johninnit

Thanks to the tenacious Lancaster UAF blog for this story about the BNP-linked union Solidarity’s latest campaign.

A County Durham teacher and former BNP candidate, Mark Walker, has been suspended for something related to computer misuse. Solidarity claim it was the innocent popular past-time of visiting the BNP’s website. The head claims it was something else. Lancaster UAF’s rumour mill suggests looking at far-right sites whilst he should have been teaching.

A nice illustration of the personal surfing in the workplace story from last week. It’s not unreasonable to be allowed to use the web in your own time at work, and a good employer will have a policy to support this, albeit with a couple of important caveats:

• So long as it’s your *own* time. That means breaktime, downtime, however your employer defines it. Their definition is unlikely to include “on the clock” or whilst you’re really supposed to be teaching for example.
• So long as what you do on the web isn’t something which could damage your employer or cause offence, like, ooh erm I don’t know… accessing racist and offensive material online maybe?

Unfortunately for Walker, as a member of Solidarity, rather than one of the proper (and recognised) teaching unions, his support is coming from the presumably rather overworked Pat Harrington and in lieu of sympathetic colleagues from the union branch, a motley crew from the BNP, their front groups, and adverts on nazi chatrooms, who popped down to hassle the school on the first day of term.

Fortunately for the rest of us, Walker’s alleged activities put him in a rather different boat from the rest of the nation’s lunchbreak surfers, so if he goes (deservedly) down, he shouldn’t spoil the office daily poke for everyone.

Solidarity, the right nationalist ‘trade union’, might not be nearly as much use to their members as a real union, but they are at least excelling in one area – splits and squabbles.

Over the past week, a very entertaining story has been emerging. It seems that Pat Harrington, General Secretary (and occasional commenter to this blog), has been suspended from his post by the President Clive Potter and Vice-Prez Tim Hawke, amidst allegations of financial irregularities. Apparently, the accounts the union needs to supply to the Certification Officer are delayed, after Potter believed the version of the accounts Harrington showed him was too unclear, and refused to sign them without seeing the full accounts. Hawke claims that an un-named Merseyside BNP member has been appointed Acting GS, until a new GS is found, and that the BNP are planning a hostile takeover of the union.

Harrington unsurprisingly has a different take on this, and as he still has the keys to the website, he’s letting everyone know about it by calling for an EGM in July to appoint a new (and larger) executive (Hawke is amusingly reduced to getting his message out via the Lancaster Unite Against Fascism blog). Harrington says that he and the BNP leadership believe that the troubles, and a leadership challenge, are being orchestrated by well organised far-left undercover saboteurs within the union. The BNP has in the meantime stopped recommending members to join the union.

What is going on? Both these explanations sound a little fishy. If there’s been any embezzlement going on, it’s rather cheap stuff, given the union has at most 100 subs paying members and can’t have any cash to speak of. Otherwise, Sherlock Holmes’ maxim could have us believing that any far-left groups are well organised enough to have done this.

And what does this bode for Harrington’s claims that Solidarity are BNP independent? If the BNP are now considering a takeover, maybe they were indeed more separated than most people thought (though won’t be very soon if the EGM goes ahead). Though how to square this with his claim on the union’s site that the accounts were audited by Kenny Smith (head of BNP admin) yet not shown to Hawke and Potter, and Harrington’s objection that the new AGS is not a BNP member of good standing?

Hat tip: Lancaster UAF
Bonus entertainment: Clive Potter is in the news again – from Unity

Well, I must have made it in some way, as I’ve had my first blog visit from an actual union leader! Interestingly though it’s from Patrick Harrington, President of the new ‘British Workers’ Union’, Solidarity.

Patrick (very politely) takes issue with three of my posts, which refer to his union, and has left me some comments to state his case:

• A solidarity of one?
• Sullied-arity
• Euro out of here!

He does indeed pull me up correctly on a factual blunder (Solidarity don’t yet have a certificate of independence) and on making too little explanation on why I think Solidarity members will be assumed to be BNP supporters, but I’ve tried to answer his other points in a similar spirit.

True – there are no direct links between Solidarity and the BNP. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence; co-membership by senior figures in Solidarity (though not Patrick himself), the BNP have welcomed and supported the union, and a BNP spokesperson claimed it would quite likely raise funds for the party (though his comments were disowned by Solidarity). So it certainly looks like a BNP front, but can’t be totally proven as such.

It also follows that they certainly won’t restrict membership to BNP supporters, but the close perceived association between the two organisations, and the likelihood that the current high levels of BNP internal publicity for the union means that many early members are BNP supporters, will I believe cause a lot of people who aren’t BNP (or at least other right nationalist) supporters to be extremely reluctant to have anything to do with it, for fear they will be assumed to be a supporter too.

The recent ASLEF legal win on their right to expel a BNP activist doesn’t mean that there’s no longer any point for political dissidents in joining unions – just those political dissidents whose political activities are in direct opposition to the union’s platform.

Patrick believes that unions should be speaking out about the impact of Eastern European migrant workers, which he believes is depressing working conditions for others. I’d counter that this is exactly what many unions are doing, based on principles of solidarity – the ideal rather than the union . Defend migrants from exploitation by bad bosses and demand the same conditions for them. Tackle undercutting in this way and you’ll be safeguarding better conditions for everyone.