scandal
Video: Merseyside Metro Mayor Rotheram refuses to say Israel is committing genocide
Rotheram says he’s come to ‘speak to the community’ – but apparently not to the member of the community asking him to give a simple yes or no answer
Merseyside ‘metro mayor’ Steve Rotheram has been confronted by a local woman who asked for a yes or no answer whether Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian civilians is genocide.
Rotheram squirmed, he obfuscated – but he wouldn’t even give a multi-worded answer, let alone a yes or no one. Nor would he ask the local woman whether she thought it’s genocide, so she can show how simple it is to say.
Instead, he wittered about ‘part of the problem’ and wanting to ‘speak to the community’ while having ‘a private conversation’ (which is it, Steve?):
Video used by courtesy of The Art of Resistance
Keir Starmer’s corrupting influence on the Labour party is seen all too clearly in the actions of many local ‘Labour’ politicians – and Starmer’s war on anyone within the party who dares speak out against the actions of Israel has many party representatives too terrified to do so, in spite of the overwhelming moral need for solidarity with Palestinians and condemnation of Israel’s genocide – yes, genocide. Sadly, it seems like Mayor Rotheram is one of them, despite the massive solidarity among the people of Merseyside with the oppressed and murdered in Gaza and the West Bank.
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Video: pensioner among 3 peaceful anti-genocide protesters arrested in Hastings
State repression of civic rights and protection of weapons manufacturers continues to escalate
A pensioner and two other protestors were arrested by police on Thursday 29 February during a peaceful demonstration outside the General Dynamics arms factory in Hastings, East Sussex. The local people were among a broad coalition of community groups that came together to protest against Britain’s role in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The three were arrested and taken to Hastings police station where they were held for nearly fourteen hours before being charged with aggravated trespass and then released on bail. They will appear before magistrates on April 3.
Laurie Holden, 71, a retired train driver from Burwash, was one of those arrested at the demonstration. He said:
It is outrageous that the police are treating us as criminals. We are not the criminals here – we are highlighting the criminal complicity of our government and arms companies in continuing to supply arms to Israel which is in the dock for genocide in Gaza. We will always stand on the side of the people of Palestine.
The Hastings & District Palestine Solidarity Campaign [HDPSC] united with representatives of Jewish groups, trade union bodies, Quakers, climate justice groups, parent groups and political parties to draw attention to the part Hastings is playing in arming Israel.
HDPSC Chair Katy Colley said:
Our brave and principled friends have shown enormous courage in the face of disproportionate and heavy-handed policing of a peaceful, community-led protest.
In January, the International Court of Justice put Israel on trial for genocide in Gaza but since then the slaughter and starvation have worsened. Over 30,000 are dead and thousands more will die if this continues. Yesterday Israeli troops gunned down starving civilians in the north of Gaza as they waited for food – over 100 were killed and 700 injured in the ‘the Flour Massacre’. This latest horror underscores the urgency of stopping all arms sales to Israel. UN experts have warned that any arms transfers to Israel will breach international law and ordered all countries to stop all arms sales immediately.
Our government has refused to halt export licenses to Israel so it is our duty as citizens to stand up for peace, international law and human rights.
We will not stand by as the UK continues to arm this genocide of the Palestinian people. It must end now.’
The protest started at 7am at the Sidney Little Road factory, one of the two General Dynamics sites in Hastings, timed to coincide with workers as they arrived for work. Demonstrators held placards, sung songs for ‘Ceaefire Now’ and handed out leaflets which informed workers of their right to refuse to take part in handling components used in breach of international law.
Israel’s brutal campaign in Gaza has run for five months so far, killing almost 40,000 people and wounding and maiming double that number. The UN is now warning that a quarter of the population is at risk of death from famine and the World Health Organisation has said that more than a million are starving. Protests have been mounted outside arms factories all over the country, including in Kent, Leicester, Bristol, Bournemouth, Glasgow, Cambridge, Brighton, London, Lancashire, Belfast and Monmouthshire, to demand an end to UK’s ongoing complicity and enabling of genocide. This is HDPSC’s fourth protest at General Dynamics’ sites in Hastings since the campaign began.
According to the organisers, almost all of the ‘MK80’ bombs being dropped on Gaza are made by General Dynamics, which is the 5th biggest arms company in the world. The Hastings facilities provide avionic systems for fighter planes and tactical communications equipment for ground vehicles.
At the demo, Leah Levane of Jewish Voice for Labour said that Israel could no longer ‘act with impunity’.
It is shocking that the UK government is granting arms licences to Israel,’ she said. ‘This makes the UK partners in the occupation and the genocide in Gaza. As a Jewish organisation, we are one of several Jewish groups in the UK and the many more across the world who are protesting loud and clear – NOT IN OUR NAME.
Jen Rouse, representing Parents for Future Hastings & St Leonards, said:
We’re here today because as parents we cannot stand by and watch as our government supports a genocide of children.
The thought of our own kids having to live through even a fraction of the terror and trauma that Israel inflicts on Gazan children every day is unbearable. So the only right thing for all UK parents to do is to be here today, demanding an immediate end to the bloodshed. We will never give up until we see a free Palestine.
Simon Hester, Chair of Hastings & District Trades Union Council, added:
Hastings & District Trades Union Council supports the calls for end to all arms sales to Israel and for an immediate ceasefire to end the genocide in Gaza.
We demand that General Dynamics UK stop supplying equipment to the Israeli army or to get out of Hastings. We stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine.
Olivia Cavanagh of Hastings Community of Sanctuary and Hastings Supports Refugees said:
We continue to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the West Bank.
We support an embargo on arms sales from the UK to Israel and stand with the Hastings community to call on the local General Dynamics factories to stop supplying arms to Israel and to act to end the unprecedented killing of Palestinian civilians.’
Yunis Smith from Hastings Green Party said:
Years from now the children of the world will ask what did you do to stop this calamity? I for one hope I will have a good enough answer!
And Chris Goodchild of Hastings Quakers said:
The poor tell us who we are, the prophets who we can be. Yet we kill the poor and kill the prophets. We are all Palestinian and civil disobedience is divine obedience. Stop arming Genocide.
The arrest form part of an escalating campaign of repression and demonisation of peaceful protesters demonstrating against genocide. PM Rishi Sunak, who like ‘opposition’ leader Keir Starmer has constantly backed Israel’s murderous actions, has today smeared demonstrators as divisive and hateful and has threatened to deport those who fall foul of what he considers the limits of acceptable protest.
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‘Sharon Graham told him to tell me there was no place for me in the future of Unite’
Irish union legend who supported rival in general secretary election tells tribunal he was sidelined on return from cancer battle and never had a positive day at work since he returned – and that he was told that union’s general secretary ‘recognises loyalty’ from those who supported her in election
Irish union legend Brendan Ogle, his wife Mandy la Combre (in beret) and supporters leaving the Workplace Relations Committee today
Today saw an explosive – and often fiery – day in Irish union legend Brendan Ogle’s case against Unite at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) in Dublin.
Ogle, who supported Graham’s rival Howard Beckett for general secretary, and is claiming that the union discriminated against him by sidelining him from his role as senior officer after his return from a battle against life-threatening neck cancer, told the WRC adjudicator that he was ‘reeling’ when he returned and found that his job – which he had been promised would be held for him to return to if he beat the disease – had disappeared and that Unite was trying to move him into a makeweight job that required only three days work a month.
And in the day’s most explosive testimony, he told the court that he had been called to a meeting with Tom Fitzgerald, another senior Irish Unite figure, only to be told that there was no place for him in the union’s future and that:
he’d been told by Sharon Graham to draw up a strategic plan for the Republic of Ireland and I was not to be in it.
Ogle added that the union’s then-assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail had told him that Graham is:
very loyal to [Irish] regional officers who had supported her but many hadn’t… Sharon operates on the basis of loyalty.
This comment raised the obvious question of what Ms Graham does with those who did not support her and how this bears on the treatment Ogle said he was subjected to by the union management.
Unite’s barrister Mark Harty – whose wife Karyn is part of the team from Dentons, one of the world’s most expensive law firms, hired by Graham to represent Unite in this tribunal and in Ogle’s defamation lawsuit against her, Unite and her ally Tony Woodhouse – insisted that Fitzgerald, who still works for the union, would testify he had not said what Ogle reported. However, the authenticity of Ogle’s submission of a photo of a whiteboard layout said to have been sketched by Fitzgerald to show how the union would organise after his departure does not appear to be contested by Unite.
Ogle spoke harrowingly of his fight against cancer and its effects on him and went on to say that after his return – expecting to come back to a job held open for him on the promise of Graham’s predecessor Len McCluskey – that he had not had a single positive day at work. He also described how he applied for a regional secretary job as a means of resolving the issue, only to find on his arrival for interview in London that the interview panel was being chaired by Woodhouse, one of the figures who he says defamed him during a talk at Unite’s biennial Irish conference.
Barrister Harty’s aggressive approach and frequent interruptions of Ogle’s attempts to answer led to numerous confrontations with Ogle’s legal team and a fiery sidebar meeting in a separate room marked by shouting and a walk-out by Ogle’s lawyer saying she would not be talked to in that way. Harty had tried to question Ogle about claims that do not form part of the current case and, when challenged about relevance, had insisted that these questions were ‘central’ to Unite’s case. The dispute led to the sidebar meeting – and on the return of the lawyers and adjudicator, he told Ogle,
Mr Ogle, we’re just going to move on
before asking questions on another topic.
Harty also at one point – appearing to think this was some kind of trump card – demanded to know why Ogle had not told his wife Mandy la Combre to remove social media posts criticising Unite’s treatment of him. The exchange prompted one observer later to observe,
He was basically asking him, ‘Why didn’t you control your wife?’
Harty also appeared to imply that Unite was doing Ogle a favour by moving him to a less senior role in Dundalk after an occupational health report said Ogle was fit to return to his ‘senior officer’ role, because Ogle’s doctor had warned stress might be bad for his health. Ogle responded that the occupational health report was specific to him working in Dublin. Ogle lives in Dublin, but travelling to work in Dundalk involves a daily 100-mile round-trip.
Ogle also told the court that Unite Ireland’s lawyer had told him that the Dundalk role of ‘education and legal’ involved only a day or two’s work – and added that the education part of the role needed only a day’s work because union education in Ireland is not funded by employers in the way it is in the UK, leaving him effectively sent fifty miles away for just three days’ work a month. Unite’s barrister tried to have this evidence ruled out as hearsay.
Ogle told the tribunal that he had consistently refused to sign any agreement sidelining him to Dundalk, but that the union ‘had acted as if I had signed it’.
The day also featured a heated argument about whether Graham will be subpoena’d to testify in the case, with Ogle’s lawyers insisting that she must be legally required to attend if Unite’s legal team does not call her as a witness. Harty insisted furiously and bizarrely that she is not relevant to the case and may not be ‘amenable’ to subpoena, as if such a legal summons is a matter of whether one feels like being summoned.
Sharon Graham has been heavily criticised among union members and activists in the union – and by more than one Irish politician – for Unite’s treatment of Ogle, one of and perhaps the highest-profile and effective union figures in Ireland. The situation caused such outrage that union members picketed Graham’s long-delayed visit to Dublin, Unite’s Community section condemned it as ‘disgusting’ and a whole sector branch threatened to disaffiliate.
Ogle’s testimony and cross-examination continue tomorrow.
Skwawkbox is in Dublin to cover Ogle vs Unite. If you would like to help cover the costs of the coverage, see options below.
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NYT ‘journalist’ who co-wrote ‘Hamas rape’ piece is IDF propagandist with ‘no journalism experience’
Anat Schwartz found to have liked racist and violent posts about Palestinians
Image: Wikipedia
A huge scandal has broken out in the US after the New York Times (NYT), one of the United States’ leading newspapers, was found to have run a major front-page story smearing Palestinian resistance fighters as using ‘systematic’ use of sexual violence co-written by an Israeli film-maker with no journalism background who served as a in Israeli military intelligence – and had ‘liked’ social media posts featuring racism and violence toward Palestinians.
Anat Schwartz co-wrote the already-discredited article titled ‘Screams without words’, which made lurid, unevidenced claims about rape and mutilation by Palestinians during the 7 October raid – claims that have already been furiously denied by the family of the victim who took up around a third of the piece, who further claimed that the authors had misled them about the purpose of their article and never mentioned supposed the rape of their daughter, which they say did not take place and for which there is no evidence.
Scrutiny of Schwartz’s record revealed shocking facts about her background and that of her second co-author, who is her nephew by marriage:
Quick bio I found: pic.twitter.com/WWMZqRh1py
— Esha K (@eshaLegal) February 24, 2024
Now let's get to her co-author, who also didn't write beforehand Oct 2023… pic.twitter.com/x9gkZwIlv7
— Esha K (@eshaLegal) February 24, 2024
It is her nephew!
This is a post from her husband. pic.twitter.com/Sgtz4B6wlL— Esha K (@eshaLegal) February 24, 2024
Lead author Jeffrey Gettelman fares little better under scrutiny:
He admitted to it. pic.twitter.com/zibbbEby31
— Esha K (@eshaLegal) February 24, 2024
Schwartz, for her part, Schwartz reportedly ‘liked’ a post that talked about turning Gaza ‘into a slaughterhouse’ including the summary execution of prisoners and ‘violat[ing] any norm’:
Schwartz also ‘liked’ a post about the quickly-debunked ’40 beheaded babies’ claim – and the woman who took the photo of the ‘woman in the black dress’ that the article claimed falsely had been raped, said that the NYT’s authors had told her they needed to speak to her because it was ‘important for Israeli advocacy’, not for accurate journalism:
Lead author Gettelman said it was ‘not his job to gather evidence’ for the claims his article made:
Mondoweiss reported that Schwartz had served in Israeli military intelligence. The NYT has ‘launched an investigation’ and the paper’s staff are said to be split, with many outraged at the abandonment of journalistic standards.
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Starmer reported to parliamentary Privileges Committee over Hoyle threat
Starmer alleged to have threatened Speaker Lindsay Hoyle with removal under Labour government if he refused to break Commons protocol and allow Labour to hijack SNP Gaza ceasefire motion
Keir Starmer has been reported to the parliamentary Privileges Committee over his alleged but widely-reported threat to remove Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle under a Labour government, to force Hoyle to include Labour’s weasel-worded, Israel-friendly ‘ceasefire’ motion in yesterday’s SNP ‘Opposition Day’ debate.
While the SNP motion was clearly worded and condemned Israel’s war crimes as well as causing for an immediate ceasefire, Labour’s version gave Israel an effective veto over any ceasefire and prioritised Israeli lives and security above the slaughter, ethnic cleansing and oppression faced by more than two million Palestinians in Gaza.
Starmer’s manoeuvres and Hoyle’s compliance led to no vote being taken on the SNP’s motion, triggering a walk-out of SNP and Tory MPs – and a motion of no confidence in Hoyle being lodged on Thursday morning and already signed by 67 MPs at the time of writing.
But now Alba party Westminster leader Neale Hanvey has reported Starmer to the Privileges Committee, saying that it is “essential to establish if Starmer coerced the Speaker” into putting the Labour amendment through for debate and that it would make Starmer guilty of contempt of the House of Commons if so.
Hanvey’s letter to the committee reads:
Dear Ms Harman and committee members,
In the course of the last twenty-four hours, it has been reported in the media and to the chamber that the Leader of the Opposition and/or those acting on his behalf applied unwarranted and unacceptable pressure on the Speaker of the House for political purposes.
It has been alleged that this course of conduct was pursued to ensure that the Labour amendment to the SNP motion for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza was given priority as the Leader of the Opposition sought to prevent his members voting against the Labour party whip.
Furthermore, it has been alleged that the Speaker was subjected to coercive threats relating to the support he could expect to receive from the Labour Party in any upcoming General Election to force his hand to break with convention and act against the advice of the Clerk of the House.
In order to reassure the house, I am asking the Committee of Privileges to initiate an urgent and rapid investigation into the allegations set out above, including any and all related matters.
I would also request that any such investigation specifically examine the actions of Leader of the Opposition and consider whether the Rt Hon member’s conduct amounted to a contempt of the House.
The Privileges Committee featured in headlines last summer when it concluded that former Tory PM Boris Johnson lied to Parliament about his and his office’s breaches of lockdown rules during the coronavirus pandemic. Johnson resigned from Parliament rather than face censure.
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Video: protests for Assange as British justice goes on trial in extradition case
Up to 2,000 gather for ‘last chance’ to stop disgraced US case allowed so far by courts – but system seems stacked against Wikileaks founder, press freedom and public’s right to know
Protestors outside the court on Tuesday
Up to two thousand protesters gathered to demonstrate outside the Royal Courts of Justice today in London, where Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and his legal team are fighting in what may be their last chance to avoid his extradition to the US, where the Biden administration wants to lock him in a high-security prison for the rest of his life for the ‘crime’ of exposing the actions of the US military.
Wikileaks embarrassed the US by revealing the wanton slaughter of Iraqi civilians – and the US wants its vengeance. To the UK’s shame, successive UK governments and courts have been all too eager to let the Americans have their way, despite the US case collapsing in disgrace when its main witness to Assange’s supposed ‘hacking’ of US systems admitted he had been lying the whole time – and plots by senior US officials to assassinate him. The admission should have seen the US laughed out of court, but UK judges granted its request anyway.
Protesters massed to show their solidarity with the Australian journalist, who has been imprisoned in Belmarsh prison since 2019 after a long effective incarceration in the Ecuadorian embassy while the UK and US governments conspired against him and even bugged supposedly sacrosanct meetings with his lawyers:
Wikileaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson gave the protest crowd a lunchtime update on the ‘absurd’ proceedings, which kept observers down to a handful despite the importance of the case, preventing even human rights groups from attending:
As with all the hearings so far, the case against Julian Assange appears to be stacked. After the farce of the collapsed US case being granted anyway, Assange’s appeal was denied by a judge with deep security service connections.
In the current case, one of the two judges was a lawyer for the Secret Intelligence Service and the Ministry of Defence, with clearance for access to ‘top secret’ information – and the other judge is the twin sister of right-wing former BBC chair Richard Sharpe, who resigned after an inquiry into his arrangement of an £800,000 loan for Boris Johnson before his appointment.
Activist Steve Price, who represented Skwawkbox at the demo, summarised the day:
On a cold day thousands gathered to lobby the court and raise public awareness of this situation. This morning at the RCJ, the chant of the day was “There’s only one decision – no extradition!” The demo was noisy, very colourful, with a visible but low-key police presence and many passing drivers honking horns in solidarity.
Speakers included three Labour MPs – Richard Burgon, Zara Sultana and Apsana Begum, alongside Chris Hedges, Andrew Feinstein, Stella Assange and Julian’s brother and father, as well as lawyers, Reporters without Borders (RwB) and Wikileaks’ editor-in-chief. John Pilger, the great Australian journalist, was remembered with great affection.
Julian’s brother said the Australian Parliament voted by two thirds criticising the UK and USA and demanding he be released and returned to his home country. Two of the lawyers, as well as RwB noted that this case has enormous implications for freedom of the press globally and there are obvious parallels with how journalists have been deliberately targeted by Israel in Gaza.
The magistrate back in January 2021 decided Julian should be released solely on the grounds that he might kill himself, but this was overturned by the Home Secretary. There are a number of legal grounds his team will advocate for refusing the extradition. He has been detained in Belmarsh (in solitary confinement) for nearly 5 years, spent 7 years before that confined in the Ecuadorian Embassy. His health has deteriorated, it’s a form of torture, they’re slowly killing him. He is believed to be too ill to attend court today?
They want to extradite him for the crime of journalism, for exposing their hypocrisy, their dirty secrets, their war crimes.
Keir Starmer, the ‘human rights lawyer’, as he never tires of reminding everyone, has never spoken in Assange’s defence. As Director of Public Prosecutions, his actions are murky – because the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) destroyed its records of them and destroyed notes of what it destroyed. However, it is known that in the case of another extradition the US wanted – that of autistic hacker Gary McKinnon – Starmer flew in a rage to the US to apologise to his US government contacts as soon as then-PM Theresa May quashed the extradition on humanitarian grounds. The CPS and Sweden also destroyed records of their communications when the CPS was pressuring Sweden to continue to pursue Assange’s extradition there – no doubt a stepping stone to getting him to the US – on discredited rape allegations. Despite the destruction of evidence, it is known that the CPS told Swedish counterparts not to ‘dare’ drop its request and refused Sweden’s offer to come and interview Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy.
Assange’s family and team have asked everyone who can make it to the court to continue demonstrating throughout the duration of the hearing to try to keep up pressure on the authorities. The Establishment’s relentless assault on Julian Assange is a war not just against him, but against press freedom and the right of the public to know what its supposed representatives are doing and to hold them to account.
The UK justice system has a last chance to show it is fit for purpose. If it happens, it looks as though justice will have to be wrung out of it. Absolute solidarity with Julian Assange and all persecuted journalists everywhere.
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Video: Palestinian ambassador breaks down as he tells ICJ of plight of children under occupation
Court hearing evidence of effects of Israel’s illegal occupation
Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour broke down today near the close of his presentation to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), as he spoke of the effects of Israel’s illegal occupation in Palestine on his nation’s children and on the human rights of its people. The hearing is being televised live by Al Jazeera English:
The court is hearing evidence from over fifty countries about the illegal occupation. Earlier, Mansour and others had spoke of the 1948 Nakba, in which almost 800,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes with many massacred, and the world’s decades-long indifference – and of the impacts of Israel’s current genocidal campaign in Gaza.
As Mansour spoke, UK news channels covered a variety of items but did not stream the court hearing. In January, the ICJ put Israel formally on trial for genocide and ordered the apartheid regime to protect Palestinian lives. The slaughter of civilians continues unabated.
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South Africa to file legal action with ICJ against UK, US, for war crime complicity
Nation whose case put Israel formally on trial for genocide joins Nicaragua in turning its sights on accomplices in genocide
South Africa’s legal team at the ICJ last month
A team of almost fifty South African lawyers is preparing a legal case to bring to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ top court, against the US and UK, for their complicity in Israel’s array of war crimes in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
South Africa’s successful ICJ case against Israel last month led to Israel being put formally on trial for genocide and resulted in a string of binding orders on Israel to stop its slaughter of Gazans and even to protect Palestinians from harm, as well as to ensure adequate aid reaches the strip’s 2.5 million people, many of whom are now starving and homeless.
Israel has flouted the rulings, continuing and even intensifying the mass murder and blockade, and is being supported in its flagrant disregard for international law by the UK and US, who are providing both material and financial aid, and giving political cover by refusing to condemn Israel’s actions or to call its crimes what they are, instead casting doubt on the mass deaths and brutality and denigrating the Court’s ruling.
South Africa joins Nicaragua in taking action against the UK and US. The Central American nation has also filed a case against Germany, Canada and the Netherlands.
The team of lawyers, which already numbers around fifty, is likely to grow further as more lawyers are set to join from other nations. Wikus van Rensburg, who is leading the action, said that it was time for the US and other complicit nations to “be held responsible for [their] crimes”.
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TSSA rocked by #MeTU allegations of ‘new abuse’
Women’s group who exposed sexual harassment and toppled Cortes regime ‘summarily de-recognised’ by union, claims a ‘continuing culture of intimidation and bullying… and cronyism’ has led to dispute
The ‘MeTU’ group, which campaigns against harassment and bullying of women union members across the union movement, have alleged that the union is still riddled with abuse and is failing to follow the recommendations of the Kennedy Report that exposed widespread bullying and sexual harassment under the regime of now-former general secretary Manuel Cortes. The group also says that TSSA’s management has ‘summarily de-recognised’ the staff’s women’s group and replaced it with an ‘approved’ one, while sacking the firm of whistleblowing specialists that TSSA engaged, as one of its actions to follow Helena Kennedy’s recommendations, to investigate abuse and run a helpline for staff.
TSSA staff, who are represented by the GMB union, are in dispute with TSSA and their union reps have issued a scathing open letter criticising Cortes’s successor. However, the MeTU group also has sharp words of criticism for the union representing them, which has also been mired in its own sexual harassment and bullying scandal.
A MeTU statement released last night reads:
MeTU are horrified to see that following the Kennedy Inquiry and Conley Report (Feb 23) on the extreme abuse, sexual harassment, bullying, and corruption in TSSA trade union, which led to the dismissal of the former General Secretary, Manuel Cortes and most of the senior leadership, staff and members are now facing new abuse.
Following an election, gerrymandered by an EC who were close to the old regime, the union workforce has been forced to declare a dispute with the new General Secretary barely 3 months in. They cite a continuing culture of intimidation and bullying and corner cutting and cronyism with hire and fire appointments without consultation or scrutiny.
On top of this, the TSSA Self Organised women’s group – Women in Focus – who helped uncover the rot and bring about the reports leading to the change – yet were never invited to take part in the change process – have been summarily ‘de-recognised’ by the EC and new General Secretary on a flimsy pretext.
A near-secret meeting of a new ‘self-organised group’ or rather an EC-organised women’s group was barely attended and populated mainly by the President, an EC member and former EC members. Some of whom are close to the former disgraced General Secretary, Manuel Cortes.
The EC has voted to dismiss the independent whistle-blowing organisation, Howlett Brown – against the recommendation of Baroness Helena Kennedy. Staff have been told that they can instead take grievances and complaints to the President of the TSSA.
We fully support TSSA staff in their dispute and are glad they now have the courage to contest undemocratic and bullying practices. This may be the first time union staff have gone into dispute following the exposure of structural sexual abuse and bullying to demand its genuine implementation. Solidarity.
GMB: new scandal following the Monaghan Inquiry
However, it is important to say that they are represented against their corrupt employer by another union, the GMB, who claim to be reformed when they are not. While we publish the body of the letter we cannot in conscience publish the names of the full time organisers who are themselves part of the problem. There are women being bullied out as we write.
The conclusion of the Monaghan report was that the GMB is institutionally sexist and therefore is an unsafe environment for women. We can see no evidence that the GMB has acted on the work done by KC Karon Monaghan during the investigation into their practices and has disbanded the task force that was set up to implement the 27 recommendations which were made.
Now a second report by McColgan which came about following the KC’s investigation into the behaviour of GMB officials at one of Brighton’s bin depots, details the perpetration of shocking abuse and threats of physical violence against women, the discovery of a ‘cache of weapons’, and further reports of the homophobic bullying of staff. The report also describes GMB Reps “Publicly saying that women managers ‘don’t have a fucking clue. They’re female. They don’t know what they’re doing’ and describing a woman manager as ‘a fucking bitch pulling the strings’”
The GMB response was defensive and thuggish and referred to the 70 plus whistleblower testimonies given to a KC Barrister as ‘anonymous and unsupported statements’. This claim was roundly challenged by council Chief Executive, Will Tuckley, who pointed out that ‘“Some of those who spoke to the report did so anonymously for fear of potential retaliation.”
Furthermore it was suggested that ‘evidence’ would be required before the GMB would be willing to take any action, suggesting that the brave individuals who took part in the investigation had not already supplied evidence beyond reasonable doubt that terrible abuse had occurred in their workplace. Women across all layers of the union have been and continue to be damaged purposefully.
Yesterday we saw a press ‘leaked’ letter sent by the current GMB General Secretary to their central executive council warning of a coup and a return to the bad old days. GMB sisters say that while there may have been piecemeal change in some areas, most of this assertion of change is mythical, with the reality that under the current leadership, things are much worse.
The message here is clear, in certain elements of these unions misogyny is rife and they have demonstrated that they are determined to continue with the damaging and abusive behaviour which led to all of these investigations. They are happy to allow one corrupt administration to inform the actions of the next and they continue to collectively gaslight us through their actions.
Our campaign against those who seek to do harm is very far from over. We will not allow our movement to destroy itself because some men and their many enablers refuse to stop abusing us as women. We will continue to find, expose and remove from the trade union and labour movement, perpetrators of bullying, misogyny, sexism, racism, transphobia, homophobia and ableism to ensure our movement is truly inclusive.
We will continue to tell the truth and stand up for ourselves and each other at any cost. The world has changed and we are winning. Our movement needs to be fit for purpose, with true democracy and not the current structure of power hoarding we see.
To perpetrators and misogynists throughout our movement, stop, and stop now, or be exposed.
The GMB’s open letter to TSSA general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust says that the dispute has arisen because of members’ “total lack of confidence in the implementation of the Kennedy Report (Feb 2023) and the Conley Report (Feb 2023)“. It alleges:
Staff morale has shifted from improving (during the tenure of Peter Pendle), back to a place of low psychological safety. Amongst the staff, there is now an atmosphere of anxiety, hyper vigilance, and worry. The trust in the leadership…has completely collapsed and in general, staff are once again feeling demoralised, ignored, distrusted, and exhausted from the pressures and strains of working in this – what can only be described as – a toxic environment.
Baroness Kennedy was contacted by over fifty people when compiling her report. She described: “beyond specific instances, I have found a culture that is stuck, it seems, in a morass of staff upset and grievance – on matters relating… to the bullying, silencing and marginalising of staff.”
Sadly, we feel that this culture has returned under the new governance of the union. Kennedy commended the staff in her report: “I want to emphasise that I was impressed by the commitment and decency of the staff …I met some truly good people, with good intentions… I have experienced staff as fearful, anxious, and distressed. I have not experienced staff as vengeful, political, unkind, or lacking in decency”.
Kennedy’s analysis did not blame the staff; she praised them.
It goes on:
In addition, amongst other things, there has been an abject failure to follow agreed procedure and protocols regarding staff complaints made about bullying. Kennedy reported in February 2023: “I also heard evidence of failings in due process, natural justice and governance…In any organisation, policies and procedures are trumped by values and culture. No policy can make a healthy, productive organisation if its implementation is limited by poor values or a dysfunctional culture.”
The policy on Dignity at Work states clearly and unequivocally the procedures to follow when complaints have been raised. These procedures have not been followed.
With regards to staffing appointments, such as the (Interim) Assistant General Secretary Role, and ‘hiring’ of an HR Manager, proper procedure, and collective bargaining, including the practice of having an independent staff observer, are not being followed.
Kennedy warned about opaque practices amongst the recruitment of Senior Management Team in her report, where she described how a member of staff was being ‘groomed’ for General Secretary. She strongly criticised it as ‘opportunity hoarding’. We see it as cronyism which undermines the reputation of the union.
We are further concerned that the General Secretary will not meet with the Staff Reps every week to discuss issues, as the previous Interim General Secretary had agreed to do. We feel that this is a vital part of ensuring full transparency in the process of implementing sweeping culture change and a way of dealing with any staffing issues rapidly.
Former TSSA assistant general secretary Steve Coe described GMB’s allegations as ‘worrying’:
Worrying developments at TSSA. This follows the Executive's decision to disband TSSA Women in Focus, the group that called for the reports that exposed wrongdoing and abuse of power by past senior officials. pic.twitter.com/r7k1j8zzZZ
— Steve Coe (@stevecoe1057) January 20, 2024
Contacted for comment about the new MeTu statement, the TSSA press spokesman was dismissive about the press enquiry and claimed not to have seen it and that there are no links between current senior figures in the union and the disgraced former management, but declined to provide a formal comment and threatened legal action if its contents were related and the union was unhappy with what it said.
TSSA general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust has previously attacked Skwawkbox for scrutinising the claims about her record that she and her team made during last year’s election to choose the union’s new general secretary. Despite a lack of relevant experience in a senior union role and the candidacy of two experienced TSSA figures, the union’s executive opted to nominate her as its preferred candidate and pushed members hard to vote for her.
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Starmer STILL silent on ICJ genocide judgment against Israel
Friend of war crimes just ignoring damning order against murderous regime
‘What judgment?’: Keir Starmer
Keir Starmer’s reaction to the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) damning judgment yesterday, which put Israel formally on trial for genocide – with even the Israeli judge agreeing on two of the points – and ordered the occupier regime to stop killing Palestinians in Gaza and take a list of measures to protect them, has been deafening silence.
Starmer, who has previously declared himself an unconditional Zionist, has supported Israel’s ‘right’ to commit war crimes and has helped the Tories (blue version) to defeat parliamentary efforts to call for a ceasefire. And as Israel ranted and raved and most of the world applauded South Africa’s stand for humanity and against mass murder, Starmer’s social media account hasn’t even acknowledged the existence of the court’s findings, some thirty hours after they were announced.
But he has found time, as Israel continued to slaughter and maim hundreds of civilian women and children, to tweet about Holocaust Memorial Day and blether repeatedly about anti-social behaviour (especially in ‘hotpots’):
Starmer’s latest nauseating post is a claim that it is a ‘privilege to reaffirm Labour’s commitment to “Never Again”’ – clearly that should end with ‘unless you’re Palestinian’. Coward and genocide enabler.
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