Lincoln Co-operative Society Celebrates its 150th Anniversary.
Sadly the Lincoln Equitable Co-operative Society only rates a footnote in the second edition of that old anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin’s seminal book, Fields, Factories and Workshops. This is the book in which Kroptkin laments the fact that; “Under the pretext of division of labour, we have sharply separated the brain worker from the manual worker”.
Originally published in 1898 alongside the Conquest of Bread and Mutual Aid it is one of Kropotkin’s most important works. In it he talks of a new “mutualist” venture – the Lincoln Equitable Co-operative Society. So here we have it, 1898 and the Lincoln Co-op is already making waves.
Founded in 1861 by a joiner from Gainsborough, Thomas Parker, it began trading from 1, Napoleon Place, Lincoln, in September 1861, wisely “goods where sold for ready money only”. After the first quarter they had 74 members and paid out a dividend of 9 old pence!
The society’s mission was the “domestic, social and intellectual advancement of its members” so in 1876, they established an Education Committee and having raised £18 from concerts and readings opened a free reading room twenty years before Lincoln’s first public library.
Lincolnshire Co-operative Society today has expanded across the county and into Newark in Nottinghamshire. This year the Society celebrates its 150th anniversary with a slightly larger membership - 198,000 - who last year received a dividend payment of £4.3million.
With sales of £278 million, a trading surplus of over £20million, two hundred outlets from food stores, pharmacies, post offices, home stores, travel agents, coffee shops, florists, a car dealership, funerals and even their own a bakery. This I suppose at least ensures the conquest of bread.
In the report to members in 1863 the Society told them to “Have faith in the lovely principle of co-operation and cast your mountain of woe into the sea”. Today faced with the retailing juggernauts of the big five supermarkets the performance of Lincoln Society is even more remarkable than it was in Kropotkin’s day.
For a regional consumer retail society to consistently deliver such staggering results for the community it serves and its members is more than remarkable. The Society is staunchly committed co-operative principles as well as fair trade and to local sourcing. They have a real commitment to local produce and it’s not just Lincolnshire sausage and Lincolnshire poacher cheese. They sell a large range of local sourced foods supporting local producers and cutting down on food miles.
The society established and continues to support the Lincolnshire Co-operative Development Agency which offers business support across the county. The 150th Anniversary gives the Society much to reflect on indeed for the 50th anniversary in 1911 a history was written by the then secretary Duncan McInnes and in 1961 a centenary history was written by Frank Buckshaw and Duncan McNab. The 150th will not be an exception and former Director Alan Middleton is writing a new history of the Society.
Lincoln has always been fiercely independent and is deeply embedded into its local community is it any wonder when last year it shared £132,000 amongst 1500 Lincolnshire groups and charities. This year to mark the anniversary their big birthday award means they will be sharing £500,000 with 150 local good causes – there you have some genuine mutual aid!
But do not think it is all looking backwards. Lincoln is one of the most innovative and dynamic societies in the country. It is engaged in using its property portfolio to drive economic development and buying a pharmaceutical distribution business. Chief Executive Ursula Lidbetter is well known within the movement as a staunch champion of co-operation and in standing up for members having a key role in society governance. Currently she is Chair of the Co-operative Group’s Food board bringing her Lincoln experience to the national stage.
Ursula has been inspired by the passion and zeal of the founders of Lincoln Co-op 150 years ago who started the society not to generate profits or seek returns on their capital, but because they wanted to make a difference. She says; “Whatever members needed, the society found a way to provide it and the same ethos applies today, we collaborate with our community because that’s what we’re all about. If we can help we do, but if you want community development, you’ve got to be in the community.”
“Co-operation?” she adds, “you know it when you see it — regardless of the structure or the name. All our co-ops were founded because of the desperate need for trust, fairness and integrity. Yet there’s a whole generation who thinks of the Co-op as just another supermarket. That demonstrates the scale of the task the Movement faces.”
Here is a clear example of Kropotkin’s brains and hands working together - the true secret of Lincoln’s success is in being true to Co-operative values instead of just trying to be another supermarket. That is a lesson for all of us.
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
Wortley Hall @ 60
Happy Birthday to the Workers Stately Home!
At a time when we are battling so that workers can retire at sixty I am glad to see that one Labour movement institution has reached its diamond anniversary without a hint of retiring! I have always had a soft spot for Wortley Hall, I first went there longer ago than I like to admit, as it was the venue for the weekend schools of the old Midland Section of the Co-op Party.
Wortley Hall, between Sheffield and Huddersfield, is set in 26 acres of formal gardens and woodlands, was the ancestral home of the Earls of Wharncliffe, we are unsure when the original hall was built but it is known that Sir Thomas Wortley, born in 1440, lived at the Manor Wortley until 1510.
Sir Thomas, on the wrong side during the English Civil War, was taken by Parliamentary forces to the Tower of London. The hall then fell into decay until the mid eighteenth century when Edmund Wortley commissioned its rebuilding. The family’s new wealth came from the black diamond’s of the South Yorkshire coalfield. The Hall was occupied by the Army during the war, but with the coming of peace and the nationalisation of the mines it fell into what looked like terminal decline.
This all changed at a meeting in May 1950 when former miner Vin Williams proposed to local labour movement activists that Wortley Hall should become an education and recreation home for workers who would be both the owners and the users. The Hall was lifted out of almost derelict condition by a great deal of voluntary work with supporters carrying out much needed repairs and restoration. Then on May 5th 1951 it was opened as an education and holiday centre for the trade union, labour and co-operative movement.
For sixty years, successive generations have maintained that commitment and built on the sacrifices of those workers to keep Wortley Hall as the Workers Stately Home. It has always been run on co-operative principles and is a member of the Co-operatives UK and registered as a Friendly Society.
Today, with four stars from the English Tourist Board, the Hall is looking better than ever. The effort that has gone into bringing the accommodation and grounds up to the very highest standards has really paid off. The grounds laid out in an Italinate style on an eastward facing slope enjoying magnificent views over the Vale of Worsborough are absolutely glorious.
The Hall can host conferences for up to 175 delegates, with seven conference rooms and 49 en-suite bedrooms, all equipped with direct telephone lines and internet connections. Recently upgraded is the Unite ballroom, paid for mainly by Unite branches.
Another recent development has been the creation of two holiday cottages set in the old stable yard. The area has some excellent cycling and walking as the Hall is not far from the Peak District, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and for those wishing to travel further afield there is the ‘last of the summer wine country’ of Holmfirth.
Starting in May there are some exciting events to mark the anniversary especially intriguing are a series of folk song workshops with some very talented musicians and wordsmiths both to enjoy folk song but also to have ago at creating some new ones. Developed by Steel Valley Beacon Arts, participants include Pete Coe, Gavin Davenport, Ian Enters, Robin Garside, Bryony Griffith and Chris Mcshane.
The grounds are also the home of the South Yorkshire Festival, celebrating workers worldwide, which takes place on Saturday 2nd July this year, an excellent day out, in a delightful setting.
In August Jo Stanley will be giving the Sylvia Pankhurst memorial lecture which is sponsored by the National Assembly of Women, the Sylvia Pankhurst Memorial Committee and Wortley Hall.
And don’t forget organisations and individuals can apply for shares which are in £5 units. For a small sum you too can have a share in the Workers Stately Home! If you are a member of a Trade Union, Labour or Co-operative organisation you are eligible to become an individual shareholder. This entitles you to participate in the running of Wortley Hall so for more information go to: www.wortleyhall.org.uk
At a time when we are battling so that workers can retire at sixty I am glad to see that one Labour movement institution has reached its diamond anniversary without a hint of retiring! I have always had a soft spot for Wortley Hall, I first went there longer ago than I like to admit, as it was the venue for the weekend schools of the old Midland Section of the Co-op Party.
Wortley Hall, between Sheffield and Huddersfield, is set in 26 acres of formal gardens and woodlands, was the ancestral home of the Earls of Wharncliffe, we are unsure when the original hall was built but it is known that Sir Thomas Wortley, born in 1440, lived at the Manor Wortley until 1510.
Sir Thomas, on the wrong side during the English Civil War, was taken by Parliamentary forces to the Tower of London. The hall then fell into decay until the mid eighteenth century when Edmund Wortley commissioned its rebuilding. The family’s new wealth came from the black diamond’s of the South Yorkshire coalfield. The Hall was occupied by the Army during the war, but with the coming of peace and the nationalisation of the mines it fell into what looked like terminal decline.
This all changed at a meeting in May 1950 when former miner Vin Williams proposed to local labour movement activists that Wortley Hall should become an education and recreation home for workers who would be both the owners and the users. The Hall was lifted out of almost derelict condition by a great deal of voluntary work with supporters carrying out much needed repairs and restoration. Then on May 5th 1951 it was opened as an education and holiday centre for the trade union, labour and co-operative movement.
For sixty years, successive generations have maintained that commitment and built on the sacrifices of those workers to keep Wortley Hall as the Workers Stately Home. It has always been run on co-operative principles and is a member of the Co-operatives UK and registered as a Friendly Society.
Today, with four stars from the English Tourist Board, the Hall is looking better than ever. The effort that has gone into bringing the accommodation and grounds up to the very highest standards has really paid off. The grounds laid out in an Italinate style on an eastward facing slope enjoying magnificent views over the Vale of Worsborough are absolutely glorious.
The Hall can host conferences for up to 175 delegates, with seven conference rooms and 49 en-suite bedrooms, all equipped with direct telephone lines and internet connections. Recently upgraded is the Unite ballroom, paid for mainly by Unite branches.
Another recent development has been the creation of two holiday cottages set in the old stable yard. The area has some excellent cycling and walking as the Hall is not far from the Peak District, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and for those wishing to travel further afield there is the ‘last of the summer wine country’ of Holmfirth.
Starting in May there are some exciting events to mark the anniversary especially intriguing are a series of folk song workshops with some very talented musicians and wordsmiths both to enjoy folk song but also to have ago at creating some new ones. Developed by Steel Valley Beacon Arts, participants include Pete Coe, Gavin Davenport, Ian Enters, Robin Garside, Bryony Griffith and Chris Mcshane.
The grounds are also the home of the South Yorkshire Festival, celebrating workers worldwide, which takes place on Saturday 2nd July this year, an excellent day out, in a delightful setting.
In August Jo Stanley will be giving the Sylvia Pankhurst memorial lecture which is sponsored by the National Assembly of Women, the Sylvia Pankhurst Memorial Committee and Wortley Hall.
And don’t forget organisations and individuals can apply for shares which are in £5 units. For a small sum you too can have a share in the Workers Stately Home! If you are a member of a Trade Union, Labour or Co-operative organisation you are eligible to become an individual shareholder. This entitles you to participate in the running of Wortley Hall so for more information go to: www.wortleyhall.org.uk
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Is Co-operative Energy the Answer to a Toothless OFGEM?
In last month’s Morning Star we heard that Ofgem (the energy regulator) was giving the energy utilities “one last chance” to stop ripping customers off or face a full bloodied Competition Commission inquiry. The regulator said that it had found evidence that the 'big six' suppliers – EDF, British Gas, E.ON, RWE npower, Scottish and Southern and Scottish Power – increase customers' bills more quickly when wholesale energy costs go up than they cut them when they come down.
Talk about stating the blinking obvious. No wonder Mike O'Connor, chief executive of Consumer Focus, said: "Consumers have less confidence in energy companies than in any other sector – they feel that prices aren't fair, that tariffs are too complex and that the market doesn't treat them well."
It seems there has been as much wind generated from energy sector investigations as there has been energy from wind. To date this is the 18th inquiry. It was greedy energy companies increasing bills to near-record highs on the back of last winter’s record low temperatures that put pressure for Ofgem to investigate the sector for making excessive profits yet again.
After this investigation, Alistair Buchanan, Ofgem chief, ordered the power companies to simplify the bewildering array of 350 different available tariffs which they use to bamboozle customers and make price comparisons nigh on impossible. He added that there was still not enough competition and threatened them with a Competition Commission referral. In response the industry has been working overtime lobbying politicians and the media, warning that a referral, would delay their spending plans and new nuclear plants and an expansion of renewables until the outcome is clear.
Unsurprisingly, the former Rugby schoolboy, Tory Energy Minister Charles Hendry MP, whose business career was in Public Relations, (with Ogilvy & Mather and Burson-Marsteller), soon got to work - representing the industry. Last month he seemed to back the firms when he said of the big six that a Competition referral could scare them off from investing in the UK. It appears his corporate networking skills, he was founder of the Agenda Group, a specialist consultancy helping company Chairmen and CEO’s with corporate networking, have paid off!
Many industry insiders however think that Ofgem’s position is mere posturing as a Competition Commission referral would in reality expose Ofgem’s own failings and its role in creating the current system.
Clearly for ordinary consumers the privatisation of our energy supply industry has been a disaster. The structure has been described as “one of pretend competition and impotent regulation” but whilst we are waiting for a government with the backbone to take back the industry is there anything we can do as consumers?
Well I have decided to make the switch to the new kid on the block: Co-operative Energy, the brainchild of the UK’s third largest consumer co-operative Midcounties Co-operative Society.
I had been buying my energy via the TUC affinity scheme ‘Union Energy’ supplied by Scottish Power however when that scheme came to an end I was left buying my energy from Iberdrola S.A. as Scottish Power has been taken over by the giant Spanish utility.
This lead to an enlightening telephone conversation with someone from Scottish Power – they rang me up to ask me why I was switching. I said I had sympathy for the plight of the Spanish economy and great respect for the Basque people but I did not see why the profits from supplying me with energy should go to Bilbao. The person was clueless as to who the owners of the business he was working for where and found it hard to believe I could have a stake in the business I bought my energy from.
So I have given Co-operative Energy a chance, switching has been remarkably easy, with no shareholders to please, at least the decisions they make are in my best interests and by becoming a Midcounties member I get a share of the profits. They pledge that they will always offer a fair price and whilst they may not be the cheapest at certain points, they aim to make sure they’re competitive over the long-term.
They also pledge to have just one simple price (that’s a relief) with no gimmicks, and to make everything as simple as possible such as explaining how the energy is sourced and how the prices are worked out, being open and transparent in everything they do.
They aim for the carbon content of their electricity to be less than half the national average by April 2012 and like all co-operative businesses, aim to be ethical in their dealings with individuals and businesses.
The Co-operative supply of energy is not uncommon around the world; indeed in the land of the so called free some 47 of those United States have co-operative electricity suppliers. If you do an internet search for the ‘Co-operative Energy Company’ you may find yourself in Sibley, Iowa. The most impressive US electricity co-operative business is Touchstone Energy, an alliance of energy co-operatives, it has the highest customer satisfaction rating of all US energy utilities, so is it any wonder it has some 40 million customers.
Co-operative Energy is a new business and it will take a while to get to that level of membership but the more members it has the greater will be its buying power. The new business also faces that fact that its current energy mix may not be as biased towards renewable as some would wish but it does aim to be competitive and to work towards lower carbon inputs.
Well if Co-operative Energy this side of the Atlantic fails to fulfill its pledges they will have me to deal with at their AGM. So if you are fed up with being taken for a sucker by Ofgem and want to give the ‘big six’ energy companies a miss why not see if Co-operative Energy is for you. To find out more go to: www.cooperativeenergy.coop.
Talk about stating the blinking obvious. No wonder Mike O'Connor, chief executive of Consumer Focus, said: "Consumers have less confidence in energy companies than in any other sector – they feel that prices aren't fair, that tariffs are too complex and that the market doesn't treat them well."
It seems there has been as much wind generated from energy sector investigations as there has been energy from wind. To date this is the 18th inquiry. It was greedy energy companies increasing bills to near-record highs on the back of last winter’s record low temperatures that put pressure for Ofgem to investigate the sector for making excessive profits yet again.
After this investigation, Alistair Buchanan, Ofgem chief, ordered the power companies to simplify the bewildering array of 350 different available tariffs which they use to bamboozle customers and make price comparisons nigh on impossible. He added that there was still not enough competition and threatened them with a Competition Commission referral. In response the industry has been working overtime lobbying politicians and the media, warning that a referral, would delay their spending plans and new nuclear plants and an expansion of renewables until the outcome is clear.
Unsurprisingly, the former Rugby schoolboy, Tory Energy Minister Charles Hendry MP, whose business career was in Public Relations, (with Ogilvy & Mather and Burson-Marsteller), soon got to work - representing the industry. Last month he seemed to back the firms when he said of the big six that a Competition referral could scare them off from investing in the UK. It appears his corporate networking skills, he was founder of the Agenda Group, a specialist consultancy helping company Chairmen and CEO’s with corporate networking, have paid off!
Many industry insiders however think that Ofgem’s position is mere posturing as a Competition Commission referral would in reality expose Ofgem’s own failings and its role in creating the current system.
Clearly for ordinary consumers the privatisation of our energy supply industry has been a disaster. The structure has been described as “one of pretend competition and impotent regulation” but whilst we are waiting for a government with the backbone to take back the industry is there anything we can do as consumers?
Well I have decided to make the switch to the new kid on the block: Co-operative Energy, the brainchild of the UK’s third largest consumer co-operative Midcounties Co-operative Society.
I had been buying my energy via the TUC affinity scheme ‘Union Energy’ supplied by Scottish Power however when that scheme came to an end I was left buying my energy from Iberdrola S.A. as Scottish Power has been taken over by the giant Spanish utility.
This lead to an enlightening telephone conversation with someone from Scottish Power – they rang me up to ask me why I was switching. I said I had sympathy for the plight of the Spanish economy and great respect for the Basque people but I did not see why the profits from supplying me with energy should go to Bilbao. The person was clueless as to who the owners of the business he was working for where and found it hard to believe I could have a stake in the business I bought my energy from.
So I have given Co-operative Energy a chance, switching has been remarkably easy, with no shareholders to please, at least the decisions they make are in my best interests and by becoming a Midcounties member I get a share of the profits. They pledge that they will always offer a fair price and whilst they may not be the cheapest at certain points, they aim to make sure they’re competitive over the long-term.
They also pledge to have just one simple price (that’s a relief) with no gimmicks, and to make everything as simple as possible such as explaining how the energy is sourced and how the prices are worked out, being open and transparent in everything they do.
They aim for the carbon content of their electricity to be less than half the national average by April 2012 and like all co-operative businesses, aim to be ethical in their dealings with individuals and businesses.
The Co-operative supply of energy is not uncommon around the world; indeed in the land of the so called free some 47 of those United States have co-operative electricity suppliers. If you do an internet search for the ‘Co-operative Energy Company’ you may find yourself in Sibley, Iowa. The most impressive US electricity co-operative business is Touchstone Energy, an alliance of energy co-operatives, it has the highest customer satisfaction rating of all US energy utilities, so is it any wonder it has some 40 million customers.
Co-operative Energy is a new business and it will take a while to get to that level of membership but the more members it has the greater will be its buying power. The new business also faces that fact that its current energy mix may not be as biased towards renewable as some would wish but it does aim to be competitive and to work towards lower carbon inputs.
Well if Co-operative Energy this side of the Atlantic fails to fulfill its pledges they will have me to deal with at their AGM. So if you are fed up with being taken for a sucker by Ofgem and want to give the ‘big six’ energy companies a miss why not see if Co-operative Energy is for you. To find out more go to: www.cooperativeenergy.coop.
Monday, 14 March 2011
Goths Versus Vandals
The beautiful village of Hesket Newmarket in the Caldbeck Fells is home to the Old Crown reputedly Britain’s first co-operative pub. Today when the greed of pubco’s and cut price supermarket beer is driving a swathe through Britain’s pubs it is good to hear of a community coming together to take control of an important local institution.
The good folk of the village had earlier come together to save the brewery behind the pub when it came on the market keen to save the prize winning ales.
Julian Ross, who led the bid by customers to take ownership of the pub, said “People say they don’t care about making a return on their investment. They want to preserve something that is important for the community. Regulars and visitors alike always find a warm welcome, great home cooked food (including the famous Old Crown curries), a friendly smile and a truly superb range of real ales.”
When in the depths of the recession almost 40 pubs were closing a week, community co-operative ownership had been successful in saving village shops, so it was a short step to apply the model to pubs. In March last year in response to this success the government announced a £3.3million support program to help develop community owned pubs.
Needless to say despite the ‘Big Society’ rhetoric the Condem’s by August had bought the axe to the program. In January this year anxious to help the 82 communities left high and literally dry, a group including, the Plunket Foundation, Co-operatives UK, the Co-op Group and CAMRA (there are now seven community owned pubs in the Good Beer Guide) came together with a support package. Community ownership however is not just the middle classes playing at landlord.
The Star Inn, in Higher Broughton, Salford, was given three weeks’ notice of closure last summer but locals clubbed together, now it is back in business as Britain’s first urban community-owned co-operative pub.
Local Margaret Fowler has said: "The Star Inn has been part of the community since 1867. People really missed it when it was closed down and that brought us all together to invest our own cash to re-open the pub. It really was easy to set it up as a co-operative and now we have got our pub back, it’s the most fantastic feeling in the world."
Now this seems like a new idea but it got me thinking because I first visited a community owned pub on a trip to Scotland many years ago. It was in Newtongrange or Nitten as it is known locally. Home of the Lady Victoria Colliery, in 1890, it was the largest coal mining village in Scotland. Sadly the pit has gone and today it is home to the Scottish Mining Museum.
Despite all the changes the village has seen one local institution has stood steadfastly by the community both as an important social centre and as a benefactor - the Dean Tavern.
Back in the 1890’s the pit generated a lot of thirsty miners. It was a struggle for the Lothian Coal Company to get a license against a strong temperance movement. Resistance was overcome by agreeing to open a pub on “Gothenburg Principles”.
The Gothenburg principles come from the Swedish City. Sweden had a huge drink problem in the nineteenth century with every house owner legally allowed to have their own still.
In 1855 a law was passed banning domestic distilling and giving local authorities powers to grant licenses. The city of Gothenburg pioneered a system in which spirit licences were awarded to a trust which ran licensed premises in a way that would not encourage excessive drinking.
The premises were to be clean but unattractive, with employees having no interest in pushing sales to make a profit and the shareholders limited to a 5% return. All profits above 5% were to go to the City to be used to benefit the local community. It was a system that proved to be extremely profitable.
The idea was taken up by public house reformers and temperance campaigners in Scotland. Public house trusts or Goths were set up in Peebles, Leven, Clydebank, Broxburn and Tranent but most dramatically with the coal companies in Central Scotland.
There were 'Goths' in the Lothians, Stirlingshire, Ayrshire, and in Fife, where the system really took off. Often like in Nitten the coal companies were the source of funds and were a dominant force on the trust boards, but miners too contributed capital and gained representation.
Despite the fact the pubs were not to be welcoming, no credit, no betting, no gambling, no games or amusements (even dominoes was banned), the community facilities and beneficiaries funded by them was huge. They funded libraries, museums, parks, bowling and cricket grounds and pavilions, cinemas, community centres or 'Gothenburg halls' and gave grants to galas, charities, clubs and societies and even funded district nurses and ambulances.
In its first year of 1900-01 the Dean Tavern generated a profit of £340. Over the years the pub has contributed enormously to the village. Without it the place would be without numerous village landmarks that exist because of the Deans profits. Today the Trust continues to support village societies with annual grants and during the miner's strike of 1984-85, they provided the Miners Women's Support Group with £50 worth of food a week.
The Dean you may argue has been lucky there where over 2,500 pub closures last year. Clearly the pressure pubs are under from unsympathetic government policy and greedy pub companies and brewers is immense. In this environment the idea of community owned pubs is firmly back on the agenda it is time to save the ‘Goths’ from the Vandals!
The good folk of the village had earlier come together to save the brewery behind the pub when it came on the market keen to save the prize winning ales.
Julian Ross, who led the bid by customers to take ownership of the pub, said “People say they don’t care about making a return on their investment. They want to preserve something that is important for the community. Regulars and visitors alike always find a warm welcome, great home cooked food (including the famous Old Crown curries), a friendly smile and a truly superb range of real ales.”
When in the depths of the recession almost 40 pubs were closing a week, community co-operative ownership had been successful in saving village shops, so it was a short step to apply the model to pubs. In March last year in response to this success the government announced a £3.3million support program to help develop community owned pubs.
Needless to say despite the ‘Big Society’ rhetoric the Condem’s by August had bought the axe to the program. In January this year anxious to help the 82 communities left high and literally dry, a group including, the Plunket Foundation, Co-operatives UK, the Co-op Group and CAMRA (there are now seven community owned pubs in the Good Beer Guide) came together with a support package. Community ownership however is not just the middle classes playing at landlord.
The Star Inn, in Higher Broughton, Salford, was given three weeks’ notice of closure last summer but locals clubbed together, now it is back in business as Britain’s first urban community-owned co-operative pub.
Local Margaret Fowler has said: "The Star Inn has been part of the community since 1867. People really missed it when it was closed down and that brought us all together to invest our own cash to re-open the pub. It really was easy to set it up as a co-operative and now we have got our pub back, it’s the most fantastic feeling in the world."
Now this seems like a new idea but it got me thinking because I first visited a community owned pub on a trip to Scotland many years ago. It was in Newtongrange or Nitten as it is known locally. Home of the Lady Victoria Colliery, in 1890, it was the largest coal mining village in Scotland. Sadly the pit has gone and today it is home to the Scottish Mining Museum.
Despite all the changes the village has seen one local institution has stood steadfastly by the community both as an important social centre and as a benefactor - the Dean Tavern.
Back in the 1890’s the pit generated a lot of thirsty miners. It was a struggle for the Lothian Coal Company to get a license against a strong temperance movement. Resistance was overcome by agreeing to open a pub on “Gothenburg Principles”.
The Gothenburg principles come from the Swedish City. Sweden had a huge drink problem in the nineteenth century with every house owner legally allowed to have their own still.
In 1855 a law was passed banning domestic distilling and giving local authorities powers to grant licenses. The city of Gothenburg pioneered a system in which spirit licences were awarded to a trust which ran licensed premises in a way that would not encourage excessive drinking.
The premises were to be clean but unattractive, with employees having no interest in pushing sales to make a profit and the shareholders limited to a 5% return. All profits above 5% were to go to the City to be used to benefit the local community. It was a system that proved to be extremely profitable.
The idea was taken up by public house reformers and temperance campaigners in Scotland. Public house trusts or Goths were set up in Peebles, Leven, Clydebank, Broxburn and Tranent but most dramatically with the coal companies in Central Scotland.
There were 'Goths' in the Lothians, Stirlingshire, Ayrshire, and in Fife, where the system really took off. Often like in Nitten the coal companies were the source of funds and were a dominant force on the trust boards, but miners too contributed capital and gained representation.
Despite the fact the pubs were not to be welcoming, no credit, no betting, no gambling, no games or amusements (even dominoes was banned), the community facilities and beneficiaries funded by them was huge. They funded libraries, museums, parks, bowling and cricket grounds and pavilions, cinemas, community centres or 'Gothenburg halls' and gave grants to galas, charities, clubs and societies and even funded district nurses and ambulances.
In its first year of 1900-01 the Dean Tavern generated a profit of £340. Over the years the pub has contributed enormously to the village. Without it the place would be without numerous village landmarks that exist because of the Deans profits. Today the Trust continues to support village societies with annual grants and during the miner's strike of 1984-85, they provided the Miners Women's Support Group with £50 worth of food a week.
The Dean you may argue has been lucky there where over 2,500 pub closures last year. Clearly the pressure pubs are under from unsympathetic government policy and greedy pub companies and brewers is immense. In this environment the idea of community owned pubs is firmly back on the agenda it is time to save the ‘Goths’ from the Vandals!
Friday, 4 March 2011
There Really is an Alternative!
The Tories and their mates in the City are fond of telling us there is no alternative to their world vision. Corporate capitalism has won and we must embrace market fundamentalism at whatever cost to our environment, to our productive economy, to our international relationships or indeed to our relations with one another.
Well despite those Tory doomsayers for the best part of forty years in a disused quarry in mid Wales there has been a place where not only has an alternative future been thought about it has also been demonstrated to work!
Last year with the opening of their newest institute, the Centre for Alternative Technology, was credited with opening the ‘building of the year’ by of all publications the Daily Telegraph!
The new Wales Institute for Sustainable Education (Wise) was described not only as “an extremely worthy building but a ravishingly beautiful one too”. There is no doubt CAT founded in 1973 on the site of the disused Llwyngwern slate quarry near Machynlleth, in Mid Wales has really come of age.
Founder Gerard Morgan-Grenville, was well ahead of our contemporary concerns about the environment when he started the organisation that he conceived as "a project to show the nature of the problem and show ways of going forward."
It was originally a community dedicated to eco-friendly principles and a 'test bed' for new ideas and technologies. In the beginning, progress in the quarry was slow, and the early attempts to raise money were frustrating. Volunteers worked long hours, often by candlelight - there was no electricity on the site at the time.
Well they say it is better to light a candle than to sit in the dark! He had realised that if we are to tackle the threat to the environment we need to completely rethink the way we live and how we make our living. Today as a testament to his vision the centre is a world leader in alternative, environmentally sustainable technology.
What is more Machynlleth is not just the home of a world class centre of education and research it is also the home of one of the world leaders in renewable energy. That business is Dulas, originally spun out from CATS in 1982, the green energy consultancy business now based on the Dyfi Eco Park, near the railway station, began with just 18 staff and a turnover in 2000 of £1.4million today it has over 80 staff and a turnover of £12million plus.
There are few parts of the world today with renewable energy development taking place where you will not find someone from Dulas. It is involved in bringing proven technology to the market place in four main areas, solar photovoltaics, hydropower, biomass and wind energy. It operates throughout the supply chain, from feasibility and resource assessment through to installation, project management, operation and maintenance.
In operating across the world Dulas has, for example, as a solar supplier to the World Health Organisation and Unicef, won numerous awards for its work including being crowned, Company of the Year at the British Renewable Energy Awards in 2009.
At those British Renewable Energy Awards the company was rewarded for its diversity in providing solar DVD players and vaccine refrigeration solutions in Africa through to grid connected PV and hydro power in the UK.
It also won a co-operative enterprise award in 2009. Because as you may have guessed Dulas is a worker co-operative - its workers are also its owners.
They believe that being a worker owned business brings a very high level of commitment and application. They enjoy an open business culture where business development and performance are communicated to all the employee-owners on a company wide basis encouraging high levels of staff retention. They donate up to 3% of company profits each year to charity and invest heavily in staff welfare. Ownership of the business and its success is shared across the whole enterprise.
Modern capitalism has a great deal of sunk costs in the existing ways of doing business, there are a lot of powerful people whose power comes from controlling our access to carbon based energy, and they are working hard to maintain our dependency on their products. You only have to look at our Governments relationships with big oil to see that rather than helping us to wean ourselves off oil they are keen to maintain that dependency.
The technologies being developed at CATS and disseminated by Dulas could if we where smart enough break the embrace of these planet destroying technologies. I am certain that there will very soon be a time when we will be grateful not only for the work they have already done but also for the way in which they are doing it.
The future is not only in decentralised renewable energy but in also workers and community ownership and control of those very energy supplies. The uprisings in the Middle East show that tyrannical rule by kleptocrats is, like the carbon based energy they supply, unsustainable. We have to escape a situation in which every time we turn on our central heating we are propping up the Emir of Qatar. The pressure for alternative energy will grow with the realisation that we will no longer be able to hold down entire populations whilst we steal their energy.
If we are to liberate ourselves from the corruption and environmental damage that comes with big oil and gas Dulas will need to get a lot more work.
Whilst it may only today be a small example of what is possible it’s very existence and its remarkable growth clearly demonstrate that there is an alternative.
Well despite those Tory doomsayers for the best part of forty years in a disused quarry in mid Wales there has been a place where not only has an alternative future been thought about it has also been demonstrated to work!
Last year with the opening of their newest institute, the Centre for Alternative Technology, was credited with opening the ‘building of the year’ by of all publications the Daily Telegraph!
The new Wales Institute for Sustainable Education (Wise) was described not only as “an extremely worthy building but a ravishingly beautiful one too”. There is no doubt CAT founded in 1973 on the site of the disused Llwyngwern slate quarry near Machynlleth, in Mid Wales has really come of age.
Founder Gerard Morgan-Grenville, was well ahead of our contemporary concerns about the environment when he started the organisation that he conceived as "a project to show the nature of the problem and show ways of going forward."
It was originally a community dedicated to eco-friendly principles and a 'test bed' for new ideas and technologies. In the beginning, progress in the quarry was slow, and the early attempts to raise money were frustrating. Volunteers worked long hours, often by candlelight - there was no electricity on the site at the time.
Well they say it is better to light a candle than to sit in the dark! He had realised that if we are to tackle the threat to the environment we need to completely rethink the way we live and how we make our living. Today as a testament to his vision the centre is a world leader in alternative, environmentally sustainable technology.
What is more Machynlleth is not just the home of a world class centre of education and research it is also the home of one of the world leaders in renewable energy. That business is Dulas, originally spun out from CATS in 1982, the green energy consultancy business now based on the Dyfi Eco Park, near the railway station, began with just 18 staff and a turnover in 2000 of £1.4million today it has over 80 staff and a turnover of £12million plus.
There are few parts of the world today with renewable energy development taking place where you will not find someone from Dulas. It is involved in bringing proven technology to the market place in four main areas, solar photovoltaics, hydropower, biomass and wind energy. It operates throughout the supply chain, from feasibility and resource assessment through to installation, project management, operation and maintenance.
In operating across the world Dulas has, for example, as a solar supplier to the World Health Organisation and Unicef, won numerous awards for its work including being crowned, Company of the Year at the British Renewable Energy Awards in 2009.
At those British Renewable Energy Awards the company was rewarded for its diversity in providing solar DVD players and vaccine refrigeration solutions in Africa through to grid connected PV and hydro power in the UK.
It also won a co-operative enterprise award in 2009. Because as you may have guessed Dulas is a worker co-operative - its workers are also its owners.
They believe that being a worker owned business brings a very high level of commitment and application. They enjoy an open business culture where business development and performance are communicated to all the employee-owners on a company wide basis encouraging high levels of staff retention. They donate up to 3% of company profits each year to charity and invest heavily in staff welfare. Ownership of the business and its success is shared across the whole enterprise.
Modern capitalism has a great deal of sunk costs in the existing ways of doing business, there are a lot of powerful people whose power comes from controlling our access to carbon based energy, and they are working hard to maintain our dependency on their products. You only have to look at our Governments relationships with big oil to see that rather than helping us to wean ourselves off oil they are keen to maintain that dependency.
The technologies being developed at CATS and disseminated by Dulas could if we where smart enough break the embrace of these planet destroying technologies. I am certain that there will very soon be a time when we will be grateful not only for the work they have already done but also for the way in which they are doing it.
The future is not only in decentralised renewable energy but in also workers and community ownership and control of those very energy supplies. The uprisings in the Middle East show that tyrannical rule by kleptocrats is, like the carbon based energy they supply, unsustainable. We have to escape a situation in which every time we turn on our central heating we are propping up the Emir of Qatar. The pressure for alternative energy will grow with the realisation that we will no longer be able to hold down entire populations whilst we steal their energy.
If we are to liberate ourselves from the corruption and environmental damage that comes with big oil and gas Dulas will need to get a lot more work.
Whilst it may only today be a small example of what is possible it’s very existence and its remarkable growth clearly demonstrate that there is an alternative.
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Syndicalism: Review Essay
Syndicalism and Radical Unionism, Socialist History 37.
Published by Rivers Oram Press, 2010.
ISBN 978 1 85489 174 7
Killing No Murder, South Wales and the Great Railway Strike of 1911,
By Robert Griffiths.
With an introduction by Bob Crow, General Secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union.
Published by Manifesto Press, 2009.
ISBN 978 1 907464 01 0
The UK Socialist History Society deserves great credit for dedicating an issue of their journal to the subject of syndicalism. It is a subject that has been short changed in much historical writing about both trade unionism and the working class movement. It sometimes seems that syndicalist ideas are often treated more seriously in mainstream histories than in those which purport to be from a left or socialist perspective.
I found this collection of essays quite uplifting and they certainly shed some light on some key moments in the story of the syndicalist contribution to working class history.
In the opening editorial essay, Ralph Darlington, Professor of Employment Relations at Salford University, points out that the key ideas of revolutionary unionism emerged with the development of capitalism. In Britain from the 1830’s and the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union and Robert Owens proposal for a general strike in the form of a Grand National Holiday syndicalist ideas have arisen at regular intervals.
He points out that the movement faced three ‘paradoxes or dilemmas’: firstly in how much influence it had, secondly, the potential flaw of the limitations of trade unionism within capitalist society, and thirdly of the challenge to syndicalism from communism.
In his contribution to the journal, Alex Gordon, currently President of the Rail Maritime and Transport Union(RMT) here in the UK, our most effective, class conscious and militant trade union, writes about a lesser known English syndicalist, Charles Watkins. In the wake of Britain’s first national railway strike, in 1911, Watkins founded and edited the Syndicalist Railwayman newspaper.
This essay is complementary to the other book I am reviewing an account of the 1911 railway strike as it affected South Wales. This book, written by Robert Griffiths, today the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Britain, does not shy away from the syndicalist nature of that dispute nor does, incidentally, the current general secretary of the railworkers (RMT) in Britain, Bob Crow, who writes an introduction to the book. Both draw important lessons from the dispute which was the last time troops shot and killed strikers on the UK mainland.
Griffiths points out that in studying the history of this period the miners have received most of the attention. This is partly due to the power of the South Wales Miners Federation and its lodges which produced both official and unofficial newspapers. Indeed as Gordon argues one of the few lasting literary monuments of the campaign for industrial unionism was The Miners Next Step published in 1912. Griffiths argues that it is time for the railway workers to take centre stage and I would argue there is much of value in Watkins writings and those he went onto write in Tom Mann’s, The Syndicalist.
Griffiths book was originally produced for a Welsh language TV programme in 1986 under the title of Steic! Streic! Streic! Which as Griffiths suggests needs no translation. The new title of the book ‘Killing No Murder!’ comes from the title of a pamphlet written about the dispute by Keir Hardie in 1912 when he was the Member of Parliament for Merthyr Tydfill. In it, as well as explaining the grievances of the workers, Hardie wrote that he had seen “a degree of class solidarity few believed possible.”
That degree of solidarity was quickly lost as Europe descended into war. Wayne Thorpe, Associate Professor at McMaster University, describes in his essay, International Syndicalists in Europe, 1914-18, how syndicalists across Europe fought a brave but losing battle against the drive to war.
According to Thorpe the syndicalists had four key arguments against war. Firstly, they argued that ‘national’ cultures where not mutually hostile, secondly, they denied that the state was the embodiment of representative culture, thirdly that cultures or nations did not go to war but states did. Fourthly and finally when the war came they highlighted the need for workers movement to mount its struggle on the cultural as well as the economic terrain.
The syndicalist journal Tierra y Libertad in Barcelona predicted in 1915, that; “if the war ended not in generalised revolution but with clear victory for either side, the result would not be peace, but a mere truce of whatever duration the defeated side needed to recoup, raise the flag of cultural defence and strike back.”
How right they where! Reiner Tosstorff, historian at the Johannes Guttenburg University in Mainz has written about the history of the Profintern (the RILU, the Red International of Labour Unions) and has also written about the history of the POUM in the Spanish Civil War. His essay about syndicalist relations with the one country that did undergo a revolution as a result of that war is called Syndicalism and the Bolshevik Revolution.
This essay is a review of the impact on the syndicalist movement of the Bolshevik victory in Russia. Meetings between syndicalists and Bolsheviks only became practical after 1920 with many syndicalist organisations sending delegates to the second Comintern congress in July-August 1920. The syndicalsist where split in how to relate to the Bolsheviks and this split was confirmed at a meeting of syndicalist organisations in Berlin in December 1920.
Despite reservations but not wanting to split the international revolutionary movement almost all of them turned up at the founding congress of the RILU in 1921. The syndicalists where completely outnumbered and despite some doubts broadly gave their support to the communists due to their emphasis on economic and industrial action and on workers control and factory councils. One of the most prominent syndicalist converts to communism was Andres Nin with in the end devastating consequences. Interestingly Trotsky played a role in the discussions between the syndicalists and the Bolsheviks and it was for Trotskyite deviationism that Nin was expelled from the Communists in 1928.
Tosstorrf argues that “it cannot be disputed that former revolutionary syndicalists furnished Stalinism with a ‘proletarian basis and veneer.” There is another interesting point raised by that Tosstorff about the relationship between syndicalism and anarchism. He argues that it was the reaction against communism that drove the syndicalists into the arms of the anarchists. “Sydicalism now found its ideological basis in anarchism to an extent which had not been so determining for pre-war syndicalism.”
He points out that revolutionary syndicalism became anarcho-syndicalism in 1922 with the formation of the International Working Men’s Association which sadly “never became an international based on mass influence.”
The other two essays in this collection Paul Buhle, lecturer at Brown University and author of Wobblies! A Graphic history of the IWW, on Syndicalism in the USA and Gregor Gall, Professor of Industrial relations at Hertfordshire University, on Radical Unionism in Britain cover more familiar terrain. Buhle provides an overview of syndicalist ideas in the US through many movements and organisations, including the IWW and up to the League of revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit in the 1970s.
Gall extends the view from syndicalism to ‘radical’ labour unionism evaluating the limits and potential of such radical movements with analytical and historical comparisons with more moderate forms of trade unionism.
Do these essays help provide answers to Darlingtons dilemmas? Well up to a point. Firstly how much influence did the syndicalists have? Well just here in Britain, as Gordon points out, considering it was such a short flowering, the syndicalist movement “bequeathed the Communist Party of Great Britain its first leadership generations, its most symbolic contribution is said to have been to have driven Sidney and Beatrice Webb to draft the now defunct Clause IV of the Labour party’s constitution in November 1917 as an antidote to pre war syndicalism.”
I have always been a supporter of that Clause IV:
“To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.”
I suppose it does have the sound of the Old Testament about it but is none the worse for that as it is quite beautiful language. It is understandable why it created so much affection in the supporters of the ‘Old’ Labour Party. Sadly there was no attempt by Old Labour (and most certainly not by New Labour which struck it from the constitution) to make any meaningful attempt to fulfill the terms of this commitment. There was precious little support for workers control or even for the tame British Co-operative movement. So the fact they had at least had to pay lip service to these ideas is interesting.
The other legacy of the syndicalist movement was the pressure for trade union amalgamations and federations. The formation of the National Union of Railwaymen, The National Union of Miners and the Transport and General Workers Union began this process. Attempts to form the One Big Union have certainly continued but have sadly been in more recent years pursued from a position of weakness rather than strength.
Syndicalists have in some ways been less compromised by the potential for trade unions to be absorbed into the state than by the social democratic trade unions. Here in the UK the complete cul de sac of social democratic politics has been confirmed by the last Labour Government. Indeed the recent evidence shows that unions like the RMT, which is easily the most militant, is that it is also the fastest growing. Expelled from membership of the Labour Party for supporting candidates from other parties it has returned to the basics of fighting with and for its members in the process making it feared by government whichever party is in office.
There is no doubt, that whilst not the case everywhere, in the UK, despite its small size the Communist Party squeezed out any space to the left of Labour for alternative viewpoints. Many of the leadings syndicalist thinkers and activists and their organisations ended up being absorbed into the Communist Party. On the collapse of the Soviet Union that space on the left was, at least initially, occupied by other well organised tendencies in the communist movement mainly Trotskyists but widespread disillusion with their style of doing politics coupled with a revulsion of parliamentary democracy and a revival in co-operative and green thinking does now, I believe, create fresh space for alternative ideas.
There is no doubt that now is the time for a syndicalist revival. Let us hope that the continued historical re-evaluation of the syndicalist experience contributes to that process.
Published by Rivers Oram Press, 2010.
ISBN 978 1 85489 174 7
Killing No Murder, South Wales and the Great Railway Strike of 1911,
By Robert Griffiths.
With an introduction by Bob Crow, General Secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union.
Published by Manifesto Press, 2009.
ISBN 978 1 907464 01 0
The UK Socialist History Society deserves great credit for dedicating an issue of their journal to the subject of syndicalism. It is a subject that has been short changed in much historical writing about both trade unionism and the working class movement. It sometimes seems that syndicalist ideas are often treated more seriously in mainstream histories than in those which purport to be from a left or socialist perspective.
I found this collection of essays quite uplifting and they certainly shed some light on some key moments in the story of the syndicalist contribution to working class history.
In the opening editorial essay, Ralph Darlington, Professor of Employment Relations at Salford University, points out that the key ideas of revolutionary unionism emerged with the development of capitalism. In Britain from the 1830’s and the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union and Robert Owens proposal for a general strike in the form of a Grand National Holiday syndicalist ideas have arisen at regular intervals.
He points out that the movement faced three ‘paradoxes or dilemmas’: firstly in how much influence it had, secondly, the potential flaw of the limitations of trade unionism within capitalist society, and thirdly of the challenge to syndicalism from communism.
In his contribution to the journal, Alex Gordon, currently President of the Rail Maritime and Transport Union(RMT) here in the UK, our most effective, class conscious and militant trade union, writes about a lesser known English syndicalist, Charles Watkins. In the wake of Britain’s first national railway strike, in 1911, Watkins founded and edited the Syndicalist Railwayman newspaper.
This essay is complementary to the other book I am reviewing an account of the 1911 railway strike as it affected South Wales. This book, written by Robert Griffiths, today the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Britain, does not shy away from the syndicalist nature of that dispute nor does, incidentally, the current general secretary of the railworkers (RMT) in Britain, Bob Crow, who writes an introduction to the book. Both draw important lessons from the dispute which was the last time troops shot and killed strikers on the UK mainland.
Griffiths points out that in studying the history of this period the miners have received most of the attention. This is partly due to the power of the South Wales Miners Federation and its lodges which produced both official and unofficial newspapers. Indeed as Gordon argues one of the few lasting literary monuments of the campaign for industrial unionism was The Miners Next Step published in 1912. Griffiths argues that it is time for the railway workers to take centre stage and I would argue there is much of value in Watkins writings and those he went onto write in Tom Mann’s, The Syndicalist.
Griffiths book was originally produced for a Welsh language TV programme in 1986 under the title of Steic! Streic! Streic! Which as Griffiths suggests needs no translation. The new title of the book ‘Killing No Murder!’ comes from the title of a pamphlet written about the dispute by Keir Hardie in 1912 when he was the Member of Parliament for Merthyr Tydfill. In it, as well as explaining the grievances of the workers, Hardie wrote that he had seen “a degree of class solidarity few believed possible.”
That degree of solidarity was quickly lost as Europe descended into war. Wayne Thorpe, Associate Professor at McMaster University, describes in his essay, International Syndicalists in Europe, 1914-18, how syndicalists across Europe fought a brave but losing battle against the drive to war.
According to Thorpe the syndicalists had four key arguments against war. Firstly, they argued that ‘national’ cultures where not mutually hostile, secondly, they denied that the state was the embodiment of representative culture, thirdly that cultures or nations did not go to war but states did. Fourthly and finally when the war came they highlighted the need for workers movement to mount its struggle on the cultural as well as the economic terrain.
The syndicalist journal Tierra y Libertad in Barcelona predicted in 1915, that; “if the war ended not in generalised revolution but with clear victory for either side, the result would not be peace, but a mere truce of whatever duration the defeated side needed to recoup, raise the flag of cultural defence and strike back.”
How right they where! Reiner Tosstorff, historian at the Johannes Guttenburg University in Mainz has written about the history of the Profintern (the RILU, the Red International of Labour Unions) and has also written about the history of the POUM in the Spanish Civil War. His essay about syndicalist relations with the one country that did undergo a revolution as a result of that war is called Syndicalism and the Bolshevik Revolution.
This essay is a review of the impact on the syndicalist movement of the Bolshevik victory in Russia. Meetings between syndicalists and Bolsheviks only became practical after 1920 with many syndicalist organisations sending delegates to the second Comintern congress in July-August 1920. The syndicalsist where split in how to relate to the Bolsheviks and this split was confirmed at a meeting of syndicalist organisations in Berlin in December 1920.
Despite reservations but not wanting to split the international revolutionary movement almost all of them turned up at the founding congress of the RILU in 1921. The syndicalists where completely outnumbered and despite some doubts broadly gave their support to the communists due to their emphasis on economic and industrial action and on workers control and factory councils. One of the most prominent syndicalist converts to communism was Andres Nin with in the end devastating consequences. Interestingly Trotsky played a role in the discussions between the syndicalists and the Bolsheviks and it was for Trotskyite deviationism that Nin was expelled from the Communists in 1928.
Tosstorrf argues that “it cannot be disputed that former revolutionary syndicalists furnished Stalinism with a ‘proletarian basis and veneer.” There is another interesting point raised by that Tosstorff about the relationship between syndicalism and anarchism. He argues that it was the reaction against communism that drove the syndicalists into the arms of the anarchists. “Sydicalism now found its ideological basis in anarchism to an extent which had not been so determining for pre-war syndicalism.”
He points out that revolutionary syndicalism became anarcho-syndicalism in 1922 with the formation of the International Working Men’s Association which sadly “never became an international based on mass influence.”
The other two essays in this collection Paul Buhle, lecturer at Brown University and author of Wobblies! A Graphic history of the IWW, on Syndicalism in the USA and Gregor Gall, Professor of Industrial relations at Hertfordshire University, on Radical Unionism in Britain cover more familiar terrain. Buhle provides an overview of syndicalist ideas in the US through many movements and organisations, including the IWW and up to the League of revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit in the 1970s.
Gall extends the view from syndicalism to ‘radical’ labour unionism evaluating the limits and potential of such radical movements with analytical and historical comparisons with more moderate forms of trade unionism.
Do these essays help provide answers to Darlingtons dilemmas? Well up to a point. Firstly how much influence did the syndicalists have? Well just here in Britain, as Gordon points out, considering it was such a short flowering, the syndicalist movement “bequeathed the Communist Party of Great Britain its first leadership generations, its most symbolic contribution is said to have been to have driven Sidney and Beatrice Webb to draft the now defunct Clause IV of the Labour party’s constitution in November 1917 as an antidote to pre war syndicalism.”
I have always been a supporter of that Clause IV:
“To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.”
I suppose it does have the sound of the Old Testament about it but is none the worse for that as it is quite beautiful language. It is understandable why it created so much affection in the supporters of the ‘Old’ Labour Party. Sadly there was no attempt by Old Labour (and most certainly not by New Labour which struck it from the constitution) to make any meaningful attempt to fulfill the terms of this commitment. There was precious little support for workers control or even for the tame British Co-operative movement. So the fact they had at least had to pay lip service to these ideas is interesting.
The other legacy of the syndicalist movement was the pressure for trade union amalgamations and federations. The formation of the National Union of Railwaymen, The National Union of Miners and the Transport and General Workers Union began this process. Attempts to form the One Big Union have certainly continued but have sadly been in more recent years pursued from a position of weakness rather than strength.
Syndicalists have in some ways been less compromised by the potential for trade unions to be absorbed into the state than by the social democratic trade unions. Here in the UK the complete cul de sac of social democratic politics has been confirmed by the last Labour Government. Indeed the recent evidence shows that unions like the RMT, which is easily the most militant, is that it is also the fastest growing. Expelled from membership of the Labour Party for supporting candidates from other parties it has returned to the basics of fighting with and for its members in the process making it feared by government whichever party is in office.
There is no doubt, that whilst not the case everywhere, in the UK, despite its small size the Communist Party squeezed out any space to the left of Labour for alternative viewpoints. Many of the leadings syndicalist thinkers and activists and their organisations ended up being absorbed into the Communist Party. On the collapse of the Soviet Union that space on the left was, at least initially, occupied by other well organised tendencies in the communist movement mainly Trotskyists but widespread disillusion with their style of doing politics coupled with a revulsion of parliamentary democracy and a revival in co-operative and green thinking does now, I believe, create fresh space for alternative ideas.
There is no doubt that now is the time for a syndicalist revival. Let us hope that the continued historical re-evaluation of the syndicalist experience contributes to that process.
Monday, 21 February 2011
Firefighters and the Blitz
Firefighters and the Blitz
By Francis Becket
With an introduction by, Matt Wrack, General Secretary of the Fore Brigades Union.
Published by Merlin Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-85036-673-0.
The executive council of the Fire Brigades Union are to be congratulated for commissioning this short popular, well illustrated, seventieth memorial to the over one thousand firefighters who died and the many thousands who where injured in the Blitz. There is considerable revisionism in current historical thinking about the home front in the war to which this book adds another chapter.
It is a familiar story of amateurism and class privilege being replaced by professionalism and a structure fit for the huge tasks the war presented, with a great deal of heroism in between. It is astonishing how poorly prepared the service was for war, considering how much of the talk before the war had been about the threat from the air. What’s more it is largely thanks to the FBU that the service evolved into one capable of meeting the challenge.
At the beginning of the war there where 1,600 independent fire brigades each a separate fiefdom run on military lines. Becket says that the Home Office had been thinking about the threat since Hitler came to power in 1933 but it took until 1937 for them to fund fire precautions and improvements in the nations fire fighting services.
Despite the experience from Spain it was not until 1938 that a civilian fire service was formed - the Auxiliary Fire Service. The Fire Brigades Act of 1938, made fire protection compulsory for every local authority in Britain, with the country divided into 11 regions to coordinate resources but there was no extra cash or any reduction in the number of brigades. The biggest the London Fire Brigade had only 106 pumping appliances whilst some of the smallest, controlled by Parish Councils, only had a few part timers and an ancient pump.
In the early part of the war fire fighters tackled some terrifying blazes with large amounts of improvised kit and considerable bravery and stoicism. It was the very toughest of learning environments. Yet it took two years before the government realised the service needed to be unified and it was nationalised in August 1941.
A classic example of the type of bureaucratic bungling was when the London Fire Brigade left its area to tackle a blaze following an air raid on the fuel depots at Thamesdown. On arrival they where told only the local commander could make the request for assistance. “In the absence of a local officer, the order had to go through the regional commissioner for Essex and East Anglia, who was, it turned out, the Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Efforts where made to contact this eminent gentleman, the Master [however] had retired for the night and his staff were reluctant to wake him.”
Some improvised equipment was highly successful like the two wheeled trailer pumps that ended up being pulled around by over two thousand London Taxi driver volunteers. This is reminiscent of the mythology of the little boats that saved the day at Dunkirk - heroic certainly but no substitute for a properly equipped and trained service.
If there is a real hero of this story it is John Horner, FBU General Secretary from 1934 until 1964, he battled, with amongst others Herbert Morrison, to modernise and professionalise the service. According to current FBU General Secretary Matt Wrack, he “was the most significant person in the Unions history”. It was Horner who realised how important it was to recruit the members of the auxiliary fire service into the FBU thereby strengthening the unions hand in the formation of a national fire service. Sadly the national service was not retained after the war. It never fails to amaze how politicians of all stripes have the capacity to praise to the skies the work of the emergency services when they are needed and then treat them so badly once the emergency has passed.
The country was woefully prepared for the war and if Hitler had decided to finish us off he almost certainly could have done. He didn’t and we got our second chance but not before many people paid with there lives.
I remember going to see my grandparents in November 1990. When I arrived my grandfather was glued to the local television news. It was the fiftieth anniversary of the devastating attack on Coventry. That night we found out for the first time that he had been working on building hangers for the shadow factory at Ryton near Coventry. The morning after the attack he and his fellow workers where asked to go into town to help clear up the mess and damp down the fires.
Fifty years later he was still traumatised by what he had seen that day. That night 554 people had been killed including 26 firefighters. That was the first time he had told anyone of his experiences, including my grandmother, he was full of praise for the fire crews who had battled all night having come from as far away as London and Peterborough.
There are many lessons to be learned from the experience of the fire service in the Second World War and whilst this book is a splendid introduction I believe the subject is worthy of a much more substantial study.
By Francis Becket
With an introduction by, Matt Wrack, General Secretary of the Fore Brigades Union.
Published by Merlin Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-85036-673-0.
The executive council of the Fire Brigades Union are to be congratulated for commissioning this short popular, well illustrated, seventieth memorial to the over one thousand firefighters who died and the many thousands who where injured in the Blitz. There is considerable revisionism in current historical thinking about the home front in the war to which this book adds another chapter.
It is a familiar story of amateurism and class privilege being replaced by professionalism and a structure fit for the huge tasks the war presented, with a great deal of heroism in between. It is astonishing how poorly prepared the service was for war, considering how much of the talk before the war had been about the threat from the air. What’s more it is largely thanks to the FBU that the service evolved into one capable of meeting the challenge.
At the beginning of the war there where 1,600 independent fire brigades each a separate fiefdom run on military lines. Becket says that the Home Office had been thinking about the threat since Hitler came to power in 1933 but it took until 1937 for them to fund fire precautions and improvements in the nations fire fighting services.
Despite the experience from Spain it was not until 1938 that a civilian fire service was formed - the Auxiliary Fire Service. The Fire Brigades Act of 1938, made fire protection compulsory for every local authority in Britain, with the country divided into 11 regions to coordinate resources but there was no extra cash or any reduction in the number of brigades. The biggest the London Fire Brigade had only 106 pumping appliances whilst some of the smallest, controlled by Parish Councils, only had a few part timers and an ancient pump.
In the early part of the war fire fighters tackled some terrifying blazes with large amounts of improvised kit and considerable bravery and stoicism. It was the very toughest of learning environments. Yet it took two years before the government realised the service needed to be unified and it was nationalised in August 1941.
A classic example of the type of bureaucratic bungling was when the London Fire Brigade left its area to tackle a blaze following an air raid on the fuel depots at Thamesdown. On arrival they where told only the local commander could make the request for assistance. “In the absence of a local officer, the order had to go through the regional commissioner for Essex and East Anglia, who was, it turned out, the Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Efforts where made to contact this eminent gentleman, the Master [however] had retired for the night and his staff were reluctant to wake him.”
Some improvised equipment was highly successful like the two wheeled trailer pumps that ended up being pulled around by over two thousand London Taxi driver volunteers. This is reminiscent of the mythology of the little boats that saved the day at Dunkirk - heroic certainly but no substitute for a properly equipped and trained service.
If there is a real hero of this story it is John Horner, FBU General Secretary from 1934 until 1964, he battled, with amongst others Herbert Morrison, to modernise and professionalise the service. According to current FBU General Secretary Matt Wrack, he “was the most significant person in the Unions history”. It was Horner who realised how important it was to recruit the members of the auxiliary fire service into the FBU thereby strengthening the unions hand in the formation of a national fire service. Sadly the national service was not retained after the war. It never fails to amaze how politicians of all stripes have the capacity to praise to the skies the work of the emergency services when they are needed and then treat them so badly once the emergency has passed.
The country was woefully prepared for the war and if Hitler had decided to finish us off he almost certainly could have done. He didn’t and we got our second chance but not before many people paid with there lives.
I remember going to see my grandparents in November 1990. When I arrived my grandfather was glued to the local television news. It was the fiftieth anniversary of the devastating attack on Coventry. That night we found out for the first time that he had been working on building hangers for the shadow factory at Ryton near Coventry. The morning after the attack he and his fellow workers where asked to go into town to help clear up the mess and damp down the fires.
Fifty years later he was still traumatised by what he had seen that day. That night 554 people had been killed including 26 firefighters. That was the first time he had told anyone of his experiences, including my grandmother, he was full of praise for the fire crews who had battled all night having come from as far away as London and Peterborough.
There are many lessons to be learned from the experience of the fire service in the Second World War and whilst this book is a splendid introduction I believe the subject is worthy of a much more substantial study.
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