On these pages you will find a selection of previous articles and news items
“The Politics of Fabric” art project – Trade Union traditions and Blackburn’s “Acid House” party
From December 2018
A crowd of people in colourful outfits march through Preston behind what, at first sight, appears to be a Trade Union banner. Look closer, though, and you see that the banner is dominated by a painting of the inside of an abandoned old mill – and alongside this are images relating to the 1989 Acid House dance scene. “Live the Dream” says the banner’s headline slogan – the title of a rave held on the 16th September 1989 in a field of marquees off Gib Lane in Blackburn.
Is this some sort of parody? After all, a common caricature of Trade Unions is that they are yesterday’s story; stale, boring and dead on their feet – particularly in the eyes of those born after 1970. Yet here a manifestation particularly associated with them is married to the reminiscence of what Drew Hamment (“DiY Culture: Part and Protest in Nineties Britain”) called “some of the most intense and sustained disco debauchery in the history of house….”.
“At the vortex of the storm” , he also wrote, “was Blackburn” .
The banner and the parade form part of an art project co-ordinated by Jamie Holman, a Blackburn based artist, writer and lecturer, who has been commissioned to make work exploring “The Politics of Fabric”. It will culminate with a display at “Fabrications 2019”, the British Textile Biennial, next Autumn.
Jamie attended our December 2018 Trades Council meeting to show us the banner and talk about the project, which has also involved students from Blackburn College. He said that his ideas for the project first formed when he saw some old banners in the Blackburn and Harris (Preston) museum collections and realised that the model of people marching behind a banner was a working-class community behaviour that once crossed a wide range of differing affiliations. The Trade Union banner remains the most potent example, but there had also been processions behind church banners, temperance banners and suffrage banners. As the project progressed it would reference these other elements alongside Trade Unionism.
The “Live the Dream” banner is painted silk, made in the traditional way by Durham Banner Makers. Jamie had wanted, however, to do something more than simply replicate tradition. He wanted to use it to contain and reflect upon more recent memories. In this case, what had come to mind was “the thirtieth anniversary of Acid House – significant gatherings of people and community in empty mills and warehouses” ; something that was part of his own experience.
Bruce Wilkinson, in his book on Blackburn’s 1960s poetic bohemia (“Hidden Cultures, Forgotten History”), suggests, in a sort of postscript, that Blackburn’s Acid House days indeed had about them something that linked to radicalism in the past:
“…in the…. documentary film “High on Hope”, Smith and Hemment develop the idea that they were reclaiming ownership of the very same mills where their forefathers were exploited during the industrial revolution. They reinterpreted the way spaces within warehouses and factories could be used and, by plotting new routes within urban landscapes, asked locals to look again at what had seemed an over-familiar environment. What is incontrovertible is that working-class people, inspired by the liberty to celebrate unfettered by the authorities’ restrictions and outside the control of big business, developed their own, entirely autonomous counterculture….” .
The raves were certainly effervescent. But they were also evanescent. Whilst they undoubtedly tapped into the Blackburn proletarian tradition of “playing hard”, is it possible that they had a wider cultural impact comparable, say, to the underground rock of the late 1960s or to “Rock Against Racism” in 1978? Maybe that question itself is just another trick of the generational light.
The juxtaposition of Acid House with Trade Union paraphernalia proves to be a poignant reminder that it was about this time that the labour movement began to feel a sense of unease that young workers were no longer replenishing the Trade Union ranks. A generation had gone through its formative years under Thatcherism and then found itself allocated to “new” sectors of employment, where there was little in the way of Trade Union organisation. The failure of the Unions to organise these sectors became a growing cause for concern – whilst the “cut off” age for being a “young member” went on rising.
Today it raises our spirits somewhat to see young workers take the lead in actions to improve conditions in areas such as fast-foods, internet warehouses, call-centres and the “gig economy”. And Jamie hopes that his project will capture something of the abiding resilience of working-class communities. “This commission” , he writes in his Blog, “has made me realise that despite the challenges of the times we find ourselves in, and the past and future we are trying to make sense of in this confusing present – our mills still empty, our people still struggling as the industrial world shifts around them – that we are still proud communities, still united and still full of hope, joy and pride” .
Trades Council Responds to “Taylor Review” on “modern working practices”
From May 2017
May’s Trades Council meeting discussed the “Taylor Review” into “modern working practices” and the subsequent Government “consultation” on how “employment status” might be defined.
“Precarious Employment” has been a matter of growing public concern in recent years. It can take several different forms. For instance:
> The Office for National Statistics said in April that in 2017 over 900,000 workers were primarily employed on zero-hours contracts;
> A recent TUC Report concluded that increasing numbers of people were being employed “arm’s length” – 1 million through recruitment agencies or “umbrella companies”;
> The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development estimates 1.3 million people are working as “self-employed” in the “gig economy”;
> Self-employment reached a high of 15% of employment during 2016. Many instances are known to be “bogus” – i.e. that the “self-employment” status is forced upon the worker by the employer;
> Estimates of the numbers of agency workers range from 800,000 to 1.3 million.
Whilst the proportion of workers classed as “permanent” has not dropped dramatically, it has fallen to some degree whilst in some sectors and areas it seems to be more difficult for unskilled workers in particular to find any other choice than “precarious” work. Examples of the insecurity and levels of exploitation associated with “precarious” work have been publicised on a regular basis. At the April Trades Council meeting, for instance, BFAW President Ian Hodson gave several examples of how insecurity affected “McDonald’s” workers. One man had gone from 40 hours a week to less than 8 because there had been a change of boss and the new boss did not like him.
The Government responded to growing public concern by asking Matthew Taylor, the Chief Executive of RSA and a former adviser to Tony Blair, to conduct a Review of “modern employment practices”. He and his team published this in June 2017.
Unfortunately, this proved to be a major disappointment. The Review gave the opinion that Britain’s “flexible” and low-regulation labour market – what it called “the British Way” – was a positive thing and that little was required to change it other than some detailed amendments around the exercise of what little was given to those in “precarious” work by way of statutory rights.
The Government has followed up on the Review with a number of public consultations, generally of rather limited scope. The Trades Council identified one of these – on the question of “Employment Status” – as giving, nonetheless, some room for civic organisations to respond to some of the broader issues involved. It consequently agreed to submit a formal response. Amongst other things it argued in this that:
> The Review was wrong in accepting the case put to it by the CBI that the “flexibility” of the British labour market is a positive feature;
> “Precarious” should be seen as a social evil, leading to poverty, insecurity and employment practices that disadvantage workers;
> All but the genuinely self employed should have access to the full suite of statutory rights and protections at work;
> The law needs to be firmer in defining self-employment and protecting workers’ rights; and
> A range of other measures was required to give workers adequate protection, including an end to the use of benefit rules to force workers to take “precarious” employment.
You can download a full copy of the Trades Council response here:
Statement on the 2017 General Election
From May 2017
Only a vote for Labour makes sense for workers in the coming General Election. As the wage share of GDP continues to fall whilst income inequality widens, as insecure work proliferates whilst the welfare benefit system is poisoned by malign policies, as “austerity” takes away our public services whilst contractors line their pockets through privatisation – only a vote for Labour stands any chance of “turning the tide”.
Presiding over a society that does not work for everyone it is the Conservatives who, meanwhile, continue to make a pig’s ear of our relations with the European Union.
In light of the declaration of a “snap” General Election, the officers of Blackburn and District Trades Union Council have issued a Statement which you can download here: