John Sayles to introduce 'Matewan' in Ireland
The Waterford Council of Trade Unions is pleased to announce that the world renowned and twice Academy Award nominated writer/director John Sayles is to travel to Waterford from his home in New Jersey, USA to help the council celebrate its centenary.
John Sayles will introduce his film ‘Matewan’ at a special screening organised by the WCTU on Thursday 15th October at the Garter Lane Arts Centre in Waterford. He will be joined by his partner and producer of ‘Matewan’ Maggie Renzi for the screening.
The screening will be held in partnership with the Imagine Arts Festival (www.imagineartsfestival.com, Waterford Film For All (www.waterfordfilmforall.com) and the Garter Lane Arts Centre (www.garterlane.ie).
John Sayles is one of the most admired filmmakers in the US. He has been making intelligent, literary, independent films with a strong social conscience and political awareness for almost thirthy years. He has become known as the Godfather of independent films for his refusal to succumb to the Hollywood studio system. His films examine the moral and physical corruption of a society that worships naked greed over equality, fraternity and liberty.
‘Matewan’ concerns the attempt by an IWW union organiser to unionise coalmine workers in the face of violence, brutality and vicious exploitation. The character Joe Kenehan preaches a doctrine of working class solidarity and consistently argues against recourse to force.
‘Matewan’ is a marvellous celebration of working class solidarity and courage in the face of the most brutal employers. It focuses on the rank and file experience of the 1920 strike with the intention of inspiring similar solidarity and courage among the working class today.
The film is based on the true story of the Battle of Matewan where workers from the Stone Mountain Coal Company fought with hired mercenaries from the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency. The attempts to prevent the workers from unionising resulted in a pitched battle on the streets of Matewan, West Virginia on May 19th 1920, which resulted in ten deaths including the mayor of the town.
Inspired by the Battle of Matewan, coal miners from across West Virginia gathered in Charelstown, West Virginia. Determined to organise the southern coalfields, they began a march to Logan County. Thousands of miners joined them along the way in what became the largest armed insurrection in the United States since the Civil War – the Battle of Blair Mountain. The Battle of Blair Mountain was the largest organised armed uprising in American labour history and led directly to the labour laws currently in effect in the United States of America.
The Waterford Council of Trade Unions was founded on May 24th 1909. Since that day the council has provided a voice and leadership on matters industrial, political and social for the betterment of the working people of Waterford City and County.
Many historic challenges had to be faced - the early struggles of survival and decriminalisation; the massive upheavals of the war of independence; the founding of the Free State; the class war of the great Waterford agricultural labourers strike of 1921-23; the Waterford Soviet of 1920; the cycle of recessions and depressions that Ireland suffered as a result of a legacy of poverty and underdevelopment from colonial occupation and right wing government opposition to state sponsored enterprise.
For a century the WCTU has led the challenge to powerful vested interests, fighting for improved industrial and social conditions and has given a voice to the Labour movement in the city. As part of its centenary celebrations the council will be holding a series of cultural and educational events over the next twelve months.
For more information contact [email protected]
About the Waterford Council of Trade Unions
On Thursday 15th June 1908, trade union leader and socialist activist Jim Larkin was invited to speak at the City Hall in Waterford. Larkin’s renown as an orator and radical trade unionist ensured a huge turnout. Three bands met him as he entered Waterford and a huge throng escorted a torchlight parade along the quay.
At the meeting however, violence erupted in one corner of the room when a gang of hired thugs assembled on behalf of the Stevedores and local merchants attempted to disrupt the meeting. Their attempt failed, the meeting proceeded, and Larkin’s words inspired the formation of the Waterford Council of Trade Unions.
Principally organised by ASRS branch secretary Michael O’Connor, the new trades council first met in the ASRS hall, Ballybricken, Waterford on Monday 24th May 1909. At the meeting were delegates from the FTLU, ASRS, Drapers Assistants, Typographical Association, Railway Clerks Association, Postmen’s Union, and Stonecutters’, Tailors’, Coopers’, Corkcutters’, Pipemakers’, Coachmakers’, Cabinetmakers’, and Bridge Artificers Societies.
Subsequent meetings saw affiliation from the ITGWU, Carpenters and Joiners, Ancient Guild of Incorporated Brick and Stonelayers, Grocers Assistants Association and National Federation of Union of Bakers and Confectioners.
The Council created an official labour voice on local affairs, a forum for debate and a platform for an identifiable labour leadership. It canvassed the Corporation and the Irish Development Association; the United Irish League to support the Fair Wage Resolution and it petitioned John Redmond to support an end to Sunday work.
The Waterford Council of Trade Unions became the consolidated voice representing workers rights and conditions and progressive causes. In its first few years of its existence the council supported the 1911 seamen’s strike and the ASRS rail strike in the same year. It fought against conscription into the British army during the First World War and in 1918 supported a general strike against British militarism.
On the 5th April the council backed a strike called in support of one hundred political prisoners on hunger strike in Mountjoy Gaol. The dispute escalated as pickets with red badges policed the strikes and only vehicles displaying workers council permits were allowed to move. This was the start of the short lived ‘Waterford Soviet’.
The Daily Herald carried reports on Waterford’s ‘Red Guards’ on the 24th and 28th of April and the Manchester Guardian featured an article headed ‘Soviet Government in Waterford’. A deputation of Southern Loyalists met the British Prime Minster, Bonar Law, to protest that ‘the city was taken over by a Soviet Commissioner and three associates’. The Sinn Fein mayor abdicated and the Soviet issued orders to the population.
The Soviet ended after two days when the hunger strikers were released from Mountjoy by the British authorities.
Three years later in 1923 the Gasworks Soviet was established during the Gas Co Strike where a red flag flew from the chimney stack near the people’s park in the city. In a dispute over coal trimming, wage cuts and lay-offs, the workers voted not to continue under company manager Percival Collacott and elected their own management committee. The company ran efficiently and provided gas supplies to the city until 8.00pm on Saturday 10th March when, with just eleven men on the job, the army moved in and hauled down the red flag.
Many historic challenges had to be faced in those early years - the struggles of survival and decriminalisation; the massive upheavals of the war of independence; the founding of the Free State; the class war of the great Waterford agricultural labourers strike of 1921-23; the cycle of recessions and depressions that Ireland suffered as a result of a legacy of poverty and underdevelopment from colonial occupation and right wing government opposition to state sponsored enterprise.
Over the decades the council continued in its role as voice for the Waterford working class and campaigner on social issues. The council was instrumental in setting up the Waterford Regional Technical College in 1970, setting up a joint committee to secure the college. It fought to save the Tramore railway in the early 1960’s and established the ‘Frank Edwards Unemployed Centre’ in 1987 which stayed open for over twenty years.
The council had strong links with the ten Waterford men who travelled to Spain in 1936 to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War. The ten included WCTU President, Frank Edwards, a teacher who faced discrimination from the Catholic Church and the authorities when he returned to Waterford. The council holds the annual ‘Frank Edwards Lecture’ in his honour.
In 1980 the council supported the H-Block committee during the northern hunger strikes. 5,000 workers marched in Waterford following the death of bobby Sands when a half-day work stoppage was called and larger numbers took to the streets after the death of Francis Hughes.
The council has been at the forefront in campaigns against service charges, including the successful campaign to abolish water charges and the fight to see a radiotherapy unit established in the city for cancer sufferers. The council also affiliated to the Irish Anti-War Movement in the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq and sent representatives to several international anti-capitalist events in the first years of the new century.
In 1978 the council led calls for the Paper Mills in Granagh to be nationalised following the decision of the St. Jo Paper Company of Florida to close the mill. The Granagh mill was, at that time, the only waste paper processing mill in the country and the company itself admitted that modernisation of the plant would make it profitable.
The WCTU called a two-hour general strike for 3.00pm on the 8th September. Schools, shops, offices and factories agreed to shut down for the afternoon and 20,000 people marched from the Glen to Broad Street, wildly exceeding even the most optimistic expectations of the council.
On 20th March 1979 the council supported the Dublin Council of Trade Unions nation-wide strike for tax reform leading directly to the PAYE marches in the early 1980’s where 300,000 people marched on the streets on Dublin which was described internationally at the time as the largest protests in post-war Europe.
During the British miners strike of 1984/85, the council co-ordinated financial aid for South Wales and assisted with holiday schemes for miners children at Woodstown. Following the end of the strike a Welsh male voice choir performed in Waterford to thank the people of the city for their support.
In more recent years the council has regularly called thousands onto the street including a 15,000 strong protest in support of the dismissed Irish Ferries workers, several thousand for redundancy reform and 7,000 in support of the Waterford Crystal workers who organised a sit-in at the world famous factory following the shut-down of the production facilities.