Plaque dedicated to Merseyside anti-apartheid seafarers

Taken from Rebel Road project of Unite education department. All photographs are copyright Mark Harvey of ID8 photography. 

The entrance to Jack Jones House, Liverpool is the location for a Liverpool City Council plaque dedicated to Merseysiders whose spirit of international solidarity saw them risk their lives in the fight against apartheid in South Africa. Internal resistance there in the forms of strikes, demonstrations and acts of sabotage encouraged international solidarity. 

Seafarers and dockers have long been the most successful at organising international solidarity. Gerry Wan, deceased, was a black Liverpool-born seaman who was a chef on the Union Castle Line that sailed to South Africa. According to Roger O’Hara, the Merseyside Area Secretary for the Communist Party (CP) of Great Britain in 1970, Wan delivered post, propaganda literature and parcels of money to places in Durban. These materials were hidden within ships’ cargo holds before departing from Britain. 

Another CP member George Cartwright, deceased, was charged with collecting a crew together to navigate a yacht, the Avventura, from Somalia to close to the coast of South Africa where 19 ANC guerrilla fighters, fresh from training in the Soviet Union, arms and ammunition would come in on two dinghies. Seagoing engineer, Pat Newman, deceased, was one of those who agreed to join the mission. Ex-seaman, Eric Caddick, formerly a professional boxer, was another. He was a local black member of the CP. His father was from Barbados and his mother was from Liverpool. 

Alex Moumbaris, who on a later mission was caught and sentenced to prison for twelve years, for which he served 7.5 as he escaped (1), was in charge of the landing with Bob Newland whilst there was an alternative beach where Bill McCaig and Daniel Ahern were waiting in case something unforeseen happened. In the years leading up to the proposed landing, Ahern and McCaig had worked clandestinely in South Africa on surveying beaches that were suitable for the operation. 

Unfortunately, just off the coast of Kenya, the yacht, which had broken down on its initial journey, developed faults in the cooling system and a lack of spare bearings meant the mission had to be eventually aborted. Sadly, later attempts to get the young men over land into South Africa saw them captured and shot by the security forces.  

McCaig had earlier been involved in propaganda work in South Africa in which he had distributed booklets around cargo holds for South African dockworkers to pick up when they unloaded ships. He was given similar material to be posted within South Africa when he sailed there as a merchant seaman for the Union Castle Line. Later he worked permanently on Durban’s docks where he constantly moved around to try and spot opportunities for bringing in people without the port authorities knowing. He later had to leave South Africa quickly when it became apparent the South African police had become aware he was part of an underground network.

Bill McCaig 

McCaig details his work in South Africa in an excellent book LONDON RECRUITS – The Secret War against Apartheid. This tells the story of a small unit of white anti-racist activists operating out of London that assisted the liberation movement, which found it very difficult to escape police surveillance after the Rivonia trial of Nelson Mandela and other leaders in 1963-64, to rebuild its capacity inside South Africa.

Moving in and out of South Africa, the recruits began by circulating banned literature through the postal system. They then become more audacious by showering leaflets from city rooftops and unfurling ANC banners and later they employed firework-type ‘bucket bombs’ for discharging leaflets at busy public venues whilst simultaneously blaring out tape-recorded speeches from such as Nelson Mandela. 

Security police were baffled that an organisation they had virtually destroyed had quickly regained its capacity to act whilst the subversive activities inspired the oppressed with many young guerrilla combatants later recalling that the first time they had encountered an ANC message was through such propaganda coups. 

Fortunately the vast majority of London recruits were not caught by the South African Authorities, as the penalties were severe if you were. After a series of successful operations, Sean Hosey was caught in 1971 taking passbooks and money to South African comrades in Durban. He received a physical battering and had to endure solitary confinement and interrogation before he received the mandatory five years in prison for breaching the Terrorism Act that was an effective catchall for anything that threatened white supremacy. Hosey was in Liverpool when the Liverpool City Council plaque to the five Merseyside men was unveiled on Friday 30 January 2015.

Their actions were praised by Obed Mlaba, the South African High Commissioner and ANC member: “We will never forget the overseas friends of our struggle. We thank them for the wonderful, vital job they did during the hard times we experienced. We look forward to working to continuing to work with British trade unionists.”

Obed Mlaba 

Liverpool-born Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said; “I was an anti-apartheid movement member. All praise for the comrades who risked their lives supporting our ANC members. It is appropriate that the plaque is mounted alongside the one bearing the names of Merseysiders who sacrificed their lives fighting for democracy in Spain in the 1930s. Both are great examples of international solidarity.”

1. Inside Out – Escape from Pretoria Prison by Tim Jenkin (Jakana Education, South Africa, 2003) and also at http://www.anc.org.za/books/escape0.html 

London Recruits – the secret war against apartheid is published by Merlin Press at £15.99 post free. www.merlinpress.co.uk 

Peterlee - the only UK town named after a trade unionist

Peterlee, County Durham is the only UK town named after a trade unionist – PETER LEE, the celebrated Durham Miners’ leader during the 1926 General Strike. Built as a new town after the Second World War, Peterlee was seen as antidote to the squalor of some of the local mining villages. New housing was to be accompanied by new industrial estates. The closure of all local mines means the latter are even more important today with the likes of Caterpillar and Walkers Crisps (*) providing employment opportunities.

Peter Lee (1864 -1935) was born in nearby Trimdon Grange and began colliery work at aged ten. Ten years later he returned to the classroom and learnt to read properly before heading for the US where he worked underground for two years. On his return he became Wingate miners pit delegate before again setting off on his travels this time to South Africa and from which he returned as a committed Christian. He was elected as a local parish and County Council member and after returning to work at Wheatley Hill Colliery he became an agent for Durham Miners’ Association and President of the Miner’s Federation of Great Britain. 

* Where I worked and was a shop steward and safety rep in the 1970s and 1980s when it was Tudor Crisps.  

City’s ‘extraordinary level of corruption’

From the Big Issue in the North magazine. Please buy a copy when you see a seller.

The best-known international ranking under-estimates the level of state corruption in the UK, according to campaigners.

The annual Corruption Perceptions’ Index (CPI) survey of 175 countries rests on expert opinions of public sector corruption. It ranks states from least to most corrupt. In 2014, the UK was ranked twelfth with Switzerland in fifth. North Korea and Somalia finished in the bottom two. The survey is compiled by Transparency International (TI).

The Tax Justice Network (TJN) began life at the World Social Forum in Portugal in 2003. It maps and analyses tax evasion, avoidance, competition and havens.

Tax havens

According to TJN executive director John Christensen: “The CPI index, by focusing
on bribe-taking, fails to convey how corrupt practices generally involve several players. These include sophisticated financial and legal intermediaries who facilitate the hiding of large sums behind offshore structures, typically in secret jurisdictions.

“Additionally, CPI is perceptions-based, drawing on the business community and related thinktank opinions. Not surprisingly they take a rather a narrow view. Switzerland, a notorious tax haven, features among the least corrupt.”

TJN publishes a Financial Secrecy Index (FSI) of the friendliest locations for tax evaders, money launderers and the financially corrupt.

In its latest table, covering 82 jurisdictions, Switzerland pips Luxembourg for top spot as the most corrupt while the UK is at 21, one spot behind the British Virgin Islands and well down on ninth placed Jersey.

According to TJN, the UK ranking is based on a combination of its secrecy score and a weighting derived from its 18 per cent share of the global market for offshore financial services.

Of the 82 jurisdictions identified in the FSI, almost half are connected to Britain, including Jersey. Financial secrecy, low or zero tax, tolerance of criminality and lax financial regulations are identified across many of the jurisdictions.

TJN says the UK has claimed to be clamping down n corporate tax avoidance yet still promotes the use of British-linked tax havens by multinational businesses.

“Tax dodging has become endemic through much of the corporate sector. Yet the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) budget has been cut,” claims Christensen.

‘Complacent’

The executive director of TI in the UK, Dr Robert Barrington, responded to Christensen’s views, saying: “We are not stating the CPI index snapshot of affairs is perfect and we would always urge people to look at a wide range of different sources to get a really good picture. However, I don’t think anyone would quibble that the quality of life of the average citizen in North Korea or Afghanistan is severely undermined by corruption.

“I think public sector corruption in the UK is low compared to other countries. But it’s also true the UK has been too complacent about corruption.

“TI is concerned that the UK has become a safe haven for corrupt capital and rich individuals from around the world using stolen money to buy property here, including football clubs.

“We are very worried that the SFO budget has been so significantly cut. If the government fails to tackle corruption the UK could slip down the CPI.”

‘Blatant criminality’

Christensen believes that, whoever wins the next election, there is no immediate possibility of any UK government tackling the “extraordinary degree of corruption in the City of London that has demoralised people while also wrecking the economy and capturing the political processes, leaving us all with the sense that our politicians are impotent to act against blatant criminality”.

He added: “We have reached a moment when radical steps are needed to restore our confidence in democracy.”

Ellen Strange commemoration date will be 29 November 2015

Trade unionists and domestic violence campaigners in the northwest will hold a special event on Sunday 29 November 2015 at what is thought to be the oldest site in the world to commemorate a victim of domestic violence. 

Ellen Strange (Broadley) was murdered by her husband, John Broadley on Holcombe Moor near Ramsbottom in January 1761. After which Ellen’s family and/or local people raised a pile of stones (a cairn) in her memory. This was called ‘Ellen Strange’ on the first Ordnance Survey map surveyed in 1844-47. Yet by which time the true story had become clouded in the belief that a lover had committed the murder. One of the reasons for this was because of the practice - still common today in parts of Lancashire – to refer to married women by their maiden name. 

Other facts, including that the murderer had been convicted and executed, had also been replaced by fiction. Then in 1989; local author John Simpson published (*) the results of his exhaustive research into events on the desolate moor over 200 years earlier. 

John and Ellen Broadley were a very poor couple who led an itinerant life. Prior to her wedding, Ellen lived at Ash Farm in Hawkshaw with her parents. It appears almost certain that Ellen, hoping to take advantage of the full moon, was making her way to the family home when Broadley murdered her shortly after midnight The couple had been seen together at a nearby local pub in the hours before Ellen died. 

When Ellen’s strangled and badly disfigured body was discovered her husband was arrested and indicted for her murder. At his trial a number of witnesses were called but as it was not the practice to write down such evidence then we will never know what they said. What we can be sure of is that their evidence was insufficient to convict Broadley. Forensic evidence had not yet been identified and the charged man pleaded ‘not guilty.’ It is almost certain that there were no eye-witnesses to the actual attack. 

Since 1761 the practice of adding stones to the Ellen Strange cairn has continued. Late last year a small number of trade union members and domestic violence campaigners from the PAWS for Kids support project for women and children experiencing domestic violence walked to the cairn and placed their own stones. 

Photograph copyright Mark Harvey 

“It has been a real privilege to do this as we are also in the middle of a two week awareness campaign around domestic violence. It would be good if there could be erected a nearby noticeboard as many more people could then add a stone and remember Ellen,” said Linda Birchall, a Unite member at Marks and Spencer in Wigan. 

Copyright Mark Harvey 

“I did not know anything about this until very recently when it was suggested that the site should feature on the REBEL ROAD online education project. I am sure that Bolton Trades Union Council will now want to organise a proper commemoration visit and help make people aware of this important site,” said Martin McMulkin, Unite shop floor convenor at Jost, manufacturers of vehicle connections components in Bolton. 

• ELLEN STRANGE -  a moorland murder mystery explained by John Simpson was published in 1989 by the Helmshore Local History Society.

http://www.unitetheunion.org/growing-our-union/education/rebelroad/

Stop press

An initial organising meeting for the event on 29 November was held at Bolton Socialist Club in January 2015. The date was chosen because it comes within the Domestic Violence Awareness Fortnight and is also close to 25 November, which is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. There will be a wreath laying ceremony and some speakers followed by a social occasion afterwards. The cairn is around 400 yards from a nearby footpath. It is not accessible for anyone in wheelchair or anyone with very limited mobility. 

Plans are being made to organise transport from West Yorkshire and Bolton. 

Meanwhile, John Simpson has agreed to rewrite his booklet and this will be re-launched on or around 29 November.

Funds are going to be needed to pay for the booklet and the events on 29 November. Bolton Trades Union Council has agreed that its bank account can be used for cheques payable to Bolton TUC.  BTUC, c/o Bolton Socialist Club, Wood Street, Bolton BL1 1DY.

More details to follow. 

Should the UK government look to Wales on the badger issue?

With the public fully backing it, the Welsh Labour Government is continuing to pursue its successful programme to tackle bovine tuberculosis (bTB). 

For the second year running, Labour has invited grant applications from privately delivered vaccination projects for badgers, which have been blamed for cattle contracting the disease. 

The badger vaccination grant covers half the costs incurred by any farmer, landowner and others. Wales began vaccinating badgers in 2012 and within 12 months over 1,400 badgers were trapped and vaccinated. In 2013 there was a 23% drop in new bovine Tuberculosis herd incidents and the numbers of cattle slaughtered fell by a third. This success has encouraged other organisations to adopt a similar approach with the Sharpham Trust educational charity adopting a 3-year programme last summer. 

No wonder the Welsh Government has appealed to the UK Government to look across the border but the Tories appear determined to push on with their highly contentious culling programme. This is despite a 10-year scientific study between 1997 and 2007 that found culling made no difference and might even spread the disease by forcing badgers to flee. 

A trial cull in Gloucestershire and Somerset in 2013 proved to be disastrous with just over a third of the intended 5,000 badgers shot at an estimated cost of £4,121 each, far more than it costs to trap and vaccinate the animals. The standard set to declare the culls humane were exceeded. 

A humiliated environment secretary Owen Paterson was forced to announce that the planned national roll out was being abandoned but also chose to dig a bigger hole by agreeing to continue the cull trials in the two counties in 2014. 

The Badger Trust and Humane Society International then sought to prevent the futile exercise but in November 2014 the Court of Appeal rejected their appeal that no independent expert panel had been appointed to oversee the killings.

The results of the cull were announced by Defra in December. They showed that 341 badgers were killed in Gloucestershire, well short of the 615 minimum. In Somerset the minimum target was 316 and 341 were shot. Taken together the minimum target in both counties was missed by 249. 

Despite this further failure, Paterson’s successor, Liz Truss, who was appointed in July 2004, has announced that the government “is determined to continue with a strategy that includes culling.” 

In comparison, Labour’s shadow agricultural minister, Maria Eagle, has confirmed, “Labour will put a stop to these inhumane, ineffective badger culls.” Labour is backed by the vast majority of electors as when the Badger Trust and Care for the Wild commissioned a poll they found 70% opposed culling and 89% of those who expressed an opinion wanted the UK government to adopt the Welsh vaccination programme. 

Fox hunting victims fear a future Tory Government

Victims of anti-social behaviour at the hands of hunt members are concerned by the news that only their lack of MPs is preventing the Tories scrapping the foxhunting ban.

In September 2014, the environment minister Liz Truss, a hunt supporter, confirmed the Tories were abandoning their 2010 manifesto pledge to hold a free vote during their term of office on repealing the 2004 Hunting Act. Clearly the prospect of being seen to support ripping foxes apart in the lead up to the general election is seen as a vote loser. Indicating that the current moves are a tactical retreat, Truss said, “We need to wait until we have the votes before we put the vote for repeal before Parliament.”

Truss’s comments preceded the League against Cruel Sports (LACS) releasing a YouTube video HUNT HAVOC – the other victims of illegal hunting. This features numerous small country landowners criticising local hunts for failing to keep their hounds off their land.  Disturbingly, when the victims approach the police for support they are often ignored.

In West Wales, Teresa and her daughter Zoe run a small 57-acre farm located over two plots situated 2.5 miles apart and on which they have horses, chickens and All Packers as well as wildlife.

They have been regularly invaded by packs of hounds chasing foxes and when they have requested that the hunt remove the dogs then according to Teresa, “We have faced threats, been pushed over and hurt and had guns pointed at us by people who are brutish and unstable. The animals we keep get very upset and wildlife has been slaughtered. The police simply tell us that the dogs have no boundaries.”

A South West farmer who did not want to be named claims, “Whilst many hunts claim they are laying trails it is complete nonsense as basically they don’t control their packs and they divert on to live fox scent. In effect they are hunting.” 

It is illegal to hunt foxes with dogs and 527 hunters have now been prosecuted under the Hunting Act. Many more illegal acts though are not being picked up by the police. To overcome this, LACS wants to see a commitment to strengthening the Hunting Act included in all political parties manifestos at the general election.

Clearly the Tories won’t be making such a commitment whilst Truss’s comments were criticised by Teresa, who said, “Scrapping the Hunting Act would be very dangerous as it would give the green light to hunters to roam wherever they want. Those who don’t want that would increasingly find themselves intimidated.” 

Why Jack Jones House?

The Jack Jones House Unite building in Liverpool is named after a trade unionist who dedicated his life to improving ordinary working people’s lives.  

Born into poverty in 1913, Jack Larkin Jones followed his father into Garston docks. He quickly became a Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) shop steward and delegate on the National Docks Group Committee of the union. One of his early achievements was when he was awarded the TUC Tolpuddle Medal for union recruitment. At the same time he constantly faced the danger of victimisation and found himself engaged in running battles with full-time union officials who disliked his militancy. 

On his days off work from the docks, Jones took part in demonstrations against the scourge of unemployment. He also distributed anti-fascist leaflets produced by the International Transport Workers Federation about the worsening political situation in Germany. 

When Jones was elected as a Labour Party councillor for the Croxteth Ward in Liverpool he pressed the case for slum clearances. He then volunteered to fight with the International Brigades in Spain where a democratically elected progressive government had been attacked in 1936 by a right-wing movement headed by General Franco that enjoyed Hitler and Mussolini’s backing. 

Whilst serving with the International Brigades, Jones was seriously injured at the Battle of Ebro in 1938. Although he survived other Merseyside men were not so fortunate. Jack Jones House entrance bears witness to their sacrifices with a plaque bearing their names and which was unveiled by Merseyside County Councillor Edith Lawrenson and Jack Jones himself in 1985. 

On his return from Spain, Jones married Evelyn Taylor and the couple were to enjoy more than 50 years of married life together before Evelyn died in 2006. The couple had two sons, Jack junior and Mick.  

Jones was then appointed to the post of Coventry District Organiser for the TGWU. “Here, I felt was my opportunity to prove that the union really could work for its members…..the key to developing organisation was to find and cultivate the enthusiastic shop steward……whilst I knew I had to develop confidence and a strong sense of solidarity among the workers.” (*) 

Jones also faced a major task to break down non-unionism in numerous factories where low pay was endemic. Many meetings were held outside these plants and once Jones had succeeded in building up membership he threatened strike action in order to get pay talks going. Each success encouraged more workers to join the TGWU.

At the same time, when the Second World War was started, Jones was determined to see production maintained and even increased across a city that was being bombed heavily.

“I saw the workforce as the soldiers at the rear, a major factor in winning the war against Fascism.” When experienced men were needed for aircraft production he helped organise transfers across factories. When his members were asked to work seven days a week, Jones also did so. 

As increasing numbers of women were drawn into the war effort, Jones recruited heavily whilst other unions stood aside wrongly believing the women would return back to their homes when the war ended. As membership levels continued to rise he was able to successfully negotiate for improved terms and conditions. Trade unionism grew without any detriment to the war effort. 

The election of a radical Labour Government after the successful conclusion of the war was greeted with joy by Jones and the labour movement in general. Not so the employers who were keen to see a return to their pre-war dominance. Times though were a changing and the TGWU and the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU) secured a major breakthrough in mid 1946 with an agreement with the Standard Motor Company to introduce a five-day week of 42.5 hours, the first five-day week agreement in the engineering industry with the added bonus of a 4.5 hours cut in the working week. A national five-day week followed in 1947. 

Jones though faced problems not only from management but from TGWU general secretary Arthur Deakin. “In those days he always appeared to be on the side of management……..Deakin did not like my support for the shop steward system.” The pair had constant battles but in 1955, Jones strengthened his role within the union by being appointed Engineering Group Secretary for the whole Midlands region. The election of Frank Cousins to replace Deakin proved crucial to Jones’ appointment. 

In 1956, Jones was able to persuade management at the British Motor Company of the need to allow shop stewards to undertake trade union education in works’ time. This was to ultimately pave the way for similar agreements nationally. 

In 1963, Jones was appointed as TGWU Assistant Secretary and moved to London. “I insisted that each full-time officer must be accountable for his results.” He also planned a massive recruitment campaign whilst building a closer working relationship with the AEU and its leader Hugh Scanlon.  Jones called for the introduction of a 35 hour working week with three weeks’ paid holiday a year and later, as an elected member of the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee, he opposed Harold Wilson’s proposed prices and incomes policy on the grounds that it would hit the lowest paid workers the hardest. 

Meanwhile, Jones maintained his life long opposition to racism by speaking out at many, often heated, workplace meetings following Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech about immigration. 

When Frank Cousins stood down from his role, Jones was elected in December 1968 to replace him. In his role as TGWU general secretary he soon found himself at odds with Edward Heath’s Conservative Government at the start of the 1970s. 

The Industrial Relations Act 1971 imposed limitations on legitimate strikes and twice the TGWU was fined for contempt over its refusal to comply. Opposition eventually coalesced in 1972 around the Pentonville Five TGWU dockers whose imprisonment was greeted with outrage and solidarity strikes amongst trade unionists. With a General Strike in the offing, the Official Solicitor intervened to obtain the men’s release. 

Jones:  “One thing a free trade union movement cannot tolerate is the imprisonment of its people.” 

When Labour returned to government in 1974, Jones was one of the authors of the Social Contract. This persuaded trade unionists to a sign up to a programme of voluntary wage restraint in order to allow the Chancellor Denis Healey to introduce policies designed to control inflation and public spending. In return, Labour was expected to maintain price and dividend controls, improve pensions and introduce planning agreements with companies benefiting from Government aid. The ultimate collapse of the Social Contract agreement was to lead to the Winter of Discontent in 1978-79. 

By then Jones - who in a January 1977 Gallup opinion poll was voted the most powerful person in Britain - had retired in 1978 from his role as TGWU general secretary although not before the union reached a membership total of more than two million people. 

As he said: “More and more people were coming to rely on the weapon of trade unionism as represented by the TGWU.” 

In his retirement, Jones maintained his involvement in the labour movement. He served as Honorary Life President of the National Pensioners Convention and President of the International Brigade Memorial Trust. At the 2003 Labour Party conference he received a special award in recognition of his service to the trade union movement.

Jack Jones died at aged 96 on 21 April 2009. Later that year the TGWU building Transport House in Liverpool was refurbished by the newly formed Unite. It was reopened as Jack Jones House.

Tony Woodley unveils a plaque to Jack Jones 

The building was rededicated on 30 January 2015.  Tony Woodley, former Unite general secretary, undertook the re-dedication by unveiling a plaque. He told the large crowd “It’s a privilege to remember possibly the greatest trade union leader of our times. Jack never forgot his roots and practised what he preached – workers first.” 

Twelve members of the great man’s family were in attendance. Granddaughter Jane Jones said, “We are really proud of granddad and thrilled Unite continues to remember him.” 

Ricky Tomlinson and members of Jack Jones' family 

On the same day as the rededication another new plaque for the entrance to Jack Jones House was unveiled. This is dedicated to Merseysiders whose spirit of international solidarity saw them risk their lives in the fight against racial segregation in South Africa. 

As a great internationalist himself and one who in 1973 persuaded dockers in various UK ports to support black seamen in South Africa - and thus raised their wages from £38 to £87 a month - Jones would no doubt have been thrilled.

* All quotes in this piece are taken from JACK JONES - UNION MAN - an autobiography that was published by Collins in 1986. 

All photographs in this section are copyright Mark Harvey of ID8 Photography