The greatest ever East-Lancs derby?

This article appears on the excellent Sport Northwest site at:-

http://www.sportnw.co.uk/the-greatest-east-lancs-derby-ever/

Look out for more on this most fascinating of derby matches in the next few months

1960 FA Cup quarter-final  

Burnley 3 Blackburn Rovers 3 

Blackburn’s quarter-final reward for their thrilling fifth round victory at White Hart Lane was a tie at Turf Moor against local rivals Burnley, who were chasing the championship as well as the FA Cup. But before this local derby could take place Burnley had to win their replay with Bradford City. It proved a formality as Burnley duly walloped the Yorkshireman 5-0 at Turf Moor. 

Not surprisingly, the Burnley encounter captured the imagination of the east Lancashire public – the two clubs still have a rivalry that matches any from Glasgow, the North East or north London. 

It was all-ticket with the capacity set at 54,000 and tickets with all a face value of 3 shillings exchanged hands for at least treble that outside the ground beforehand. 

Mick McGrath recalls the excitement: “After the Spurs game I felt we had a chance and when the draw came out and we would play Burnley if they won their replay then the whole town was abuzz. People were asking for tickets, and ‘Do you fancy your chances?’ 

“In those days teams like Burnley and Blackburn had a chance of keeping hold of their good players because the maximum wage meant that someone moving still got paid the same under the maximum wage, although people did move because it was rumoured they might have got some money under the counter.”

When the maximum wage was ended for footballers in 1961 it was £20 a week. Female sewing machinists at the Elgin manufacturing company near Burnley were in the early 60s earning just over £10 a week. On his wages, a footballer would have struggled to buy a car as Loxhams of Blackburn at the start of 1960 were selling 1958 Morris-Minor 2-door cars at £550 and 1959 Wolseleys at £675. It was hardly surprising that footballers, watched by thousands were threatening to strike in order to push up wages as well as end the practice whereby clubs could refuse players’ requests to move to another club.

Blackburn and Burnley had met three times in the FA Cup, including in the previous season when goals from Jimmy Robson and Jimmy McIlroy against a single effort from Peter Dobing had seen Burnley home by two goals to one at Turf Moor. That had been a game with more than its fair share of thrills, but it was nothing like the 1960 match staged on March 12^th. It produced one of the greatest FA Cup comebacks, sparked off by the awarding of a penalty that still rankles with older Burnley fans and ex-players. 

As so often seems to happen, the teams met in the league the weekend before the cup-tie, with both, despite Burnley gunning for the title, playing cautiously in a match described by ‘the Blackburn Times’ as “ being one of the most concentrated efforts in concealment since Hitler masked his real intentions when he met Chamberlain at Munich.”  Who said papers today have a tendency to exaggerate! Burnley won by a single goal to maintain their title challenge. 

FA Cup 6th Round: Saturday March 12, 1960.

Burnley 3 Blackburn Rovers 3 attendance: 51,501

Burnley: A.Blacklaw, J.Angus, A.Elder, B.Seith, B.Miller, J.Adamson, J.Connelly, J.McIlroy, R.Pointer, J.Robson, B.Pilkington.

Blackburn Rovers: H.Leyland, J.Bray, D.Whelan, R.Clayton, M.Woods, M.McGrath, L.Bimpson, P.Dobing, D.Dougan, B.Douglas, A.MacLeod.

Both sides were at full strength for the match with Blackburn again choosing Douglas at inside left and Bimpson at right wing. This meant was the direct contest between Jimmy McIlroy and Bryan Douglas to whet the appetite. Both sets of fans were adamant that their man was the better, with many believing that whoever came out on top in this personal battle would probably win the war. McIlroy was king at Turf Moor while Douglas is still was idolised at Ewood Park while McIlroy was king of Turf Moor and remains an iconic figure in the town. One of the stands at Turf Moor is named after him. 

But in spite of all the talent on show, the first half was poor, the cagey pattern of the previous weekend’s game carried on into the cup-tie.

Burnley were top early on but although they pressed hard it was still goalless at half-time with few chances having been created. 

Half Time: Burnley 0 Blackburn Rovers 0

When the game restarted, the home team, inspired by McIlroy, poured forward. What was astonishing was that Burnley’s talisman was not fully fit. He had been suffering for some time with a thigh muscle injury but Burnley needed him as they pressed Wolves and Spurs for the title. 

Just three minutes had gone in the second period when the Irishman picked open the Blackburn defence. Pilkington controlled the crossfield pass before blasting the ball past Leyland.

Louis Bimpson forced a flying save from Adam Blacklaw and then shot wide from an even better position. But Blackburn’s momentum proved illusory. Just nine minutes after taking the lead Burnley doubled it. 

From close to the byline McIlroy, in what he states in his autobiography was one of his favourite places on the field, shimmied past two defenders before picking out Ray Pointer, who knocked home one of 23 league and FA goals that he scored that season. 

With this two-goal cushion it seemed a place in the semi-final for the first time since 1947 was assured for Harry Potts and his team. Almost immediately Burnley grabbed a third.

Before the match only had thought that’s a long pass over the head of Dave Whelan would give John Connelly the chance to use his blistering pace and when Jimmy Adamson sent it just such a ball the winger left two startled defenders in his wake. Leyland plunged at his feet but the England winger duly lifted the ball with him and into the net. It was game, set, and match, surely?

One can only hope that no Blackburn fans decided on an early trip. Had they left they would have missed a remarkable comeback although initially it seemed Burnley would further extend their lead. 

The rivalry between the two sets of supporters was such that Burnley wanted to score more goals. With hindsight it may have been better to have shut up shop and run down the clock. Have they done that they might have gone on to become the first side in the 20th century to record the league and FA Cup ‘double’.  Still, at 3-0 up, what on earth could go wrong? 

The key moments in the match came after 70 minutes. Peter Dobing had rarely featured as an attacking threat and his shot appeared to be heading well wide only for the ball to hit defender Alex Elder’s foot and rise up and strike his hand. 

To a supporter it was either a clear penalty or a travesty, depending on which club you followed, but independent match report expressed surprise that referee Jack Hunt pointed to the penalty spot. Bryan Douglas converted the kick to make it 3-1. Surely this would prove to be just a consolation?

Not so, for within a minute the home fans had reason to wonder. The Burnley defence relaxed as Douglas appeared to mess up a free kick. The apparent disarray was a ruse: Douglas touched the ball to Dobing, who hit a reasonable but not unstoppable shot, but for Blacklaw seemed unsighted and it was 3-2.

There was still quarter of an hour left and the mood inside Turf Moor had changed.  Blackburn were in the ascendant and their fans were buoyant. Desperately Burnley tried to cling on, having given up any ideas of scoring a fourth in order to protect Adam Blacklaw in goal. The tension was rising as the final whistle moved ever closer.

Blackburn had fashioned an undeserved equaliser against Blackpool in the fourth round. Could they do it again? 

The answer was yes. A Matt Woods free kick was only half cleared and when Ronnie Clayton hacked it back towards goal it ricocheted perfectly into the path of Mick McGrath, the man who has scored the equaliser against Blackpool.

Blackburn weren’t and might even have won the game in the remaining minutes if either Dobing or Dougan shown McGrath’s composure by bringing better placed colleagues into play at Burnley’s defence evaporated. It was a draw but at the final whistle only one group of players and supporters were celebrating. Burnley might still have been in the 1960 FA Cup but who really believed the replay wouldn’t go Blackburn’s way?

Even fifty years later Jimmy McIlroy feels the hurt. “It was a disappointing result. There was no way Alex Elder tried to handle the ball or gain any benefit from handling it. The ball hit the ground and it must have hit a bump or something and just hit him on the hand. It did hit his hand but it was never intentional and should never have been a penalty. Alex was in tears afterwards; he couldn’t face going out as he put all our misfortune on his shoulders. I still prefer to blame a gentleman with a whistle called Mr Hunt. ” 

The view from the other side was put by Bryan Douglas – “ Alex Elder went for the ball with his arms up and the ball ricocheted and hit him on the arm, just above the elbow on the inside of the arm, If we’d been winning say 3-0 I am not sure we’d have got it, and I’ve seen them turned down but it threw us a chance.  I’d seen Burnley’s keeper Adam Blacklaw save one a few weeks earlier and I sent the ball to his left and it went in.

The second goal I remember very well, it came from practising on the training ground, we’d copied the idea from another side but I can’t remember who it was, we went to pretend we’d buggered up the free-kick in the hope that the other side would be taken off guard and then we could exploit that. 

“I pretended to take it and everyone ran, I then ran and then they stopped, everyone including the Burnley players were laughing at our stupidity, I then tapped it to Peter Dobing who was fully aware of what was happening and he cracked it past the keeper to make it 3-2. After Mick McGrath equalised we actually had a chance to win the match in the last minute when Dougan was clear on the left-hand side and he only had to square it to me. I was standing in the clear just yards out, the keeper was moving out to block him but Dougan preferred to shoot and the ball cannoned off the keeper’s legs

“Burnley had a good side; their forward line was something special in Connolly, McIlroy, Pointer, Robson and Pilkington. The rivalry was intense even in those days and the games were often not that great. Since I finished I’ve met a number of Burnley players and I’ve found them to be human. To be honest the rivalry is a bit unhealthy.

I definitely feel that football in those days was more exciting, there were more mistakes, but there was also more goalmouth action. I am not saying it was more skilful but in those days wingers and players tried to take on the full-backs and get to the by line. These days you never see a player leave the full back for dead, at times today the games can be like a game of chess.”

And the man who scored that dramatic equaliser Mick McGrath remembers: ‘We were dead and buried at Burnley, when we got a dubious penalty. 

II was only when we got back in the game at 3-2 that I ventured forward as I was a defensive wingback.  I remember the equaliser very well even many years later as Adam Blacklaw the Burnley keeper was on his knees and the ball came to me as I just hit it – my shot was sliced and this was why Adam went down one way and the ball went the other into the corner – it was a good miskick! 

“All of us were overjoyed, I was surrounded by the players which was very unusual for those days as normally when you scored you got a little tap off one or two players who then ran back to the halfway line. But after being three-nil down this was something a bit special. So the players sort of swamped me. Manager Dally Duncan from where he was watching couldn’t tell who’d scored and as we went off he asked, ‘who scored the equaliser?’ It was the best goal I scored for Rovers, but I did only score 12!” 

Blackburn Rovers 2 Burnley 0

In a match that never produced anything like the quality or excitement of the first match Blackburn qualified for their 16^th FA Cup semi-final courtesy of extra-time goals from Dobing and MacLeod. They deserved to win and reach a second semi-final at Maine Road in two years, their third in nine years. 

With Whelan and Bray marking Burnley’s wingers Connelly and Pilkington, Burnley struggled to gather any forward thrust, especially as their potential match winner Jimmy McIlroy did not enjoy it as much possession as in the first hour or so of the first game. Although pressed back for much of the game Burnley were never out of it and nearly snatched the winner with five minutes of normal time remaining when only a great save from Leyland stop Connelly from scoring.

The opening call came in the 13th minute of extra time after Dougan flicked on a free kick from Douglas for Dobing to steer the ball through the crowd of Burnley players in and around the six-yard box, a goal much like that scored by McGrath at Turf Moor. 

The goal was reward for Dobing’s persistence as in the first half of the game he’d been denied by two fine saves from Blacklaw, while on the second only a flying block by John Angus had prevented the Blackburn inside right opening the scoring. 

Any hopes that Burnley, and their considerable following, had of the game being rescued ended when, with two minutes of extra time remaining, Bimpson headed on a long throw from Clayton and McLeod, anticipating superbly, dashed beyond an exhausted Burnley defence to head the ball past Blacklaw and spark a minor pitch invasion by a section of the ecstatic home following. There was another a minute later, which had to be cleared by the police to allow the referee to play the final 30 seconds. 

Writing in the Blackburn Times, William Westall again praised Douglas who in his view “proved himself the outstanding craftsman by his diligent foraging, grafting and subtle moves”, However, in his view, Rovers won primarily through “a truly magnificent halfback line of Clayton, Woods and McGrath: every man a giant”. 

But it was McGrath who particularly caught his eye. He described him “as the finest play on the field: a footballing tiger, so relentless, so mercilessly dominant that Burnley seemed almost to be physically afraid of him. He not only played McIlroy right out of the picture, but also was often a sixth forward apparently intent on winning the game himself. I’ve never seen a player so uplifted by the Cup atmosphere’. 

Matt Woods reckons extra time should not have been necessary. 

“In the replay we should have won it in the first 90 minutes”. 

Not surprisingly, Jimmy McIlroy disagrees. “Looking back even now on those two games I still feel we could, and should have reached the semi-final…if not the Cup Final. Rovers scored five times against us but none came from a thoughtful, skillfully executed attack”. 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/FA-Cup-50-Years/dp/1899807918/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362681752&sr=1-9

Trade unionists gather council support to ban blacklisting firms

Published in the Big Issue in the North magazine 25 Feb-2 March 2013. 

A blacklisted building worker from Ilkley has received the support of his council leader in his battle to have firms involved in the practice banned from securing council contracts.

Electrician Sandy McPherson is one of at least 201 construction workers known to have either lived or worked in Yorkshire and Humberside whose names appear on the Consulting Association  (CA) database of 3,213 workers used by 44 building companies to vet potential new recruits over the last four decades. The companies include Carillion, Balfour Beatty and Sir Robert McAlpine. In January the latter two admitted, to MPs at a select committee hearing, using the CA services to vet workers on Olympic sites.

Unanimous

Many of the workers on the CA database were “not recommended for employment.” According to the GMB trade union fewer than one in ten are aware they are listed and none have been compensated. McPherson’s file with the CA stated: ‘Subject joined company (Haden Young) on February 18 1980, he is a shop steward and very active undercover.’ He was subsequently sacked won £600 compensation for unfair dismissal.

McPherson’s details were revealed after the Information Commissioner’s Office closed down CA in 2009 and its owner, Ian Kerr, was found guilty of breaching the Data Protection Act. McPherson believes his subsequent inability in the mid-1980s to find work on the larger London building sites, where as a result of trade union activities the pay and conditions are traditionally better, could have been a consequence of his CA listing. McPherson subsequently moved north in 1992 and as he approaches retirement he is still working as a self-employed electrician.

In December councillors in Hull unanimously voted to remove blacklisting firms from its list of council contractors. McPherson’s Unite union branch then asked Bradford, Wakefield, Leeds, Calderdale and Kirklees councils requesting them to follow suit. Leeds City Council has just awarded Carillion a £10 million contract to strengthen and repair the A58 Woodhouse Tunnel in the centre of Leeds and all five councils have contracts with companies that used CA.

Unjustifiable

McPherson is a resident of Bradford Council, where the Labour council leader Dave Green has written to him saying: “We are currently looking at adding to our procurement requirement protocols that would address your concerns. I find it totally unjustifiable that firms that have carried out illegal blacklisting or have broken other laws relating to employment or health and safety should be able to bid for public sector contracts with impunity.”

A “delighted” McPherson hopes the other four councils written to will now respond positively. He is also pleased that Liverpool City Council has passed a motion calling on construction firms seeking major contracts locally to affirm they would never again use blacklists to stop people getting work. Around 150 people from Merseyside were listed on the CA files.

A national Blacklist Support Group (BSG), which was established three years ago, has won the support of Labour Party for a public inquiry into blacklisting. However Business Secretary Vince Cable, who is opposed, said:  “If it is actually going on, it is a serious matter and it needs investigation. I, of course, will want to see it properly investigated, but we want some evidence.”

The BSG is pursuing a case through the High Court for compensation for blacklisted workers.

New laws to help hunted hunters?

Nobody likes birds of prey being persecuted. Now, following Scotland’s introduction last year of legislation making landowners responsible for actions by their employees, including gamekeepers, the RSPB has submitted a response to the Law Commission’s review of wildlife law in England and Wales which includes strong support for the introduction of a similar criminal vicarious liability law.

The Scottish Parliament took action following a number of high profile cases where golden eagles had been poisoned. Between 1989 and 2011, the RSPB calculated, at least, 50 of these iconic birds had been shot or poisoned. The majority of deaths occurred in the central, northern and southern Highlands, where driven grouse shooting is far more commercially viable than in other regions of the country. 

Over the border, grouse shooting is also driving the hen harrier, one of England’s best-known birds of prey, towards extinction. Ornithologists have long enjoyed the sky dancing courtship displays by the male, a beautiful pearly grey with distinctive black wingtips and smaller than the rich brown coloured female with a distinctive white rump.

Yet with less than 10 pairs breeding annually its future remains uncertain. That’s despite “a 2011 report by the JNCC estimating that England’s uplands and moorlands could support 323 pairs” reports Jude Lane, the RSPB’s project officer on the United Utilities’ Forest of Bowland 24,000 acre estate near Clitheroe. On this the RSPB, the water company and their upland hill farming and grouse shooting tenants have collaborated to protect the hen harrier since 1982. 

Hen harriers have bred on the estate in varying numbers since they returned to Bowland in the late 60s. “In 2011 there were seven nesting attempts, of which four were successful and 12 birds were reared,” explains Jude.

But the 2012 breeding season turned out to be disastrous for the hen harrier, with no nesting attempts in the Forest of Bowland and only one successful nest in all of England. It was also marred by one of the twelve young that fledged the previous year being found dead on a grouse moor in North Yorkshire after the satellite tracker she was fitted with indicated something was wrong. Detailed forensic analysis concluded she had been shot.

Bowland Forest, once a royal hunting ground, is an area of deep valleys and barren gritstone fells. Its blanket bog and heather moorland habitat is perfect not only for hen harriers but also the Red Grouse. The latter are specially reared for shooting. Bags of between eighty and two hundred a day are offered for those who can afford to pay from £160 to £1,500.  

The Duke of Westminster’s 19,000-acre Abbeystead estate in Bowland Forest holds the record for a single days shoot, when 2929 grouse were shot on August 12 1915. Today, the estate organises around 30 shoots annually and visitors are helped get there by road signs depicting a hen harrier. Not that anyone would see any such bird on the Duke’s land, even though the habitat is no different to that of the nearby United Utilities estate. On Dartmoor and Exmoor in southwest England it’s a similar story, plenty of grouse but few hen harriers. 

Landowners deny killing hen harriers and the British association for shooting and conservation has promised to expel any of its members found guilty of doing so. Proving that has been the case isn’t easy. It was the RSPB’s work that helped establish wildlife crime (police) officer’s posts and they have long campaigned for more. Yet even those appointed “usually do it part-time, with cases at the edge of their desk,” says Bob Elliot, head of investigations at the RSPB, which is the largest wildlife conservation charity in Europe with over one million members and 17,600 volunteers. 

As such the majority of the reported incidents - totalling 202 in 2011 - of illegal shooting, trapping and nest destruction of birds of prey are the result of initial reports from members of the organisation. Two-thirds originated in England and a quarter in Scotland. The RSPB believes the number of unreported incidents is likely to be considerably higher.

Prosecutions are relatively rare. In 2011 there were only 42 individual cases totalling 152 charges, with 137 proven. Just 13 people went to prison.  Elliot wants prosecutions to drop but “only if people change their behaviour such that we see rare species re-occupying spaces they should be in.” 

The wildlife and natural environment (Scotland) act 2011 came into operation in Scotland on January 1^st last year. Elliot has seen it force a review of practices at some shooting locations, with land owners and managers required to show they did not know about a wildlife bird crime and took all reasonable steps and due diligence to prevent it. New snaring provisions mean operators are required to successfully complete a training course. Snares now require fitting with an ID tag and number. 

Elliot also reports that there has been a dramatic drop in poisoning figures in Scotland in 2012 and he hopes the new legislation is the reason for this.  As a result, whilst the RSPB is neutral on shooting, Elliot believes, “with these beautiful birds continuing to be killed it is time for the UK government to follow Scotland and adopt similar legislation.”  

Meanwhile, with the hen harrier on the brink of extinction, Elliot is also desperate to see the government implement an emergency recovery plan.  

“Birds of prey such as the Hen Harrier, Peregrine, Red Kite, Goshawk, White-tailed eagle are stunning species and part of our natural heritage. They have existed for thousands of years and have as much right as ourselves to exist” says Jude Lane.  

The Law Commission is due to report its findings from the public consultation to Defra in Spring, with the intention to publish a final report with recommendations and draft bill by mid-2014. 

Unite scientist challenges UN claims that there is little new agricultural land

Charlie Clutterbuck, who is an executive committee member on the Unite  Agricultural Workers National Committee, is mapping the Ribble and Calder Valleys in Lancashire and Yorkshire to highlight how the land there could be used to grow more food by prioritising fruit and vegetables.  

Clutterbuck aims to challenge government and United Nations reports that claim there is little new land worldwide for agriculture and that therefore farmers must raise yields on existing land without damaging the environment. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations calls this process “sustainable intensification” but critics say that is a contradiction in terms that can’t be achieved.

Clutterbuck, a former adviser on securing food supplies to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee agreed there is no additional land for wheat or rape production in the UK. But he said: “There is land, much of it uncultivated and classed as waste, that could be – even helped by climate change – turned from grass to fruit and vegetable production.

“Victorian gardeners once grew pineapples in Cheshire, so change is possible. Scientific research should be directed towards strategies that seek to improve access to locally produced foods, which will also increase social cohesion between urban and rural dwellers.” 

Clutterbuck envisages grazing or pasture land for livestock and brownfield sites would be turned over to fruit and vegetables. The Ribble and Calder valleys are mainly used for grazing. Upland moorland would become forests with clearings for growing everything from herbs to strawberries. 

Clutterbuck has welcomed plans by the new owners of a 20-acre Yorkshire farm near Todmorden. Monica Murtagh and David Templeman are planting over 11,00 trees on sharply undulating land at Warland Farm. The joint project with not-for-profit re-forestation group Treesresponsibility could help combat the flash flooding that has hit Calder valley Towns such as Todmorden and Hebden Bridge. Trees soak up as much as 30 per cent of water and help bind together the soil to help prevent erosion and landslips. 

Coppice woodlands were once common in the UK, but today there is just 21,583 hectares of actively managed coppice.  The UK, with just 12% of land under woodland cover currently lags well behind the rest of Europe, where the average is 36%. 

The wood at Warland Farm will belong to the landowners. They intend using some for fuel and selling some of the rest. 

Wood will also be used in the woodwork shop currently under construction in one of the large barns. “People with traditional skills will be able to practice and pass on their skills, while also manufacturing products for sale,” said Murtagh. 

Templeman added: “Alongside tall apple, cherry, pear and hazelnut fruit trees that are nitrogen fixers, forest clearings will be used to grow gooseberries, raspberries, strawberries, herbs like thyme and sage, quince currants and common vegetables like asparagus and rhubarb. The major benefit of a  forest garden is that it consists of perennial plants and once they are settled the plants grow and bear more crops as the years pass. There’s less work as there’s no replanting, little tilling of the soil and no pulling out of dead plants. 

The biggest work of a forest garden lies in its design. If we get that right then the harvesting of the food is the biggest job. 

“We think we can grow food for 20 local families, who in return will contribute their time and labour.” 30 people have just attended an open day for those who might want to get involved. 

Clutterbuck said: “It would be great to see people follow David and Monica’s example. The land may be difficult to work but it is capable of producing food and habitation. There is a broad range of biological possibilities and that is the fun of gardening. Those farmers who currently get EU agricultural payments for just having land should be encouraged to grow fruit and vegetables, whilst public land could be utilised in a similar fashion to the Incredible Edible local food growing schemes on wasteland at Todmorden.” 

Clutterbuck has already mapped out 11 potentially useful local sites and more will follow. At Chorley, he has discovered there used to be 40 orchards; at Saltaire he has discovered allotments on many former brownfield sites; near Burnley land used for sheep is identified as once having grown oats or rye.

At Ilkley on Wheatley Lane he speculates whether part of the recreation ground next to Tesco could be used to grow vegetables for the store. “I’d hope to make the results widely available and if people would like to help they should go to my Look At The Land website,” said Clutterbuck.

A report written for the UK government’s Department for Business echoes the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations call for higher yields on existing land.

The UK currently imports 40 per cent of its food. Prices have risen and some products are in short supply because of the bad weather over the summer. Meanwhile, the emergence of vast middle classes in China and India has increased competition for food-producing land.

For more see Charlie’s site at:- https://sites.google.com/site/lookattheland/

Food workers strike action leaves good taste

Strike action by 1,400 Unite members at the 2 Sisters Food Group in the West Midlands has won an inflationary busting wage rise, paid time off for workers injured at work and major concessions on holidays and car parking charges.

It’s a remarkable achievement that shows the benefits of workers sticking together within Britain’s biggest union. Now the struggle is on to ensure workers are properly represented at one of the UK’s largest food suppliers.

The chicken meat processing company has grown considerably in recent years after acquiring Fox’s Biscuits, Matthew Walker Christmas Puddings, Holland’s Pies, Goodfella’s pizzas and cake manufacturers Brookes Avana. With 35 manufacturing sites in the UK and Ireland, six in Holland and one in Poland the company employs around 18,000 people with annual sales now exceeding £2.3 billion.

Advertising on their website the company states: ‘Our business philosophy puts the customer at the heart of everything……in order to deliver a product of the highest quality and integrity. We strive to achieve this through a motivated and well trained workforce.’

Such warm words were not though working out in practice with pay rates of just £6.22 for many workers across four sites in Smethwick and Wolverhampton. Industrial accidents – especially from knife injuries to hands - were a major problem, temperatures at work were often cold, bullying and malicious allegations against staff was rife and 2 Sisters were even proposing charging £10 a week to park in the work’s car park.

With many workers having originally hailed from the Indian sub-continent or Eastern Europe the refusal by the company to grant extended holiday leave to visit relatives was also a bone of contention. Agency staff was also being forced to stand outside factories on a daily basis in the hope that production managers would come out and select them for work.

With under half the workforce unionised, Unite officials began extensively working last summer with newly elected stewards and convenors in taking up cases individually important to different shifts, sites and nationalities. Stewards gave up many hours of their own time to persuade their fellow workers to join Unite.

“We were here there and everywhere, taking up cases and telling everyone we would stand up for them and that by joining the union we could pressurise management into agreeing improvements in pay and working conditions for all” explains works convenor Raghvinder Pooni, who today has the backing of 32 shop stewards including his deputy convenor, Daoud Khan. Stewards are elected across the four sites by the 80% plus of workers that are now Unite members.

This combined strength meant in August 2012, when 2 Sisters management offered in return for proposed changes in working practices a derisory pay rise and no concessions on a list of legitimate complaints, that 15-minute protests were organised outside factories at shift change over periods between 2pm and 2.30pm. 

Unite regional officer Des Quinn had stressed, “members anger at their treatment should not be ignored.” When management chose to do just that, a secret ballot drew 98.5% in favour of strikes.

Friday December 14, the first day in which workers withdrew their labour, was an unexpectedly happy one for Daoud Khan, who rushed from the birth of his fifth child to join hundreds of noisy, well-behaved pickets whose actions made the regional news and television. (*) Workers from other local workplaces and trade unions joined strikers, whilst many in the local community were supportive. “I think everyone was very proud of their efforts in standing up for our needs and rights,” says Daoud.

A company approach to resolve the dispute led to the calling off of a second strike  date as negotiations got underway. 

““Pay went up by 28 pence an hour (4.6%) and if we can resolve issues around childcare and travel arrangements then it should be possible to agree changes in working practices that will make further increases in pay. We want all workers to be on a living wage. This includes agency staff, who management have agreed will now be hired by human resources, who will also examine allegations of bullying and intimidation,” says Des Quinn. 

“They have scrapped the car parking charges and agreed to longer holiday breaks as well as paid sick leave for workers who can demonstrate they were injured at work. We still have work to do before agreeing everything, but negotiations with management are ongoing,” says Raghvinder.

As convenor and deputy convenor, Raghvinder and Daoud, currently have facility paid time away from their knife and hygiene supervisor posts only for appeals and disciplinary hearings. Des Quinn believes this is “not sufficient.” He is seeking from 2 Sisters management additional facility time so that Unite’s hundreds of members can be assured in the future of enjoying a more secure, safe working environment with even better pay. 

Well done to everyone at 2 Sisters. 

Union video’s

Unite also produced its own youtube video on the strike. 

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLe6iOq93PY

Unite began making short news videos to try and combat the bias against trade unions in the mainstream media and ensure the union presented a balanced portrait to the outside world.

These short-films are used to put the worker and union’s point of view across. When used correctly and in conjunction with social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, it can be a relatively quick way of keeping those involved in a campaign or dispute up-to-date with the latest developments in a form that is easy to digest.

As part of Unite’s developing social media and e-comms strategy, the union is hoping to increase the use of videos to keep members informed. This can range from how Unite is supporting its members, disputes, marches and rallies, but it is also a great vehicle to drive members as to what they can do to support the union.

More kids to be killed in agriculture?

Despite the absence of positive comments to its consultation the HSE has moved closer to scrapping an effective tool in preventing serious injuries and deaths to children from agriculture. 

The approved code of practice (ACOP) on Preventing accidents to children in agriculture was first written in 1988. Since when the numbers of children killed each year has fallen from six to just two with serious accidents down from 25 to 12. 

Unite was keen to retain the code and submitted a well-researched considered response to the HSE’s recent consultation on proposals to scrap it. 

The union was in a minority, with 62% respondents agreeing with the proposal. Not that they presented any positive proposals for doing so. At the HSE Board meeting in December a report on the ‘positive impacts of proposal identified’ identified “few comments from respondents.” At best a number had indicated support for “reviewing the other HSE publications that provide guidance on child safety on agriculture.” 

This less than ringing endorsement has sadly not stopped the HSE Board – which now contains Howard Shiplee, an executive director at the construction company Laing O’Rourke, one of the companies named by Unite and other unions in a major UK safety blacklisting scandal of trade union safety reps – agreeing to bring forward a paper formally proposing the withdrawal of the ACOP on child safety.

It’s enough to make you weep, which is just what an increasing number of parents, brothers and sisters will be doing in the not too distant future.

No wonder the Unite national health and safety adviser Susan Murray admits to being “dismayed” and continues to argue: “it would be safer to update the ACOP to take account of legislative changes and relaunch it as part of a new farm safety campaign, coupled with a programme of proactive enforcement by the HSE. I hope, even at this late stage the government will listen to reason.” 

REWRITING HISTORY: Holocaust Revisionism Today: Book review

REWRITING HISTORY: Holocaust Revisionism Today is an ebook from the civil rights campaign group, HOPE NOT HATE. 

The Holocaust was the state sponsored-mass murder during World War II of six million European Jews by Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers' Party. (Nazi Party)  Approximately two-thirds of the Jews who then resided in Europe were confined in overcrowded ghettos before being transported by freight train to extermination camps and systematically killed in gas chambers. Other racial and political opponents were also amongst those killed. Disabled people also suffered heavy losses.  

The original Holocaust deniers were the Nazis themselves who employed innocuous language referring to ‘evacuation’ and ‘special treatment.’ Desperate efforts were made by the Nazis to cover up their crimes in the last few months of the war, gas chambers being hurriedly dynamited, camps abandoned and records burnt. 

Unable however to destroy all the evidence - and leaving behind some survivors of the camps - meant that post-war attempts to whitewash the monstrous crimes of the Nazi regime inevitably came up against historical reality. This has necessitated a shift in emphasis, especially after David Irving, Britain’s foremost Holocaust denier, lost his libel action against an American academic, Professor Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin Books, in 2000. In parts of Europe, denial of the Holocaust is a crime and prosecutions have  reduced the capacity of many leading activists to function.

This has seen Holocaust deniers shift their attention to the Middle East, mounting attempts to utilise the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict to reach out to some Muslim countries on the basis of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend.” Palestinians it is argued are the real victims of the Nazi Party, as without the Holocaust there would be no be state of Israel and no conflict in the Middle East. 

The book provides many examples of leading figures in Middle Eastern politics providing support for Holocaust Revisionists, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who in 2005 said: “They have fabricated a legend, under the name Massacre of the Jews.” In December 2006 Iran sponsored a ‘Review of the Holocaust’ conference that attracted anti semites from across the globe. Those present heard David Duke, the former Ku Klux Khan leader, give a keynote speech. A contingent from Britain attended, including Lady Michele Renouf, who in the past has shared a platform with BNP leader Nick Griffin.

Griffin, who was elected in 2009 as a Euro MP for North West England, is one of 40  people - including six from Britain - profiled in REWRITING HISTORY. In 1998 Griffin was prosecuted for inciting racial hatred after his remarks included him saying: “the extermination tale that six million Jews were gassed is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda.” 

Others associated with the BNP have also denied the Holocaust. Simon Sheppard was a former organiser for the fascists in Hull and in 2008 he mailed Tales of the Holohoax to the Blackpool Reform Synagogue. Sheppard was the front man for a range of extremist groups and had hosted websites such as Redwatch, which targets political opponents for attacks by posting their postal details on-line. 

In 2009, Sheppard was jailed for three years and ten months for inciting racial hatred via a foreign website.

REWRITING HISTORY: Holocaust revisionism today can be downloaded free in PDF and EPUB format

at http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/shop/rewriting-history