Histories of Labour, National and International Perspectives, Edited by John McIlroy, Alan Campbell & Joan Allen, Merlin Press, 2010, ISBN 978085036677.
a review by Nick Matthews
I greatly enjoyed this book although I would not recommend reading it in a single sitting. There is a lot to take in and numerous changes in perspective to accommodate. When I was young I could never understand why people kept writing new books about the same period in history. Now I am a bit like the person in the Bob Dylan song who was “so much older then” but is “younger than that now”!
It requires perspective and some distance to understand the real significance of events and this collection of essays does that in spades. Interestingly the event it both commemorates and celebrates is the birth of the Society for the Study of Labour History. The editors say, “Histories of Labour, which documents the development of the subject in a variety of countries around the world, is published to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Society for the Study of Labour History (SSLH), its organised expression in Britain”.
In the introduction Eric Hobsbawm explains how this seminal event occurred and how the idea of the Society “came from the collective of friends formed in the Communist Party Historians’ Group.” At the height of the cold war even Hobsbawn was finding it hard to get published, difficult to believe now given his status as a ‘national treasure’ and the Order of Merit.
The man chosen to front this new Society was Asa Briggs then easily the most established academic historian with a record of work in the field. What exactly this field is over fifty years and numerous changes in historiography I found more difficult to pin down. The best definition occurs in the final essay of the book by Marcel van der Linden, Research Director of the International Institute of Social History and Professor of Social Movement History at the University of Amsterdam;
“The term ‘labour history’ has a dual meaning. Strictly speaking the concept refers to the history of the labour movement: parties, trade unions, cooperatives, strikes and related phenomena. More broadly interpreted, the concept denotes the history of the working classes: the development of labour relations, family life, mentalities, culture. This ambiguity seems characteristic of the term in English. In many other languages labour movement history and working-class history cannot be summed up in a single term.”
By the time I got to this final chapter having worried at this ambiguity throughout the book I was glad to see it confirmed. Van der Linden, continues that both this ‘broad’ and ‘narrow’ Labour History have their origins in the North Atlantic region so it is good to see the impact that this school of thought, if that is not too strong a term, has had internationally.
There are fascinating essays in this book from India and Japan, where both labour history and Labour History have taken significantly different turns. Although there appear to be two threads that echo across the world, the first is the enormous impact of Edward Thompsons the making of the English Working Class. Van der Linden again,
“In the 1960’s we see the beginnings of the so called ‘new labour history’, with E.P.Thomson’s The Making of the English Working Class as a landmark publication. This great book, by emphasizing culture and consciousness, integrated broad and narrow labour history, once its message was assimilated.”
Of course this transition can be exaggerated but I do not think it would be inaccurate to argue that almost all Labour History since has been a dialogue with this great work. Who, having read it, can forget that wonderful preface written in Halifax in 1962 and Thompsons hope that he was,
“seeking to rescue the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the “obsolete” hand-loom weaver, the “utopian” artisan, and even the deluded follower of Joanna Southcott from the enormous condescension of posterity.”
He did something else too I think and that is break the almost Whiggish nature of much so called Marxist writing of Labour History which saw the continuous march of organised labour to state power as inevitable. Whilst nothing could have been more literally English about Thomson’s work it had a huge international impact which is reflected in this book.
In his essay, Organised Labour History in Britain, John McIlroy, points out that;
“It was said of Thompson that he ‘opened new ways of enquiring into the past in India and Latin America,[…] He has influenced Chinese labour historians and inspired the feminist scholar of Arab texts, Fatima Mernissi.’ He lectured in Canada and the USA and maintained his family’s links with India. His influence marked the developments in labour history in all three countries.”
This canonisation of Thompson is not to diminish the work of other scholars but it does point up the huge contribution to both broad and narrow Labour History from those outside the academy and the fact that institutionalised university history has never been quite sure what to do with the history of the lower orders.
The second thread is that well before the forward march of labour was halted in Eric Hobsbawms immortal phrase the subject matter had begun to fragment with new dimensions to the central ambiguity. Some of these especially the interest of feminists has been very welcome others like the so called ‘linguistic turn’ less so.
Hobsbawm suspects that what made British Labour history influential however, apart from the sheer size of the community and the high quality of some of the work produced was “its function as a catalyst of political rethinking on the British left”.
“Neither E.P. Thompson’s Making or Raph Samuels initiatives, the ‘History Workshop’ movement , nor my Primitive Rebels , can be fully understood accept as an attempt to find a way forward in left politics through historical reflection.”
Anyone interested in Labour History will find terrific value in this book I found references to works that I was not familiar with that I will now seek out to fill gaps in my understanding and readers will gain huge benefits from the references and bibliography. I particularly welcome the opportunity to look at Labour History through the prism of the Indian, Japanese and German experience which these international essays give us.
If I have one disappointment it is that although Van der Lindon mentions co-operation in his definition (and as a co-operator) I found only one reference in the index to Co-operation and that is in the context of the Canadian Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. Clearly there is work still to be done and I hope the next fifty years of organised labour history are as rich as the first fifty and we will continue to look for ways forward in left thinking with active historical reflection.
Nick Matthews is the Chair of the UK Society for Co-operative Studies
Thursday, 8 December 2011
NORTHERN WRECK
I was surprised when Tory rhetoric went from “No such thing as Society” to the “Big Society” and even more surprised about their new found passion for co-operatives and mutual’s. Well we can all now see that it was purely cosmetic. The coalition has fallen at the very first fence. The first chance the Coalition gets to turn the rhetoric into action about creating co-ops and new mutual’s and they sell Northern Rock to of all people Richard Branson.
As Ed Mayo general secretary of Co-operatives UK said “The government had a real chance to show the strength of its commitment to co-operatives and mutuals….it passed it up”. The winner is the people’s capitalist and self publicist par excellence Richard Branson.
This is the man who made his first pile from the Exorcist. A film that like the Coalition was pretty scary. Every time we went towards that room we heard the music of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells. Released as single in America on the Virgin label it became a top ten hit. The success of the film drove the sales of the album, until then an underground success, and made it the first hit on Branson’s Virgin records – a hit that made a fortune for Oldfield and for Branson.
Tom Bower wrote a wonderful biography of Branson, a book which had this glowing endorsement from its subject, “What I have read has offended me on every single level ... it is a foul, foul piece of work from the first words to the last - really rotten, nasty stuff.” In the book Bower points out that, “Virgin Music - started amid a sophisticated purchase-tax fraud that Branson admitted in 1971 - was sold in 1992 for a record £560m”. The money was used to found an airline Virgin Atlantic (which is now 49% owned by Singapore airlines) created when the government stripped BA of landing slots at Heathrow.
Since then Branson has been lending his Virgin brand name to various enterprises to give what are a set of fairly mediocre business a bit of hippy radical gloss as customers using any thing carrying the Virgin brand will tell you.
Most of the things he has launched in competitive markets have failed, Virgin, condoms, cola or vodka anyone and what happened to Virgin stores?
And there are Virgin trains (49% owned by Stagecoach) currently operating the West Coast franchise who used to be much bigger until they lost the cross-country franchise after lumbering it with the worst modern train fleet in Britain. Trains that are noisy, uncomfortable and unable to cope if passengers dare to turn up with luggage.
As with Virgin phones, Branson operates in protected markets. As Aditya Chakrabortty said in the Guardian, “the Virgin boss keeps himself in homes in Holland Park and Necker Island by taking taxpayers subsidies and operating in heavily protected businesses.”
Now he has written a book, called ‘Screw Business as Usual’ needless to say published by Virgin Books in it he talks about the “new capitalism”. He says that he has a new name for it, “Capitalism 24902” apparently because the circumference of the earth is 24,902 miles. Then you read in the Financial Times Branson’s chief investor in Northern Rock, American Financier Wilbur Ross saying, “We would hope to sell out a few years down the road.”
This sounds like business as usual to me. It is not the business that is being screwed it is the taxpayer. The Northern Counties Building Society founded in 1850 and the Rock Building Society in 1865 they survived two world wars and the great depression before merging in 1965 to form Northern Rock. Then it floated as a mortgage bank on 1st October 1997. Less than ten years later it in 2008 it was spectacularly bust!
Many commentators have pointed out that the £747 million price Branson is paying for Northern Rock means that every taxpayer in Britain is paying Branson £13 to take Northern Rock away. But this is not the full story. Branson is only buying the good part of Northern Rock. So far the Coalition has no plans to sell Northern Rock Asset Management or the so called Bad Bank.
In October 2010 Northern Rock (Asset Management) plc and that other busted bank and former building society Bradford & Bingley were integrated under a single holding company, UK Asset Resolution which has a plan that hopes to wind down the institutions in a way that repays a combined debt to the taxpayer of around £50billion.
There is no reason to think that this tiny mortgage bank can survive on its own with just 75 branches and investors would be wise to get out as soon as practically possible. None of the converted Building Societies have survived as Mortgage Banks because the model simply does not work.
That is why many people campaigned for the Rock to be remutualised to return to its roots as a provider of mortgages based on savers deposits. But no George Osborne has decided to make his own horror movie and once again the Virgin label is providing the soundtrack.
As Ed Mayo general secretary of Co-operatives UK said “The government had a real chance to show the strength of its commitment to co-operatives and mutuals….it passed it up”. The winner is the people’s capitalist and self publicist par excellence Richard Branson.
This is the man who made his first pile from the Exorcist. A film that like the Coalition was pretty scary. Every time we went towards that room we heard the music of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells. Released as single in America on the Virgin label it became a top ten hit. The success of the film drove the sales of the album, until then an underground success, and made it the first hit on Branson’s Virgin records – a hit that made a fortune for Oldfield and for Branson.
Tom Bower wrote a wonderful biography of Branson, a book which had this glowing endorsement from its subject, “What I have read has offended me on every single level ... it is a foul, foul piece of work from the first words to the last - really rotten, nasty stuff.” In the book Bower points out that, “Virgin Music - started amid a sophisticated purchase-tax fraud that Branson admitted in 1971 - was sold in 1992 for a record £560m”. The money was used to found an airline Virgin Atlantic (which is now 49% owned by Singapore airlines) created when the government stripped BA of landing slots at Heathrow.
Since then Branson has been lending his Virgin brand name to various enterprises to give what are a set of fairly mediocre business a bit of hippy radical gloss as customers using any thing carrying the Virgin brand will tell you.
Most of the things he has launched in competitive markets have failed, Virgin, condoms, cola or vodka anyone and what happened to Virgin stores?
And there are Virgin trains (49% owned by Stagecoach) currently operating the West Coast franchise who used to be much bigger until they lost the cross-country franchise after lumbering it with the worst modern train fleet in Britain. Trains that are noisy, uncomfortable and unable to cope if passengers dare to turn up with luggage.
As with Virgin phones, Branson operates in protected markets. As Aditya Chakrabortty said in the Guardian, “the Virgin boss keeps himself in homes in Holland Park and Necker Island by taking taxpayers subsidies and operating in heavily protected businesses.”
Now he has written a book, called ‘Screw Business as Usual’ needless to say published by Virgin Books in it he talks about the “new capitalism”. He says that he has a new name for it, “Capitalism 24902” apparently because the circumference of the earth is 24,902 miles. Then you read in the Financial Times Branson’s chief investor in Northern Rock, American Financier Wilbur Ross saying, “We would hope to sell out a few years down the road.”
This sounds like business as usual to me. It is not the business that is being screwed it is the taxpayer. The Northern Counties Building Society founded in 1850 and the Rock Building Society in 1865 they survived two world wars and the great depression before merging in 1965 to form Northern Rock. Then it floated as a mortgage bank on 1st October 1997. Less than ten years later it in 2008 it was spectacularly bust!
Many commentators have pointed out that the £747 million price Branson is paying for Northern Rock means that every taxpayer in Britain is paying Branson £13 to take Northern Rock away. But this is not the full story. Branson is only buying the good part of Northern Rock. So far the Coalition has no plans to sell Northern Rock Asset Management or the so called Bad Bank.
In October 2010 Northern Rock (Asset Management) plc and that other busted bank and former building society Bradford & Bingley were integrated under a single holding company, UK Asset Resolution which has a plan that hopes to wind down the institutions in a way that repays a combined debt to the taxpayer of around £50billion.
There is no reason to think that this tiny mortgage bank can survive on its own with just 75 branches and investors would be wise to get out as soon as practically possible. None of the converted Building Societies have survived as Mortgage Banks because the model simply does not work.
That is why many people campaigned for the Rock to be remutualised to return to its roots as a provider of mortgages based on savers deposits. But no George Osborne has decided to make his own horror movie and once again the Virgin label is providing the soundtrack.
Thursday, 24 November 2011
Somerset’s Co-op Champion
Chewton Mendip, Coleford, East Harptree, Bradford-on-Avon, Frome, Trowbridge and Radstock names that sound like a stopping train journey with John Bejtemen on the pre-Beeching Somerset and Dorset railway.
What these places have in common is that until the 1970’s they all had their own retail co-operative societies. The exception in the list is the small Somerset town of Radstock a former mining village in the old Somerset coalfield. Not only does it still have an independent Co-operative Retail Society – it is thriving - with in 2011 gross sales topping £21million, a record £1.5 million trading surplus and is totally debt free.
In 1868 the early meetings to form the Radstcock Co-operative and Industrial Society took place in the towns Workingmen’s Hall. A temperance house, supported by the agent of the local coal owner Countess Waldegrave, this ensured that according to Society President and historian George Donkin, “those budding co-operators were not going to hang about”.
The society was formed by a mixed bunch drawn from the railways and agriculture as well as mining. One founder Septimus Kidd, who sounds like a character from a Dickens novel, was the head bailiff for the Waldegrave collieries.
At the end of the first year the 145 members enjoyed a dividend of one shilling and five pence in the pound - quite a useful sum at the time. As there where so many co-op societies in the surrounding villages up until the 1920’s rather than form branches they went into house building. Most of the sturdy terraces sold to members and staff are still standing today.
It was the new century, 1901, before the Society began to branch out, the first branch opened in High Littleton and branch thirteen in Midsummer Norton in 1913.
The Society had a close relationship with the mining community. In the 1912 mining dispute the Society lent a £1,000 to the Miners Association a considerable sum causing the Society some difficulty until it was repaid in 1913. The Society always supported local workers in difficulties including in 1920 the Boot and Shoe Operative Union and in 1921 the Miners and Enginemen’s Association was loaned £6,600 together with a donation of £160 to their distress fund.
The First World War saw many of the Societies workers conscripted. Ten men never returned a large number out of a staff of just 200 when the war started. The War saw the Societies first foray into farming, one it has maintained unlike most independent societies, right through to the present day.
In 1926 they were steadfast once again in supporting the miners. A loan of £10,300 was made to local miners unions and £515 donated to the distress fund as well as £210 in food vouchers from the Co-operative Union. Staff also expressed solidarity with the donation of a days pay to the relief fund. The 1930’s where very difficult in the coal mining areas Somerset was no exception but thanks to support from the Co-operative Wholesale Society they survived.
The Radstcock that people came back to after the Second World War was very different to those troubled inter war years and in modern times the Society has been able to survive as an independent society by being a good retailer.
In 1959 it made a huge investment in a new central store in Radstock. To outsiders this looked like not only putting the entire Society under one roof but putting the whole town of Radstock under one roof! It was a dynamic modernist style of building that would have looked more at home in post-war Coventry than in rural Somerset.
Despite any architectural misgivings for over fifty years as many of the branch stores closed this has been the anchor of the Society. In more recent times as well as totally refurbishing the superstore they have been once again been opening new branches growing from six to ten.
The Society's 1000 acre farm at Hardington on the outskirts of Frome also played its part after some very difficult trading conditions in the farming industry. Nowadays supermarket cheddar can come from anywhere in the world so here is a novelty, the milk from the farm goes to make Wyke Farm cheddar which supplies co-op stores across the country. Cheddar from Somerset who would believe it!
Today the Society is well grounded in its local communities and a staunch supporter of the Eat Somerset campaign being keen to support local suppliers by selling and showcasing their products which all helps to cut down on food miles.
Don Morris, CEO said, “We were really proud to gain the Social Enterprise Mark in 2010. We are committed to supporting local suppliers and helping our communities to thrive. We are determined to protect our independence so we can be responsive to local needs and react quickly to changing local conditions. We are not just in business to make money, but to serve our local communities."
At a meeting recently a friend whose wife owns a shop in Glastonbury that sells crystals and all sorts of new age stuff to those seeking the Arthurian experience said how delighted they where with the new Radstock Co-operative shop in the town.
So there you have it - at the end of the search for the Holy Grail is a Co-op shop.
What these places have in common is that until the 1970’s they all had their own retail co-operative societies. The exception in the list is the small Somerset town of Radstock a former mining village in the old Somerset coalfield. Not only does it still have an independent Co-operative Retail Society – it is thriving - with in 2011 gross sales topping £21million, a record £1.5 million trading surplus and is totally debt free.
In 1868 the early meetings to form the Radstcock Co-operative and Industrial Society took place in the towns Workingmen’s Hall. A temperance house, supported by the agent of the local coal owner Countess Waldegrave, this ensured that according to Society President and historian George Donkin, “those budding co-operators were not going to hang about”.
The society was formed by a mixed bunch drawn from the railways and agriculture as well as mining. One founder Septimus Kidd, who sounds like a character from a Dickens novel, was the head bailiff for the Waldegrave collieries.
At the end of the first year the 145 members enjoyed a dividend of one shilling and five pence in the pound - quite a useful sum at the time. As there where so many co-op societies in the surrounding villages up until the 1920’s rather than form branches they went into house building. Most of the sturdy terraces sold to members and staff are still standing today.
It was the new century, 1901, before the Society began to branch out, the first branch opened in High Littleton and branch thirteen in Midsummer Norton in 1913.
The Society had a close relationship with the mining community. In the 1912 mining dispute the Society lent a £1,000 to the Miners Association a considerable sum causing the Society some difficulty until it was repaid in 1913. The Society always supported local workers in difficulties including in 1920 the Boot and Shoe Operative Union and in 1921 the Miners and Enginemen’s Association was loaned £6,600 together with a donation of £160 to their distress fund.
The First World War saw many of the Societies workers conscripted. Ten men never returned a large number out of a staff of just 200 when the war started. The War saw the Societies first foray into farming, one it has maintained unlike most independent societies, right through to the present day.
In 1926 they were steadfast once again in supporting the miners. A loan of £10,300 was made to local miners unions and £515 donated to the distress fund as well as £210 in food vouchers from the Co-operative Union. Staff also expressed solidarity with the donation of a days pay to the relief fund. The 1930’s where very difficult in the coal mining areas Somerset was no exception but thanks to support from the Co-operative Wholesale Society they survived.
The Radstcock that people came back to after the Second World War was very different to those troubled inter war years and in modern times the Society has been able to survive as an independent society by being a good retailer.
In 1959 it made a huge investment in a new central store in Radstock. To outsiders this looked like not only putting the entire Society under one roof but putting the whole town of Radstock under one roof! It was a dynamic modernist style of building that would have looked more at home in post-war Coventry than in rural Somerset.
Despite any architectural misgivings for over fifty years as many of the branch stores closed this has been the anchor of the Society. In more recent times as well as totally refurbishing the superstore they have been once again been opening new branches growing from six to ten.
The Society's 1000 acre farm at Hardington on the outskirts of Frome also played its part after some very difficult trading conditions in the farming industry. Nowadays supermarket cheddar can come from anywhere in the world so here is a novelty, the milk from the farm goes to make Wyke Farm cheddar which supplies co-op stores across the country. Cheddar from Somerset who would believe it!
Today the Society is well grounded in its local communities and a staunch supporter of the Eat Somerset campaign being keen to support local suppliers by selling and showcasing their products which all helps to cut down on food miles.
Don Morris, CEO said, “We were really proud to gain the Social Enterprise Mark in 2010. We are committed to supporting local suppliers and helping our communities to thrive. We are determined to protect our independence so we can be responsive to local needs and react quickly to changing local conditions. We are not just in business to make money, but to serve our local communities."
At a meeting recently a friend whose wife owns a shop in Glastonbury that sells crystals and all sorts of new age stuff to those seeking the Arthurian experience said how delighted they where with the new Radstock Co-operative shop in the town.
So there you have it - at the end of the search for the Holy Grail is a Co-op shop.
Tuesday, 1 November 2011
Co-op Women and the White Peace Poppy.
The other day I picked up a couple of white poppies with the word Peace boldly displayed at their centre. I wondered at this time of remembrance if people realise that the White Poppy was first launched by the Co-operative Women’s Guild back in 1933.
The Guild with a proud record in campaigning for a peace began with a small ad in the Co-op News of April 13th, 1883.
It read:
'The Women's League for the spread of co-operation has begun. All who wish to join should write their name and address to Mrs. Acland, Fyfield Road, Oxford.'
Mrs Ackland edited the papers women’s pages and from such humble beginnings one of the most important working class women’s organisations of the twentieth century was born. A year later it had a change of name to the Co-operative Women’s Guild and by 1910 had 32,000 members.
What began as vehicle to spread the ideas of retail co-operation soon took on the wider concerns of working women. It was Guild pressure that ensured maternity benefits where included in the 1911 National Insurance Act. The Guild campaigned tirelessly both nationally and internationally for minimum wages and maternity benefits.
In April 1914 they were involved in an International Women's Congress at The Hague which passed a resolution totally opposing war:
“this Conference is of opinion that the terrible method of war should never again be used to settle disputes between nations, and urge that a partnership of nations, with peace as its object, should be established and enforced by the people's will.”
What a pity that the men of Europe did not pay heed to their women! This was the beginning of the Guild's active peace work.
After the 1914-1918 war they sought to understand the social, political and economic conditions which gave rise to war and by 1921 their Congress called for the:
'Cessation of the provocative competition in armaments... revision of the Peace Treaties... purging politics and education of militarism in all its forms.... abolishing force as a remedy for social unrest.... eliminating private profit-making from the industrial system.'
In 1933 at its peak with a membership of 72,000 it launched the White Poppy as an alternative to the British Legions Red Poppy campaign. The red poppy had begun as a way of collecting funds for French war orphaned children and was taken over by the British Legion for the Haig Appeal. Many women who had lost husbands, brothers and sons in the First World War did not want to see Armistice Day used to make war acceptable.
Today of course when war is a matter of choice many people, particularly those in the media have no choice when it comes to the wearing of the red poppy and thereby inadvertently supporting war. No one is critical of those mourning lost loved ones but the theatrical use of the dead by politicians and the military as a justification for endless war lest their deaths be ‘in vain’ is despicable.
When we are not facing an existential threat it is more important than ever to remember all the victims of war. Sadly the number of civilians killed in wars, represented by the White Poppy, totally dwarfs the numbers of service personnel who are killed extending and defending “western interests”. In the First World War the overwhelming number of dead where combatant’s as warfare has evolved it is now largely fought by highly technologically equipped forces against civilians.
In the Iraq war less than 3,000 US service personnel died whilst according to the MIT Mortality Study the civilian death toll was over 650,000.
The fact we have to estimate the Iraqi dead because no cares enough to count them and record their names tells us why we should remember them. The White Poppy therefore has come to represent the true cost of modern warfare and those who are left out of the reckoning when it comes to the laying wreaths at the cenotaph.
The tradition of the White Poppy is kept alive today by the Peace Pledge Union founded by Canon Dick Shepperd. Dicks final appointment was at St Pauls cathedral so it obviously has a history of awkward priests. He was supported by notables such as the Methodist Donald Soper and Labour leader George Lansbury. The newly founded PPU joined with the Co-operative Women’s Guild in distributing the White Poppies and has done so ever since.
This year when Britain has been continuously at war for fifteen years the PPU will lay a wreath of white poppies at the Conscientious Objectors Memorial Stone in Tavistock Square on Remembrance Sunday at 12.30. They will be there to call for an end to war, to reflect on the misery caused by war and those who support it and be inspired by those individuals who have refused to take part in war whatever the consequences.
If you just want to obtain some White Poppies go to www.PPU.org.uk
The Co-op Women’s Guild hit the nail on the head back in 1921 there is still too much profit in war. Thankfully the Guild it is still going, still striving to make the world a better more co-operative place and now accepts individual membership see: www.cooperativewomensguild.coop
The Guild with a proud record in campaigning for a peace began with a small ad in the Co-op News of April 13th, 1883.
It read:
'The Women's League for the spread of co-operation has begun. All who wish to join should write their name and address to Mrs. Acland, Fyfield Road, Oxford.'
Mrs Ackland edited the papers women’s pages and from such humble beginnings one of the most important working class women’s organisations of the twentieth century was born. A year later it had a change of name to the Co-operative Women’s Guild and by 1910 had 32,000 members.
What began as vehicle to spread the ideas of retail co-operation soon took on the wider concerns of working women. It was Guild pressure that ensured maternity benefits where included in the 1911 National Insurance Act. The Guild campaigned tirelessly both nationally and internationally for minimum wages and maternity benefits.
In April 1914 they were involved in an International Women's Congress at The Hague which passed a resolution totally opposing war:
“this Conference is of opinion that the terrible method of war should never again be used to settle disputes between nations, and urge that a partnership of nations, with peace as its object, should be established and enforced by the people's will.”
What a pity that the men of Europe did not pay heed to their women! This was the beginning of the Guild's active peace work.
After the 1914-1918 war they sought to understand the social, political and economic conditions which gave rise to war and by 1921 their Congress called for the:
'Cessation of the provocative competition in armaments... revision of the Peace Treaties... purging politics and education of militarism in all its forms.... abolishing force as a remedy for social unrest.... eliminating private profit-making from the industrial system.'
In 1933 at its peak with a membership of 72,000 it launched the White Poppy as an alternative to the British Legions Red Poppy campaign. The red poppy had begun as a way of collecting funds for French war orphaned children and was taken over by the British Legion for the Haig Appeal. Many women who had lost husbands, brothers and sons in the First World War did not want to see Armistice Day used to make war acceptable.
Today of course when war is a matter of choice many people, particularly those in the media have no choice when it comes to the wearing of the red poppy and thereby inadvertently supporting war. No one is critical of those mourning lost loved ones but the theatrical use of the dead by politicians and the military as a justification for endless war lest their deaths be ‘in vain’ is despicable.
When we are not facing an existential threat it is more important than ever to remember all the victims of war. Sadly the number of civilians killed in wars, represented by the White Poppy, totally dwarfs the numbers of service personnel who are killed extending and defending “western interests”. In the First World War the overwhelming number of dead where combatant’s as warfare has evolved it is now largely fought by highly technologically equipped forces against civilians.
In the Iraq war less than 3,000 US service personnel died whilst according to the MIT Mortality Study the civilian death toll was over 650,000.
The fact we have to estimate the Iraqi dead because no cares enough to count them and record their names tells us why we should remember them. The White Poppy therefore has come to represent the true cost of modern warfare and those who are left out of the reckoning when it comes to the laying wreaths at the cenotaph.
The tradition of the White Poppy is kept alive today by the Peace Pledge Union founded by Canon Dick Shepperd. Dicks final appointment was at St Pauls cathedral so it obviously has a history of awkward priests. He was supported by notables such as the Methodist Donald Soper and Labour leader George Lansbury. The newly founded PPU joined with the Co-operative Women’s Guild in distributing the White Poppies and has done so ever since.
This year when Britain has been continuously at war for fifteen years the PPU will lay a wreath of white poppies at the Conscientious Objectors Memorial Stone in Tavistock Square on Remembrance Sunday at 12.30. They will be there to call for an end to war, to reflect on the misery caused by war and those who support it and be inspired by those individuals who have refused to take part in war whatever the consequences.
If you just want to obtain some White Poppies go to www.PPU.org.uk
The Co-op Women’s Guild hit the nail on the head back in 1921 there is still too much profit in war. Thankfully the Guild it is still going, still striving to make the world a better more co-operative place and now accepts individual membership see: www.cooperativewomensguild.coop
Peoples March for Jobs
I was heavily involved along with many others at Wolves Poly in the Peoples March for Jobs back in 1983 and just as all that stuff comes back again it was sad to hear of the death of old Tiptonian Pete Carter.Here is his Obituary from the Guardian:
Pete Carter obituary
Union leader who fought for the rights of construction workers by Jon Bloomfield The Guardian, Tuesday 25 October 2011,
Pete Carter, who has died aged 73 of lung cancer, was an idealistic, imaginative and effective leader of the construction workers' trade union Ucatt. He looked beyond the traditional labour movement to build wider alliances, notably around environmental values. The union's Midlands organiser from 1980, he worked with three TUC regional councils to mobilise the People's March for Jobs the following year. It sought broad support for alternatives to the economic policies of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government, and evoked memories of the Jarrow March of October 1936.
A group of 280 marchers left Liverpool at the start of May 1981, local groups supported them en route, feeder marches from Yorkshire and South Wales joined in, and by the end of the month 150,000 unemployed people and trade unionists converged on Hyde Park in central London for a final rally. Pete was again to the fore when the Scottish TUC, Wales TUC and regional councils set about planning a second march in 1983, this time starting from Glasgow and involving a wider range of localities.
Public campaigning and winning new allies were Pete's strengths. He was less comfortable with the political in-fighting that he had to endure from 1984 as the Communist party of Great Britain's industrial organiser. Immediately he had to deal with Arthur Scargill's disastrous leadership of the miners' strike of 1984-85. When it was over, Pete and the CPGB's general secretary, Gordon McLennan, met to discuss how unity could be preserved among the miners with Scargill and Mick McGahey, and a furious row ensued.
By then, the civil war between the CPGB's eurocommunist and traditionalist wings had grown too deep to resolve. This made it impossible for Pete to transform labour-movement politics in the campaigning directions that he had envisaged, and in 1991 the party broke up. Pete returned to the building trade. Too principled to be attracted to New Labour, he found himself beached by Blairism.
Born in Tipton, near Dudley in the West Midlands, Pete was the eldest of five children of Ted and Mabel Carter, licensees of the Whitehall Tavern in Greets Green, West Bromwich. Unable to write when he left school at the age of 15, he became a skilled bricklayer, and in the late 1950s met Norma Harris, who was a huge influence on his political awakening. They married in 1962 and had two children, Sue and Mike.
By the mid-1960s, Pete was an enterprising national organiser of the Young Communist League. For one of the League's summer festivals, he booked the Kinks; during the Vietnam war, he organised support for the communist north with a Bikes for Vietnam campaign; and when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, he expressed fierce opposition. The Stalinist old guard hated him for the next quarter of a century as he made the case through campaigning and action for the modernisation of the labour movement and linking up with new social movements.
In the early 1970s, as a shop steward on Bryant Estates sites in the Midlands, he and other communist militants succeeded in abolishing the "lump" casual labour system, improved wage rates and working conditions, and attracted enormous publicity through occupying the Rotunda site in Birmingham. Construction News magazine called the agreement with Bryant "a watershed in industrial relations in the building industry".
I recall a packed meeting in West Bromwich town hall in autumn 1979, when Pete was convenor – senior shop steward – of Sandwell council's direct labour organisation. Through a haze of cigarette smoke on stage, he lambasted management and called for an all-out strike. Suddenly, oratory turned to song, as he belted out a few verses of That Old Black Magic.
Pete persuaded workers on building sites to take down pin-ups from the canteen wall, and to buy copies of Robert Tressell's The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists from the boot of his car. Inspired by the "green bans" – industrial action in support of environmental aims – pioneered by the Australian builders' leader Jack Mundey, he saved Birmingham's Victoria Square post office through a dynamic campaign including demonstrations and construction-site crane occupations. Permission to demolish the post office was granted in 1973, and five years later it was reprieved, as was much of the rest of Victorian Birmingham.
His love life was turbulent: his marriage ended in separation in 1977, and Norma died 10 years later. Long-term relationships with Val and Jude followed, along with shorter affairs. In his final years, Pete lived on a canal boat in the West Midlands. He is survived by his children.
• Peter Edward Carter, trade unionist, political organiser and environmentalist, born 8 July 1938; died 11 October 2011
Pete Carter obituary
Union leader who fought for the rights of construction workers by Jon Bloomfield The Guardian, Tuesday 25 October 2011,
Pete Carter, who has died aged 73 of lung cancer, was an idealistic, imaginative and effective leader of the construction workers' trade union Ucatt. He looked beyond the traditional labour movement to build wider alliances, notably around environmental values. The union's Midlands organiser from 1980, he worked with three TUC regional councils to mobilise the People's March for Jobs the following year. It sought broad support for alternatives to the economic policies of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government, and evoked memories of the Jarrow March of October 1936.
A group of 280 marchers left Liverpool at the start of May 1981, local groups supported them en route, feeder marches from Yorkshire and South Wales joined in, and by the end of the month 150,000 unemployed people and trade unionists converged on Hyde Park in central London for a final rally. Pete was again to the fore when the Scottish TUC, Wales TUC and regional councils set about planning a second march in 1983, this time starting from Glasgow and involving a wider range of localities.
Public campaigning and winning new allies were Pete's strengths. He was less comfortable with the political in-fighting that he had to endure from 1984 as the Communist party of Great Britain's industrial organiser. Immediately he had to deal with Arthur Scargill's disastrous leadership of the miners' strike of 1984-85. When it was over, Pete and the CPGB's general secretary, Gordon McLennan, met to discuss how unity could be preserved among the miners with Scargill and Mick McGahey, and a furious row ensued.
By then, the civil war between the CPGB's eurocommunist and traditionalist wings had grown too deep to resolve. This made it impossible for Pete to transform labour-movement politics in the campaigning directions that he had envisaged, and in 1991 the party broke up. Pete returned to the building trade. Too principled to be attracted to New Labour, he found himself beached by Blairism.
Born in Tipton, near Dudley in the West Midlands, Pete was the eldest of five children of Ted and Mabel Carter, licensees of the Whitehall Tavern in Greets Green, West Bromwich. Unable to write when he left school at the age of 15, he became a skilled bricklayer, and in the late 1950s met Norma Harris, who was a huge influence on his political awakening. They married in 1962 and had two children, Sue and Mike.
By the mid-1960s, Pete was an enterprising national organiser of the Young Communist League. For one of the League's summer festivals, he booked the Kinks; during the Vietnam war, he organised support for the communist north with a Bikes for Vietnam campaign; and when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, he expressed fierce opposition. The Stalinist old guard hated him for the next quarter of a century as he made the case through campaigning and action for the modernisation of the labour movement and linking up with new social movements.
In the early 1970s, as a shop steward on Bryant Estates sites in the Midlands, he and other communist militants succeeded in abolishing the "lump" casual labour system, improved wage rates and working conditions, and attracted enormous publicity through occupying the Rotunda site in Birmingham. Construction News magazine called the agreement with Bryant "a watershed in industrial relations in the building industry".
I recall a packed meeting in West Bromwich town hall in autumn 1979, when Pete was convenor – senior shop steward – of Sandwell council's direct labour organisation. Through a haze of cigarette smoke on stage, he lambasted management and called for an all-out strike. Suddenly, oratory turned to song, as he belted out a few verses of That Old Black Magic.
Pete persuaded workers on building sites to take down pin-ups from the canteen wall, and to buy copies of Robert Tressell's The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists from the boot of his car. Inspired by the "green bans" – industrial action in support of environmental aims – pioneered by the Australian builders' leader Jack Mundey, he saved Birmingham's Victoria Square post office through a dynamic campaign including demonstrations and construction-site crane occupations. Permission to demolish the post office was granted in 1973, and five years later it was reprieved, as was much of the rest of Victorian Birmingham.
His love life was turbulent: his marriage ended in separation in 1977, and Norma died 10 years later. Long-term relationships with Val and Jude followed, along with shorter affairs. In his final years, Pete lived on a canal boat in the West Midlands. He is survived by his children.
• Peter Edward Carter, trade unionist, political organiser and environmentalist, born 8 July 1938; died 11 October 2011
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Housing the Working Class
One of the most import buildings in the Midlands stands in the Worcestershire countryside. It is in the ownership of the National Trust but is not a stately home or a castle but a small workers cottage. It is called Rosedene and it is in Dodford, just three miles west of Bromsgrove in Worcestershire.
Great Dodford was the last development by the great Chartist Co-operative Land Society set up in 1845 to settle working class families on small plots of land. It was hoped that from a couple of acres a family could make a reasonable income. Chartist leader Fergus O’Conner had bought 273 acres, land of the former Dodford Priory, and hoped to settle seventy families there.
O’Conner’s plan had two objectives one was to ensure that working class people could qualify for the vote as there was a property threshold in 1832 Reform Act the other was the romance of a return to the land for those trapped in inner city slums.
Needless to say a combination of mixed objectives, poor organisation, a ruling class keen to ensure it would not work together with a “lying and slandering press” (not of course something we are familiar with) meant the project was not in the end a success. 70,000 shares had been sold in the Land Society and then properties where to be distributed by ballot amongst the shareholders.
In 1848, the House of Commons established a Select Committee to decide the fate of the Chartist Land Company, by then known as the National Land Company which had got into financial difficulties. As most of the shareholders had little or no chance of being allocated a smallholding it was deemed to be a lottery and therefore its registration as a company was declared illegal.
Fortunately this was not the end of Co-operative Housing in Worcestershire as today the largest provider of new build co-op homes in the country is not so very far away from Dodford in the new town of Redditch.
Redditch Co-op Homes manage nearly 300 properties in the town including apartments, houses and bungalows to suit varied needs, from young single people and families to older retired people.
Indeed across the West Midlands the Co-op housing model is getting a new lease of life. Carl Taylor, former manager at Redditch Homes, is now the Director of Birmingham Co-operative Housing Services part of the Accord Group of Housing Associations. BCHS provides management services for nine housing co-ops in the West Midlands and since 1997 have developed over fifty co-op and community controlled housing projects. Carl makes a powerful case that the current housing crisis is forcing everyone to look again at housing co-ops.
“We have to be innovative about how we finance new social housing developments”, he says “and working co-operatively to spread the investment risk is becoming an attractive option.”
Whilst Carl recognises that Fergus O,Conner may have got the details wrong in Dodford his legacy is still important, “co-operative housing is still just as much about political empowerment as it is about putting a roof over working class families heads”, he says. In the last few months even this government has come around to seeing the benefits of investing in housing co-ops. The latest bid round from the Homes and Communities Agency has brought some success to the region with three new Co-operative developments being supported creating a £26 million pound Co-operative House building programme.
“This is the largest Co-operative Housing development programme in the West Midlands since the 1980’s,”says Carl, “new Co-operative developments will take place in Redditch, Darlaston and Charlemont Farm in the Black Country and Garretts Green in Birmingham. This will see the building of at least 260 new homes”.
These developments will be a powerful advertisement for the co-operative housing model but Carl is ambitious for the co-operative housing sector. He has seen the impact of the co-op model in empowering communities, helping people gain confidence and improve their life chances. For him this is just the beginning the search is on to develop new ways of financing co-op housing. With interest rates at an all time low there is the potential for new housing bonds to give a steady return to potential investors.
“Rosedene in Dodford is a simple building but it really is very beautiful”, says Carl, “and as part of a community it embodies the hope that everyone can have a decent place to live where they can feel at home. We really have to try every avenue if we are to be the generation to finally fulfil O’Conners dream”.
Great Dodford was the last development by the great Chartist Co-operative Land Society set up in 1845 to settle working class families on small plots of land. It was hoped that from a couple of acres a family could make a reasonable income. Chartist leader Fergus O’Conner had bought 273 acres, land of the former Dodford Priory, and hoped to settle seventy families there.
O’Conner’s plan had two objectives one was to ensure that working class people could qualify for the vote as there was a property threshold in 1832 Reform Act the other was the romance of a return to the land for those trapped in inner city slums.
Needless to say a combination of mixed objectives, poor organisation, a ruling class keen to ensure it would not work together with a “lying and slandering press” (not of course something we are familiar with) meant the project was not in the end a success. 70,000 shares had been sold in the Land Society and then properties where to be distributed by ballot amongst the shareholders.
In 1848, the House of Commons established a Select Committee to decide the fate of the Chartist Land Company, by then known as the National Land Company which had got into financial difficulties. As most of the shareholders had little or no chance of being allocated a smallholding it was deemed to be a lottery and therefore its registration as a company was declared illegal.
Fortunately this was not the end of Co-operative Housing in Worcestershire as today the largest provider of new build co-op homes in the country is not so very far away from Dodford in the new town of Redditch.
Redditch Co-op Homes manage nearly 300 properties in the town including apartments, houses and bungalows to suit varied needs, from young single people and families to older retired people.
Indeed across the West Midlands the Co-op housing model is getting a new lease of life. Carl Taylor, former manager at Redditch Homes, is now the Director of Birmingham Co-operative Housing Services part of the Accord Group of Housing Associations. BCHS provides management services for nine housing co-ops in the West Midlands and since 1997 have developed over fifty co-op and community controlled housing projects. Carl makes a powerful case that the current housing crisis is forcing everyone to look again at housing co-ops.
“We have to be innovative about how we finance new social housing developments”, he says “and working co-operatively to spread the investment risk is becoming an attractive option.”
Whilst Carl recognises that Fergus O,Conner may have got the details wrong in Dodford his legacy is still important, “co-operative housing is still just as much about political empowerment as it is about putting a roof over working class families heads”, he says. In the last few months even this government has come around to seeing the benefits of investing in housing co-ops. The latest bid round from the Homes and Communities Agency has brought some success to the region with three new Co-operative developments being supported creating a £26 million pound Co-operative House building programme.
“This is the largest Co-operative Housing development programme in the West Midlands since the 1980’s,”says Carl, “new Co-operative developments will take place in Redditch, Darlaston and Charlemont Farm in the Black Country and Garretts Green in Birmingham. This will see the building of at least 260 new homes”.
These developments will be a powerful advertisement for the co-operative housing model but Carl is ambitious for the co-operative housing sector. He has seen the impact of the co-op model in empowering communities, helping people gain confidence and improve their life chances. For him this is just the beginning the search is on to develop new ways of financing co-op housing. With interest rates at an all time low there is the potential for new housing bonds to give a steady return to potential investors.
“Rosedene in Dodford is a simple building but it really is very beautiful”, says Carl, “and as part of a community it embodies the hope that everyone can have a decent place to live where they can feel at home. We really have to try every avenue if we are to be the generation to finally fulfil O’Conners dream”.
Friday, 14 October 2011
Co-op's and the Jobs Crisis
You would think that at a time when unemployment is once again inflicting untold damage on a new generation that any government would leave no stone unturned in getting people into work.
There is a sector that has continued to grow through the downturn, has outperformed UK economic growth every year since the 2008 banking collapse, is continuing to grow with the performance gap widening and is also expanding fastest in the new parts of the economy crucial for future economic development like renewable energy and environmental services.
It is a particularly resilient sector with new start ups out lasting their conventional competitors by a significant margin. A growing sector with a £33.2billion turnover employing over 236,000 people. Yet it is all but invisible when it comes to politicians and so called opinion formers.
That is of course the co-operative sector. Today there is so much interest in forming co-ops that the small number of co-op business advisors is overwhelmed by the demand. The movement has itself risen to the challenge the UK’s largest co-op, the Co-operative Group will by 2013 have ploughed £11 million into providing a specialist support and advice package to help new and existing co-op’s to become more sustainable businesses.
The service provided through the Co-operative Enterprise Hub puts those needing advice in contact with co-operative development specialists throughout the UK to enable them to access free advice, training and consultancy. The package can also include loans without security or personal guarantees.
Now this is a significant effort and clearly the Co-operative Group are fulfilling one of the key co-op principles that of co-operation amongst co-operatives. Many other co-ops help in similar ways like Lincoln and Midcounties. But we have to be honest and admit that this terrific effort on the part of the movement is scratching the surface of the potential for new co-op start-ups.
The fact is just one in every three thousand new business start-ups is a co-op! There are two main reasons for this. Firstly the chance of finding a business advisor who has any idea about co-op’s is decidedly slim.
There are some very good advisors out there in my own region we are blessed with the Coventry and Warwickshire Co-operative Development agency and the Gloucester based Co-operative Futures. But that is your lot so they have to cover a huge area with tiny staff numbers.
If that is not bad enough some mainstream business advisors are less than helpful and do their best to steer potential co-operators down the limited company route because that is all they understand and the registration process is simpler.
Which highlights the other reason - the sheer complexity of the regulatory environment new co-operative society’s face. New co-op start-ups have to be compliant with nineteen separate pieces of legislation! This is a tough ask when a group of people are taking a risk setting up of a new business. Co-operatives UK help with the process of registration ensuring that the cost is no more than establishing a limited company. This is very important as any error in registration can create huge problems further down the line.
Now after thirteen years of a Labour Government the fact that the co-operative movement has had to resort to winning piecemeal changes to legislation through very hard-won private members bills is a disgrace. Sadly this is what you get when the ruling party is in thrall to the monopolistic corporate sector. A sector which despite the rhetoric fears genuine competition.
The fact is that there is no chance of the corporate sector filling the huge gap in our economy being caused by the senseless attack on the public sector. Yet despite the governments myopia with a relatively modest level of public support we could double the number of co-ops in the UK in a short amount of time creating thousands of new businesses and many thousands of new jobs.
As well as start ups there is another untapped source of new co-operative businesses and that is the conversion of owner managed businesses. These types of businesses often face succession problems when the founder comes up to retirement. When there is no son or daughter with the skills or desire to take on the firm it can lead to closure or a painful acquisition by a competitor. Now the obvious successors are the workers but making this a genuine prospect requires education and support.
There is a considerable body of evidence that such transfers work well after all the John Lewis model that the government are always going on about (even if drawing the wrong lessons) was a successful transfer out of family ie private into workers ownership. Other examples of successful employee owned firms include the architects and consulting engineers, Arup Group, paper and board manufacturers, Tullis Russell and chemical makers, Scott Bader.
If the government was really committed to co-operative enterprise it would not be merely trying to pass off public sector privatisation as co-op development but would be just as enthusiastic about turning private firms into co-ops. Be in no doubt as Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett point out in their wonderful book the Spirit Level it is worth the effort. A country with a larger co-op sector would be a better place for all of us to live in.
Interested in starting a new co-op?
Go to www.co-operative.coop/enterprisehub
There is a sector that has continued to grow through the downturn, has outperformed UK economic growth every year since the 2008 banking collapse, is continuing to grow with the performance gap widening and is also expanding fastest in the new parts of the economy crucial for future economic development like renewable energy and environmental services.
It is a particularly resilient sector with new start ups out lasting their conventional competitors by a significant margin. A growing sector with a £33.2billion turnover employing over 236,000 people. Yet it is all but invisible when it comes to politicians and so called opinion formers.
That is of course the co-operative sector. Today there is so much interest in forming co-ops that the small number of co-op business advisors is overwhelmed by the demand. The movement has itself risen to the challenge the UK’s largest co-op, the Co-operative Group will by 2013 have ploughed £11 million into providing a specialist support and advice package to help new and existing co-op’s to become more sustainable businesses.
The service provided through the Co-operative Enterprise Hub puts those needing advice in contact with co-operative development specialists throughout the UK to enable them to access free advice, training and consultancy. The package can also include loans without security or personal guarantees.
Now this is a significant effort and clearly the Co-operative Group are fulfilling one of the key co-op principles that of co-operation amongst co-operatives. Many other co-ops help in similar ways like Lincoln and Midcounties. But we have to be honest and admit that this terrific effort on the part of the movement is scratching the surface of the potential for new co-op start-ups.
The fact is just one in every three thousand new business start-ups is a co-op! There are two main reasons for this. Firstly the chance of finding a business advisor who has any idea about co-op’s is decidedly slim.
There are some very good advisors out there in my own region we are blessed with the Coventry and Warwickshire Co-operative Development agency and the Gloucester based Co-operative Futures. But that is your lot so they have to cover a huge area with tiny staff numbers.
If that is not bad enough some mainstream business advisors are less than helpful and do their best to steer potential co-operators down the limited company route because that is all they understand and the registration process is simpler.
Which highlights the other reason - the sheer complexity of the regulatory environment new co-operative society’s face. New co-op start-ups have to be compliant with nineteen separate pieces of legislation! This is a tough ask when a group of people are taking a risk setting up of a new business. Co-operatives UK help with the process of registration ensuring that the cost is no more than establishing a limited company. This is very important as any error in registration can create huge problems further down the line.
Now after thirteen years of a Labour Government the fact that the co-operative movement has had to resort to winning piecemeal changes to legislation through very hard-won private members bills is a disgrace. Sadly this is what you get when the ruling party is in thrall to the monopolistic corporate sector. A sector which despite the rhetoric fears genuine competition.
The fact is that there is no chance of the corporate sector filling the huge gap in our economy being caused by the senseless attack on the public sector. Yet despite the governments myopia with a relatively modest level of public support we could double the number of co-ops in the UK in a short amount of time creating thousands of new businesses and many thousands of new jobs.
As well as start ups there is another untapped source of new co-operative businesses and that is the conversion of owner managed businesses. These types of businesses often face succession problems when the founder comes up to retirement. When there is no son or daughter with the skills or desire to take on the firm it can lead to closure or a painful acquisition by a competitor. Now the obvious successors are the workers but making this a genuine prospect requires education and support.
There is a considerable body of evidence that such transfers work well after all the John Lewis model that the government are always going on about (even if drawing the wrong lessons) was a successful transfer out of family ie private into workers ownership. Other examples of successful employee owned firms include the architects and consulting engineers, Arup Group, paper and board manufacturers, Tullis Russell and chemical makers, Scott Bader.
If the government was really committed to co-operative enterprise it would not be merely trying to pass off public sector privatisation as co-op development but would be just as enthusiastic about turning private firms into co-ops. Be in no doubt as Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett point out in their wonderful book the Spirit Level it is worth the effort. A country with a larger co-op sector would be a better place for all of us to live in.
Interested in starting a new co-op?
Go to www.co-operative.coop/enterprisehub
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