RIP Charlie Hurley (04-10-1936: 22-04-2024)
The 35 minute podcast on which I appear around 15 minutes is at:-
https://www.a-love-supreme.com/single-post/charlie-hurley-tribute-podcast
Monday, 29 April 2024
The flowers of freedom: How a red carnation freed Portugal of tyranny – 50 years ago today
The flowers of freedom
How a red carnation freed Portugal of tyranny – 50 years
ago today
Thursday, April 25th, 2024
Reading time: 10 min
From Unite Live
https://unitelive.org/portugal-carnation-revolution-50-years-ago-today/
April 25, 1974 – and the world witnessed a 48-year authoritarian reign of terror that had stunted industrial development being swept aside in Portugal by a coup led by middle ranking army officers.
Known as the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) they had become
radicalised by the Iberian nations determination to retain its sprawling
colonial empire, large parts of which in Africa were fighting back and winning.
The MFA cut the head off the armed forces by getting rid of 100 generals.
The coup, mainly in Lisbon, unleashed a torrent of workers’
activity that, following a 19-month period when their existed the possibility
of a socialist transformation, helped bring about a democratic revolution
that dramatically raised Portuguese living standards, freedoms and horizons.
Portugal’s fascist dictator, Antonio de Oliveira Salazar was
a contemporary of Hitler, Franco and Mussolini and ruled one of Europe’s oldest
countries, a key UK ally, from 1932 to 1968. He died in 1970.
Sham elections had followed in which the government
candidate ran virtually unopposed whilst other parties used the limited
freedoms to protest. The secret police – the PIDE – which could arrest anyone
considered to be plotting against the regime continued to harass, imprison and
murder communists, socialists and trade unionists, forcing all of them to
organise secretly.
Meanwhile, brutal colonial wars continued to be waged in
Mozambique, Angola and Guinea-Bissau by the Portuguese state that, with Salazar
keen to retain his title of Emperor, had, unlike other major colonial
powers that had abandoned their colonies following WWII, chosen to continue to
occupy.
Change was desperately needed.
Yet hardly anyone was aware when they woke up on April 25,
1974 that it was already happening. A coup had started after rebel soldiers had
heard their secretly agreed signal at 12.20am on Radio Renascence. This
consisted of the playing of a song by Zeca Afonso ‘Grandola, Vila Morena.’
Following which troops immediately began occupying strategic points of power in
the country. The song later became famous as the anthem of the revolution.
When the generals then found troops not involved in the plot
were unwilling to follow orders to attack their comrades and were, in fact,
desperate to participate in the revolt then it was clear that, despite the PIDE
shooting dead four of the demonstrators, an unstoppable movement had begun.
It was one that with rebel troops taking to wearing red
carnations in their gun barrels became known as the Carnation Revolution.
A spontaneous mass movement then exploded across the
country. Factories were occupied and enormous demonstrations organised.
Now married to Unite Landworker photographer Peter Smith and
happily living in Norfolk, the then 17-year-old João Zilanova (pictured
in main photo) was a high school student living with her grandparents in the
University town of Coimbra outside Lisbon.
She had spent her formative years in Mozambique. Her dad was
an agronomist providing technical support to the white farmers, many of whom
treated local people very badly, sent to populate the southeast African country
occupied by the Portuguese following their arrival there in 1498.
“He was a secret socialist. The local people who worked for
us were not treated as servants. My mother, a kindergarten teacher, began
providing social services like weighing babies locally for everyone, black and
white. We were unusual but being so far from Portugal meant the secret police
were not everywhere. We had books from all the great socialist writers.”
The Mozambique War of Independence between the FRELIMO
guerilla forces and Portugal had started in 1964. Despite driving everywhere in
his Land Rover; João’s dad was never attacked. “The guerilla’s saw their enemy
as the Portuguese military led by General Spinola. Dad was often told to stay
away from areas that might prove to be dangerous.” João s dad was also in
Lisbon on April 25, 1974.
“No one knew what was coming. My sister and I went to High
School on the morning of the 25th and at lunchtime they told us
to go home. We caught the bus, when we saw a demo, we joined in. My father was
delighted,” states Joao.
“The disastrous overseas wars had inspired the initial
rebellion but then the workers came to play a big role. It was like the cork
coming out of a bottle of Champagne. Workers occupied factories and mass
meetings discussed how to re-organise society. The atmosphere was electric,
everything seemed possible. Women played a big role.”
Backed by the Catholic Church, Salazar’s reactionary family
values had blocked women from working in many workplaces.
The Catholic radio station Renascensa, founded in 1936, was
occupied. People tuned to hear what was happening. It told people, who for
decades had feared talking openly to their neighbours in case it led to them
being reported to the authorities, to come to protest in the streets or support
occupations.
Searching for a new way of living was difficult. In
1975, London born Carlos
Guarita, a Unite Community member from Dorset, returned to the country
where he had lived with his grandparents in the 1950s.
His Portuguese parents had fled to London to escape poverty
and possible persecution after his dad participated in a tram strike that was
defeated when his workplace was occupied by the PIDE and military.
Speaking from Lisbon, where he has joined the 50th anniversary
celebrations, Carlos, who was later a TGWU steward at Ford Dagenham before
becoming a photographer who specialised in working in war zones, said: “It was
a very confused situation in 1975. That was not too surprising especially as
many people were illiterate plus there was no recent history of open political
discussion. There were 13 parties of the left. Workers were left confused.
Plus, change had not been initiated from below by the masses. There were no
horizontal structures and state power remained.” This later allowed members of
the Salazar government and his PIDE thugs to escape justice for their crimes.
A coalition government that included the Socialist Party and
the Communist Party was established. Yet despite the fact that the elections in
April 1975 took place in a period of revolutionary ferment, most Portuguese
voted for parties committed to pluralistic democracy.
Meanwhile, new forms of trade unions had been established.
It is estimated that around 380 self-managed factories and 500 co-ops were in
operation by the summer of 1975. Empty housing properties too were occupied.
Banks were nationalised.
By August 1975 official statistics showed that over 330
different land collectives were operating.
“This was because landless farmworkers seized land allowing
them to secure production of crops from their land that were collectively
organised and controlled by the workers not the government. This allowed
farmworkers to provide themselves with regular employment, lifting themselves
out of poverty but also increasing agricultural products to be exported,”
explains Bev Clarkson, Unite National Officer for Food, Drink and
Agriculture (FDA). “This is the power workers have if they work
collectively together, in short this is grass roots trade unionism.”
By September 1975, Guinea-Bissau had gained
independence and talks were underway on the liberation of the other colonies.
According to retired farmworker John Burbidge, who chairs the
Tolpuddle Unite FDA branch, these developments helped create revolutionary
change across Southern Africa. “Ian Smith’s Rhodesia and the Apartheid
regime in South Africa could no longer rely on Portuguese military backing and
Mozambique became a base for guerilla raids into South Africa by the APLA. This
forced De Klerk to release Nelson Mandela and negotiate the end of Apartheid.”
In Portugal in November 1975 an attempted coup by far-left
activists keen to establish communism was supressed in favour of more
democratic means of running the country.
A new constitution, followed by elections, was accepted in
April 1976. By declaring the extensive nationalisations and land seizures of
1975 irreversible meant, even though the co-ops, collectives and workers’
committee had to negotiate on capitalist terms for the price of the labour, a
much brighter future lay ahead for the Portuguese people.
Such has proved to be the case. “Electrification of
the whole country has facilitated a stronger industrial base. There have been
massive improvements in the education and health systems,” states Carlos, who
is also proud that after 1974, Portuguese exiles in Britain established the
International Workers’ Branch in the TGWU.
João too recognises how life for ordinary Portuguese has
improved in the last 50 years.
“When my granddad died, my grandmother did not even have a
pension to exist on. People worked till they died. And there were no social
services. That changed after the mid-70s. Life has improved as a result
of the April 25, 1974 Revolution that was so exciting to be a part of and that
ended fascism in Portugal and brought about a form of social democracy. I am
delighted to be here today in Lisbon on the 50th anniversary.”
Sue Longley, general secretary of the International
Food, Farm and Hotel workers told UNITElive, “The 50th anniversary of the
Carnation Revolution is a timely reminder that we can never take democracy for
granted.
“It brought an end Europe’s longest-lasting dictatorship and
was the beginning of the end of Portugal’s colonial empire.
“Looking around the world today we see the rise of the right
and the increasing attacks on democracy. As in 1974 so now, trade unions around
the world must fight to protect democracy. This should be our way to honour the
Carnation Revolution.”
FIND OUT MORE
João recommended the novel A Small Death in
Lisbon by Robert Wilson for readers keen to find out more about
the historical context of the 1974 Revolution and its aftermath.
By Mark Metcalf
Photos by Peter Everard-Smith
Former Derbyshire mining community celebrates its football heritage and commemorates colliery workers as three plaques unveiled: Derbyshire Times
Great day.
Former Derbyshire mining community celebrates its
football heritage and commemorates colliery workers as three plaques unveiled
Three plaques have been unveiled in Blackwell commemorating
the village's colliery workers as well as two FA footballers who played for the
local football team - Willie Layton and Billy ‘Fatty’ Foulke.
Delighted to help open Hackney Art Activism Festival
It was great to play a role in opening the 10 day Hackney Art Activism Festival on Saturday 27 April.
My role was to speak about the work of the Colin Roach Centre between 1993 and 1999 and I followed Graham Smith who spoke of the work of the Hackney Community Defence Association.
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Times article justifies my decision to challenge Charlie Hurley on the title of his authorised biography
Charlie Hurley died on 22 April 2024.
Back in 2006 when I met my dad's favourite footballer Charlie Hurley to discuss getting his backing for the book I was writing on him the meeting went well and Charlie agreed for it to become an authorised biography. It came out in October 2008 and was a big success. A series of public speaking events went, especially in the North East, very well.
As we moved towards publication date one issue that did concern Charlie was the title "The Greatest Centre Half the World has ever seen" and which was taken from the chant by Sunderland fans "Whose the Greatest Centre Half the World has ever seen?" Charlie felt it might lead to some of his ex team mates, as footballers do, having a joke at his expense and alsoseem a bit big headed.
I was insistent that was the title, stating "it is your legacy this book and that is what the fans who loved you thought" and so it stayed as the title. Amidst the many articles written following his death relatively few have done Charlie justice in terms of his ball control and ability to direct the play. So it was great to read The Times obituary, clearly written using the book, that does the great man justice.
RIP Charlie.
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Tuesday, 23 April 2024
RURAL REBELS AT HEART
RURAL REBELS AT HEART
From the Peasants’ Revolt to defending local services, there’s
a Unite rural member at the heart of it
Slightly longer version of article from Spring 2024
edition of a Unite Landworker article, which is below.
The National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers
(NUAW), which lives on as part of Unite, features prominently in the Museum
of English Rural Life (MERL) online exhibition on The Evolution of English
Rural Life that also incorporates earlier rural protests plus Joseph Arch’s
National Agricultural Labourers’ Union (NALU) of the 19th
century.
The countryside has always been marked by class struggle.
The 1381 Peasants’ Revolt that had numerous causes was triggered by the ruling
class attempting to pay for an expensive war in France by collecting unpaid
poll taxes.
Brought on by the prospect of starvation, the Captain
Swing riots of 1830 across southern and eastern England saw barns set
alight and the smashing of threshing machines that had replaced flails, which
feature in the exhibition.
Four years later an attempt by landless labourers at
Tolpuddle to form a trade union led to persecution and the deportation of six
men that in the aftermath resulted in such massive protests that the men were
eventually allowed to return home.
And so it goes on. Rural resentment continued to simmer.
Labourers needed a voice. That was found in the figure of Joseph Arch, a
hedger and ditcher from Bedford whose natural talent for speaking drew enormous
crowds. He was able to form NALU in 1872. Within two years 86,000 labourers –
around a tenth of the rural workforce - had joined and wages had been improved.
However, when the farmers imposed a lock out and drove
conditions back down it forced some of the best militants to seek work overseas
and the union collapsed in 1895, by which time Arch had become a Liberal MP.
With poverty causing real countryside hardship the NUAW saw
rural workers re-organise. The new union began in 1906 in Norfolk where major
strikes broke out in three villages in 1910-11. Pay was upped and a Saturday
half-day won. The NUAW’s first banner from 1913 is displayed online.
Victoria Cross
William Holmes had worked closely with George Edwards to
establish the NUAW. He became its General Secretary and later told American
trade unionists: "In many of our villages, a man who joins a trade union
is worthy of the Victoria Cross that's won on a battlefield. In many villages
he dare not be known to be a member of the union. But to be a branch secretary!
That is to risk one's livelihood every day in the week".
Which brings us to today. We meet three of our own ‘rural
rebels.’
It is a belief echoed decades later by NUAW activists in Tony
Gould and Barry Leathwood who alongside Chris Kaufmann also subsequently worked
for the union and who together in the mid-80s contributed heavily to the book SKILLED
AT ALL TRADES – The History of the farmworkers’ union 1947-1984, at which
point the NUAW amalgamated with the Transport and General Workers Union (UNITE)
that also had its own agricultural sector.
The only voice of dissent
Tony Gould had gone to grammar school but enjoyed working
with animals, so began as a general farm boy before progressing to becoming a pig herd manager. He was 28
when, unimpressed by the inequalities he witnessed on a large Cornwall estate,
he joined the NUAW as they “were the only voice of dissent… I saw farmworkers
who lived blameless lives, yet they were very poor”.
As a Labour Party member, Gould was unimpressed by farmers
that went around talking about honesty but who were engaging in tax evasive
activities.
He knew the NUAW were represented on the Agricultural Wages
Board (AWB) and would stick up for them if they were sacked and being forced to
leave the tied accommodation which came with their job. Around two-thirds of
Gould’s fellow workers on a relatively large farm were NUAW members but which,
nevertheless, the employer refused to recognise.
His employer, who three months earlier had told him
that his job and trade union activities were
incompatible, showed Tony no mercy and sacked him. Fortunately, the NUAW then
stepped in with a favourable grant to allow him to study at Ruskin College,
Oxford. Just before completing his degree, he became the Kent NUAW District
Officer in June 1975. He remained a union official for 30 years and even today
is active as the branch secretary of the Tolpuddle Unite branch.
“I was delighted to represent farm and rural workers. One of
the major struggles was opposing tied cottages that led to numerous cases of
workers who’d lost their jobs, often for no real reason, who were then
summarily evicted from their homes. We’d try, occasionally successfully, to
stop this by mounting immediate protests, which generally attracted press
coverage, or by helping find new accommodation.
“But it also required political action. Thanks, in a large
part to the tireless, heroic efforts of Joan Maynard, helped by the fact she
subsequently became an MP in 1974. She was from a rural background. We managed
to see past the Rent (Agricultural) Act 1977 that meant from then on workers in
tied cottages assumed the status of “protected occupants”.
This meant that those in tied cottages had security of
tenure until they were re-housed by the local council.
Like Tony, Barry Leathwood was delighted by the passing of
the 1977 Act, especially “as it was something the NUAW campaigned for over many
decades”.
Leathwood was born on a farm and thrust as a youngster into
helping out his dad, a Cheshire NUAW district official, collect members subs by
cycling round to local farms. Even after he qualified as a mechanical engineer
and became active within the AEU, Barry, with help from his wife Ann, retained
his involvement by assisting NUAW members after his father suffered a heart
attack.
In October 1973 Barry became the NUAW District Officer in
Somerset which had a few large farms that included one large mushroom farm of
1,200 employees. “This meant we could create a traditional bargaining unit of
shop stewards and win wages and conditions way above the norm across the
industry. It was the forerunner to the TGWU and Unite being able to organise within
poultry processing plants”.
Barry was also able to recruit farm workers aware that their
bosses would never give them a pay rise except for the AWB’s existence. “And
they knew too that the NUAW had managed to establish pay increases for craft
workers of 15% plus through the board.
“Later on, when the Tories sought to abolish the board in
the 90s a successful campaign by our members forced them to back down”.
Barry subsequently became lead negotiator at the Forestry
Commission where he came up against a number of managers who were ex-military.
“They sought to treat workers as raw recruits but found themselves on a long
learning curve. We had a lot of good able people as members and achieved decent
pay, welfare and health and safety conditions”.
People’s ban
One highly successful health and safety struggle that won
international support was led by Chris Kaufmann, who worked for the NUAW from
1974 onwards and became Landworker editor in 1980.
Employed in industrial agriculture when it was sprayed on
fields to kill weeds, the herbicide 245-T, which contained dioxin, was known to
be unsafe after it was used by the US military in Vietnam.
“We had many members complaining of the effects of 245-T. We
took up their concerns vigorously and discovered we had support worldwide.
We sought to get the product officially banned. Although we
did not get that agreed by Parliament here or in New Zealand, where the last
factory manufacturing the product was based, the issue had become so toxic that
everyone had stopped buying it. It was a People’s Ban and it became
uneconomic to manufacture”.
Another successful NUAW safety campaign led to it being
compulsory for tractor cabs to contain a heavy bar on the roof to prevent them
tipping over.
“Dozens of workers, including farmers, who initially had a
remit to ignore the new regulations, resulting in the unnecessary deaths of
many of them, owe their lives to the NUAW, who, once again, campaigned for
decades, “ explains Chris who also referenced how the establishment of the
Gangmasters Licensing Authority in 2004 was a body that the NUAW had sought as long ago as the
1930s.
All three men also believe the NUAW was key to keeping alive
rural services by joining with others, including the Women’s Institute, in
defending local bus services, post offices, GP surgeries and village halls.
Landworker magazine gave members a means of highlighting rural issues in
general.
“NUAW activists also got elected to local Parish Councils
where they’d campaign to retain rural schools. They’d try to hold the line,”
states Chris.
“Many NUAW members were brave to stand up for their rights
and those of their fellow workers. They should be remembered,” states Tony
Gould.
By joining in 1983 with the TGWU, NUAW members combined with
TWGU agricultural workers in a new NISC trade group, obtained greater access to
legal support and TGWU sponsored MPs and were able to call on drivers in the
TGWU not to cross picket lines when there was a dispute on.
Today, our ‘rural rebels’ are happy to keep a watching brief and advise the rest of us when asked.
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A plan to revive farming and rural areas that includes making home produced food more affordable.
A plan to revive farming and rural areas that includes
making home produced food more affordable.
Landworker magazine, Spring 2024
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Farming subsidies have been cut by a third by the government since Britain left the EU. Meanwhile, hundreds of farmers have left the land.
But Charlie
Clutterbuck, veteran Unite food activist and campaigner has a plan to revive
farming and rural areas that includes making home produced food more
affordable.
Back in 2017,
175,000 farmers and landowners received £3.5bn in individual payments from the Basic
Payment Scheme of the Common Agricultural Policy. (CAP) It was a figure Boris Johnson
“guaranteed” would be maintained if Britain left Europe. He later changed his
mind when his government announced in July 2020 a complete phaseout of
Basic Farm Payouts by 2027.
Unite’s
Charlie Clutterbuck, a soil scientist and food security expert, was never a big
CAP fan, mainly because big landowners such as the Duke of Westminster were
creaming off large subsidies for themselves.
When he stated
that “they did nothing for this” in Landworker magazine,
the Duke’s farm manager claimed that as he provided jobs everybody should be
pleased. When Charlie offered to debate the issue with the generally very vocal
local hunting, shooting and fishing community there was silence.
UK land
ownership is the most unequal in Europe. Our leaders like that. When the EU planned
to limit CAP to £250,000 annually for any one farmer, Prime Minster David
Cameron was quickly on his way to Brussels to successfully block the limit
being introduced.
So, at the
time of the EU referendum Charlie’s book Bittersweet Brexit: the future of Food,
Farming, Land and Labour put forward an entirely new funding method for
rural areas in which the CAP monies going into the pockets of the already
wealthy would be switched into subsidising 300,000 rural jobs at an annual cost
of £10,000 each.
Before and
after the EU referendum, Michael Gove ran round ‘promising the earth’ to
farmers and many environmental groups were supportive. But like everything Gove
touches there was no real plan and after a few years it was thrown out by the 2019-20
agriculture minister George Eustice.
“All the
‘green’ ideas were complex, especially for small farmers. Even Michael
Heseltine said they were OK for his farms as he had management systems, but
hopeless for small farmers who knew best how to breed cows and sheep. The
government department had a bad track record on paying out BPS – being fined
heavily by EU for incompetence, when all they had to do was count static land.
“Anything
that moved was going to be too complex,” explains Charlie.
The
transition out of CAP between 2021 and 2027 is now taking place under the
Environment Land Management Schemes that are according to DEFRA ‘designed to
contribute to our range of objectives - farming and nature can and must go hand
in hand to support resilient food production and farm businesses and to achieve
our target outcomes for environment and climate.’
ELMS funding is being allocated under three strands: Landscape
Recovery Scheme (LRS), Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and the Countryside
Stewardship Plus (CSP) scheme.
Each strand was originally planned to receive £1bn. But ‘the
environment’ means an awful lot of different things.
PM Johnson said in the Commons: “What we are going to do is
use the new freedoms we have after leaving the CAP to support farmers to beautify
the countryside”.
According to Charlie “This view of a romanticised
countryside is nothing new. But it does not improve the sustainability of
present-day UK farming in terms of energy intensive chemical inputs and
dependence on other people’s land and labour.”
To be eligible to claim for the LRS you have to have a spare
1,000 acres (500ha) – basically for re-wilding or carbon trading. Meanwhile,
small farms are only able to directly access the SFI.
Recently released figures reveal that under ELMS in 2022-23
the total sum spent was £2.230 billion.
“This is over a third less than Johnson’s original promise,”
laments Clutterbuck. “Direct payments to 84,000 farmers, including 865 who have
left the industry during the year, are £1.4bn.
“Payments under Environment Land management, including CSP, towards
39,000 farmers total just £572 million. And as this figure also includes SFI
then I can only conclude that this backs up what many farmers have told me that
very few are applying,” explains Clutterbuck, who first appeared in Landworker
in 1977.
“One MP should be
putting down a Commons question to find out exactly where these subsidies are
now going and who is doing well. I predict the winners are not only large
landowners but ‘environmental consultants’, working for ‘the City’ and now
adept with the new language of ‘carbon trading’ and ‘biodiversity net gain’.
Charlie wants the £3.5bn that used to come from CAP to help
address the big food issues of today.
Food banks are at their most numerous, as more people find
themselves in food poverty – a term the government won’t recognise. Over 27% of
people are now obese. Cheap ultra-processed food makes up 57% of the British
diet, more than any other country.
A simple solution
One simple suggestion by the soil scientist is to grow and
eat more home-grown fruit and vegetables. This would revive UK horticulture.
Clutterbuck feels particularly concerned about this, as he was
sponsored by the government’s Fruit Research Station for his Master’s in plant
science. There, the director proclaimed how fruit growing was an emblem of
‘Britishness’ – think of the Vale of Evesham and the Garden of Kent.
“That ideal is being lost to cheap overseas produce. Fruit
growing was never subsidised, but should be.
“We should be having a much broader debate about the role of
UK food and farming and how resilient we are to worldwide events, such as the
conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Red Sea, plus events such as
Brexit.”
Follow the USA
These subsidies could be redirected towards a scheme adopted
by the United States where their Farm Bill pays over $60bn annually to around
40 million poorer people to help them buy healthier food cheaply.
While fiscal conservatives argue against the initiative,
most Republicans and Democrats like it. It helps the Democrats address food
poverty and build local economies, and the Republicans like it because it helps
their farming base with their continuous overproduction problem.
“Such a scheme here could be combined with specific general
projects consisting of renovating social housing and community facilities. People in rural areas would vote for such a
programme,” Clutterbuck concludes.
1.
In writing this article a request was made of Steve
Reed, the shadow rural minister, to comment on Charlie Clutterbuck’s
observations and on whether he would be willing to ask where the subsidies have
gone or are set to go to. Reed did not respond. He is following in a long
tradition of shadow rural ministers who are generally uninterested in the post
and offer nothing to rural communities.
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