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.

Portraying the Red Clydesiders - and young women of the East End!

A couple of events to draw your attention to today. Firstly an event slightly detached from its original slot in the Mayday celebrations - it was postponed from the original date of May 5 as that was only two days away from the General Election. and now takes place on Tuesday 26 May at 7.00pm in the STUC offices on Woodlands Road (above the Stand).

In one of the interesting and different talks put on by the Scottish Morning Star Campaign Committee as part of their Our Class, Our Culture series, John Quinn of the Glasgow School of Art will be talking about 'Portraying the Red Clydesiders' - with a slightly different angle on Maxton, Maclean, Shinwell, Gallacher et al. These events are always worth attending and manage to give us a interesting and political perspective on culture that we think we know about. Its a free event, so what's not to like?

In other political cultural events, the Southside Fringe Festival has just finished. One of its intriguing

shows was a newly written and composed musical on the 1888 Matchgirls Strike in London's East End. I say a new musical, because it seems that this strike has been the inspiration for two earlier musicals. In the 1960's both Joyce Adcock and Gordon Caleb (Strike a Light), and Bill Owen and Tony Russell (The Matchgirls) wrote musical treatments of the dispute, one of which (Strike a Light) played Glasgow's Alhambra Theatre in 1966.

Be that as it may, writer, Fatima Uygun says she deliberately didn't look at either until after she had written her own! The show - which played in The Steamie - part of Govanhill Baths was successful overall, but there are some elements that need attention, as I say in my review in the Morning Star - here. The cast and musicians are well worth some more exposure.

Gary Lewis and Tommy Sands lead Glasgow's MayDay festivities.

--> MayDay festivals have been celebrated since pre-Christian times. Earliest celebrations marked the beginning of summer and linked to many pagan festivals including the Gaelic Beltane. In 1891 MayDay was formally adopted as International Workers Day – primarily to mark the anniversary of the 1886 Chicago Haymarket Massacre, when four strikers were killed when police opened fire on a demonstration after a bomb was thrown. 

Despite the gravity of this event, and maybe because of earlier festival links, the celebratory side of International Workers’ Day is longstanding and international, especially in Glasgow. The story of labour in the west of Scotland is peppered with cultural input – choirs from the Orpheus to the Eurydice, theatre from the Glasgow Workers’ Theatre to 7:84 and Wildcat, Glasgow Trades Council even once ran a film society! This is the background to the increasing range of activities now being organised in the city by a range of TU, campaigning and labour organisations.

The now hugely successful Great MayDay Cabaret, organised by Glasgow Friends of MayDay (GFoMD), celebrates its third anniversary at Oran Mor on the Mayday Monday (4) evening. This year’s headliner is celebrated Irish singer and peace activist , Tommy Sands. Also performing are poet Elvis McGonagall, actress Juliet Cadzow, comedians Bruce Morton and Susie McCabe, and singers Arthur Johnstone and Siobhan Miller. Dave Anderson comperes.


In addition, Glasgow-based film actor Gary Lewis (Billy Elliot, Gangs of New York) stars in a specially commissioned rehearsed reading of John and Willy Maley’s play – From the Calton to Catalonia – republished last year by Calton Books. This play about their father’s experiences in the International Brigades launches, appropriately enough, in the Calton, then goes on a small tour during the period including Irvine’s Harbour Arts centre (2) and Oran Mor (3).

Chris Bartter, Chair of Glasgow Friends of Mayday said “This year’s celebrations have moved up a gear. Many more organisations and people are planning events and we are delighted that we’re able to add a theatre performance to the already successful Cabaret.”

Trade Union Councils throughout Scotland continue to organise MayDay marches and rallies on the Mayday Weekend (Sat and Sun 2/3 May). Plans and speakers are still being finalised.

An interesting project run by Glasgow Museums and Glasgow University plans to get trade union and campaign banners out of museum storage and into local communities, where people with a connection to the struggle will tell their story. One is scheduled in Glasgow’s Castlemilk on the afternoon of May 1 with banners from the local Anti-Poll Tax Union, and the Tailors’ and Garment Workers’ Union. Similar events are planned in Barmulloch and Govan later.

Love Music, Hate Racism have organised a gig in Glasgow’s Stereo on the evening of May 1 and are also showing the film, The Clash: Westway to the World on Sunday 10 May at the CCA.

Other film showings, include the third in a series of film showings at the CCA organised by a local GMB Branch. Linking International Workers’ Memorial Day (28 April) with MayDay, they are showing Ken Loach’s The Navigators on April 30.

A new MayDay tradition of walks through Glasgow’s heritage continues, with the Friends of MayDay organising a Women, War and Rent Strike walk on Saturday April 25. And the Glasgow Women’s Library has one of its Women of the Merchant City walks two weeks later (9 May).

Of course established venues often have relevant events – most obviously The Tron’s Mayfesto festival – an important part of which will be Rites, a powerful NToS and Scottish Refugee Council-backed piece by Cora Bissett on female genital mutilation. David MacLennan’s legacy– A Play, a Pie and a Pint- also serves up The War hasn’t Started Yet – a view from modern Russia from May 4–9.

Amongst a number of talks and discussions, the ever-interesting Morning Star Our Class, Our Culture series has an intriguing presentation by John Quinn of Glasgow School of Art – Portraying the Heroes of Red Clydeside in the STUC on 5 May. 

The festival events in Glasgow take place in the weeks before and after the MayDay weekend (this year Sat 2 – Mon 4) and are organised by a wide variety of trade union, cultural and campaigning bodies.

Tickets for both The (Third) Great Mayday Cabaret (4 May) and From the Calton to Catalonia on the 3 May are available from Oran Mor (over the bar) or via their website - http://oran-mor.co.uk/whats-on/ (booking fee).

(Currently the OM website is being revamped, so tickets for the cabaret on line are available from ticketweb here - http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/event/great-may-day-cabaret-tickets/163277. And the OM performance of From the Calton to Catalonia, here - http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/event/from-the-calton-to-catalonia-tickets/167595).

The full 2015 programme is due to be published early in April. It will be available on http://may1st.org.uk as well as Oran Mor, the STUC, trade unions and other outlets.

Ending where we started

Scotland's cultural highlights started early with The Happy Lands - an uncompromising film portraying life in a Fife pit village during the General Strike. Developed by Edinburgh-based theatre workshop using local people both to source stories and portray characters, it premiered at the Glasgow Film Festival and toured throughout the UK looking for a general release. Unsuccessful, despite enthusiastic reviews, it is now available on DVD. Go to http://distrify.com/films/6990-the-happy-lands 

January's Celtic Connections festival had a strong left-leaning programme. The ubiquitous FairPley productions served up not only another sellout Songs of Struggle, but packed the huge Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow with a crowd anxious to see Tony Benn promoting his forthcoming film biography, Will and Testament. Other concerts included Songs of the Spanish Civil War, and a tribute concert to Scottish folk singer songwriter, Alistair Hulett, headlined by doyen of the folk scene, Roy Bailey.

Mark Thomas headlined the first sellout Great MayDay Cabaret, the centrepiece of Glasgow's MayDay festival celebrations. A bill including the Co-operative Funeralcare Brass Band, and Marxist magician, Ian Saville kept the Oran Mor audience rocking with songs and laughter. The finale where Mark grabbed a tambourine to join folk's political leader, Arthur Johnstone, and master of the moothie* Fraser Speirs in a rendition of Bandiera Rossa had everyone standing.

Other gems sparkled in an impressive MayDay programme, including a reprise of The Morning Star's own Our Class, Our Culture event that brought composer, Bill Sweeney to talk about Music and the Working Class Movement. 

FairPley also programmed a major part of Edinburgh's Assembly Rooms' Edinburgh Fringe, successfully mixing music, theatre and spoken word events. The Fringe showed an increase in left shows this year, although the low number of shows dealing with the upcoming independence referendum excited some comment. Notwithstanding, a conference on the future of political theatre concluded that it was in fact, in rude health

Assembly Rooms highlights included a return for Tony Benn and for a Songs of Struggle concert, and a couple of interesting short plays in God Bless Liz Lochhead, and Hindsight, the latter the first play from new writer, Keir McAllister. Elsewhere,  an intelligent look at the pressures of politics and the failures of the last Labour administration made The Confessions of Gordon Brown stand out, and the already high level of standup was boosted by the return to the stage of Alexi Sayle and another in the series of Mark Thomas's 100 Minor Acts of Dissent.

Other key events this year have included a cracking satire from a group of writers as part of the always worth watching A Play, a Pie and a Pint series. The Deficit Show took us swiftly back to the days of Wildcat in a sharp, entertaining attack on austerity economics. 

A superb performance of Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto from Canadian violinist, James Ehnes backed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, drew plaudits from audience and reviewers alike.

Finally the year ended with a TV outing for The Happy Lands, when BBC Scotland gave the film a showing (last Sunday 15 Dec) to counter the lack of a cinema release.

*Mouth organ, for those uninitiated!