Bradford City of Culture 2025: Trade Unions remain at the heart of Bradford's culture

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Bradford City of Culture 2025: Trade Unions remain at the heart of Bradford's culture

HELP ENSURE TRADE UNIONISM FEATURES IN BRADFORD’S UK CITY OF CULTURE 2025 CELEBRATIONS

As the UK City of Culture for 2025, Bradford will host hundreds of cultural events and celebrations. 

Few institutions have played a bigger part in Bradford’s history than trade unionism.

There are numerous important characters. One is bus driver Mohammed Taj, a UNITE representative, who in 2013 was elected TUC President, the first Muslim and the first South Asian President.

As President of the Unite NE 302/07 branch I am now urging others to join us in ensuring the life and legacy of this inspirational figure is captured in a 30-minute film that will also highlight historical events and heroes including Julia Varley.

Trade unions in Bradford

The struggle by independent artisans to wring a live wage out of employers existed before trade unions but by 1824/5 the Union Association of Woolcombers and Stuff Weavers found themselves locked out by the Bradford millowners when they requested wage rises to meet rising living costs. The struggle was lost, thousands were victimised. There began attempts at forming a general federation.

Industrial Bradford, created by the industrial revolution at its most ruthless, supported the Tolpuddle Martyrs. The Ten Hours Movement was born in Bradford which also played an essential role in the Chartist Movement.

In 1872, with the dyers’ playing a major role, Bradford Trades Council (BTC) was formed and still exists today. It was crucial in the 1874 agricultural labourers’ revolt and in the famous Manningham Mills Lock Out of the early 1890s. Bradford Trades Council was united on the need for a political party to represent working class aims, culminating in the Labour Party’s formation.

Bradford trade unionists wholeheartedly  backed the miners in the 1926 General Strike. A year earlier Bradford textile workers were key to over 150,000 striking workers regionally winning a battle to restore wages following a pay cut.

Such is the long history of Bradford trade unionism.

A 64-page booklet released by Unite in 2018 on one of our own members in the UNITE NE 302/07 branch, originally formed in 1922, Mohammad Taj is unique in detailing the life of a UK BAEM trade unionist.

Taj spent his early life in a small agricultural village in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, moving to Bradford in 1966. After working in textiles, he worked here in the bus industry for four decades. He was motivated by a white anti-racist trade unionist to get active because he saw the trade union movement as a vehicle to change injustices taking place against ordinary workers.

As a consistently elected workplace representative in the TGWU, then Unite, Mohammad exposed exploitation and discrimination, won major advances on pay and conditions, equality and justice, and supported workers in struggle everywhere. He reached out to youngsters in the fight against fascism and imperialism. He persuaded others like myself to become active trade unionists.

Through his dedication, experience and genuine warmth Mohammad Taj could organise beyond short-term setbacks, ill-informed opposition, outright racism and discrimination to build solidarity, unity and alliances within and beyond the workplace. By doing so he made a difference to millions of people’s lives worldwide. 

Mohammed Taj was elected TUC President on 11 September 2013, the first Muslim and the first South Asian President.

Our branch, which has existed since 1922, has donated £500 towards an appeal by Mark Metcalf, who wrote the booklet on Mohammad Taj, towards the estimated £6,000 costs for a 30-minute documentary based around filmed interviews with Taj, his family, friends, fellow trade unionists, community members and political colleagues. Mark Metcalf will be working with Dave Hackney of Digital Cortex. They have been collaborating on a series of labour movement short pieces over the last 12 months.

Mark: These are listed under Youtube at Mark Metcalf – Fighting Talk

This is the second planned film based on booklets written by Mark Metcalf. The first is on Betty Tebbs and funds of £5,500 have been raised as of mid-August 2024. Invites to speak about this work would be welcomed. Mark Metcalf 07392 852561 metcalfmc@outlook.com

@markmetcalf07

Donations can be made to: Mark C Metcalf

Account number 77358244

Sort code 60-09-27

Halifax Rally to support GMB strikers at job centre at 10am on Wednesday

 Rally to support GMB strikers at job centre at 10am on Wednesday 

Calderdale TUC is asking for support for the picket line at Halifax Job Centre, Great Albion Street HX1 1YS

every day this week from 8am to noon in support of GMB members working as security guards for the DWP and who have been on

rolling strike over pay and conditions  - for info go to this link https://www.gmb.org.uk/private-sector/security-services/g4s-dwp-noticeboard

 for a number of weeks. 

And at 10am on Wednesday there will be a rally at the job centre. This will be chaired by Jackie Wood, retired PCS member and agreed speakers

to date (Sunday 11th) are John Dunn of Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign, GMB rep and striker Rahmat Allahe and Nigel Smith, co-secretary of CTUC.

If you'd like to send a message of solidarity please send it to Mark Metcalf at metcalfmc@outlook.com and these will be read out on the day.

Invites to GMB speakers for your meeting can be sent to rahmatallah@@yahoo.co.uk

Friday marks the 182nd anniversary  strike - one minute silence to be held at 1842 plaque at the Industrial Museum 

There will be a brief assembly at the 1842 plaque at the Calderdale Industrial Museum on Friday at 4.15pm to remember those who were slaughtered on 16 August 1842 during what was the greatest uprising (to date) by the citizens of Halifax. Following a minute's silence there will be two very brief speeches. 

The film of events on that day can be watched at:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0UxMadnIEA

Mark Metcalf, joint secretary of CTUC 07392 852561 

ARDGLASS HARBOUR STRIKE

 

ARDGLASS HARBOUR STRIKE

Highly skilled employees of the Northern Ireland Fishery Harbour Authority (NIFHA) are angling for a better deal on pay and are very reluctantly set to pull up the drawbridge by striking, writes Mark Metcalf.

By doing so they will close the harbours, preventing NI’s fishing fleet landing our best loved, healthiest food source, fish.

Seaside restaurants and chip shops will be badly hit whilst supermarket sales of the product will be washed away.

The damage to an already fragile regional economy, including fish processing factories, will be significant.

Unite members are having to take action after management failure to even keep basic pay in line with inflation or award pay increments that were recommended in an external grading review conducted in 2019.

Ardglass has been a fishing port for over 2,000 years. It has one of the few harbours which is accessible at all times and has two fishing piers,  a number of fish processing factories plus a marina. At least £8 million passes through the fish trade, mainly in herrings, prawns and whitefish, annually.

Previously un-unionised, NIFHA staff set to down tools are no rebels. They are desperately keen to maintain the high standards of service to their crews.

They are desperately keen to maintain the high standards of service they are proud to provide to around 70 privately operated fishing boats that consist of those that sail out for the day or, more generally, for two to three days. A typical crew would be 3-4 workers, some of whom are accomplished Filipino and Sri Lankan workers on short term contracts.

“This is all new territory for us,” explains Unite rep Jim Leneghan, who is a maintenance fitter who comes from an engineering background. He undertakes electrical work and he’s a qualified welder. “We joined and wanted Unite to represent us from January last year but the Authority held us back until December. I was then elected as rep.”

Like many of his fellow workers, Jim has been a loyal NIFHA employee for 20 plus years. “We feel betrayed with their skills, experiences, dedication and commitment overlooked. We know that the authority is taking in monies. And as there are so few of us, under 30 in all, they can afford to look after us. Our pay is now the minimum wage of £11.44 an hour.” 

This is despite the NIFHA declaring itself an accredited Living Wage employer which based on the cost of living should be, at least, £12 an hour. Taking strike action may be required if we want to help our families,” which in Jim’s case includes him looking after elderly parents with medical needs.

 “It is disgraceful that most workers at the NIFHA are paid the bare legal minimum,” said Unite general secretary Sharon Graham

“Even the harbour masters are paid only a few pennies more than the living wage. The fisheries and harbours workforce can count on the full backing of Unite in their fight for improved pay.”

Unite is demanding the NIFHA makes waves to resolve their harbour and fisheries employees needs and has written to the new Rural Affairs minister Andrew Muir who represents the Alliance Party.

“We hope Mr Muir can offer a fresh approach to resolve things before we are forced out of the gate,” states Jim.

 

Background

 

Strike action at NIFHA, an arms-length body funded by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) would mark another battle by N.I public sector workers, whose real pay has been severely cut.

In 2022 an estimated 150,000 public sector workers in NI went on strike at different times. Then on January 16 20024 there were was joint strike action, the largest in more than half a century, by workers from 16 trade unions including Unite. There has also been strike action by Unite private sector members with ice cream workers at LE Pritchitts near Newtownards recently scooping a much needed 14% award, well up on the opening offer by management of 4.4%.

There are 14 ports and harbours in Northern Ireland. NIFHA is charged with improving, managing, maintaining and operating the facilities at the three fishery harbours and harbour estates of Ardglass, Kilkeel, where lobsters are the main catch, and Portavogie. These three small historic villages are sited on the Irish Sea.

 

 

 

THE BATTLE FOR RURAL DENTISTS

 

THE BATTLE FOR RURAL DENTISTS

‘Toothless’ fight bears its fangs

Landworker magazine - Summer 2024 

We are all well aware of the difficulties in getting an NHS dentist – but rural communities face particular problems.

In the recent election run-up the Toothless in England campaign, fed up with the dental health or rural citizens being ignored, ensured all rural candidates knew of their anger.

Unite’s Mark Jones from Suffolk, who works at UK Power Networks and chairs the Unite London and Eastern Energy and Utilities Regional Industrial Sector Committee, led the charge. (in a personal capacity) Starting off at a local level, the campaign soon went regional and then national and is now the patient’s voice.

‘Toothless’ says “Campaigners are conscious that rural communities face extra difficulties in finding and NHS dentist. Their efforts have drawn support from the British Dental Association, a trade union representing 16,000 dentists working in the NHS and private sector.

“What Toothless have achieved is remarkable. Their examples of people that have suddenly had to resort to DIY dentistry have certainly helped, along with other patient representative groups like Health Watch,” said Eddie Crouch, BDA national chair. “It's really important that the patients voice is heard and the huge volume of people that have now written emails to their MPs and raised it up the agenda is due in large part to Toothless.”

According to Mark Jones: “By bringing the NHS dental crisis into sharp focus within local and mainstream media outlets, we have driven the agenda in Westminster, so much so that we have put our case directly to MPs on the Health and Social Care Committee, which has held an inquiry into NHS dentistry, as well as the Department for Health and Social Care.”

North Yorkshire BDA member Ian Gordon, a dentist for 40 years who works in the agricultural market town of Stokesley, now hopes the focus will, following the general election, lead to fixing the problems. He has experienced dentists quitting NHS work. “It’s not because they can earn lots more in the private sector. “

Gordon estimates that an average private dentist might treat 15 patients daily, half the figure for NHS practices. “The NHS way of working is very high-pressured and target-driven. And it drives people to distraction. They eventually say, ‘It's not for me. I want a slower pace of life.’ Working privately means dentists have a more pleasant way of working, and they can spend time with the patient discussing options and not be on a treadmill.”

Rural communities face additional problems in getting NHS dentists to look after them, says Ian because “the numbers wanting to work in rural areas is much smaller. Many have arrived in the UK to train or, if qualified, work and largely they want to live in cities where they have strong family ties rather than in rural North Yorkshire or the Lake District or Lincolnshire.”

According to Gordon, who hates hearing of patients forced to extract their own teeth, his group practice on which he sits on the executive, treats 300,000 NHS patients, many from rural areas,  annually and also “provide a lot of emergency care because the local NHS commissioners, who are good, in the Northeast, Yorkshire and Humber region have done a lot to help create access sessions. We run about 20 sites on a weekly or daily basis where people can be assured of being seen. It does make life lots easier for patients.”

Mark Jones wants to help rural and coastal communities avoid needing emergency care by getting the NHS to develop a system, which has already proved successful when tried in some areas, of “mobile dental units going round where there is inadequate dental care on a regular basis.”

Central to the overall crisis has been the 2006 introduction by New Labour of controversial new contracts for dentists paying them for activity rather than patient numbers. NHS contractors failing to reach at least 96% of their contracted target can face thousands of pounds being claw backed. The BDA frequently helps members considering renegotiating their contract on a temporary or permanent basis.

Under the Tories, not forgetting the Liberal Democrats between 2010 and 2015, there was no political will to solve the problems and even in the wake of the pandemic when Rishi Sunak boosted NHS spending there was no increase for dental care.

Wes Streeting promised to meet with the BDA on Monday July 8^th if Labour were elected. (1) Ian Gordon is not entirely convinced noting that at the same time Streeting, who has accepted donations from private health companies, wrote “a major Times article where dentistry wasn't mentioned. And he continued saying the NHS needs to be free at the point of delivery. Yet NHS dentistry, like other parts of the NHS such as paying for prescriptions, isn't actually free at the point of delivery. I think there's a lot of soundbites there.”

Mark Jones too is not smiling. “Despite successfully highlighting NHS dentistry problems, patients continue to be denied locally provided oral healthcare. We still witness DIY dentistry and hospital admissions resulting from undetected oral cancers. Whoever is in power must actively listen to the patient-focused solutions that will go a long way to fixing the dental crisis.”

Mark was recently asked by a health reporter if he was confident of Toothless achieving their goals. “Confidence has been lacking, as I told her, but we remain hopeful. One thing Toothless in England doesn't lack is determination. We will continue to be the patient voice, and unlike those in Westminster, we will never give up fighting for an NHS dentist for everyone."

If you’d like to get involved with Toothless, which welcomes trade union donations, and perhaps consider setting up a local group, please make contact with Mark on contact@endglandsteeth.org

 

1.       Streeting did keep his promise but failed to outline a programme or promise extra funds to tackle the crisis in NHS dentistry.