{"id":15075,"date":"2020-10-09T17:35:41","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T17:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/?p=15075"},"modified":"2021-02-23T18:41:57","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T18:41:57","slug":"trade-unionists-rally-for-richie-venton-and-extend-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2020\/10\/09\/trade-unionists-rally-for-richie-venton-and-extend-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Trade Unionists Rally For Richie Venton And Extend Action"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are posting this follow-up article to the posting from Mike Picken of Socialist Resistance to the earlier posting from the Reinstate Richie\u00a0Venton Campaign<\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Trade unionists across Britain and Ireland are rallying to support Richie Venton following his sacking at IKEA Glasgow.\u00a0\u00a0Mike Picken<\/em>\u00a0reports from Glasgow.<\/p>\n

A veteran trade union and socialist activist, Richie is the IKEA Glasgow convenor and shop steward for the retail workers union USDAW and a member of the union executive. He was dismissed for opposing IKEA\u2019s plans to withhold sick pay from workers including those following Scottish government policy of self-isolating due to Covid-19 symptoms and infections.<\/p>\n

On Saturday 3 October rallies and protests demanding Richie\u2019s reinstatement were held simultaneously\u00a0at six IKEA stores across Britain<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Over fifty gathered at IKEA Glasgow<\/a>, despite the atrocious weather, to protest. Speeches in solidarity were held and the protestors addressed shoppers on why Richie had been sacked.\u00a0 Hundreds of car drivers tooted their horns in support as they passed the protest at the busy Braehead shopping area just outside Glasgow.<\/p>\n

Richie\u2019s case is now becoming widely known across Scotland and attracting support.\u00a0 Among trade union banners and flags were those from the EIS Scottish college and school teachers\u2019 union including nearby West College members, the RMT transport and rail union, the Unison branch at Glasgow City Council, University academic staff from the UCU branch at Strathclyde University, members of the Unite, Industrial Workers of GB, and other trade unions.<\/p>\n

Addressing the demonstrators, Richie pointed out that his only \u2018crime\u2019 was to inform his members that IKEA intended to violate Scottish government advice and not pay workers needing to stay off work due to Covid-19.\u00a0 Richie also pointed out that IKEA had backed down on withdrawing sick pay, but had still continued to uphold his sacking.<\/p>\n

Activists also gathered in solidarity at IKEA branches in Edinburgh, Leeds, Warrington, Southampton, and North London (Tottenham\/Edmonton) to hammer home to the IKEA company and customers that the appalling treatment of Richie Venton would not be tolerated by trade unionists.<\/p>\n

International action<\/h3>\n

Further protests against IKEA are being planned across Britain, and in Ireland where Richie originates from and where he also has strong support.\u00a0 IKEA is a huge multinational organisation making 12 billion pounds per year profit with stores in many countries worldwide \u2013 international solidarity and pressure will be vital in putting pressure on the company to reinstate Richie Venton.<\/p>\n

The campaign had been boosted by\u00a0a declaration<\/a>\u00a0on 1st<\/sup>\u00a0October from the highest level of Scottish politics. The First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party, Nicola Sturgeon, demanded in the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh that IKEA \u201cget round the table\u201d with the union to come to a resolution of the dispute.<\/p>\n

Richie\u2019s own Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP), Sandra White of the SNP, herself a former steward for USDAW, rose to her feet \u00a0to call on the First Minister to support his campaign for reinstatement.\u00a0 Nicola Sturgeon replied by explaining that she knew Richie Venton and his record, and that while she could not comment on individual cases she put direct pressure on IKEA by name and publicly backed the right of union representatives to protect workers interests without victimisation, insisting that the Scottish government expected all employers to adhere to the legal rights of union reps to carry out trade union activities.<\/p>\n

The issue has also been raised in the Westminster Parliament by Glasgow MP and trade union activist Chris Stephens of the SNP, in the form of an \u201cEarly Day Motion\u201d of support currently backed by 48 MPs from five political parties.\u00a0 While the vast majority of Scotland\u2019s SNP MPs have signed, as have all the MPs of the smaller SDLP, Alliance and Green Parties, the response from the majority of Labour MPs has been entirely inadequate especially given that Richie\u2019s own union USDAW is a longstanding affiliate of the Party.<\/p>\n

The Early Day Motion has however been signed by many on the left of the Labour Party, including prominent figures such as former Party Leader, Jeremy Corbyn and individual MPs such as John McDonnell, Richard Burgon and Ian Laverty.\u00a0 However, the vast majority of backbench Labour MPs, many sponsored by trade unions, have yet to sign the motion and the pressure needs to be stepped up on them to sign by activists within the Party and unions.<\/p>\n

The campaign for Richie\u2019s reinstatement moves online with a virtual rally on\u00a0Thursday 8th<\/sup>October at 7pm<\/strong>\u00a0(details below). \u00a0Among those speaking at the Rally alongside Richie Venton himself, are the Amy Murphy National President of USDAW, Sarah Woolley the general secretary of the Bakers\u2019 Union, a union that has been very active defending its members during the pandemic, Chris Stephens MP, and workers from across Britain involved in strikes and struggles during the pandemic.\u00a0 For trade union activists across Britain, Ireland and internationally the rally is an important opportunity to build solidarity and do all they can to step up the pressure through action on IKEA in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

6th October 2020
\nThis was first posted at:- Trade unionists rally for Richie Venton and extend action<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are posting this follow-up article to the posting from Mike Picken of Socialist Resistance to the earlier posting from the Reinstate Richie\u00a0Venton Campaign Trade unionists across Britain and Ireland are rallying to support Richie Venton following his sacking at IKEA Glasgow.\u00a0\u00a0Mike Picken\u00a0reports from Glasgow. A veteran trade union and socialist activist, Richie is the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1852,1855,1854,910],"tags":[7665],"class_list":["post-15075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-communists-organise","category-exploitation-and-emancipation","category-the-left-crisis","category-trade-unionism","tag-author-mike-picken"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"views":1624,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15075"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17813,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15075\/revisions\/17813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}