RTUC at the Reading Town Meal

Kevin Brandstatter (left, GMB), Tanya Wills and
James Watts (both Unite) at the RTUC stand

On 28 September 2019, Reading Trades Union Council joined other stallholders in the Forbury Gardens to support Reading Town Meal. Tanya Wills (Unite) arranged and managed RTUC's display, with books and leaflets to interest attendees. The need to spread the message of trade unionism at all local events is imperative and other RTUC delegates, James (and Suzie) Parker (Unite), Nikki Dancey and Kevin Branstatter (both GMB), as well as James Watts, a new recruit to the Unite Community union branch, assisted to make RTUC's presence felt. John Oversby (UCU) was also supporting the initiative, working with another of his causes, Global Justice Reading.

John Oversby (left, UCU) with the
Global Justice Reading team

Reading Town Meal is a free meal for over 1000 people, made entirely from fruit and vegetables donated by local growers and cooked by Reading College students. The meal celebrates and promotes home grown and locally produced food.

Alongside the meal itself, there were various interactive information stalls by a range of community groups, local traders, live music all day, workshops and a family activities area. There was also a Town Meal treasure hunt and a Food Waste treasure hunt.

Tanya Wills and James Watts (both Unite)
discuss trade unions with a visitor

The workshop themes were: Your role in combating climate change; Love Food Hate Waste; and Food Controversies.

Reading Trades Union Council was proud to stand alongside such a worthy initiative.

The Big J (and the NHS) vs. The Big C: Poetry and Comedy

Chris Reilly, Janine Booth (both RMT) and Abi Moorcock

Reading Trades Union Council, Reading & District Labour Party and Reading Socialist Club joined together to organise a night of reading, poetry and feminist comedy at Market House, Reading, co-hosted by RTUC President, Chris Reilly (RMT), and Abi Moorcock. The headline performer was Janine Booth, returning to Reading after successful RTUC events in 2017 and 2018. Janine read extracts and poems from her new book, The Big J vs The Big C. This was followed by local speakers talking and performing about Reading's fight to save our National Health Service.

Abi Moorcock

David McMullen (GMB), Secretary of RTUC, spoke about the plague of wholly-owned subsidiary companies mushrooming in the public sector, with Frimley Hospital being a local current campaigning focus. He also advocated greater accountability for the Care Quality Commission and, following Janine's promotion of women making regular checks of their breasts, he emphasised the importance for men to do the same with their testicles.

Abi Moorcock followed David with a great musical section and Debbie Watson (Unite) spoke about trade union struggles within the NHS. Kate Smurthwaite rounded the performances off with some rib-tickling feminist comedy.

Kate Smurthwaite

Janine was part of the ranting poetry movement in the 1980s, performing as ‘The Big J’. In late 2016, she discovered a strange indentation in her right breast and was subsequently diagnosed with breast cancer. Her new book is a collection of candid and enthralling journal extracts, poetry, meticulous research and substantive politics in which she details her journey from detection and diagnosis, through surgery, to ‘getting over it’.

Janine Booth (RMT)

Event tickets were sold for £5, with all proceeds after costs going to the Royal Berkshire Hospital Charity - a sum of over £150.

Reading Trades Union Council and the Climate Strike



John Oversby (UCU) of RTUC and Global Justice Reading

The youth is rising and its consciousness is beginning to rouse! Our house is on fire - and they're sounding the alarm! The time has come for multigenerational action against climate breakdown.

On 20 September 2019 from midday the people of Reading - as with protesters across the globe - followed the lead of young people and supported Reading's Climate Strike. Make no mistake, the event was populous, loud - with peaceful civil disobedience - and squarely spearheaded by youth!

On that day people everywhere walked out of their homes and workplaces together and joined young strikers in the streets to demand climate justice and emergency action to tackle the climate crisis. Governments won’t do it of their own volition; #climatestrike was required to show them what people power is capable of. There is no Planet B...

Reading Trades Union Council flew the banner for climate justice in solidarity with the strike's organisers, represented by RTUC Vice President, Nikki Dancey, Secretary, David McMullen, Kevin Brandstatter (all GMB), Sue Taylor (PCS), Ali McNamara (NEU), John Gillman and Neil Adams (both Unite & Socialist Party). Nikki tirelessly promoted the event among local and regional trade unionists as well as lobbying the Reading & District Labour Party's Trade Union Liaison Officer to do the same and her report back to the RTUC Delegates' Meeting in October was comprehensive.

John Gillman and Neil Adams (Unite & Socialist Party)

Some employers - including Reading Borough Council - tolerated absences from work, allowing some of their staff to partake. But all the while such employers use excess packaging on their products, promote carrier bags to advertise their businesses and stock their staffrooms, coffee shops and takeaways with non-recyclable, disposable cups and food containers; supermarkets insist on photogenic fruit - round, smooth and shiny - thus letting masses of perfectly edible, tasty produce go to waste; and the world witnesses that contradiction of capitalism - overproduction alongside millions in want! Governments do little to compel the culture change needed to save our planet.

John Oversby at the Climate Strike

RTUC was represented in other climes too, with John Partington (TSSA) joining the student-led Climate Strike at the University of California-Berkeley. Anywhere that humans go, responsibility for environmental stewardship follows them.... and humans, of course, are everywhere.

John Partington (TSSA) joins the University of California
student-led Climate Strike in Berkeley

Reading Trades Union Council looks forward to more such events, pressuring businesses, governments and local councils to ACT DIFFERENTLY.

RTUC joins the Labour Party and 'Change Through Solidarity' to STOP THE COUP

On 3 September 2019, Reading Trades Union Council co-organised an anti-Boris Johnson, pro-democracy protest to 'STOP THE COUP' - a rally of opposition against the Conservative Government's suspension of parliament for five weeks in September and October. Along with Reading & District Labour Party and socialists in the 'Change Through Solidarity' collective, RTUC joined calls for an end to threats of a no-deal exit from the European Union and instead advanced the need for a general election once political steps were secured to prevent no-deal.

David McMullen (GMB) delivers RTUC's statement

RTUC Secretary, David McMullen (GMB), delivered Reading Trades Union Council's statement on the prorogation of parliament by Johnson, opposing Conservative efforts to force a timeout on negotiations with the EU by running the clock down for a default Brexit on 31 October. David spoke in favour of the extension of Article 50, a general election and a negotiation of exit terms on the basis of mutual satisfaction for the UK and the EU.

He also presented episodes in the Conservative governments of 2010 to the present which revealed their untrustworthiness and showed that the Tories are no friends of working people.

Demonstrating the new wind which blows through the Reading labour movement, the RDLP speaker, Cllr Sarah Hacker (Unite), chair of the Reading Labour Party, proudly stood before the RTUC banner, declaring solidarity for the cause not only as a Labour politician but as an active trade unionist. This show of unity across the local labour movement epitomises the concept of 'Change Through Solidarity'.

Cllr Sarah Hacker (Labour & Unite)

The event was greeted with enthusiasm, defiance - but also a tinge of despondency at the perilous state British democracy has found itself in. But with parliament's legislation, demanding Johnson request an extension to Article 50 if he has not struck a Brexit deal by 17 October, there is all to play for. A Jeremy Corbyn government by Christmas, renegotiation of the UK's relationship with the EU and a referendum to stay in on new terms or leave on an agreed deal. This must be the direction to pursue.