FORESTRY COMMISSION CHOPPED IN TWO

Unite reps at the Forestry Commission in Scotland and England veto centenary celebrations as Commission splits. 

FORESTRY COMMISSION CHOPPED IN TWO 

The Forestry Commission was set up in 1919 to expand Britain’s forest and woodlands after depletion during WWI. It did just that, raising Britain’s forest cover over the next 70 years from 5 to 12 per cent. 

It meant that when an attempt was made in 2010 by the Tories to privatise the organisation that manages some of Britain’s most spectacular landscapes, provides outdoor recreation facilities and harvests timber to supply domestic industry, there were wide scale public and trade union protests that forced a climbdown. 

Yet even though it’s now a hundred years old there has been no celebration amongst Unite reps. Because on 1 April the once proud body that was until 2013 responsible for forestry in Wales, Scotland and England has been reduced to three national organisations after Scotland and England separated, six years after Wales went its own way and became Natural Resource Wales. 

Two new bodies - Scottish Forestry and Forestry and Land Scotland - have been established in Scotland. These bodies report to the devolved Scottish Government at Holyrood where back in 2009 the ruling SNP, which had quietly sold off a number of forests when they became the ruling party two years earlier, announced plans to lease off a quarter of forestry land to private companies for 75 years. Trade union and public opposition forced an SNP climbdown.

Unite senior steward in Scotland, Neil Grieve, wants to “build on the working relationship we have already developed with the Scottish Government. I am though concerned as most our funding comes in a block grant from Westminster, and the Tories have, since 2010, steadily reduced the amount going to the FC everywhere. 

“This has led to considerable job losses and pay scales being eroded such that there is a wide variety of salaries for employees doing the same job.” 

Neil also highlighted how the Scottish FC has employed contractors in Scotland’s remote forests and how they have housed them in caravans. Little wonder then the champagne remains firmly on ice.  

Prior to the new structures the FC managed around 1.7 million acres and of which 70% was in Scotland where timber production brings in much needed revenue. Grieve is concerned about the future of the FC in England. 

“England is more about conservation and recreational parks. I believe some Tories may try and persuade the electorate that the FC is uneconomic, which was the grounds used by the Thatcher government to sell off forests in the 80s.” It costs just over 40p annually for each of us to fund the FC. 

Grieve’s concerns are echoed by George Whitcher, the Unite rep in the New Forest and who has worked for the FC for 40 years. His lifetime of devotions mirrors that of  his grandfather, George, who was an employee for many decades and his father,  James, who was an FC tree cutter for 49 years.

George is currently a forest craftsman but for before that he was for many years a tree cutter, which he much preferred, a post that following Tory cuts since 2010 is increasingly undertaken by contractors that have few rights and are poorly paid. 

“I like being in the forest away from factory or office work. Many of my fellow workers have long service and also enjoy working outdoors. It’s a way of life and they really care for the forest and its habitat. My fear is that in the long term the FC in England will slowly be taken out from under the public umbrella and this will lead to more and more contractors replacing those who are devoted to maintaining the forest at a very high standard.” 

George has been an elected TGWU and then Unite rep for over two decades. He is full of praise for the work that Neil Grieve did as Unite lead rep in England and Scotland between 2014 and 2019. “Really we now need someone in England to come forward and take on what Neil was doing. We need many more reps overall and more engagement by members, whose current pay and conditions will clearly be eroded unless they do get active. The union is you.” 

George, 63, is currently fighting a battle on behalf of those he represents who live in FC tied accommodation within the New Forest. “The FC wants to get the cottages to reach market rents of over £18k annually. This would make them unaffordable. I pay £635 a month rent and which is very favourable for this area but my wages are £21,000 gross. “

When FC cottages now become available the organisation is asking staff to bid for them with whoever offers the most winning out. “Front line staff inevitably lose out. It happened recently with someone in his late 40s and he has been forced to moved back in with his parents,” explained George.

“I have raised this issue wherever I can including with many MPs. I did manage at one point to get the rents held back for 12 months during discussions and so I am not giving up on the battle as the struggle to improve pay and conditions is an ongoing one which never ends. It is why I would appeal again for younger members to get more involved everywhere across the FC.

“Reps are supported by full-time officials and the training you get on the courses helps a lot as well, you also get the satisfaction of helping your work mates and those reps currently elected can also be drawn upon to offer backing,” said George who closed with a tribute to the late Edwin Rowlands, the former Unite rep in the Forest of Dean. “He was a good man who encouraged you and was available for advice and information. He did a great deal for others,” he added.  

To find out more about being a rep please contact George Whitcher by emailing mila.fernandes@unitetheunion.org who will then pass on your details to George. Mark your email for his attention. 

CLARION CALL: Sheffield’s Access Pioneers

CLARION CALL: Sheffield’s Access Pioneers 

Dave Sissons, Terry Howard and Roly Smith

£7.99 - https://www.outside.co.uk/clarion-call-sheffield-s-access-pioneers.html

His role in the famous 1932 Kinder Scout Trespass made Benny Rothman the best known rambler ever. Yet his actions were only one part of the struggle for the Right to Roam. 

Which is why it is so great to be able to pick up, especially as it is crammed with some terrific black and white photographs, this book. CLARION CALL celebrates the role played by the early members of Sheffield Clarion Ramblers’ Group (SCRG), which ran from 1900 to 2015, in the century-long successful battle for the creation of our national parks and moorland access.

Two men, like Rothman, both active trade unionists in unions that eventually became part of UNITE, played particularly key roles in SCRG, founder GBH Ward (1876-1957) and photographer Herbert Harry Diver (1869-1941). 

Ward began work as an errand boy before serving an apprenticeship and qualifying as an engineer fitter. In 1897 he joined the Sheffield No. 1 branch of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, holding various union posts. He later worked as a fitter at Kelham Island Power Station till 1912. He was active in trade union affairs but his main love was rambling. “Some of us have found our Socialism in the picture of the countryside.” 

Ward organised the first Sheffield Clarion ramble, attended by 14 people, on Sunday 2 September 1900. He began publishing an annual Clarion Ramblers Handbook in 1901. They remain a treasure trove of local history and folklore. 

Diver, a bricklayer who held numerous elected union posts, was the first official Labour candidate in Sheffield and was almost elected in Darnall Ward. He was blacklisted because of his labour movement activities. Diver was a keen amateur photographer and his first photograph appears in the 1907 Clarion Handbook. Taking photographs involved carrying a heavy wooden camera and glass plates over many miles of inhospitable moorland. This makes the photographs, many published for the first time ever in this book, particularly remarkable.

Taking a train from Sheffield Mainland on Sunday mornings into the countryside, SCRG organised rambles in all weathers and across all kinds of terrain including woods with delightful brooks, packed with bees, bird and butterflies as well as deserted snowy hillsides. Guide leaders would provide commentary throughout the ramble. 

Some of the rambles involved breaking the trespass laws. The increasing popularity of rambling meant that by 1932 trespassing on Kinder Scout was not unusual. 

Ward though did not take part in the 1932 Mass Trespass. He had been issued in 1923 with a writ by James Watt, an owner of part of Kinder Scout, barring him from going there. When Rothman and four other young men were sent to jail, Ward identified strongly with them. 

In Rothman’s case it was a one-off event. He later admitted that it was mistake not to have carried on with the access campaign that had to wait another 50 years to be restarted by the Sheffield Campaign for Access to Moorland (SCAM), which all three authors of this book were active in, whose members started trespassing on all the non-access moorlands of the National Peak. With the passing of the Countryside Rights of Way Act of 2000 access to open country was eventually achieved. It was a famous victory made possible thanks to the pioneering efforts of those early SCRG members. Well done to Sissons, Howard and Smith from bringing them back to life in this marvellous publication.

Earn a lot less in England if you are a young agricultural worker

Young English workers lose out since loss of AWB 

The Agricultural Wages Board (AWB) for England and Wales was scrapped in 2013 by the heartless Tories - and their austerity cousins, the Liberal Democrats, who ironically helped establish the AWB over a century earlier. At the time, Unite warned that agricultural workers in England faced being paid less than those in Scotland and Northern Ireland, which have had their own AWB’s since 1949 and 1977 respectively. 

The move left thousands of workers in Wales and England without union representation over wages and conditions and with no way of knowing when they might next receive a pay increase. 

Fortunately, in Wales there was a devolved assembly Labour Government that was on the workers’ sides. It fought a legal battle that resulted in the Supreme Court allowed it to establish a dedicated Wales AWB to protect 13,000 low paid agricultural workers. English agricultural workers meanwhile have been left isolated by only being covered by the national minimum wage. 

In April, the Welsh AWB awarded an across the board pay rise for Welsh agricultural workers of between 2 and 5 per cent. All Grade 1 workers aged 25 plus in Wales will receive £8.21 an hour and those aged 16 to 24 will receive £7.70 an hour. In comparison in England if you are aged 18-20 you will receive £6.15 an hour - under 18 it is £4.35 an hour. 

This means a 17-year old agricultural worker in Wales working 40 hours a week will earn £308 a week, while his English counterpart will earn £174 — a whopping £134 a week less. The difference if you are aged 19 is lower but still corresponds to £62 a week. 

In an era when the average age of farmers is 59 and there is a desperate need to encourage young people to take the first step on the ladder to becoming a farmer then isn’t it ridiculous that young agricultural workers in England are being so ruthlessly exploited compared to their counterparts in other UK nations?

Meanwhile, the divide extends to over 25 year olds as qualified workers at grades 2 and 3 in Wales earn £8.45 and £8.70 respectively. There no longer exists such grades in England - who are guaranteed just £8.21 an hour. 

There are also additional allowances in Wales for night work and keeping one or more dogs. Again there are no guarantees for English workers on night work or keeping dogs. 

In Scotland where Unite continues to put the case for better pay on the AWB the situation is better than anywhere else as all agricultural workers are now being paid £8.21 an hour. 

A brief comparison

Aged 25 plus:  £8.21 an hour in Scotland, England and Wales 

Aged 21-24:  Scotland £8.21 an hour,  Wales and England £7.70 an hour, 

Aged 18-20: Scotland £8.21  England £6.15  Wales £7.70

Aged 16-18:  Scotland £8.21  England £4.35  Wales £7.70

The grading structure in Northern Ireland is slightly different but generally:

Aged 21 plus is £8.40 an hour, 18-21 is £7.42 and the minimum rate applicable for the first 40 weeks is £6.88. 

RAIL RENEWAL FIGHT

RAIL RENEWAL FIGHT 

Rural communities need more railways and stations - fast 

A new report by the Campaign for Better Transport, The case for expanding the rail network makes the case for a national rail renewal programme starting with the reopening of 33 new rail lines with 72 new stations. 

With many rural areas increasingly cut off, a public transport network of trains and buses is urgently needed to allow communities to access jobs and services. The report, produced with support from the RMT, has rightly been welcomed by Labour politicians but they remain highly doubtful about the Tories’ political commitment to revive Britain’s rail network. 

Amongst the priority proposals are Northumberland County Council’s (NCC) plans to restore passenger trains between Ashington and Newcastle, with the 7 new stations on the 16 mile journey including Blyth, Bedlington and the small village of Bebside. The cost would be £198 million. 

In February, NCC hosted Chris Grayling MP on a section of the proposed train lane. The transport secretary indicated he was supportive in principle of the proposals, but failed to make any funding commitments. This mirrors the situation over 20 months ago when his department published a strategy paper that backed reopening that was understandably greeted with scepticism by local Labour MP, Ian Lavery, who said, “there has been many false dawns over generations on this...what we want is the funding to make it happen.”

Grayling also visited Colne Railway station in the Pendle Valley, east Lancashire and said he was personally keen to reopen the 12-mile railway to Skipton, currently served by one hourly train. A feasibility study has already been concluded, though no money was promised towards the £104 million costs. 

Pendle Labour Party backs the current Skipton-East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership campaign to push Grayling into acting and has given a formal  commitment that if Labour becomes the government it will reopen the Colne to Skipton line. 

Labour’s Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, Azhar Ali, said, “We do need new stations. Labour would bring our railways into public ownership to enable fares to be capped and investment made to create a better, more reliable service. Pendle is badly served at the moment and we need a new government to improve things.” 

Since the 2015, the Tory government has opened just 14 new stations. One of these was in April 2017 at Low Moor which serves the villages of Low Moor and Cleckheaton and is situated on the Calder Valley Line between Bradford and Halifax. 

Campaigners now want to provide connections to Dewsbury, Gomersal, Cleckheaton and Heckmondwike. The latter three are small towns in the Spen Valley that lost their train stations in the 1960s. The 33 new rail lines, which would bring over half a million people within walking distance of a train station, would create up to 6,500 jobs in construction and engineering and 1,650 new railway jobs. 

It will require £4.8 billion investment and whilst that is a worthwhile investment it is also the case that only a future Labour Government is going to put its money where its mouth is and invest in the railways. 

Help release the Turkmen journalist Gaspar Matalaev

Help release the Turkmen journalist Gaspar Matalaev 

He’s been wrongfully imprisoned for coming up three years. So help free human rights defender Gaspar Matalaev as part of the fight against forced labour in the cotton fields of Turkmenistan, a Central Asian Republic (CAR) where trade unions are not allowed to function freely. 

That’s the plea which is backed by the International Federation of Journalists and the International Union of Food (IUF) workers — a world-wide federation of trade unions that includes Unite - and which represents workers in hotels, hospitality, catering and associated fields. 

Just two days after publishing a report, written during an assignment for Alternative Turkmenistan News (ATN), on forced labour in the 2016 harvest, Gaspar was arrested on 4 October 2016. He was tortured in order to extract a confession to crimes — fraud and an attempt to bribe an official — he never committed. 

Whilst drug dealers and others with similar charges have subsequently been set free Gaspar, who is not allowed visitors or letters, remains locked up with no indication as to when he is likely to be released. 

“His report showed how students and public sector workers were being forced to work in the cotton fields in order to meet government quotas,” said a close relative, Rusian Myatiev, who is helping ATN to continue its invaluable work. 

Turkmenistan is a former Soviet bloc country that is ruled by the Democratic Party, which simply changed its name from the Communist Party in the 1990s. At the last Presidential election in Turkmenistan in 2016, the Democratic Party leader Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow was re-elected for the third term with a claimed 98% of the vote. 

Turkmenistan - and four other CAR’s that were also once part of the Soviet Union - have ratified eight fundamental ILO Conventions enshrining workers’ rights to organise. However, their actual implementation is currently impossible in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and only partially feasible in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. 

By shining a light on the forced labour problem in Turkmenistan, Gaspar was seeking to bring the practice to an end and create a momentum towards free trade unions with the right to bargain collectively. 

The campaign to force his freedom is growing and over 100,000 people globally have added their names to a petition calling on the government of Turkmenistan to release him.

There also now pledges by major global apparel brands to not buy Turkmenistan cotton and a US ban on the products importation.

Resistance internally also appears to be growing as according to Rusian Myatiev, “since 2016 people have continued to write about their daily cotton lives as it has become the norm for them and which they don’t want to be forced to do.” 

In October 2018, teachers in Turkmenistan’s second largest city, Turkmenabat, were forced to spend their nine-day break picking cotton.

“I hope everyone reading this will sign the petition to free Gaspar allowing him to then report on events in Turkmenistan and thus help with the struggle to open up the country such that free trade unions become the norm,” said Rusian Myatiev. 

The petition: Free Gaspar Matalaev, end forced and child labour! is at:- http://www.iuf.org/w/?q=node/6505

For more on developments in the five  Central Asian Republics visit:- http://www.labourcentralasia.org/en/

A remarkable man: Robert Owen Museum, Newtown, Powys

A remarkable man

Robert Owen Museum, Newtown, Powys 

Robert Owen (1771- 1858) was born and died in the small market town of Newton, Powys. Local people have done Owen, described as the first socialist, proud by maintaining a well resourced museum since 1929. From all parts of the globe there are visitors, whose written comments indicate they’ve been glad to make the special effort to discover more about this amazing character.

“ I had heard of Robert Owen, but I didn’t realise his link with Thomas Paine and the other socialists of his time. He was obviously a brilliant man, who improved mankind's lot.”  Alan Watkins, Lincolnshire. 25.09.18 

Stamford, Lincolnshire was where Owen travelled when aged ten to become a draper’s apprentice before moving to Manchester, the heart of the industrial revolution. At 21 he was managing a large mill of 500 workers. The poverty and terrible working conditions, especially for very young children, he witnessed across the cotton trade caused Robert to consider developing radical alternatives to a capitalist system that failed most people. 

Owen and his partners purchased New Lanark Mills and its workers’ village in 1799. New schools, including the first ever infants’ one, were built, adult evening classes introduced and a healthy environment was promoted by opening shops selling good affordable food. 

Owen wanted to demonstrate a way to end the degradation of the working class. But as he pushed for improvements by promoting a Factories Bill to raise the minimum employment age to 10, introduce half-time education up to the age of 12 and create a system of factory inspection, he was left frustrated when it was severely watered down by MPs, many of whom were owners of dark satanic mills’ themselves. 

In 1824, Owen sold some of his Scottish holdings. Seeking to expand his social experiments when he moved to New Harmony, Indiana. He returned to Britain in 1828 but his four sons and daughter remained there and subsequently played important political roles with Congressman Robert Dale Owen openly calling on Abraham Lincoln to abolish slavery. 

Owen sought to take his co-operative vision to a wider audience by publishing pamphlets, writing to newspapers and speaking publicly.  The museum, organised chronologically, shows how he was key to the development in 1834 of The Grand National Consolidated Trades Union. A famous print of the massive workers’ protest in London against the transportation of the Tolpuddle Martyrs shows him leading it on horseback. 

Owen died in 1858. By then the Rochdale Pioneers, inspired by his ideas, had opened the first successful co-op store. 

In 1879 a Robert Owen monument was unveiled in Kensal Green. There are also statutes of him in Newtown and outside the Co-operative Bank’s Headquarters in Manchester. 

The Robert Owen Museum, just yards from his birthplace, helps explain the life of this remarkable man by skilfully combining many drawings, illustrations, photographs, books, a video, paintings, sculptures, everyday family objects and explanatory display boards. 

The Museum is free to visit and is an independent charity run entirely by volunteers, who should be congratulated for their efforts.   

Open 11am to 3pm, Monday to Friday. 

http://robert-owen-museum.org.uk

Ban on pheasant shooting on public land in Wales came into effect in March 2019

Ban on pheasant shooting on public land in Wales came into effect in March 

Pheasant shooting on the Welsh Government Woodland Estate (WGWE) ended on 1 March 2019. The decision not to renew leases for three pheasant shoots on four woodland areas was taken in September 2018 by Natural Resource Wales (NRW), the public body responsible for managing Welsh public land. It came after a letter from the Labour-led Welsh Government to NRW backed the results of a public consultation that revealed that the vast majority of Welsh people favoured a ban.

Animal Aid (AA) is one of the UK’s longest established and largest animal rights groups. AA investigations in 2015, which pushed NRW to consult the public on whether to allow shooting on its land, and in 2017 were undertaken to find out if gamebird shoots on NRW land adhered to the 2006 Animal Welfare Act Code of Practice. The investigations revealed numerous breaches of the code. In 2017, 35-40 dead pheasant poults were found in a release enclosure at Cwn Gwnen. Four other birds had died after becoming stuck between two sections of wire. 

AA concluded: “NRW can’t ensure that shoots operating on its land adhere to the Code of Practice.” With other AA investigations at private game farms having revealed that pheasants were, contrary to the law, being held in barren cages, the animal rights group contended that NRW was also unable to ensure that birds brought in by shoots from game farms adhered to the code.

The NRW review received 4,700 responses from the public and 76% of those wanted a ban on shooting birds on its land.

When the NRW board, which includes members of pro-shooter organisations, met in July 2018 it had before it a letter from the Environment Minister Hannah Blythyn, the Welsh Labour Assembly member for Delyn. 

Blythyn stated “we need to take account of public views in considering what happens on the Welsh government estate…given the wider policy issues and concerns, the Welsh Government does not support commercial pheasant shooting, or the breeding of gamebirds or the birds being held in hiding pens on the estate prior to release on the WGWE.” 

Nevertheless, the NRW board, who are appointed by Welsh Government Ministers, decided not to introduce a ban. Pressure from bodies such as the Countryside Alliance and the British Association for Shooting and Conservation to maintain the status quo included unproven claims that shooting birds is worth £75 million to the Welsh economy and supports the equivalent of 2,400 full-time jobs. 

A NRW paper itself had made reference to a report by the operators of Bettws Hall Sporting Estates in Montgomeryshire that they employed 7 full time staff and 23 part-time staff and contributed £500,000 to the local economy. However, when the report authors were asked about how many staff were solely dedicated to shoots on NRW land it was clear no information was available.

On 20 September 2018 the NRW board finally agreed to stop shooting on its land. 

“Good for the Welsh Government for having stepped in to ensure that animal cruelty has no place on public land….NRW now has the opportunity to use that land for positive, educational, conservation and leisure activities that are inclusive and that are kind to animals and to the environment. We hope that NRW will become a role model to other public bodies that also want to bring about an end to the shooting of birds,” said Fiona Pereira, Campaign manager at Animal Aid. 

Pereira pointed out that 50 million pheasants and partridges are purpose-bred — many on huge factory farms — for the shooting industry annually. Participants on some shoots are charged in excess of £2000 each for the ‘pleasure’ of slaughtering these defenceless birds.