PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

29 RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: april 2023 :: RMTnews President’s column As you flick through RMT News, you join thousands of RMT members taking inspiration from trade unionists standing up for each other and for workers’ rights. This month, RMT joins millions of workers worldwide, celebrating International Workers’ Day on Monday, 1 May. On Saturday 29 April, I am honoured to be invited to address trade unionists and their families at Glasgow’s May Day Rally. The Glasgow Trades Council assembles at George Square at 11.00 and marches to Queens Park for a festival of children’s entertainment, speeches, and songs from The Tenementals, a band bringing Glasgow’s radical history to life. Join us if you can. On Sunday 30 April, Mick Lynch addresses Belfast Trades Council’s May Day rally in the city where James Larkin first organised dock workers in 1907. Belfast Trades Council gave RMT Belfast Shipping Branch members much needed solidarity at Larne harbour last year, when Irish trade unionists protested against P&O Ferries’ mass sackings. I will be joining RMT members in Ipswich for their Trades Union Council May Day rally the same day. On May Day – Monday, 1 May - marches and rallies take place worldwide. London’s May Day Rally assembles from 11.00 outside the Marx Memorial Library on Clerkenwell Green and marches to Trafalgar Square where Mick Lynch will address us. Bring your banners. May Day belongs to us all, celebrated on every continent on earth, with the possible exception of Antarctica. May Day’s ancient origins lie in pre- industrial societies of the northern hemisphere, a celebration of spring, signalling a return of longer, warmer days, of life and rebirth. In modern industrial societies, May Day was adopted by workers’ movements demanding an eight-hour limit to the working day and workers’ rights. In nineteenth-century Britain, the ‘Master and Servant Act’ meant workers were frequently prosecuted as criminals for ‘breach of contract’. In 1865 alone, 12,345 workers were prosecuted for disputing their conditions of employment and 7,557 were convicted, of whom 1,658 were sentenced to terms of imprisonment. In 1863 a delegate to London Trades Council reported how a worker who left work without notice in Wolverhampton on receiving news his child was dying, returned to Liverpool to find his child already dead and his wife dying. The next day, his employer arrived with police to arrest him. He was gaoled and Wolverhampton magistrates fined him £4 for ‘breach of contract’. This was the context when Glasgow Trades Council launched a call for a national conference to scrap brutal, anti-worker laws. The first national conference open to all trade unions met in London on 5 May 1864. It took ten years however, to repeal the iniquitous ‘Master and Servant Act’. On 28 September 1864, London Trades Council welcomed a delegation of French workers at a public meeting in St. Martin’s Hall, Covent Garden where they founded the first International Workingmen’s Association with representatives from Britain, Germany, France, Poland, and Italy. Karl Marx became the German workers’ representative on The International’s general committee. The First International connected workers across borders with a simple common demand: “We require 8 hours for work. 8 hours for our own instruction and 8 hours for repose.” In the 1860s, this radical slogan was engraved on the face of so-called ‘8-hour watches’ to commemorate the founding of The International. Only 11 were made. One is in the People’s History Museum in Manchester. Another is at the Marx Memorial Library in London. On the reverse of the watch is the guiding principle of the international workers’ movement: “Workers of every country, unite together to defend your rights.” Happy May Day! Alex Gordon MAY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN Volunteers also took them around the busy workshops that keep the trains going as well as working on 20 year projects such as rebuilding entire steam engines. The state-of-the art museum teaches visitors about George and Robert Stephenson and their influence on the development of the steam locomotive through animations and artefacts from the time. There are steam, diesel and electric locomotives from collieries, steelworks and power stations in Tyneside and beyond from as early as the 1880s. This includes a Tyneside Electric Parcel Van - built in 1904 and beautifully restored at the museum, the only surviving vehicle from the Tyneside Suburban Electric Railway. There is also an electric locomotive built by Siemens in 1909 for an extensive colliery railway system in South Shields. The star of the show is the early locomotive 'Billy' - built in Newcastle around 1816 under the supervision of George Stephenson. The engine was used to haul waggons carrying coal from Killingworth Colliery to the River Tyne. The Association is based at Stephenson Steam Railway and provides a volunteer workforce to assist with the maintenance and conservation of locomotives and rolling stock. Association members operate the locomotives and railway, with roles as diverse as driver, firemen, guard, shunter, operations controller and engineer. Volunteers also provide support with administration and customer service. All training is provided so if you’re interested in gaining work experience in a friendly environment, learning new skills and gaining confidence, get in touch - email members.ntsra@gmail.com