Call for participants (Claimants' Union and other activists) to help a research project

A social policy lecturer at the University of Edinburgh has contacted us about a research project entitled ‘Bringing labour back in: class antagonism, labour agency and Britain’s active labour market reforms’.

He writes:

As part of the study I am conducting oral history interviews with people active in claimants unions/ advocacy and campaign groups/ Unemployed Workers Centres/ relevant trade unions during the 1980/90s.

The main aim is to recover a ‘bottom up’ story of people's response to the introduction of various social security and employment programme reforms of the last 30 years and how they and their organisations sought to shape them and were shaped by them.  

I’m especially interested in speaking with individuals who were active in initiatives around Restart/Job Training Scheme/YTS/ Stricter Benefit Regime in the 1980s and/or Project Work and JSA/ New Deals in the 1990s

(The research is supported by the Independent Social Research Foundation and more about the project can be found at http://isrf.org/about/fellows-and-projects/jay-wiggan/)

Dr Jay Wiggan

Lecturer in Social Policy

School of Social & Political Science, University of Edinburgh

15a George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9LD

Tel: +44(0)131 650 3939

E-mail: j.wiggan@ed.ac.uk

Twitter

University of Edinburgh profile

MSc Policy Studies Programme  

(The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336)

He adds:

I’m hoping to complete most of the interviews between now and the end of June, prior to people's most likely holiday period. I am though more than happy to speak to people at any point during the summer.

I will of course come down to London to conduct interviews unless the person would prefer to speak over the telephone.

RaHN adds: 

Previously on this blog:-

Claimants and unemployed issues and struggles in the 1970s and 1980s (especially in Tottenham in the 1980s) - what can we learn from them?

Haringey Solidarity Group - some activities past and present [1990-2005]

ALAN WOODWARD 1939-2012

COMMEMORATION ARRANGEMENTSAlan's funeral will be on Thursday 8th November. Due to restricted places this is by invitation or for those close to Alan. Immediately afterwards will be an open commemoration/celebration of Alan's life from 3.30pm - 6.30pm at St John Vianney Hall, 386 West Green Road, N15 3QL. All welcome.
 
A Tribute & Celebration of Alan's Life (pdf document given out at commemorative event)

A Tribute 

The Tottenham working class activist/campaigner Alan Woodward passed away on Saturday 20th October.

Alan had a stroke and fall on Tuesday 16th October and was admitted to the North Middlesex Hospital the following day. His close family* had rallied round during his hospital stay and were with him when he died peacefully.

Alan Woodward was a lifelong trade union activist and working class revolutionary immersed in support for workplace struggles and other anti-capitalist movements.

In 1961 he joined the International Socialists (later the Socialist Workers Party). For three decades he ran courses for shop stewards. He was very active in the Haringey Trades Union Council. In recent years he gravitated towards independent libertarian politics, including the Haringey Solidarity Group – his view was it was necessary for workers to take direct control of all workplaces and through workers coordination councils create a new economy and society without capitalism or governments. In his writings he explained he was drawing on what he saw as the best traditions of revolutionary socialism and anarchism.

He actively supported and tried to attend every local workers’ picket line in Haringey, either as the organiser for the Trades Council or as part of local campaigns. In the last few years this included strikes by postal workers, local bakery workers, public sector pension disputes, railworkers picket lines and anti-cuts campaigning. When the Visteon Ford Car Parts factory in Enfield was due to be closed he joined in the workers week-long occupation of the site and later wrote a pamphlet on the experience.

At the same time he helped set up the Radical History Network of NE London** and as the RaHN Convenor he organised and wrote up summaries of dozens of local talks and meetings on a whole range of past disputes and struggles to ensure that the voices of those who took part in them would continue to reverberate and help us all in our struggles and movements today. He took RaHN stalls to many local and national events.

He produced a huge body of agitational, campaigning and radical literature, leaflets, strike bulletins, newsletters, historical snapshots, pamphlets and recently an autobiography***. Yet he  underplayed his own role as he preferred to promote the collective self-activity of those involved in industrial strikes, disputes and working class movements.

He is irreplaceable and will be sorely missed****, but his influence will remain with us all as the struggle for a new society continues unabated.


Dave Morris (Tottenham, 21.10.2012)

*      The contact for the family is: Peter Woodward - peter@petew.org.uk   
**    Alan’s autobiography ‘Poor Boy’s Tale’ (Vol 1 – ‘the first 60 years’) is available from Housmans Bookshop – as are some of his pamphlets on Workers Councils, Shop Stewards movements, NHS history, Visteon Factory Occupation, and on other London working class activists like Joe Jacobs and Joe Thomas. All were self-published by Alan under the name of Gorter Press. Many can be found, summarised or reviewed on the RAHN site (see below). 
***  Radical History of NE London - http://www.radicalhistorynetwork.blogspot.co.uk/
**** Details of his funeral and any commemorative events or publications will be circulated. See the above site.