Culture and the labour movement - a key role for Trades Councils

Last Tuesday,  Jamie Caldwell – Unite Community Co-ordinator for Scotland – penned a piece in the ‘Voices from Scotland’ section of the Morning Star arguing the importance of arts, music and culture in bringing people to politics and inspiring them to join the movement for change.

It is a timely reminder of the importance of the labour movement’s involvement in the arts and cultural scene – an involvement that goes back at least as far as the Rose Schneiderman quote from 1911/2 - "The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too." It was a prominent part of socialist and labour movement work in thirties and forties Glasgow with the Unity Theatre, Left Book Club groups and the Trades Council’s Film Society. Similar organisations existed in other cities.

In more contemporary times the TU movement was key to the formation of  Glasgow’s MayFest, - as were left theatre groups such as Dave MacLennan’s Wildcat -  and it is good to see increasing arts and musical input more recently around the International Workers’ Day celebrations. Glasgow’s own Friends of MayDay programme is one of these developments.

The role of Trades Councils can be crucial in the success of this co-ordination, and it is good to see a recent increase in such activities by Trades Union Councils (the new name for Trades Councils) in and around Glasgow.

Jane McAlevey

Glasgow Trades Council itself starts the list this week with their hosting of the book launch by American union organizer and author, Jane McAlevey. Entitled No Shortcuts, Organising for Power, it’s on tonight at the Lighthouse and while it has been sold out, there might be some returns available via the FB page.

Jamie’s article mentions the Ken Loach film I, Daniel Blake, and the work of Unite and the People’s Assembly in promoting it. One of these screenings is being hosted in Clydebank Town Hall, by Clydebank Trades Council with support from the Morning Star and a multitude of TUs, on Thursday this week at 7.00pm. Tickets here.

Clydebank TC are also prominent in a mini tour of the play Dare Devil Rides to Jarama. A play about motorcycling and the Spanish Civil War, it is produced by Townsend Productions – who gave you The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropist and the Shrewsbury pickets play United We Stand. It is also playing Clydebank Town Hall (on 6 March), tickets here. If you can’t make this showing, there is also one organised by South Lanarkshire TC in the Blantyre Miners Welfare two days previously (4 Mar). Tickets from UNISON South Lanarkshire 01698 454690 or from the Blantyre Miners Welfare itself.

30 years ago elsewhere in South Lanarkshire (in Uddingston actually) workers at the Caterpillar factory occupied their workplace to prevent it being closed. The occupation lasted 103 days. Our friends at FairPley – other valuable contributors to the increase in cultural activity on the left – have commissioned two, one-act plays from Anne Hogg on the aftermath of the occupation. Out of the Bad and Butterfly are premiering at Motherwell Civic Theatre on February 25. Tickets from Culture NL here..

Not a bad contribution to Jamie’s important call for the use of cultural events in socialist and labour movement organizing. I have no doubt that there are other Trades Union Council’s across Scotland who are organising similar events. If so, it would be good to support them and to promote them using social contacts, both digital and otherwise. And if they are not – what about getting them to do so?

As a wee add-on, while I was in London on a break, the Morning Star published my final round-up

Shirley Collins, pic Eva Vermandel

review of Celtic Connections. Concentrating on the CC theme of Women of Song it can be found here.  And while we’re on the topic of the Star and Arts/Music coverage, there’s a nice interview by Mike Quille with a former star of  Celtic Connections, Chris Wood, in the weekend’s edition. He is a great example of how contemporary folk music is being created right across these islands.

There is a better May - unions and artists come together to take the next step in the campaign

Yesterday Glasgow Friends of MayDay, a new group of activists and artists set up to increase support for Glasgow’s MayDay celebrations, launched our 2011 programme. It is a series of events covering the three days before Sunday May 1 when the traditional MayDay March and Rally takes place in Glasgow.

Actor and director David Hayman, musicians Dave Anderson and Arthur Johnstone, and poet Tom Leonard will all perform concerts from Thursday 28 to Saturday 30 April at the STUC Centre. There will also be a night featuring film and a lecture on the UCS work-in, 40 years ago this year; stand-up comedy as an antidote to the Royal Wedding; and a Northern Soul night. The full programme is
available on http://may1st.org.uk

There are a number of reasons behind all this cultural activity. Firstly, we want to challenge the ConDem government’s attack on MayDay, by rejuvenating the International Workers’ Day celebration in Glasgow. Working with the Glasgow TUC and the STUC, far from scrapping the holiday, we aim to extend the celebrations and in following years build events in local communities as well, ensuring that they too can enjoy MayDay celebrations.

We also want to challenge the Tories’ economic policies. After the huge success of the 26 March Demo in London this will be another step in the campaign to defend public services from their cuts and say that There is a Better Way.

It is entirely appropriate that this is a broad cultural and artistic celebration. The arts are facing the same attacks as public services. In taking part in this, artists are linking with the main campaign.

We are particularly delighted that Len McCluskey, General Secretary of Unite, is to be the keynote speaker. Trade unions are facing direct attacks by this government. Far from all of us being ‘in this together’, it is clear that they plan to mount another attack on the rights of working people. The government plans to dismember the only major institution campaigning for working people and their families. Successful celebrations such as May Day send a signal that ordinary people see through their divide and rule tactics.

MayDay celebrations have been part of Glasgow’s calendar since the early 1900’s.  In the past we welcomed such stars as Paul Robeson, and Daniel Ortega. Maybe it is a little early to aim for the 70,000 that joined the 1918 march, but we hope to work with community groups and others to raise the profile once more.

Tickets for the events can be obtained on line at http://www.eventbrite.com/org/863793523?s=3059565

THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES - the public sector and the arts

The following piece is an extract taken from a contribution I gave to a recent Morning Star Education Seminar on Government funding and working class culture. This was part of a series on cultural topics that continue into January. Future events on Burns; Tressell & the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and Orwell. The details can be found here - http://www.scottishcommunists.org.uk/campaigning/ 

The first seminar brought together, myself, Dave MacLennan (ex -Wildcat, and producer of A play, a pie and a pint at  Oran Mor in Glasgow.) and Susan Galloway, a researcher from Glasgow University’s Centre for Cultural Policy Research. All of us focussed on the importance of public funding to the cultural sector and expressed their concern about the cuts planned by the ConDem government.

But we also debated alternative sources of funding, and the opportunities and drawbacks of each. I listed big business, trade unions and charitable trusts as options - all of which had major limitations. The volume of public funding means that it is no surprise that at both local and Scottish level this provides the lions share of cultural funding. The Scottish Arts Council (now Creative Scotland) had nearly £60m to distribute in grants to the arts in 2010 (although about £12m came from the National Lottery) - plus the Scottish Government funds some national companies direct. But Scottish local government - in the latest figure I can discover - spent £274m on the provision of culture in 2003-4 (figs from Cultural Commission report of 2005). Clearly this funding is crucial to the current ‘healthy’ arts scene in Scotland. 

Elsewhere in my contribution I listed some of the problems that relying on one single source of funding can bring. From political censorship, to self-censorship; from over-dependence to being at the whim of fashion.

Having said all this - why is it important that the public sector continues to fund cultural and artistic work? Haven’t I outlined more than enough difficulties in doing so?

That may be so - but withdrawal of the funding that currently comes from the ‘state’ - however inadequate and restricted it is (and that £274m from local authorities is only 2.5% of their total expenditure ) would mean both a damage to culture in general - and working class/progressive culture in particular.

Leaving the field to big business, and/or individual ‘rich’ supporters will mean the high-profile, city centre, Scotland-wide projects and product may well continue to be backed, but radical, challenging, and above-all locally based community work, will suffer.

And it is clear that public sector funding is already being cut, and faces further extensive surgery.

For Culture Minister, Fiona Hyslop to point to the maintenance (this year) of funding for Creative Scotland compared to the cuts planned at the Arts Council in England is fair comment. But it ignores the real damage that is starting and will get dramatically worse as cuts come the way of local councils and other public services. Figures of 10, 12,even 20% cuts have been bandied about. How far will non-statutory grants to local groups - or anyone producing for those local groups survive in that climate? yet again it will be local community-based art that will suffer. 

OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALLIANCES

Finally - are there any positives? I think ironically, there ARE opportunities, if arts organisations can be flexible and imaginative enough to grasp them. Ironically they arise out of the very cuts we worry about.  There are already campaigns beginning in the fightback against these cuts. These campaigns will need to a) capture the support of local people and communities, and b) articulate the concerns of workers and service users. And there is strong evidence that TUs are aware of and wanting to make such alliances. Locally-based radical arts groups might be an ideal way of doing this. 

If I was one working in West Dumbarton for example - I’d be approaching the joint union/community campaign already working there, to see what work could be done together - and might also want to talk to people in the STUC, UNISON, the EIS, the PCS about opportunities.

So there are faint glimmers in the darkness, but there are many more threats. This is why cultural groups, trade unions, community groups etc should be working together - to use all the working classes talents in fighting the cuts to come. Let’s use cultural work to build campaigns like the ~STUC’s There is a better way, and in the process reinvigorate working class culture and local arts work.