Thursday 16^th September 2010 - 7.15pm start, all trade unionists welcome.

minutes & Secretary's report available

Wolverhampton, Bilston & District Trades Union Council est.1865  invites delegates & all interested trades unionists to our

 Delegate Meeting on

Thursday 16^th September 2010 7.15pm

 AGENDA

1) Introductions to delegates & visitors, new & old, & apologies
2. Minutes of July meeting - corrections & matters arising
3) Executive Committee Report  & correspondence
4) Reports:

a) Secretary – Bilston N by-election anti-bnp campaign report

b) discussion of regional Trades Union Councils planned meeting
c) joint public service union campaign
d) delegates' workplace reports
e) Midlands TUC
f) Pensioners’ report
g) local Palestine Solidarity & Cuba Solidarity campaign reports
5) Resolutions
6) speaker:
7) Any Other Business                         ends 8-45pm

Open to all trade unionists (only official delegates have  voting rights)

please display this on your union noticeboard.

 ________________________________________

WB&D TUC, P.O.Box 2917 Wolverhampton WV2 2YA     This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it    

At last month's meeting Adam Dwight, UCU  spoke about the current redundancy situation at Wolverhampton College in which Management have issued a section 188 notice for 160 potential job losses. They have a strong and well organised branch with over 280 members and we are currently balloting to take strike action on Monday 21^st June which coincides with a National day of protests about the cuts in Education funding in FE and HE http://unitedforeducation.org.uk/  

Cllr Terry Renshaw, former Mayor of Flint and one of the original Shrewsbury 24 will address trades council tonight to build support for their July 3^rd demo in Shrewsbury. Mike Edwards will talk on the possibility of re-establishing a trd=ade union studies centre in the  Black Country 

1972 saw not only the first official miners' strike but also the first official building workers' strike since the 1920s. Building workers, whose separate unions merged to form the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians (UCATT) in 1971, staged their national stoppage for 30 for a 35-hour week, and for the abolition of lump (self-contract) labour. The 13-week strike resulted in increased union organisation and the biggest single rise ever negotiated in the building industry. Again, the key weapon in this struggle was the use of flying pickets that toured around the construction sites ensuring the strike was solid.

The Tory government was desperate to contain the situation and stop the mass picketing. They decided to achieve this by making an example of those guilty of mass picketing, by framing them on charges of intimidation, violence and conspiracy. They hoped this would stop the militant workers and act as a deterrent to others. As a consequence arrests were made of two-dozen leading building workers in the North Wales area. The trial of the "Shrewsbury 24", as it was called, was a political trial. It was a deliberate conspiracy of the Employers' Federation, government and state, to frame the men and demonstrate to everyone that militancy does not pay.