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Exposing how trade unions have been caricatured and smeared
GRANVILLE WILLIAMS delves into the historic and continuing role of ‘spycops’ and the media in attacking the trade union movement
NOT LETTING THEM OFF THE HOOK: Demonstrators calling for justice for the Shrewsbury pickets and (below) protesters against undercover policing sit outside London’s New Scotland Yard

IN A thoughtful piece about trade unions, the journalist and historian Andy Beckett made the following observation after visiting exhibition stalls at a Trade Union Congress conference.

“Two were for campaigns about the victimisation of union members: the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign, which fights for recognition of the brutal treatment of miners by the police during the defeated strike of 1984-85; and the Shrewsbury 24 Campaign, ‘seeking to overturn the unjust prosecution of 24 building workers who were charged following the first ever national building workers’ strike in 1972.’ 

“The trade union movement does not forget. That is one of the things that keeps it alive; but sometimes the past seems to matter too much.”

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