The continued existence and relative growth of the nationalist trade union, Solidarity seems to be sticking in the craw of the self-styled 'anti-fascists' at Lancaster UAF and Norfolk Unity. Their promotion of a failed attempt to sabotage and disrupt the union last year bit the dust when the members took it back and elected a new enlarged Executive Committee.
These folk recognise – and fear - the real potential of a viable nationalist trade union and are doing their damnedest to discredit and destroy it while it is still small and relatively weak.
Solidarity held its second AGM in the Apollo Hotel in Birmingham in February. Lancaster UAF got wind of the venue the same afternoon and posted a call to its supporters to ring up the hotel 'politely' in order to get the booking cancelled. This failed. The meeting went ahead as planned. Solidarity members expressed sympathy with a receptionist who fended off a variety of imaginatively abusive phone calls. Birmingham UAF members must have had better things to do that day as none even bothered to turn up to protest at Solidarity's presence.
It looks like the Comrades of the UAF have decided to revert to Plan B; denigrate the union as useless - 'a squalid little scam invented by a gaggle of racist bigots' - and its members as gormless dupes. If this was really true they wouldn't bother having such a go at Solidarity. Their big problem with Solidarity is that they believe that the realm of workers' rights is their natural habitat and they don't want a nationalist union queering their pitch. Well tough shit, lads. Solidarity is here to stay.
Ex-Tyndallite 'Atreus' claims that the union resorted to deception to book the hotel. This is false. The hotel was booked by and in the name of Accentuate. Accentuate is a PR company employed by the union. This fact is in the public domain and has been commented upon by Lancaster UAF in the past. Accentuate booked the meeting for its client. The hotel was properly booked and paid for. No deception was involved.
Much has been made of the report on www.solidaritytradeunion.net that Solidarity's membership at the end of 2007 stood at 211. Atreus ignored the fact that this had increased from 42 at the end of 2006 and that the EC has set a realistic target of 500 members by the end of this year. This doesn't sit well with his depiction of our general secretary, Patrick Harrington as 'The Great Fantasist'.
Atreus shows his grasp of arithmetic by multiplying the monthly membership subscriptions by twelve. Well done Atreus! What he doesn't seem to grasp is what a union can and cannot legally do. The union, for example, cannot make donations to any political party from its general funds. That needs a special Political Fund. Solidarity does intend to establish a political fund which members will have to contract in to make regular contributions. Other unions make their members contribute to Labour unless they specifically contract out.
Solidarity is far from useless to those of its members who have been helped by the union in disputes with their employers. Solidarity doesn't expect to win every case. No union ever has. Unison was unable to prevent the dismissal of some of its Welsh members last year when they were sacked for browsing eBay on work computers during working hours.
Solidarity will put up one hell of a fight – and hire in specialist legal expertise when needed. Atreus suggests that Mark Walker has been told to shove off and hire a lawyer by Harrington. This is totally false. The National Union of Teachers was happy to accept Mark's subscription money and then failed him by refusing to represent him.
Atreus seems to think that the union runs on air and the entire annual income is pocket money for Patrick Harrington and Nick Griffin. Anyone would think that Harrington is living it up in the lap of luxury to read this tosh. I doubt if even Atreus believes this, but he has to stick to the UAF party line on this one. Never mind inconvenient facts. Union members who regularly meet with Harrington know the real truth. Solidarity has obligations under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation)Act 1992 to provide professionally audited accounts to the Certification Officer each year. Meeting these obligations adds to the running costs of the union.
Atreus even has a go at Solidarity for 'doing things on the cheap' by providing downloadable leaflets, flyers and The British Worker on www.solidaritytradeunion.net as PDF files. Shocking! Just don't anyone point out that downloadable leaflets, posters and flyers are available on the UAF website too. Is this one of these, 'It's okay if we do it but an outrage if they do it' situations?
Atreus claims that Solidarity is a joke but we don't see him laughing. He realises its true potential and wants to scupper it while it's still small. He does have one point,though. The largest nationalist party claims to have some 10,000 members. Many of these good people run the risk of dismissal from their jobs for political reasons.
Many of these people are well aware of the role of mass-migration in depressing wages and contributing to the decline in working conditions. Many of these people are likely to be shown the door by TUC-affiliated unions. These good folk need representation in the workplace. On their own they are prime targets. As Solidarity members they have the strength of a militant fighting union behind them. 'Together we are strong' is not an empty phrase dreamed up by Norfolk Unity's supposed 'Great Fantasist'. It's a plain fact.
I recently re-read the posts from Lancaster UAF which sought to support the state agents and their dupes who tried to kill Solidarity. Pat Harrington said at the RWB that he would bulldoze over these people. That is what he did. He also said that the Union would grow as a result of big recruitment campaigns and fighting cases for individual members. It has - and it is still growing. He said that he would build a leadership team directly elected in independently scrutinised elections. Again, he delivered.
ReplyDeleteAt the Union AC in Birmingham Pat Harrington predicted that having failed to disrupt the Union internally the enemy would now turn to external attack. This has proved a realistic prediction. He also predicted that these attacks would fail because the Union was run by a strong team and because ordinary working people would see the need for opposition to off-shoring, cheap labour and captiulation with International Capitalism. Time will tell if he is right. I and others pray that he is.
Solidarity (in common with all Trade Unions) has to publish independently audited accounts and submit them to the Certification Office. In addition any member can ask to see the books (with two weeks notice) and Union accounts are published on the website. Quite a contrast to the murky finances of LUAF.
ReplyDeleteThe poor attempts at psychological warfare from LUAF and their cronies have had little effect on Solidarity. Their accusations are unconvincing and contradictory. It is what one would expect from socially reactionaries who lack an ideological perspective. Even the term 'infantile leftists' is probably giving them too much credit!
THE SWEDISH LEFT AND THE DISASTER THEY’VE CREATED
ReplyDeleteMarch 9th, 2008 by Aurora
The bitter heart of Leftist ideology is violent intimidation, anarchy and reckless disregard for the lives of others. This much is evident in the actions of Code Pink the haters of our military heroes. It’s also patently and painfully obvious in the wide proliferation of violent Leftists in Sweden and the community they enable in the country, the violent Islamist immigrants that are wreaking havoc. In Sweden, a woman is raped every two hours. Now that’s got to be either the violent and rampant socialist thugs we just mentioned, or the unintegrated immigrant population because just three decades ago before Marxism had had the opportunity to really do its job, Sweden was a quiet little fishing community having saunas and fermenting fish. Now, it’s a whole other story:
The girlfriend of a politician from the Sweden Democrats, a small party critical of mass immigration, was recently attacked at her home outside Stockholm. The young woman was found bound with duct tape in the apartment block where she lives with Martin Kinnunen, chairman of the youth wing of the SD. Three men had forced their way into the couple’s apartment and held the 19-year-old at knife point. Kinnunen tells of several threats and anonymous phone calls to the family. He blames the media for systematically portraying the SD as monsters and thus for legitimizing aggression against them, and claims that the Swedish democracy is a sham.
Antifascistisk Aktion, a group that supposedly fights against “racists,” openly brag about numerous physical attacks against persons with their full name and address published on their website. Only a week after this group harassed a Swedish judge and vandalized his house, members demonstrated alongside the Swedish police, the Swedish government and the Swedish media establishment during Pride Week, Stockholm’s annual gay celebration, in August 2007. At the very end of the Pride Parade marched a group of black-clothed and masked representatives of AFA. Adjacent to them marched a number of policemen, including members of the Swedish Gay Police organization.
[…]
According to Politikerbloggen, AFA have produced a manual about how to use violence in order to paralyze and hurt their opponents, and they encourage their members to study it closely.
Now don’t think, ‘Oh that’s Sweden. It will never be that bad here’. Don’t bet on it! The Left has a stranglehold on just about every country in the world now. I was just in Sydney’s inner city suburb of Newtown today and let me tell you, the palpable Left is so rank it could make you nauseous. What you see in Sweden today will probably be our future within a decade, things are moving so fast. It’s not taking them long to destroy our society now.
Via Gates of Vienna
Hat tip: Crusader Rabbit
The picture below shows huge crowds of Swedish public protesting the police and government condoned murder of a 17-year-old skinhead belonging to one of the many little groups springing up as a reaction to uncontrolled immigration. Although the crowds may not have supported all this young man stood for, they protested the reaction of the authorities towards his murder and the societal situation that produces this kind of extremism
Solidarity is a good idea,and i was on the verge of joining,until i saw thier application form,which has no tick box for my nationality.It may be a dirty word these days ,but i am ENGLISH,not british white,not white other,ENGLISH,what part of respect for my nationality do you not understand.I would be very happy to have joined,unfortunately denigration of my nationality is too high a price to pay.
ReplyDeleteSolidarity is a good idea. It's for British and Irish Workers. Last time I looked, this includes the English. Most Solidarity members are English (though not me). I think that you are a little hyper-sensitive here. As a member, there is nothing to prevent you proposing a motion to address your concerns and rectify this problem. We are a democratic union. If enough members share your concerns it can be fixed. In the meantime, who will protect you in your place of employment. You won't find a TUC affiliate lining up to defend a known English nationalist. Solidarity will. We are there for you. Your only other option is to form a union for English workers.. Fine, if you think it's necessary. I don't think it it.
ReplyDeleteRegards
Completely Blank
Interesting point. I consider myself Welsh British and am proud to be British.
ReplyDeleteAt first, I thought yes there should be an English tick box and then thought well hang on. Do we then have to have Welsh, Scottish and Ulster boxes? To me there is British, then for the others there is British Citizen(multiple choice). Big difference between British and British @Citizen.
I am sure Solidarity can put in a box on the form when they reprint allowing people to write in whatever they like - some of us consider ourselves Cornish!
ReplyDeleteLUAF and the rest make me laugh. They certainly have chutzpah! I see that you can buy a Hope Not Hate T-shirt for the special campaign price of just £17.94 inc p&p. Some of the money goes to the campaign but they don't say how much! I think I will stick to FatFace as their prices seem competitive with phiolosophy football!
ReplyDeleteAs I flick through my Lancaster UAF yearbook produced by Lulu with no capital investment from LUAF I do wonder what all the donations via PayPal are being used to. Maybe I will drop the Inland Revenue a line and ask them if they know!