Stressed at Staythorpe
I thought people might like to hear of my account of the mass protest
called by Unite to support the construction workers at Staythorpe power
station at
According to the
construction workers.
About 10:15 Simpson turned up with an entourage of aides and publicity
people. All the media were present - there were dozens of them. They
were crawling all over the place.
Simpson took a look at the demonstrators and I guess it was as though
he sensed the mood of about 400 construction workers; you would have
thought that he would have mixed and mingled with his members. Had a
bit of conversation with them, but no. He just looked on with a couple
of his loyal aides, sullen, unsure what to do.
Anyhow the march got underway. Simpson was not on it. If he was he was
certainly not leading it - I looked for him, but no Simpson could I
see. I asked a few of the demonstrators. All said no they hadn’t seen
him. One asked me “who’s Simpson”.
At the end of the demonstration at the rally point Simpson just
suddenly popped up as though from no-where. The speakers platform had a
cordon of police round it with blue tape. I guess to protect Simpson
from demonstrators.
The fist speaker was a Labour MP who didn’t seem to say anything at. He
was heard in almost complete silence. When he stood down after 2 or 3
minutes no-one said anything - almost silence.
Then Simpson started. He started by saying how awful things were. All
was quite for a minute or two and someone shouted out, “What are you
going to do about it”. Simpson rounded on this person. Ah, someone who
isn’t a construction worker has come to heckle. The same question was
put again with the emphasis that the non-construction worker had been a
union member for 32 years and he had come to show solidarity. Ah said
Simpson, its young Jerry is it.
Then a couple of construction workers took up the original question.
“What are you going to do about it”. People could see Simpson starting
to get worked up. He tried to bluster something but then more questions
and interjections came at him. It was reminiscent of the mobile phone
video recording at Cowley; “You are supposed to represent us not the
government or the employers.”
At this point when the meeting seemed to be on the edge of mass protest
Simpson started to lose it. I’m not going to take this from these, he
seemed lost for words, then he said BNP activists and you tossers.
He then started to get going but I think an aide must have said
something or his own common sense intervened because he just seemed to
stop in mid flow and walked off the platform. Simpson was on the
platform speaking for only about 2 or 3 minutes.
Then a couple of stewards asked Jerry Hicks to speak but the organisers
of the meeting refused and to get onto the platform would involve
fighting through the police cordon. So the stewards found a loud hailer
and Hicks addressed the construction workers for about 5 minutes to
quite spontaneous and loud applause.
Simpson in the meantime was giving interviews to Sky and the media.
So there you have it. This mass demonstration would be led by the great
Simpson on his white charger as the saviour of the construction
industry. The reality; Simpson was probably too scared to mingle with
his members who after all, according to Simpson, were BNP supporters
and “Tossers”. Apart from giving interviews to the media he was
no-where to be seen.
Isn’t it strange that his speech has never been reported on any news
channel.
As a final little ironic twist postscript to this very sad and
humiliating affair, for Simpson, the only other speaker was a certain
Tom Hardacre, National Officer for the Unions construction sector. He
spoke for maybe a minute or two.
I’m not sure what he said but he
did not say that he was the personal
appointee of Derek Simpson. It was his job to ensure that the national
agreements on wages and conditions in the construction sector were
scrapped in favour of local agreements. His job was to oversee the
policies that have led directly to foreign workers coming into the
country and employed on the minimum wage. He oversaw, with the active
support of Simpson, the agreement with the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown
the policy of employing agency workers to build the Olympic site. It
was his policies that he rammed through that saw foreign workers
brought into the country and housed in various portacabin-type
accommodation so that the would qualify as no-foreign for political
purposes but would qualify to be paid only the minimum wage or not much
better than the minimum wage. It is said that this arrangement is a
nice little earner for ManPower.
Whatever Hardacre said I am certain these little home truths were not
said.
Isn’t it a sad state of affairs that the leader of the biggest union in
the country feels unable to lead a demonstration that he called, that
he cannot mingle and talk to the people who pay his wages, who feels
the need of a police cordon for protection from his members, who
considers honest questioning of his policies to be the work of BNP
activists and “Tossers”, who then can’t finish his speech and instead
of engaging in talks with his member she goes off giving interviews to
the mass media.
I just can’t understand why some people question the need for an
election for general secretary in Unite - to some it all seems to be
all too much of a distraction.
Ray Smith
Read Simpsons previous outburst – ‘Workers are Wankers’
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