Thursday, 17 July 2025

OUR LAND IS FOR GROWING ON

 

OUR LAND IS FOR GROWING ON

 

uniteLANDWORKER Summer 2025



The government’s ‘Our Vision for land use in England’ consultation document on food security, economic expansion and the environment has the potential to increase ‘green’ jobs and boost employment in the smaller agricultural machinery suppliers market, says soil scientist and Unite campaigner Dr Charlie Clutterbuck – but only if it aims to target increased food production at home

With the Britain set to be battered by prevailing trade winds, Charlie’s new website reveals how unproductive plots of land across the Western Pennines could be recultivated. It is a programme that could be developed nationwide - especially as under 1% of land is used for horticulture, largely growing fruits and vegetables.

This being overlooked under the ‘Our Vision’ consultation as each of the targets talked about are to do with the environment - e.g. trees, water, carbon & biodiversity.




But there are no targets for food.

This follows the last government’s prioritising of carbon offsetting, resulting in increasing number of businesses, including many from the City of London such as Standard Life and Aviva, buying  productive farmland and planting trees to profit from subsidies for ‘homegrown carbon credits.’ Large landowners are following suit.

“Today, I hear local business people say that they prefer to buy carbon credits. Worryingly, not so for food,” states Clutterbuck.  

England is a mosaic of different land uses, with two thirds of its area (67%) being agricultural while built-up areas take up 11% of land.

Charlie’s site is at https://sites.google.com/site/lookattheland/home/land-use-in-england

It is a virtual tour showing land use in the Western Pennines is changeable. Charlie knows as he once farmed there. It is not an easy task.

GPs can be employed by walkers on the 14 walking stages outlined stretching from Ilkley, via Hebden Bridge and Burnley, on to Pendle where the Witches perished for challenging the local landowners who evicted them from their farms.

Land reflects a lot of history, much of it about power and struggle. 

GPS can be employed by walkers for accuracy.  

Charlie’s aim “is to reveal how land may have looked in previous times, thus helping decide future patterns. We need to question how we could run the land better  - both for people and the planet. Much needs changing.”

The rewards though could be substantial. “By cutting our food imports, much of which is ultra-processed, from the current 50% we’d reduce travel miles, slicing our CO2 emissions.

“The current £5 billion countryside land-based subsidies should be concentrated on aiding smaller scale food production, thus increasing rural jobs and boosting demand for smaller farm machinery from companies manufacturing them. It is a win-win situation,” contends Clutterbuck.

Charlie’s site on land use: https://bit.ly/3HzoY84

SUPPORT FOR MIGRANT FRUIT PICKETS

 

SUPPORT FOR MIGRANT FRUIT PICKETS

An unpublished Landworker magazine article

 

Unite’s Steve Leniec (@SteveLeniec) and Bridget Henderson added Unite’s support for migrant workers protesting outside the Home Office in London about the poor conditions they have endured whilst working for Haygrove soft fruit supplier whose products end up in the delivery boxes of such as Riverford and Abel and Cole.

Workers raised banners stating ‘Justice is Not Seasonal’ and ‘End Forced Labour.’ It was the first time migrant workers have taken their case to the capital. Their spokesperson Julia Quecaño Casimiro gave an impassioned speech.

Around 1,000 Haygrove workers are recruited by labour provider Fruitful Job under the Seasonal Worker Visa Scheme. (SWS) Launched in 2019 this recruits temporary agricultural workers for up to six months from outside the EU. Without them many fields would remain unpicked. According to NFU President Tom Bradshaw, worker availability has been “a significant barrier to growth” and the organisation would like to see a longer-term scheme put in place.  Amidst the farmers protests about inheritance tax it would be great to see the issue of low pay for migrant and all farmworkers raised.

From an initial 2,500 SWS entrants, mainly Ukrainians, the numbers have risen annually to 45,000, 2,000 in the poultry industry and 43,000 in agriculture, in 2025.

From the start, SWS attracted press coverage – including in LANDWORKER– highlighting complaints from many workers of discrepancies between the information they received before travelling and the work actually given on arrival. The Tories were even forced to conduct internal studies into the scheme but steadfastly refused financial support to allow migrant community organisations and trade unions, essentially Unite, to meet and organise workers.

In 2023, Unite and the TUC joined NGOs in establishing the Seasonal Worker Interest Group to advocate for migrant seasonal workers including access to independent worker support. However, Sir Keir Starmer’s government has maintained the SWS largely unchanged. This has encouraged, despite DEFRA’s claims that the vast majority on the schemes are content, the recent protests.

“Around 25 overseas workers, mainly Latin American, and Chilean particularly, were protesting. They were backed by many organisations, “ states tractor driver Steve.

“They reported an abuse culture. They never obtained their promised wages because of working in less cultivated fields. Despite having the skills, it was impossible to pick quickly enough to earn even the minimum wage.”

Bonded Labour

Steve reports “these workers are bonded to one employer; unable to seek work elsewhere” and  “after their complaints were ignored they took the brave decision to stop work” six months ago. Helped by the Landworkers’ Alliance and the United Voices of the World, they were presenting a petition calling on the Home Office to resolve their desperate plight. This included not having any monies to get home and forcing a reliance on charitable organisations for food and accommodation. Disgracefully, the government body refused to accept the petition.

Steve’s short speech on Unite’s behalf was translated to the rally.

“I said we supported them and understood their problems. Like all farm workers they pay the cost for cheap food prices brought on by the supermarkets’ constant shove to reduce the farm gate prices. But, of course, they also have additional worries by not knowing their rights and how to obtain them.”

To support SWS migrant workers, Steve is pleased Unite is launching a Scottish pilot scheme alongside the Edinburgh NGO Worker Support Centre https://workersupportcentre.org.uk that aims to prevent labour abuse and exploitation for marginalised and isolated workers.  

An app will explain to workers in multi languages their rights including how to join Unite and what support they could expect during  their short stay; which has made previous recruitment efforts difficult as migrant workers are often hidden from local communities.

Meanwhile, the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, established thanks to the TGWU/Unite led campaign that followed the 2004 Morecambe Bay Cockle Pickers tragedy, has shared a series of short videos explaining the process of applying for the seasonal worker scheme and detailed that workers should be aware before starting work of their rights. Go to:- https://www.gla.gov.uk/whats-new/latest-press-releases/30012025-glaa-reminds-sws-workers-to-understand-their-rights

Workers can call the GLAA on 0800 432 0804 and the Modern Slavery and Exploitation Helpline on 08000 121 700. They are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

 

 

 

BRIGHTER PATH AHEAD

 uniteLANDWORKER Summer 2025 

WALK THIS WAY

There should be a brighter path ahead after the government announced that they are planning to remove the 2031 cut-off date for recording historic rights of way.

There are thousands of miles of unrecorded right of way across England that are enjoyed by walkers, cyclists and equestrians.

In March 2024 the BBC found that around 8,000 requests for paths to be added to the official map were waiting to be processed, with cash strapped local authorities struggling to keep pace with the public’s clamour for them to be added to the official map. These paths and bridleways can now be retained but still need to be recorded.

Help is on hand from the Ramblers and the Open Spaces Society (OSS). The latter is Britain’s oldest national conservation body, whose Find Our Way fund can aid local groups to carry out research. This can be time consuming as it is complicated as you need maps and evidence from users of the highway and you must contact as many landowners as you can find before a claim can be made to the local authority. They will then investigate by walking the route and undertaking their own research. In the final case a public inquiry could be held.

Following the announcement of the intended removal of the 2013 cut-off date,  – the OSS is now hoping to persuade the government to make it compulsory for lost commons to be registerable throughout England.  Currently they can only be registered in Cumbria and North Yorkshire, yet, grossly unfairly, landowners can apply to deregister commons throughout England.

The Open Spaces Society is at www.oss.org.uk



The workers’ stories of the North East brought to life at Beamish Museum, Stanley, County Durham DH9 0RG

 

HEARTWARMING DAY OUT

The workers’ stories of the North East brought to life


Beamish Museum, Stanley, County Durham DH9 0RG

 Beamish Museum is a unique place with its open-air mixture of town and country stretching across its 350-acre site.

Little wonder it’s enjoyed daily by thousands of visitors who can discover how previous generations worked the land, including in the bowels of it, before the vast majority of rural workers were swept into towns and cities to work in industry.

“Agriculture and pits are central to the North East’s history,” explains locally born Samantha Shotton, Beamish’s Chief Operating Officer, dressed as an appropriate well-to-do Victorian period dress. “Our founder Frank Atkinson in the 1960s could visual the loss of the traditional way of life for ordinary people,” and so he set out to preserve examples of everyday life in urban and rural life.

Just off the A1M and located outside Stanley, midway between Durham City and Newcastle, Beamish, opened in 1972, is a great day out for all ages.




Increasing numbers of Unite members who make an annual pilgrimage to the Durham Miners’ Gala on the second Saturday in July may want to consider taking time out to make the short trip.

The ticket price, which helps pay the wages of up 550 staff in the summer that are engaged on a range of jobs that includes working with animals and maintaining the historic moving trams and buses that younger children particularly love getting on and off, includes multiple visits.

For older visitors the Museum, open all year, also has regular health and wellbeing group sessions. These are located in Clover Cottage, which is packed with sights, sounds, smells and tastes that are familiar to dementia sufferers. This work is based in Beamish’s most recently recreated 1950s town, chosen after research amongst its visitors.

Close by resides both the 1940s and 1900s towns. The latter’s busy main street is packed with shops, including one advertising opportunities to escape poverty by emigrating to Canada and the US, that leads down to Rowley Station. It was the invention of the railways that transformed trade, thus enabling the growth of new industries regionally and worldwide.

One of the most hauled and valuable North East goods was coal, the mining of which in 1913 employed 165,246 men across Durham in 304 mines including the former Mahogany Drift Mine that Beamish visitors can access today before exploring a 1900s pit village.

Beamish’s oldest building, parts dating back to the 1440s, is Pockerley Old Hall, with its beautiful Georgian gardens and view. This was home to Mr. William Morgan, one of 13 local tenant farmers in 1825.




Engager Kevin Carroll explains Morgan “did very well such that we later find him living in Chester-Le-Street as a gentleman. It was a period when the rural landscape was changing dramatically away from strip farming to the larger fields combining agriculture and livestock.”

Those employed by Morgan did not do as well.

“You’d be taken on at a local hiring fair in the spring time, required to work extremely hard from the moment the sun came up till it went down and only get paid after the harvest. If you were not pulling your weight then you were gone as there was plenty of other people out there who needed work.”

Some workers who slept at the Hall would be forced to sleep up to six in a bed which they accessed through a roof top hole as they were not allowed to use the main stairs just in case they dirtied the carpets or disturbed their employer.

“Two apprentice farmers, the sons of nearby farmers, had a separate bedroom next door,” explains Kevin, who has worked at the Museum for 20 years and still really enjoys doing so by describing it “like a giant family.”

Fast forwarding to over a century later, stories of wartime life can be found on the 1940s farm where in front of a blazing hot coal fire, Pam Hudson, one of 300 volunteers, was clearly enjoying herself explaining to visitors about the importance of the Land Girls, reformed at the start of WWII to replace male workers sent off to fight

“Nationally in 1944 there were 80,000 and, despite having no previous agricultural experience, they helped increase food production from a low in 1943 by tackling a big rat problem, milking cows, planting vegetables, sugar beet and wheat for flour.

“We have lots to be thankful for and I like to tell, especially to the children, their stories as otherwise their achievements will be forgotten.”

Visitors can also access a 1950s farm to discover the story of how hard it was to make a living from upland farming and traditional rural skills in the North East just after the war.

Add in the sheer beauty of the location and its animals, wildlife and trees that mean visitors can just sit or stroll around doing little then it’s no wonder visitors enjoy their day out.

“We have been in the cafe” explains Janice, whose daughter Jessie, pushing her son Arthur in his wheelchair, said “she especially liked looking round the old houses and admiring the wallpaper.”

For Oliver, a regular visitor, his favourite parts of the museum are the “trams, park, picnic and pigs,” whilst according to his nan Alison the four-year old has also developed a “real love in the growth of the animals. He learns lots coming here.”

That’s heartwarming for Samantha Shotton to hear. “If children come with their families and they start a conversation with another generation that can be really important for both. Also because of our approach then learning can be fun as well. All of which combines to keep the history of the North East going.” Which was, of course, Frank Atkinson’s aim.

 

 






Northern Ireland farm workers receive pay boost thanks to Agricultural Wages Board

 UNITE the union Landworker magazine Summer 2025 article 

Unite reps on the Northern Ireland Agricultural Wages Board have helped push up the minimum wage rates for Northern Ireland agricultural workers from 1 April.

Standard grade 2 workers have been the biggest beneficiaries with their hourly rate rising from £8.62 to £12.50, just 10 pence an hour below the real Living Wage to which thanks to union pressure, the department of agriculture, environment and rural affairs (DAERA) has been forced to announce they are working towards adopting.

 “This is a good move as the Living Wage Foundation’s norms standards is the only UK wage rate independently calculated, based on the cost of living, ensuring that workers receive a fair wage that meets their everyday needs,” says Unite regional officer Joanne McWilliams .

Grade 3 lead workers have had rises from £10.77 to £12.73 an hour with grade 6 farm management hourly wages now at £13.90.

County Tyrone’s Ronnie Corbett, an employee at Moy Park Chickens for over 25 years, is one of six Unite reps who annually face a struggle to convince six Ulster Farmers Union (UFU) reps on the AWB to reward their employees more favourably.

In 2024, the UFU hoped to pay nothing extra but thanks to backing from the board’s independents a 6% increase was awarded. This followed rises of over 8% in 2023.

“The UFU always plead poverty, but they need these short-term workers who are actually skilled as picking lettuce and cabbages at the necessary pace is a real task. And you saw what happened in England following Brexit when they could not recruit workers. Fields did not get picked and food rotted,” said Ronnie.

“I’d like to see better pay and conditions but fact is that farmers are struggling to put pressure on the supermarkets to increase farm gate prices. Farmers fear speaking up but Unite through Joanne McWilliams is doing so,” explains Ronnie, who is also concerned that NI family farms will be bought out by the likes of venture capitalists Blackrock in the near future.

According to Ronnie, the NI AWB’s continued existence - which was only made possible by Unite leading a united campaign in 2021-22 that involved rural councils helping to defeat plans by the Northern Ireland Assembly Rural Affairs Minister, Edwin Poots to scrap it - means workers do not need to rely on casual, cash in hand work as there is a framework of terms and conditions.

“It stops abuse and helps unify an isolated,  fragmented workforce. Migrant workers whose English is their second language get the same rights.”

At the same time, Unite aims to maintain pressure for further improvements throughout 2025. “We expect some horse trading at future meetings as their appears to be an understanding that the skills base should be better rewarded.

“That the AWB exists means we can put our concerns to the farmers regularly and negotiate ongoing improvements.”

All NI reps like Ronnie hope to see the restoration of the AWB in England. “I am glad that Unite is putting pressure on the Labour government as an English AWB can help rebuild terms and conditions and encourage more people to work in agriculture and horticulture.”

This article is dedicated to Jimmy Bradley, a Northern Ireland Unite steward who died last year.




Book review - Fight for it Now – John Dower and the Struggle for National Parks in Britain.

 

Fight for it Now – John Dower and the Struggle for National Parks in Britain.

David Wilkinson – Signal Books

 As reviewed in Landworker magazine 

National Parks are the jewels in the crown of the countryside. They didn’t though grow themselves; they had to be fought for. One man who did was trade unionist Benny Rothman whose leadership of the 1932 Kinder Scout Trespass led to his and four fellow ramblers’ imprisonment. That sparked such public outrage that it brought to the fore the issue of countryside access. This thereafter refused to dampen down and encouraged those already campaigning for passage to the hills to push on with their proposals even during WWII.

No one did more than ensure we have National Parks than Ilkley born John Dower whose life long battle for their creation, was only finally won two years after he lost his life to tuberculosis (TB) in October 1947.

The story is powerfully captured by David Wilkinson in his biography that charts the long journey between conception and realisation of a dream that many others were also happy to make a reality.

Civil servant and architect Dower had a blue plaque unveiled in his honour at Malham YHA late last year on the 75th anniversary of the December 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act.

Building on the (Dr Christopher) Addison Committee report of 1931 that proposed Britain designated National Parks, but which was overlooked during a period of great economic crisis, Dower, already involved in discussions about national planning, conducted extensive surveys of SW England on behalf of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England and Somerset County Council.

Forty thousand copies of his The Case for National Parks in Great Britain, 1938 pamphlet were well received and was a significant boost to the Standing Committee on National Parks, established in 1935 by numerous open-air groups.

When war was declared, Dower volunteered but a year later he was declared permanently unfit for active service with what was eventually diagnosed as TB. It meant that in March 1941 he joined what later became the Ministry of Works and Planning.

With the coalition government containing trade unionists, all determined amidst the horrors of war to offer a vision of the future better than in 1920s and 1930s, he was charged with writing a White Paper. This established the key National Park principles of agricultural and recreational development, retention of characteristic landscapes and protection of wildlife and buildings in extensive areas of beautiful and relatively wild country.

Over the following years these aims and how to implement them had to be negotiated with local and national government departments and countryside interest groups such as the NFU. Although the final legislation would not have been exactly what Dower wanted the 1949 Countryside Act was a massive improvement on what had gone before. Much later the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 strengthened the right to roam across some of the most beautiful countryside in England and Wales.

To read more on Rothman download for free Unite’s booklet on him by Mark Metcalf at:- https://bit.ly/4k7sCnn

 

Watch also Mass Trespass https://bit.ly/4mcH4N0 

 



 

 

NET ZERO WON'T SOLVE GLOBAL WARMING

 Unpublished article from 2024 

MORE THAN HOT AIR

Are surface temperatures being overlooked in the battle to tackle global warming?

Charlie Clutterbuck thinks so and it's bad news for the environment 

Coal, oil and gas, the exploitation of which took mankind out of the Dark Ages, took millions of years to mature. But unless we create some way of swiftly controlling their poisonous side effect’s they might just finish us off instantaneously. 

Which is why Unite is contributing towards the campaign for Net Zero emissions by backing plans to increase carbon, capture and storage (CCS) , in which Britain led the world until Thatcher took her axe to tests at Grimethorpe Colliery just prior to the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike.

 But might the rural sector be able to help out in tackling global warming? Unite’s own soil scientist Charlie Clutterbuck, who as Landworker readers will know constantly explores possible solutions to what are regarded as intractable problems, believes so.

“The most reliable global warming data since 1880 comes from NASA. In the next 100 years this reveals there were as many cold years as warm. Global temperature rose 0.3C,” explains Charlie.

“Yet from 1980 - 2020 it warmed 1.6C. That is the equivalent of 13x faster than the previous century. Every decade since the 1980s has been warmer than the previous one.

“The Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI) compares the warming effect of the main human-produced greenhouse gases to conditions in 1990. In 2022, the AGGI was 1.49, a 49% increase in 32 years when over the same period temperatures rose extra-ordinarily.”

Seeking explanations, Charlie is convinced of the need “to examine surface heat exchange where the sun’s rays hit the earth.” This complex equation (based on 2 aspects - albedo capacity and conductivity) happens before any GHG involvement.

Statistics reveal that solar radiation received from the sun totals 342 watts per cubic metre with 339 watts going back out.  The remaining 3 watts - 1% of the total - is energy. Its absorption by the earth warms it up. Altering that could be key.

Albedo is a key parameter widely used in land surface energy balance studies, mid-to-long-term weather prediction, and global climate change investigation. 

“As open ocean water has a moderate albedo of around 0.06 it absorbs a lot of sunlight, thus contributing to ocean warming, The sea though has high capacity to absorb heat without temperature increasing, and then conductivity to move it around. Again, we see it heating lots faster since 1980. Much more than GHGs alone could cause this,” states Charlie who first appeared in Landworker magazine over 50 years ago and who played a key role in the setting up of the Hazards Campaign and Magazine that has saved the lives of many thousands.

On land the albedo is, depending on the surface, more variable. Snow has high albedo (reflectivity) but when it melts the brown earth has low albedo, thus absorbing more heat. Forest and grassland are cooler than ploughed soil because of a mixture of albedo and capacity. It means that on hot days it’s pleasurable to lie on the grass but not on the soil,

Currently, ‘global’ temperatures measure just air temperatures and although water transfers 90% of our heat we do not even measure its effects. Land too is not measured and so there exists few worldwide comparisons of variation of warmth over different land practices.

“If we could alter that it could make a massive analytical difference,” states Charlie. “Because I feel it can help establish that soil surface temperature rises have played a major role in the rapid global heat increase.”

At Davos in 2023, delegates at the World Economic Forum were saying ‘soil is the solution’ because of its carbon content.

“But this shows how ‘reductionist’ carbon counting is. The soil is a living entity not lumps of carbon. Soil holds moisture that keeps the planet cool; thus pasture is better than arable land,” argues Charlie who is convinced that the soil in our cities that is now concreted and tarmacked over had previously held temperatures down by retaining water.  “Increasing numbers and the size of cities must have had an impact on global warming.”

Meanwhile, the ‘green revolution’ expanded dramatically in Asia & Africa after 1980 to produce grain and vegetables in monocultures. “That warms up land considerably more than grazed grassland. Previous civilisations – for example, Greek, Roman & Mayan -  have been eroded due to similar agricultural practices.”

Trees are even cooler than grazed grassland and so “the continuing chopping down of many forests increases surface temperatures by releasing moisture.”

Baking hot

Furthermore, an area half the size of Europe is degraded annually from ‘dryland ‘to desert.

“The impact of desertification on global warming must be enormous, with no trees, grass, clouds, water holding, life support and surface temperatures bouncing around. Re-growing the trees, grass and improved soil would help cool the planet and improve rural economies.”

In turn this should reduce emigration by millions of desperate people seeking to survive an ever-heating world.

Soilution?

“Some of the £1.5 trillion being earmarked towards ‘net zero’, where GHG emissions are, at around £40 a ton of carbon, balanced by increasing carbon absorption somewhere else, should be invested in paying attention to the earths’ surface temperatures.”

Rural road to ruin

Nationally, Charlie also fears that net zero plans encourage less food production and damage rural employment opportunities.

“Like other organisations, The National Trust have pledged to become net zero by 2030. In addition to increasing tree planting and restoring peat bogs they are now getting rid of sheep from their farms around Malham Tarn so they can ‘rewild’  the land.  Such policies will increase food imports, using other peoples' land, water and labour and increasing their soil temperatures. These new measures also take time and reduce jobs. Land for food production should be prioritised.”

Monday, 30 June 2025

Halifax and the 1925 textile workers strike public meeting on 18 July

 


STITCHED UP - Bradford's early textile unions

 Watch Professor Keith Laybourn explain more about the struggles by Bradford's textile workers up until 1926. 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e58Hfhboes&t=44s



For more on Bradford's textile workers read also my booklet on Julia Varley:- 

https://markwrite.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/6328-julia-varley-booklet.pdf





Also available is this booklet on Bradford TUC's first 100 years 1872: 1972 

https://markwrite.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/100th-btuc-booklet-pdf-1.pdf


Come along and hear Keith speak in Halifax on 18th of July. 


Friday, 20 June 2025

Calderdale TUC passes resolution opposing Israel's attack on Iran

 Emergency Motion concerning Israel’s attack on Iran:

Calderdale Trades Union Council denounces Israel's attack on Iran and calls on Kier Starmer to ensure that Britain plays no part in supporting politically or militarily as the action marks another step towards a regional conflict across the Middle East.


Passed last night (19-06-2025)


Delegates at the meeting included 2 comrades - I am one - who over many decades have supported struggles by the Iranian people to free themselves from its current leaders but who are aware that the ongoing attack by Israel has nothing to do with improving the situation for the Iranian people. 

Tuesday, 17 June 2025

Great post by Durham Miners' Gala on Reform

Great post by Durham Miners' Gala on Reform 


Excellent. 


Come to the Gala on 12 July.  


https://www.durhamminers.org/statement_durham_miners_gala_and_reform_uk



Read latest Landworker magazine online

 https://content.yudu.com/web/eduy/0A44swj/LandworkerWint24/html/index.html 



North Sands Massacre logo and t-shirt to come

 


Saturday, 14 June 2025

Halifax silence highlights the dying screams of the Gaza people

 

Organised by Halifax Friends of Palestine, 45 persons of all ages, backgrounds and religions (and none) today walked silently round Halifax Town Centre. The purpose was to highlight the ongoing plight of the people of Gaza, who, in addition to being regularly shot at, are being starved to death by the genocidal state of Israel whose backers include the British and US governments of Sir Kier Starmer and Donald Bush.

Assembling at the site of the former Wilkinsons the procession, which had safety stewards, made its way to the beat of a single drum on the road and path to the Bus Station. 


On arrival all participants stood for a number of minutes silently, which was respected by every passerby except those showing support by saying “well done” or, best of all “Free, Free Palestine.”







The marchers then moved to the Duke of  Wellington Regiment Statue and undertook a similar activity. 

Then, and to the consternation of the security staff at Woolshops shopping centre, which contains a range of high street shops that have interests that are connected to the Israeli occupation of Gaza, the protestors walked down the main street before entering, with the support of the security staff there The Piece Hall, Halifax’s best-known building and resource. 

A further 5 minutes of silence was held on the premises. Photographs were taken.



Exiting the gates next to the Central Library entrance there was halt on the steps next to the Calderdale Industrial Museum. The silence was temporarily broken in order to highlight the Calderdale Trades Union Council plaque that commemorates the fatalities in August 1842 that has its modern-day parallels in Gaza. 

Details of the Bread Not Bayonets Film were broadcast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0UxMadnIEA The speaker was thanked for his efforts.

The walk then proceeded to the layby close to King Street where passersby in their cars could clearly see the Stop Starving Gaza banner. 


The final parts of the journey included passing by the Royal Mail sorting office and then over the road to stop outside MacDonald’s, which has had its businesses impacted on after it donated food to the Israeli Defense Forces. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68740617 A number of younger customers were curious about why a halt had been made at the franchise.




It was then a matter of a 100-yard return walk to the starting point. The event followed the weekly one hour assembly at the top of Halifax Town Centre and to which 18 people attended this week.

Well done to all concerned especially the organisers. 

Monday, 9 June 2025

30 years on - The Bradford riots

A film I have co-produced on the life of Mohammad Taj is due out shortly. In 2001 he was brave enough to interrupt a riot in Manningham to rescue a bus with passengers stuck in the middle of it. The riot followed an earlier one in Bradford that kicked off on 9 June 1995 and which he later analysed and proposed solutions to that were ignored by the Government. 

TAKEN FROM MOHAMMAD TAJ: STEERING FROM THE FRONT

Published 2018 by UNITE the union, free to download at:- https://markwrite.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/6328dpmt2018-taj-booklet-web.pdf

 

Standing up for what he believed in: the 1995 Bradford riots

Bradford hit the national news when over the weekend of Friday 9 June to Sunday 11 June 1995 public disorder occurred in the Manningham District, where many Asian people live, before spreading to Bradford City Centre.

Central to the disorders were young Asian men, a generation scarred by racism, restricted job opportunities and police harassment.

The trouble started at around 9.25pm on 9 June after two police officers, angered at being abused, arrested two young Asian men. In the ensuing chaos, requests from several residents about why the youths were being arrested were ignored and were met with the arrival of several more police vehicles and officers at the scene.

Events spiralled out of control when more arrests were made and a police dog handler roughly instructed a respected elderly resident to go indoors and threatened the man with his dog in an area where the predominant culture regarded such an animal as unclean. Many in the local community viewed the police actions as examples of racism, intolerance and ignorance.

Consequently when further arrests were made of local people, the vast majority of whom had previously never been in trouble with the police and were mounting peaceful protests demanding the release of those arrested earlier, the situation descended into rioting as bottles were thrown at police officers.

On Saturday 10 June 1995 there was at one point around a thousand mainly young Asian men battling with around 600 police officers in riot gear.

 A debate on the disorder was secured in Parliament by Max Madden, the MP for Bradford West, on 21 June 1995, at the conclusion of which Nicholas Baker, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home 33 Office Department, rejected calls for a wide-ranging public inquiry, saying: “The Government are satisfied that the Inquiry by the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) will investigate all the circumstances surrounding the complaints against the police over that weekend.”

Seventeen months after the Bradford riots in 1995, Mohammad Taj criticised police for learning nothing.

When the Inquiry was completed in April 1996 the PCA concluded that: “Allegations of police misconduct and assault in particular were of major concern to the public. The investigation had, however, found the allegations (with one exception) to have been entirely without foundation.” The Crown Prosecution Service decided that no criminal charges should be brought against any police officer.

The decision by the Government to reject a wide-ranging public inquiry led to the Bradford Congress, a voluntary association of representative Bradford institutions including the City Council, agreeing to appoint its own Commission of Inquiry.

The terms of reference were: “to conduct hearings to consider the wider implications for Bradford of recent events in a part of the inner city of Bradford, in order to help to create a better future for all people of the district and to promote peace, harmony and understanding between the communities of Bradford.”

Hearings began in October 1995. Bradford Congress appointed sociology professor Sheila Allen, consultant John Barratt, a solicitor with experience in investigations into local authorities and who became chairman of the inquiry and Mohammad Taj as its Commission members.

Following the bruising battle over the sale of Yorkshire Rider, Taj was given time away from work by his management. “I think they were glad to not see me at work for a while. When I was approached to be involved I made clear I would only do so if the final report would include recommendations that I felt would be bound to include requests for public funds. I felt I was given this guarantee.”

The Commission read an immense number of books, research papers and official documents. 76 members of the public were interviewed and 189 attended lengthy small group meetings to put forward their individual views. 119 officials and public representatives assisted the Commission, which recorded that 45 per cent of young men in the local Asian communities of Manningham were unemployed.

When the Commission issued its report on 20 November 1996 it was very critical of the actions of the police on 9-11 June 1995.

According to Taj when he spoke to police officers during the Inquiry he was “shocked to find out that their anti-racist training was literally done in a day and involved a visit to a Muslim ‘Temple’ not Mosque! The officers had no understanding of the people they were policing.” The Commission commented on long-term problems between the police and local Kashmiri youths who were regularly forced to endure “inappropriate, unfair, or racist treatment by individual officers.”

The Commission ended its report quoting US President Johnson’s 1968 statement on civil disorders in his country: “the only genuine, long-range solution for what has happened lies in an attack upon the conditions that breed despair and violence. All of us know what those conditions are: ignorance, discrimination, slums, poverty, disease, not enough jobs.” However, the Commission’s Report did not outline any practical tasks – or attacks in Johnson’s words.

On 25 November 1996, Max Madden tabled a motion in Parliament which noted the ‘lack of specific recommendations for action, especially by Central Government to help people living in the Manningham and Girlington areas of Bradford overcome acute poverty and deprivation...(such as) increasing Local Government funding to enable Bradford City Council to maintain key services.....to increase numbers of police officers on duty, to expand the recruitment of ethnic minority police officers and training programmes to combat endemic racism within the police service.”

Taj refused to sign off the report because it was vague and made no positive recommendations. Instead he issued his own 25-page report: A CAN DO CITY. Bob Purkiss, the first TGWU National Equalities Officer for race equality, praised this as “excellent…. much of the report is also relevant to many other parts of our society.”

Taj was widely reported in local and national newspapers. He felt that too much of “the City’s institutions can’t do culture” had damaged the report such that “When challenged to admit that there are racists within their ranks the Police Service ‘can’t do’ that for fear of undermining public confidence” and “When challenged to deal with the extensive discrimination existing in the field of employment the private sector ‘can’t do’ anything because of the exigencies and pressures of commercial life.

“When challenged to condemn the repressive and extremist forces at work within their own communities Asians ‘can’t do’ that because they would be seen as comforting bigots. The ‘can’t do’ culture is at is most pervasive and extreme within the Local Authority. Over twenty years of reducing real budgets, an unsympathetic central government and media ready to pounce on any misjudgment by a Council have habituated the authority to inaction. It has a culture that is far more ready and practiced at explaining why it can’t do anything rather than devising a way of getting something done.”

On police racism as an exacerbating factor to the riots, Taj stated: “I want them to openly acknowledge that there are racists in their ranks and kick them out in short order”.

He felt that: “For the Asian communities, and here I mean the largely Muslim communities, I have challenged them to start addressing their own failings.” The Daily Jang, an Urdu newspaper based in Karachi, Pakistan reported that significant amongst these criticisms by Taj of his own community was an attitude that integration would mean a loss of religion and culture and the subordinate role allocated to Muslim women.

Additionally, Taj said: “There are real failings and I have not been afraid to speak out about them. Koranic education can be a powerful force for the good. However, this will not occur if Arabic rote teaching is not accompanied by guidance in an accessible language.”

Because so many children from the Asian community were entering school with inadequate language skills, for which Taj contended most did not recover, he argued “there is an urgent need for a truly vast increase in new buildings – the construction of which would boost jobs and the local economy – for nursery education if the school system is to stop turning out ill-educated, disenchanted and disruptive young ‘Asians’. This is a massive task to undertake but huge problems are not resolved by meagre solutions.”

Taj’s other suggestions were for a councillor-led Manningham Development Executive, and a clamp-down on drugs trafficking, particularly in the Manningham area.

Taj felt: “The Local Authority must also look to central Government for co-operation. It is entirely reasonable to request additional assistance from this source when pursuing innovative, radical and cost-effective solutions to deepening difficulties.”

Speaking in 2017, Taj explains. “As we got nearer to completion there was pressure from the major institutions not to make financial demands on national Government or even on Local Government, as in the latter case it would mean diverting resources from the outer areas of Bradford towards the inner city. Neither was politically acceptable and I argued that the Girlington Report, where most residents are of South Asian origin, from 6-7 years previously had already identified the issues in inner cities.”

According to Jowett: “Taj was under tremendous pressure by the Bradford political establishment to sign the official report. I know they approached him just before the report was due to be officially signed by its three commission members with a job offer to him to become the co ordinator of a new community relations body they hoped to establish in Manningham.

 Taj had been critical of many 1970s black radicals, including those in the AYM, from inner-city areas who were co-opted by local authorities and then became of no use to the communities they came from. He did not want to tread the same path.  “Taj, who I know always liked being a bus driver, stood by what he believed and I think that may have later counted against him when he sought selection as the Labour candidate in Bradford West shortly afterwards. Generally, Taj believes in having arguments internally within any organisation and if he loses he will go out and support the policy or person. But there comes a time on certain issues when the gap is too big and you have to stand your ground no matter the consequences. This was one such occasion.”

 “I disagreed with him over his decision not to put his name to the report as I felt he was setting himself up to fail but if Taj feels strongly enough about something he will stand his ground,” states Gerry Sutcliffe.

The authorities unwillingness to take up Taj’s demands meant that in 2001 there was a much more violent riot in Manningham. Right in the middle of the mayhem a bus got stuck with passengers and its driver on it. “Taj actually went to the bus and assisted with it leaving the scene without harm. It was a very brave thing to do,” says Jowett.


Friday, 23 May 2025

WORLD DAY AGAINST CHILD LABOUR ON 12 JUNE EVENT IN WAINSTALLS, HALIFAX

 

THURSDAY 12th JUNE
WORLD DAY AGAINST CHILD LABOUR
4.30pm at Luddenden Dean Wesleyan Methodist Chapelyard
Heys Lane, HX2 7TR England
Wreath laying for 7 worked to death orphans buried in the cemetery
Speakers to include 17-year-old Charlie Metcalf and Dan Whittall (NEU).
There are 160 million children working worldwide of which 112 million are working on small farms on plantations, often in hazardous conditions. Few of the youngsters have access to trade union protection and in recent years, progress on eliminating child labour has slowed and at the heart of which is the poverty wages being earned by parent’s such that they cannot afford to cover the basic needs of their children, including food and education.
However, in every continent, and in businesses of every size, trafficked children working in cocoa plantations have gone to court to hold big companies to account – Cargill, Mondelez, Barry Callebaut, Mars plus Nestle, whose cocoa supply chain leads from West Africa to their headquarters at the other end of Lake Geneva.
The youngest a child can work part time in the UK is aged 13. That has not always been the case (1) and buried in a mass grave at Luddenden Dean Wesleyan Methodist Chapelyard are seven female children and young women from a Liverpool workhouse who worked for Calverts, a local mill, in the nineteenth century. They were amongst 250 young girls forced to move across the Pennines in the late 19th century to settle outside Halifax in Luddenden Valley, which is beautiful on its relatively few sunny days but bleak in the autumn and winter when the winds get up and snow falls. (2)
Thanks to the efforts of trade unions and child welfare campaigners we have labour laws that now, on paper, protect children. Nevertheless in 2023-24, 2 young children were killed whilst engaging in work activities on farms whilst Cameron Minshull, aged 16, was killed in 2015 in a horrific lathe accident on a Government-funded apprenticeship where he was being paid £3 an hour. His factory boss was jailed.
It is vital to keep up the pressure to protect children and to this end CTUC is organising a wreath lay ceremony at the Chapelyard at 4.30pm on Thursday June 12th, which is the WORLD DAY AGAINST CHILD LABOUR. This is organised by the International Labour Organisation with the backing of UNICEF. 

Everyone is welcome to attend this important event. Bring flowers to lay at the graveside.

1.       Watch ‘Not So Happy Valley’ by Mark Metcalf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdcrdIlxs60&t=107s
For more details contact Nigel on 07709 684473 or Mark on 07392 852561

Calderdale TU Council, c/o Calderdale NEU, Elsie Whitley Innovation Centre, Halifax HX1 5ER 


The event was ruined by an abusive Kim Pearson, who identified herself (possibly falsely) as the owner of the cemetery, who contended that Calverts, a god fearing group who dressed the orphans up on Sundays, had been good people. Pearson, who appears to have no record - and if she has she never mentioned it - of ever showing any concern for children forced into labour during her lifetime, insisted on speaking and was, out of respect, given a considerable amount of time to do so. She was insistent that the wreath/flowers should not be left on the grave. They were placed on it on Sunday 15th June. This won't be last time that trade union events take place at the grave. 




Friday, 9 May 2025

200 years on, let’s not forget them - North Sands Massacre, Sunderland, 3 August, 1825

 

200 years on, let’s not forget them

North Sands Massacre, Sunderland, 3 August, 1825

Nearly 200 years ago, on 3rd August 1825, at least five people were shot dead by soldiers at North Sands, Sunderland. 

The massacre occurred during a strike by the Seamen's Loyal Standard Association (S.L.S.A.), an embryonic trade union.  The context was lowering wages, attempts by local shipowners to smash the association through the Ship Owners Protecting Society [S.O.P.S.], and a controversial legal case between the S.L.S.A and John Davidson, a local shipowner and magistrate, who’d failed to pay workers for fitting out his ship.  Specifically, the 1825 strike was about offloading ballast at sea from unladen boats returning to the port.  The S.L.S.A argued this was both dangerous, as the ships could capsize, and unfair because crews were not paid additional wages for this work.

During the strike, members of the S.L.S.A. prevented ships from leaving port.  On the day before the massacre, 2nd August 1825, attempts to negotiate a settlement collapsed.  The S.L.S.A. had proposed the strike would end if the shipowners promised to provide work opportunities for union men and pay for offloading ballast at land or sea. S.O.P.S. rejected this proposal, so striking seamen returned to the river on their small coble boats to prevent larger ships from sailing.

On the 3rd August, the ship owners decided it was time to break the strike.  Several shipowners, non-unionised labour and special constables attempted to get several ships out to sea.  Initially frustrated, they turned to John Davidson, a Bishop Wearmouth magistrate.  Davidson was antagonistic to the S.L.S.A. following the outcome of the above-mentioned legal case, where he had lost £200 (approx. £24,000 equivalent today) in legal fees.  At Sunderland harbour, Davidson boarded a steam packet. At least eight soldiers from the 3rd Light Dragoons, under command of Lieutenant Phillips, also sailed down the river in the Thomas and Dorothy before joining Davidson on the steam packet.

Striking seamen on the river retreated to the stony beach at North Sands. More than 100 people, including women and children, had gathered there by that time.  As the steam packet ventured closer to the riverbank, some women in the crowd started throwing stones.  Davidson consulted with Lieutenant Phillips, and the soldiers opened fire. According to a S.L.S.A letter dated 8th August 1825; soldiers fired into the crowd as if it were targeting practice.  Three died within an hour on the beach, and at least two others died within the next two days.  Six were seriously wounded, and the exact number of deaths may never be known.  Local people demanded an inquest verdict of murder for the dead, named as William Ayrd, Richard Wallace, John Dove[r], Ralph Hunter Creighton, and James Quigley, of whom the latter two, Creighton and Quigley, were bystanders. But the inquests returned verdicts of ‘justifiable homicide’ for the first three deaths and ‘accidental death’ for Creighton.   

The funeral procession comprised 1,200 people.  Mourners sang, wore black crape and solemnly placed a British flag on the coffins.  Criminal court cases followed in October 1825, and eight strikers were imprisoned.  Further seamen strikes occurred in 1826 and 1831, but neither had such a bloody ending.

To mark the 200th anniversary of the North Sands massacre, on Sunday, 3rd August 2025, a remembrance procession will take place at 2.15pm from St Peter's Church, Sunderland. A commemorative wreath in remembrance of the dead will be placed at the location of the North Sands massacre (now St Peter’s Campus, University of Sunderland). There will be readings, singing, and the naming of the dead.  All are welcome.  Please bring your Union banners. 

Dave Allan, Sunderland TUC President, Mark Metcalf and David Scott  Further details can be obtained from David on 07838245382 or Mark on 07392 852561