Trade unions 'must challenge kettling'

Louise Nousratpour in Bournemouth
Monday May 23, 2011
The Morning Star

Unions must campaign against the increasingly widespread use of "kettling" as seen during recent student demonstrations to protect basic democratic rights, delegates at the CWU conference in Bournemouth said today.

The conference was warned that if not addressed "violent and indiscriminate" police tactics would only get worse as the ruling class becomes increasingly nervous about the prospect of co-ordinated union action or even a potential general strike over spending cuts in the coming months.

Birmingham delegate Clive Walder warned that the state was "beefing up its own powers.

"As their policies increase poverty and unemployment the government wants to ensure that people, especially young people, are too afraid to go out and demonstrate."

Steve Granville of London and South-East branch called for individual police officers to be prosecuted and sacked if found guilty of violence, saying that "they are not (currently) accountable to the public, but to their political masters."

Addressing a fringe meeting on Sunday night Defend the Right to Protest activist Mark Bergfeld said young people were planning mass demonstrations across the country on June 30 to show solidarity with public-sector workers expected to walk out en masse over attacks on their pensions.