How the grinch stole May Day
Published:
March 25, 2013 20:38
by Pleb |
Neighbourhoods:
About a year ago, Nottingham's May Day events became the source of much controversy after Notts Trades Council decided to invite New Labour MP, Alan Meale. The decision to invite Meale, an MP whose role in Parliament seemed to have been to facilitate the war-mongering, authoritarian and anti-migrant policies of the Blair government, was strongly opposed before and during the event.
In the aftermath, Notts Trades Council allies, such as Pete Radcliffe of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, publicly sought to distance themselves from the Labour party. However, the Notts Trades Council were privately toadying up to Meale and the Labour party whilst slandering those who protested as anti-trade union.
In the run up to this year's May Day, it seems appropriate to make public the Trades Council's private statement to Meale, so that trade unionists and activists in Nottingham have an understanding of what kind of people and politics are running the show:
Statement from the Nottinghamshire, Mansfield & Nottingham Trades Union Council, regarding May Day 2012 to Mansfield CLP.
On behalf of the Nottinghamshire, Mansfield & Nottingham Trades Union Council, I wish to offer our apologies to Alan Meale, Diana Meale, and colleagues from Mansfield Labour Party, for the shameful conduct of a handful of individuals which attended this year’s May Day march and rally in Nottingham on the 5th of May.
This year saw the Trades Council take on the full responsibility for the arranging of May Day, and as such the Trades Council set out with the clear aim of seeking to broaden the event across the labour and trade union movement, in addition to also seeking to start to develop the event as a Nottinghamshire wide event as opposed to a Nottingham city event. In line with this approach the trades council agreed to therefore invited Alan Meale to speak, for which the trades council has no regrets.
For reasons which are only applicable to themselves, and to which we should give on relevance too, a small number of self-appointed individuals from a group called Nottingham Autonomous, who I would add have no formal or informal involvement with the trades council or the wider trade unions movement, decided to mar our day with actions that was indefensible, and which has quit rightly been condemned by all who witness it.
Sadly, this is not the first time that events arranged by the trades council which have also involved Labour MPs have been subjected to such acts, and it is clear that the trades council will now need to take stock of this and reflect on its stewarding arrangements for such events going forward.
The trades council, which is made up of trade unions which are both affiliated and not affiliated to the Labour Party have for some time now been considering how to establish closer links with the Labour Party at local level. Whilst the trades council is not an affiliate of the Party, nor does it support the position of the Labour Party on all issues, it nevertheless recognises our shared common history and values.
It is clear that a small group of unaccountable and unrepresentative individuals, who play absolutely no active role within the wider trade union or labour movement in Nottingham, and who are just as vile about trade unions as they are towards the Labour Party, but who nevertheless feel able to letch off the back of events arranged by organised labour are seeking to undermine these attempts between the local trades council and Labour Party to work together and build for the future on issues of common agreement. It is clearly hoped therefore that both our organisations recognised this for what it is, and are not deterred by such actions.
Comments
Revision of history, to be expected.
Published: March 26, 2013 00:26
by
unrepresented person
"group called Nottingham Autonomous, who I would add have no formal or informal involvement with the trades council or the wider trade unions movement, decided to mar our day with actions that was indefensible, and which has quit rightly been condemned by all who witness it."
NO IT WASN'T. many joined in knowing this sort of labour [or whatever they call themselves now] doesn't stand for them any more.
"decided to mar our day" WHAT, who's? I though it was a bit wider than that chap. For years before the last effort, the lefties didn't seem that bothered and others took on the festy and parade. Now this lot think they can say 'OURS'.
With some of current lack of efforts on benefits, workfare, standing up for union issues and a complete lack of representation [apart from themselves of course ...] If you are in a union? Trade Union members can opt out of funding the Labour party through their subs http://t.co/iyK3yBwIYq Please do it.
Who's mayday is it?
Published: March 26, 2013 00:45
by
Tash
uummm, well .... since the last mayday shindig, when these issues were aired, the Labour Party has in my view, progressed not a jot and have failed to address concerns on benefits, workfare, union issues, cuts, lack of public services, failed to oppose the retrospective legislation [after a cosy deal backstage, i'm told] and have lost their way in who it is they represent. I mean, what are they for actually? I know I'll probably get snapped at a bit here by some, but it a legitimate point of view innit!
&&
As Dave had pointed out earlier:
"Trades Council don't own MayDay, Trade Unions don't own MayDay, nobody owns MayDay. It's a public event, not a private party where attendance is by invitation only and on the understanding attendees will behave themselves".
Mayday Events, Anti-Labour Protest
http://nottingham.tachanka.org/articles/2573
less and less hope :-(
Labour party has failed us
Published: March 26, 2013 01:38
by
Tash
The Labour party has failed us. We need a new party of the left
Britain needs a party that rejects neoliberal policies and improves the lives of ordinary people. Help us create one
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/25/labour-party-left
Ken Loach, Kate Hudson and Gilbert Achcar
guardian.co.uk, Monday 25 March 2013
Reclaim May Day?
Published: March 26, 2013 08:00
by
Disillusioned worker
Well it's clear that these cynical b******s aren't going to do anything other than pat themselves and their labour party puppet masters on the back.
The question is, what are those of us who still believe in working class struggle going to do on May Day?
Clarifying matters after Mayday 2012
Published: March 26, 2013 22:03
by
Anarchist Federation member
Same old same old, inviting Labour MPs again. AF Nottingham group previously saw the need to clarify things around the same time the above letter was conceived, shortly after Mayday. Here are the relevant articles on our blog:
http://nottsblackarrow.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/the-anarchist-federation-in-nottingham/
http://nottsblackarrow.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/the-anarchist-federation-and-may-day-in-nottingham/
See also: AREN’T LABOUR AS MUCH TO BLAME AS THE TORIES?
http://www.afed.org.uk/nottingham/af_anti_cuts_leaflet_sept_2010.pdf
Another Scab MP on May Day
Published: March 27, 2013 14:42
by
Ross
This year the Notts Trades Council (or whatever this Trotskyist Labour-supporting group calls itself) are billing Lillian Greenwood MP as their main speaker.
Greenwood is a former UNISON official who was sponsored by her union to stand as a parliamentary candidate. Having been elected she paid back UNISON members by refusing to support them when they were taking industrial action in defence of their pensions. A real Labour woman!
What is needed is to hold a proper May Day celebration on Wednesday, 1st May in opposition to the Trades Council's scab rally.
Just another Labour drone
Published: March 27, 2013 19:36
by
Louis Lling
43 Labour MPs defied the party's whip and voted against the governments Welfare Bill. Greenwood wasn't one of them.
http://labourlist.org/2013/03/labours-40-welfare-sanctions-rebels/
celebrate May Day, don't obstruct it
Published: March 28, 2013 20:20
by
Ben
Please can everyone try and reflect on this with a little more calm and a little less automatic antagonism?
The Trades Council, to which I am a delegate from my Unison branch, has been through a democratic process to decide who to invite to speak at the May Day rally it is organising. This was not a unanimous decision, and in fact after the list had been drawn up a motion was put (which I seconded) to withdraw the invitation to Lillian Greenwood as she has not come out in support of fighting the cuts (among other reasons cited). After some debate, this motion was sadly defeated.
Those of you who are used to working in broad based campaigns or organisations will be familiar with not always getting your own way. That doesn't mean that the organisation in question doesn't have the right to organise, or make its own decisions. I was involved a few years ago in a local community action group that wanted CCTV cameras installing - a point of view I detest and argued very fiercely against. But that group still did some very useful things, and was a very good expression of organisation in an otherwise very disempowered working class community. It had the perfect right to exist and make its own (sometimes bad) decisions. The Trades Council also makes some bad decisions sometimes – in my opinion. But we need to win the arguments. And we need to be there to do that. Unfortunately most people don't have the revolutionary consciousness of the typical indymedia commenter. Until they do we will have to keep having these arguments. The alternative – running away from them and organising entirely separately – will leave you operating in a bubble.
The Trades Council is not perfect, but it does have a very valid democratic process. Ok, you can argue that representative democracy has failings vs direct democracy etc, but no system is perfect. Frankly I think the Trades Council is more democratic than the Sumac or any of the climate camps I've been to, or various other things modelled along anarchist lines. And in some ways in fact it mirrors the structures and ideas that anarchists always go on about. It is essentially a federation of individual branches who choose to be involved, delegates are immediately recallable by their branches, etc etc. It is structurally very distinct from the TUC to which unions affiliate nationally by the way – rather more horizontal and grassroots, you might say. And community groups can affiliate too – the Notts Pensioners Action Group for example affiliate.
But I don’t say its perfect by any means.
We must be careful to differentiate between the Labour Movement and the Labour Party. Some of the unions involved in the Trades Council don’t affiliate to or fund the Labour Party (PCS, RMT, FBU...) Many individual members of all the unions don’t. Of course there's a lot of politics involved around this issue, and many in the Trades Council, which isn't affiliated, would probably like it to be. The Labour Movement would be in a much better position to resist the political sell outs and machinations if more people like yourselves were involved.
The trade unions do represent (albeit very badly sometimes) large numbers of working class people, and we should be clinging on to that. Ok, they are very distant from their members sometimes, very bureaucratised and self serving sometimes. But you shouldn't be trying to pull them down. Go and pull down the institutions of the ruling class, not the working class! Last May Day the bloody army were marching through the streets of Nottingham - why pick a fight with a workers' organisation? We should be trying to preserve working class organisation. You should be getting involved with your union, not carping on about how they support people you don't agree with.
If you want to heckle a Labour MP speaking on May Day, I say fair enough. Any professional politician should be able to cope with a bit of heckling, and in the case of most of our MP's I would say deserve showing up for what they are. But please don't take it upon yourselves to try and stop a Trades Council celebration of May Day going on. If you don’t like who the Trades Council has chosen to speak – well come and get involved. See if your branch will delegate you. You don't have any right to sabotage or obstruct it.
No the Trades Council doesn't own May Day. I think I'm right in saying that they started organising last year's event after the committee who had done it for the previous few years decided it wasn’t going to do it any more. To be honest I cant think of another body with such credentials to do it. But there's no reason an alternative or complementing event cant go on. May Day Afterparty? May Day Occupation? May Day tea dance?.......
I think part of the reason it went so totally wrong last year was the venue. There has been widespread comment that after a big lively march, only a relative few want to go and sit inside somewhere. And the Congregational Hall is quite a constraining venue.
Hopefully the rally will be outside this year, and will be able to accommodate many more people, many more views, and be a much more celebratory event. I hope you will all be there enjoying it.
The statement is offensive and divisive
Published: March 28, 2013 21:14
by
Independent thinker
Ben - you make some reasonable comments but I think you're ignoring just how exclusionary and divisive the Trades Council big men's response to last year's intervention was. (And yes, despite how democratic or otherwise it might be it does seem to be run by the same Trot party leaders who run a lot of 'official' left activity in Nottingham, in particular a surprisingly high proportion of activists from the tiny Alliance for Workers Liberty.)
Those of us who dissented, something I hope you'll agree thinking members of any collective should do when poor ethical decisions are made by others that negatively impact on them, were threatened with violence, with attempts to silence us by force (alluded to by the reference to reviewing stewarding arrangements in this leaked statements - in other words, they want to repress us better next time). Many of us are trade union activists but the Trades Council would happily sell us out (so much for representative democracy) in order to curry favour with ruling class politicians as this statement so disgustingly shows.
Why should we play along nicely with the Trades Council which has made it quite clear they would like to see our dissent silenced, with violence if needs be, so that they can lick the arses of whichever Labour politician they are currently trying to get into bed with?
And let's be clear - I am not slating the grassroots trade unionists involved in the labour movement. I am aiming my disgust at the small clique of Trotskyist party activists who have taken over the Trades Council and are using it for their own political agendas which are not the same as benefiting the people at the bottom of the hierarchy. Why would I want to join them when they've made it so patently clear that they want me and my ilk removed or rendered subservient to their 'greater good'? I'll have about as much chance of achieving working class power as I would if I joined the Labour party!
Good comment Ben
Published: March 28, 2013 22:35
by
t
The horizontal hostility and factionalism on display here would be breathtaking if it wasn't a hallmark of the radical left and anarchist movements in the UK. We need to be directing our organised anger at the ruling classes. If this dispute was happening in tandem with serious political organising aimed at bringing down the capitalist state I'd have no problem with it. That isn't the case. Can you really claim that the radical left has put the same amount of energy and vitriol into fighting capitalism as into sectarian squabbles?
No argument here that leading trots are not authoritarian and domineering, but what some people seem the fail to understand is that attacks on them are seen as attacks upon the whole of the left. This is the very position these demagogues want to inhabit - representatives of the working class, which means an attack on them is an attack on the class as a whole. We reinforce their position by attacking from outside their structures.
Challenging this requires a more nuanced approach than angry rejection - as Ben says we need to engage. Why not challenge the trades council's decisions from within, rather than from without? And why not organise a complementary event instead of an invasion?
As we learned last year, some methods for challenging the dominance of the trots can be divisive and alienating, and therefore of no use to us if our goal is to build a broader and more powerful political movement. We need to cultivate trust and find common ground, not drive wedges into any cracks that appear.
Class Enemies
Published: March 29, 2013 15:17
by
Ross
They key issue here is that Notts Trades Council claims to represent trade unionists in Nottinghamshire. Thus it is deeply offensive to put forward speakers on May Day, such as Alan Meale and Lillian Greenwood, who oppose workers taking industrial action in defence of their pensions and pay. It does not matter if deluded delegates at a Trades Council meeting voted in favour of giving a platform to scab MP's. If they voted to have a racist speaker then would we say that's all right? Of course not. These people have shown themselves to be enemies of the working class and they should be opposed.
Fundamental error
Published: March 29, 2013 17:03
by
Louis Lling
t: "We need to be directing our organised anger at the ruling classes."
And you really think that doesn't involve the Labour Party?
Enemies of the working class
Published: March 29, 2013 17:42
by
t
Cameron and Osborne are also enemies of the working class. The difference is they're in power.
What is the purpose of opposing the trades council event?
Are you hoping that by voicing dissent we will persuade trade unionists of the futility of their position and the hypocrisy of their leaders, and then hopefully a few will come over to the autonomous left? The fallout from last year seems to demonstrate that this is not just a vain hope, but that in fact the opposite is true. The protest last year alienated potentially sympathetic people from the anarchists and the more radical left.
Or are you just looking forward to unfurling a banner which reads "we're more radical than you"?
the labour party
Published: March 29, 2013 18:23
by
t
This may not be apparent from the inside of the radical ghetto, but large numbers of people around the country do still believe that the labour party and the labour movement are the same thing. Yes, this is shit. But it is also true. From the outside, this appears to be infighting.
Of course twats like Sir Alan Meale are members of the ruling class. Of course the labour party does not represent the interests of the working class. My point is that the confrontational attitude that has been taken is hugely counterproductive in terms of movement building, and in terms of anti-capitalist action is a storm in a teacup. Your fundamental error is being unable to see beyond the rim of the teacup.
Why isn't the same energy being directed against HMRC, or Experian, or Capital One, or E.On, or Ingeus, or the new UK Coal opencast 5 miles from the city centre, or ... etc etc etc?
Kissing Labour Arse
Published: March 30, 2013 10:16
by
Ross
Notts Trades Council claim that they are opposed to the Coalition's austerity programme and yet are keen to provide platforms for Labour MP's who oppose workers taking industrial action in defence of jobs and pensions. What accounts for this political schizophrenia? The answer is Trotskyism.
Ever since the nineteen thirties Trotskyites have been trying to push the Labour Party in a radical direction. Eighty years of experience shows that this project is a failure. The Labour Party has become more reactionary. But the Trots never learn. When Labour is in opposition they campaign for the election of a Labour Government and then when one is elected and enacts the reactionary programme upon which it stood the Trots scream "betrayal". They are stuck on this never-ending political merrygoround.
The Trots think that if one is nice to Labour politicians then they will respond by adopting more radical policies. But it doesn't work. The more they kiss Labour arse, the browner their faces.
Labour snubs Liverpool grassroots anti-bedroom tax campaign in confidential email
Published: April 04, 2013 00:53
by
Fred
Thought you might like to see this example of the labour party representing the electorates concerns. LOOK, THEY DON'T CARE. If a labour MP is invited while they have such policy ..... I fail to see why anyone would be interested in what was said. Tory's the lot of them. I mean this is disgraceful and such people need overthrowing. What was that about democracy. None to see here [or there].
====
Labour snubs Liverpool grassroots anti-bedroom tax campaign in confidential email.
A few weeks ago Dingle Combat the Bedroom Tax tenants’ Group decided to invite every Liverpool councillor they could contact to face questions over the Bedroom Tax. They knew that the responses would be tokenistic, but nevertheless, the date was set and yesterday, 2nd April, tenants eagerly awaited a concerned troop of councillors.
They sent along one Liverpool Labour Councillor, Steve Mumby, which is slightly better than a kick in the chops. Unbeknown to Mumby, one of the tenants snapped a confidential document that Steve had been referring to whilst he was being annihilated by the meeting.
http://combatbedroomtax.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/liverpool-labour-snubs-grassroots.html
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For the next instalment of letching....
....(it's in there, look) here's when this years Nu Labour worshipping Day is.
Notts TUC sponsored May Day celebrations this year will take place on Saturday 4 May. There will be a march from the Forest to the Square at 11.00 am, with a rally in the Square from 12.30 pm. Our key-note speaker this year will be Lillian Greenwood MP, plus a host of local campaign and union speakers.
Labour, just Tories in red ties.