By
Theo Russell
 |
| Matt Wrack calls for support at the meeting |
Local trade unionists in West London
are mobilising to build support for the first AGM of a new trades union council
that kicked off with a meeting in June.
Local union
and community activists came together on 27th June at the Maxilla
Social Club, in the shadow of Grenfell Tower, to mobilise support for the
relaunch of the Hammersmith, Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea Trades Council.
They were
addressed by Matt Wrack, Fire Brigades Union (FBU) general secretary, on the
latest developments in the public inquiry, alongside Merril Hammer, Chair of
Save Charing Cross Hospital, Christine Blower, former General Secretary of the
NUT, and Liane Groves, Unite Community National Coordinator. The meeting was
chaired by Roger Sutton from the Greater London Association of Trades Union
Councils.
Veterans of
the old local trades councils along with local trade union and Labour Party
activists discussed how to obtain sufficient affiliations to ensure the new
combined trades council, which will launch formally at the AGM on 23rd
October, can survive as a viable organisation.
Matt Wrack
told the meeting that: “Trades councils are at the heart of local communities,
and with the fall in trade union membership are needed more than ever to build
the links in order to improve peoples’ live.”
“Trade
unionism is not just a top-down process, we need
them to engage with local disputes and with the wider community who are not in
trade unions.”
Wrack spoke at
length about the impact of the fire on his members and major problems with the
Grenfell Inquiry. He said that about 1,000 firefighters, almost all FBU
members, had been questioned by the Metropolitan Police, some for as long as
six hours.
With an FBU
rep attending each interview, this had been a huge organisational challenge for
the union.
He said that
London Fire Brigade members were “disgusted” by the treatment of the Grenfell
incident commander, Michael Dowden, and said the inquiry was starting in the
wrong place by focusing on the fire itself rather than on the long list of
bodies responsible for the disaster.
“Those people
responsible for the tower’s cladding, the contractors and businesses who sold
the materials, are not the ones being asked difficult questions, it’s the
people who turned up on the night.”
Wrack said the
disaster was caused not just by austerity but by the attacks on public services
that began with the 1979 Thatcher government.
“Housing and
safety regulations were weakened, building controls part privatised and cut to
pieces, and fire regulations fragmented, with firefighters having died as a
result. Since 2005, 50 per cent of fire safety officers have been lost and
local government budgets have been hardest hit by austerity since 2010.
“The inquiry
should look into the past cuts to council housing, public services and local
authority resourcing, and the deregulation of the building industry and fire
safety testing regimes.”
He added that
there was “utter complacency from central government” since the fire, saying:
“I have no confidence that the inquiry will bring change. The only way to do
that is to organise a huge community movement – that is the only way we will
get change, that is the only way we will get justice.
“The UK is the
fourth richest country in the world but no longer conducts any fire safety
research, and ranks 34th in fire resilience. Eleven thousand firefighters and
40 fire stations have been lost, and there are not enough crews to man the
remaining fire engines.”
No comments:
Post a Comment