Billy Hayes CWU
Bombardier banner head of demo (1)
Bombardier banner head of demo (2)
Bombardier worker speaking on platform
UNISON Care Workers on Demo
Christine Blower NUT
Demonstrator Colemore Row
Eleanor Lisney DPAC
Frances O'Grady TUC Deputy General Secretary,
Lancaster Street Rally
Mark Serwotka PCS
Mary Bousted ATL General Secretary
Demo on Newhall Street
Police Roadblock Convention Centre
Demonstrators
Remploy demonstrator at rally
SWAT Cops at Convention Centre
Union Banners
UNISON Birmingham Branch Banner
Burslem Trent Valley Workers on march
Mary Bousted from the ATL said that the unequal distribution of wealth means kids come to school anxious because parents fear losing job. Stating that November 30 will be biggest strike for generations – we have to fight to win the ballots”
Well Mary you got your work cut out if the attendance Sunday’s march is an indication of the present TUC leaderships ability to agitate and organize resistance The TUC’s 2,500 body count counterclaim, against the Police’s crowd estimate of 1,500 people joining the march along Broad Street says it all!
How anyone could stand on the platform and spout “What a splendid turn out”? Frances O'Grady you need a new pair of glasses, hang your head in shame, go back to TUC headquarters and kick the arse of yourself and everyone else involved. All this march showed was the utter inability or unwillingness of the TUC leadership to roll up their sleeves and get down to it. Fuck the bollocks of saving yourselves for the ‘Big One’!..... ‘The Tory Conference’ in October, as was made mention to me!
What is it a Day trip to Claxton coz it were no showcase highlighting any determined effort to prosecute the ongoing struggle for union members, wages, jobs, and public services?
If the ‘Big One’ is the sum total of perceived strategy to fight and confront the grinding continuation of cutting your members living standards, then you should not be in the job, for despite the spout of civil disobedience from the platform, the TUC seems to be impotent and an impediment to any such future effort
Case in point: Unite’s *Bombardier petition! Nothing wrong with that as part of a game plan but as with much else, it seems to be the be all and end all, with the TUC squatting its well rounded posterior on the side lines as usual, maybe, condescendingly allowing its offices for the organizing of a demonstration or two after the coup de grâce has been administered. It’s not rocket science knowing what needs to be done but either the TUC is afraid of its shite or it is conniving with those ‘Born to it’ to stymie its own members struggles
PCS Mark Serwotka a most left wing sounding of Union leader castigated Ed Miliband by ripping into Miliband’s TUC speech which condemned Union strike strategy against the cuts. However the continued inability of Union leaders to categorically break with Labour was unmistakably exposed when he added Milibucks “should side with workers fighting back! If he did that Labour would win by a landslide, we hope he thinks again” Whats the chances of that Mark? You think Milibucks is gonna miraculously be some Johnny Come Lately to “Fight every cut! Defend every job! Free education! Tax the rich!” ‘me arse he is!
I feel sorry for those trade unionists who attended in the hope that this would be the day the buck stops and their leaders would do what they are supposed to….. Fight and organize resistance by all means necessary to foil every government cut!
Unfortunately they found their efforts were thinly rewarded with a few rousing speeches pointing mainly to the “Fairy fellows master stroke” ….the choreographed November strike, Pish!
*Bombardier
Following the decision by the government to award the Thameslink contract to Siemens, and the subsequent decision by Bombardier to annuonce 1,400 redundancies,
Petition
"Keep UK Rail Manufacturing on track". Please sign the petition and forward to everyone you know:
http://www.unitetheunion.org/campaigns/keep_uk_rail_manufacturing_on.aspx photos copyright Stalingrad O'Neill - permission is required for third party usage
e-mail:
Homepage:
Comments
Hide the following 2 comments
Partially spurious criticism
21.09.2011 09:10
Whatever the situation, this movement needs to take people who are sympathetic and involved already and keep them involved, so in that sense the march is a de-facto success, and unnecessarily defeatist critique can be counterproductive. The answer to the problem of numbers is for YOU personally to organise your own bulk e-mail-outs, press and poster campaigns and leafletting to make sure such demos are well attended, not to wait around for the TUC to wave their magic wand.
Truth is the march barely registered a blip in the mainstream media. UK Uncut did a banner drop which, likewise, attracted zero publicity, until 3 activists got arrested and then it made national news! In other words 3 people committing minor offences is more newsworthy than 1,500 ordinary, decent people marching about very serious issues. The media ignore legitimate protest and then get all indignant when protests get more militant as a result of being ignored.
We need PR stunts that attract media attention and get the message out to non-political people (without going so far as be portrayed as the crazed nutters The Daily Mail would love us to be), ie - non-violent direct action, and we need individual activists to take responsibility for the success or failure of protests they attend rather than indulging in "blame culture" as regards other people's perceived shortcomings. If you don't like it, do it better, yourself.
Practical anarchist
Police Guns and Activist Strategy
21.09.2011 09:31
The BNP published a book called "How It Was Done" describing how activist Steve Smith built up the Burnley branch into an organisation with 1,000 paid-up members, and there is no left-wing group in the world that wouldn't kill for a membership like that in a town like Burnley...
Basically (pre-internet days I think) his technique was to go through the Yellow Pages noting details of people he thought would be the BNP's natural constituency - white working-class people who are not represented by the Trades Unions, ie - self-employed sole traders like plumbers and electricians etc, and phone them ALL. Hey presto, biggest BNP branch in the country.
It's all gone tits up for the BNP since then but there's alot we can learn from this. Get online, get contact info for local people and media etc by any means necessary, and usurp the traditional (and very successful) right-wing populist argument by telling them the government is stealing entitlements that British taxpayers have been paying-in to for generations. We need creative thinking here not traditional leftism.
Mark One