclusion of the word ‘strike’, unless of course, “days of action” was designed so that this or that union could avoid taking strike action, and have the defence that they had taken ‘action’ (say a demonstration at dinner time or some such)?

 

 

Supporting “non-existent colleagues”

The furore over the strike by workers at Grangemouth refinery is predictable. Government Ministers have lined up to say that the dispute is unecessary. Yet all the workers are doing is defending their final salary pension. What is especially important about the dispute is the fact that the workers are striking against the introduction of an inferior scheme for future workers. TGWU-Unite has rightly pointed out that if this division between existing and new staff is allowed then it will progressively undermine the future of the final salary scheme.

Greg Tucker

The trade union and political activist Greg Tucker died yesterday from throat cancer. Here are some brief comments to mark his passing.

I did not know Greg very well on a personal level, although I worked with him on and off for 20 years, mostly in the RMT. Greg was a prominent activist within the RMT as a guard and then train driver. He was Secretary of the Train Grades conference of the RMT, and had been a member of the union’s lay Executive Committee. He stood as a candidate for General Secretary against Jimmy Knapp (for the absence of anybody else prepared to do so), receiving around a third of the votes. We were delegates together on a number of occasions to the RMT’s AGM and involved in the various left formations.
 
A similar age to him, we were part of a generation which suffered a long series of defeats. Many of the people we knew and worked with were personally defeated and demoralised, and dropped out of political and trade union activity. Some abandoned their earlier political convictions. But Greg’s commitment was life long, whatever the conditions of the moment.

Greg could have had a ‘career’ but chose instead to organise workers as a lay activist in the workplace, where anybody who held positions of leadership was a natural target for management. Like many left wing activists he suffered victimisation (at the hands of South West Trains), though he, his members and the union eventually won his his job back. He considered such attacks to be an inevitable overhead of the struggle.
 
Although his politics changed to some degree over the years, Greg remained true to his youthful convictions and carried on his trade union and political work despite the depressing conditions under which we had to work for so long.  

The other thing that can be said about Greg was that he was someone who was widely liked and respected, despite operating in a movement in which sectarianism was exacerbated by defeats. In this environment some left activists lost a sense of proportion, treating people close to them on the political spectrum as if they were enemies. Greg in contrast was never personal or objectionable with people with whom he had disagreements, even sharp ones. He faced political abuse (directed at him) with a wry smile. The small-mindedness and narrow sectarianism of many on the left was alien to him.
 
His experience, good humour and gritty determination will be missed by RMT activists and members, and his political associates. His departure too early, in his 50’s, is a reminder to those of us of his generation to make the most of our time.