SECOND ‘DOMESDAY BOOK’ TO GO ONLINE

 

 

SECOND ‘DOMESDAY BOOK’ TO GO ONLINE

uniteLANDWORKER Autumn 2024 

The achievements of farmers and agricultural labourers on 300,000 English and Welsh farms who fed the nation in World War II is amongst the most requested record series at The National Archives. It is therefore great news that a £2.13 million grant from the Lund Trust will help digitalise the 1941 National Farm Survey, (1941 NFM) described as the ‘Second Domesday’ book.

Prior to 1939 only eleven of 33 million tons consumed annually was produced in Britain. Hitler thus set out to starve our ancestors by torpedoing convoys bringing food from North America. In response farms were revitalised after the state took control by establishing County War Agricultural Committee’s to propel farming into postwar productivism.

Playing an essential part in the defeat of fascism, run down farms were revitalised to boost annual production to 22.5 million tons of food, much of which was also healthier to consume. Remarkably all this was done despite many farms not having any electricity.

The 1941 NFM is one of the most comprehensive records of land held at the National Archives. Currently though ‘the complex filing of the paper record makes it difficult for readers to order and use, with the records only available in physical copy.’

The new funds will digitalise the records allowing in due course each farm to be searchable online by, amongst others, family historians.

Analysis by historical economists, geographers and ecologists may also offer an opportunity to explore how the state can today play a role in boosting food production.

Support for migrant workers in call for radical regulation overhaul

 

Support for migrant workers in call for radical regulation overhaul

Partly used in Landworker magazine of Autumn 2024

It does not matter where anyone was born. If they work the land here, even temporarily, Unite, with a tradition dating back to 1872 and the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union, will recruit and represent them.

It requires pressurising bosses and governments for protective regulations on safety, pay and conditions. It was why Unite forced Labour to introduce the Gangmasters Licensing Authority when  21 trafficked Chinese cockle pickers died in Morecambe Bay in 2004.

Thus, when the Tories launched the 2019 Seasonal Workers Pilot to bring here temporary non-EU agricultural workers, needed to pick unharvested crops, Unite were concerned. Especially after research uncovered workers were funding their travel costs and working on zero hours contracts.

In subsequently offering 45,000 annual Seasonal Workers Scheme (SWS) horticultural places to overseas workers the government was forced to conduct internal studies whilst refusing financial support to migrant community organisations and trade unions, essentially Unite.

The review, completed prior to the General Election, paved the way, without significant protective changes, for the SWS’s extension to 2029. This was despite, for the second time in a year, the scrapping in May of a scheme operator’s licence to sponsor workers.

In 2023, Unite and the TUC joined NGOs in establishing the Seasonal Worker Interest Group (SWIG) to advocate for migrant seasonal workers. With Keir Starmer’s new government content to maintain the SWS largely unchanged, SWIG is calling for its radical overhaul and wants Labour to reassure migrant workers stung by the recent revocation that they won’t lose out financially or have their immigration status affected. Individuals should have access to independent worker support.

UNITE PAY CATCH SUCCESS FOR NORTHERN IRELAND HARBOUR WORKERS

 UNITE PAY CATCH SUCCESS FOR NORTHERN IRELAND HARBOUR WORKERS

Landworker Autumn 2024 article

By joining UNITE, harbour workers at Ardglass, Kilkeel and Portavogie;  three small historic villages on the Irish Sea, have boosted their pay and legal standing, writes Mark Metcalf.

Employed by the Northern Ireland Fishery Harbour Authority (NIFHA) these highly skilled employees, who maintain the facilities, responded to their wages dropping like an anchor to minimum wage rates over the years by joining Unite in January 2023. “It was all new territory for us,” states Unite rep Jim Lenaghan, a qualified welder, keen to maintain the high standards of service to privately owned boats who land our best loved, healthiest food, fish.

At Ardglass, at least £8 million passes through the fish trade, mainly in herrings, prawns and whitefish, annually.

Very reluctantly, Jim’s union colleagues were set to down tools. “They wanted us to accept £11.44 an hour,” he explains. “But with UNITE’s assistance we managed to pressure NIFHA and we got £12 an hour. That was backdated  to April 2023. It means that as we also obtained the £1,500 one off payment awarded by Stormont to all civil servants plus then we were owed £5,000. The key to our successes was joining UNITE.”

In 2022 an estimated 150,000 public sector workers in NI went on strike at different times. Then on January 16, 2024 there were was joint strike action, the largest in more than half a century, by workers from 16 trade unions led by Unite.

The fact that NIFHA workers were included alongside civil servants in being awarded the £1,500 is significant. Because NIFHA is an arms-length body funded by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) Jim is not technically a civil servant.

“This has previously allowed our employer to sink our pay to the lowest levels. We now see ourselves as more part of the civil service, a much bigger body than we are on our own,” says Jim whose fellow trade unionists are now casting ahead to “significantly increase” the pay rates of harbourmasters who remain on £14 an hour and who are threatening to quit.

UNITE’s research has established that in similar posts that are not even commercial that harbourmasters are being paid up to £38,000 annually. “You can’t just replace these jobs easily. Harbourmasters are highly skilled. If we lost any of them then the future of all of us is endangered.” 

Unite regional officer Joanne McWilliams said, “winning these workers a minimum of the Living Wage was only the start. We are now benchmarking pay with similar workers elsewhere so we can present the employer with a claim that sustains skills and employment. The harbour workers are highly skilled and are responsible for multi-million pound vessels day in and day out – the days of low pay are well and truly over.”

UNREST IN ARGENTINA

 UNREST IN ARGENTINA

Return of the right wing causes problems for smallholders and unions

Unite Landworker magazine – Autumn 2024

The election of Javier Milei, a right wing talk show host, last year as Argentina’s President has seen him attack small farmholders, trade unions and workers. In response he has been met by strikes and protests across the second largest nation in South America.

Describing himself as an anarcho-capitalist, Milei, whose victory by 10% was the largest by the right since the end of miliary rule in 1983, is ripping apart the remnants of the welfare state and flogging off the family silver. He HHeHhhhh

 In February 2024, less than a month after the three main trade union federations took strike action with a 12-hour general strike against labour law reforms and the lack of an economic plan, smallholders protested at the lack of government support and funding for sustainable farming.

A fever linked with the damaging use of agrochemicals hit food production. Citing ‘cost-cutting,’ Milei dismantled the National Institute of Family Farming whilst according to the labour movement’s anti-poverty charity War on Want (WOW) kept “policies which benefit large commodity traders such as Dreyfus, biotech corporations such as Monsanto and the large plantation landowners and agricultural oligarchies.”

Local farmers’ problems have been further exacerbated by Milei, another populist leader whose pre-election rhetoric of attacking elites always turns out if elected to be substituted by attacks on the working class, agreeing to facilitate the undermining of domestic food production by permitting the import of cheap imported basic foodstuffs.

The actions of Argentinean smallholders were mirrored globally and followed protests last year. Farmers in over 63 countries held national demos at the start of 2024. Indian farmers held marches in protest of a legal minimum support price guarantee for their crops. Protests across Europe have highlighted the lack of EU support for small farmers at the expense of large farmers and agribusinesses only too keen to drive them off the land.

According to a WOW spokesperson “Argentina  demonstrates how ultra-liberal governments in the Global South ally with foreign capital and large corporations, prioritising corporate profit and the extraction of natural resources over people’s sovereignty. Milei….  will exacerbate poverty and inequality…. peasants and indigenous communities will bear the brunt of environmental and social destruction.

“Latin American peasant movements ……….have long advocated for an alternative vision…. based on the principles of food sovereignty. Their lives and livelihoods must no longer be treated as expendable in the pursuit of corporate profit.”

Of course, the linking of the struggles of the smallholders and trade unionists –40% of Argentina’s 13 million workers – will be essential in what could be a life-or-death struggle. Trade unionists can best support their comrades in Argentina through the ITUC, Uni Global Union and IndustriALL.

A WOMAN’S BREW? The Devil’s in the Draught Lines

 A Unite Landworker book review 

A WOMAN’S BREW?

The Devil’s in the Draught Lines

1,000 years of women in Britain’s Beer History

Dr Christina Wade

CAMRA Books

Men now dominate the beer industry with just 4% of head brewers being women and even less being owners.

Beer historian Christina Wade’s highly interesting book, combining throughout each chapter the medieval world with the 21^st century, shows the imbalance, brought on by the Industrial Revolution, is relatively recent.

Even before hops were added, the primary producers of beer were women who today are acting as inspirations for a growing band of women re-assuming their roles within one of the most important cultural sectors of British society.

In 1203, Maud, wife of Hugh, was fined for selling a false gallon of ale. Women dominated the brewing industry in the Middle Ages in England, Scotland and Wales. They brewed sporadically, often when they needed money.

When the price of beer was frozen following the Black Death in the 1300s this proved unpopular amongst brewers in an era of rising wages that encouraged increasing alcoholic consumption, which in turn led to the early development of the public house.

In 1511 The Aberdeen Council Registers detailing the inner workings of the city reveals that 135 of the 136 of those who brewed beer for profit were women who reflecting the legal practices in place were referred to as a wife or widow.

In Scotland many women were accused over many centuries of witchcraft.  205 were executed and the story that ‘alewives’ inspired the modern image of the witch has become common. Wade, who runs a popular blog, meticulously debunks these myths.

Simultaneously in a book packed with unknown gems she credits Jane Robinson with highlighting the importance of Mary Seacole’s British Hotel behind enemy lines during the Crimean War. This served French beer and champagne to soldiers escaping, even briefly, the horrors of war.

Seacole, voted recently the greatest Black Briton, amongst whom today there includes a number of brewing owners such as Helena Adepipe of Peckham based Eko Brewery, also made a mean claret.

In the 19^th century many women ran pubs and alehouses with 24,652 compared to 48,533 men serving as proprietors in 1851. This resulted in, at least, some men seeking to have women removed from the trade by contending it was unproper for women to run public houses.

The situation facing barmaids, many of whom such as Charlotte Drake and Mary Elizabeth Phillips, were suffragettes, was also difficult. Low pay meant long hours. There was harassment.

The barmaids’ cause was taken up Eliza Orme, a leading suffragette and she helped compile report a report on barmaids for the Royal Commission in Labour. Trade union organisation though, like today across the hospitality sector, was difficult due to the barmaids’ isolation.

CAMRA has published Wade’s book which I’d strongly recommended reading over a glass – or two – of your favourite tipple.  

 

 

Bacup Borough and Boxing Day 2024

 

HIGH ON THE HILLS & 35 MINUTES FROM BLACKBURN, BACUP BOROUGH FC WOULD WELCOME SUNDERLAND FANS PRIOR TO THE BOXING DAY FIXTURE

 

Just 35 minutes from Ewood Park, Bacup Borough FC’s West View Ground high on the Pennines is surrounded by stunning moorlands in a town described by English Heritage as the best-preserved cotton mill town in England. Small wonder that it is one of the 100 must see venues in Mike Bayly’s classic book British Football’s Greatest Grounds.

In the distant past Boro faced League Champions Manchester United in 1912 in the FA Cup. Today, they continue to battle for a play-off spot in the North West Counties League Northern section. Visitors are guaranteed a warm welcome and the club can accommodate 70 people in the bar with plenty of food and drink. Debbie O’Connor, whose Prem Pie became famous a few years back when it featured on Sky Sports Cameras, is the lass to contact if any SAFCSA branches would like to book their bus in for a pre match drink. Individuals too are welcome to make contact.

Debbie is on 07930 148400 manager@bacupboroughfc.com

The address of the ground is Cowfoot Lane, Bacup OL13 8EE

Sunderland fan Mark Metcalf who has enjoyed many a game at Bacup.

Charlie Hurley's European debut in the first English side to play in Europe

 

On a night when the Wembley floodlights were finally plugged in to allow the first English side to play in Europe a new teenage star in Charlie Hurley was born.

Still a teenager, Charlie Hurley’s form for Millwall was so good during the first few months of the 1955-56 season that despite playing for a Third Division South club he was picked as part of the London XI side that became the first English team to play in a European competition, the Inter-City Fairs Cup. In Scotland, Hibernian, by entering the European Cup, became the first British club side to play in Europe.

The London XI game took place at Wembley against Frankfurt on Wednesday October 26th 1955 when the floodlights at the stadium were also employed for a match for the first time.

The line-up gives some idea of just how good Hurley already was at just nineteen:

Ted Ditchburn [Tottenham], Peter Sillett [Chelsea], Stan Willemse [Chelsea], Danny Blanchflower [Tottenham], Charlie Hurley [Millwall], Cyril Hammond [Charlton], Vic Groves [Orient], Bobby Robson [Fulham], Bedford Jezzard [Fulham], Roy Bentley [Chelsea], Charlie Mitten [Fulham].

Hurley and Vic Groves, both from Division Three South clubs, were the only players selected from outside the top flight.

Hurley’s teammate John Shepherd recalls: “It was no surprise that Charlie got selected to play at Wembley as he was a great player. He was very good in the air but he was also good with his feet. He’d get the ball down and look up and play it; in those days you didn’t see many defenders do that.

“Also nothing got by him. He’d knock it down off his chest. You could see he was going to be a special player. I played against John Charles when I was in the forces; Charlie was on a par with him in my view. He was a class act, but he was no stuck-up git and off the pitch he’s a nice bloke,” says a man who made 170 League and Cup appearances for Millwall, scoring an impressive 82 goals.

At Wembley, London recovered from going two-nil down before half-time to win the match 3-2. Hurley had an impressive match with Roy Peskett, writing below a massive ‘HURLEY HOLDS GERMANS’ headline in the Daily Mail, proclaiming that “cool, elegant, at times almost classical in his action, Hurley I think is going to figure among the great ones of soccer within a few years.”

Charlie Hurley remembers: “The fact that it was reported I had a good game at Wembley was great. I saw being picked for the London XI as my first honour in professional football. I’d gone from playing for Rainham Youth Club to running out at Wembley in less than two years. It was mind-boggling and I was a nervous wreck before the game. I believe that Alan Brown was at that match and I think my performance must have planted a little seed in his mind that led to him later signing me for Sunderland.

“I played alongside Danny Blanchflower, a quiet man. He had tremendous vision. It was said of him that he rarely tackled and he was frail, but he was the best one-touch player I ever saw and I learnt a lot from playing next to him.”