By Dr David Featherstone

THE summer of 2022 has seen a wave of strikes which in their scale and intensity are unprecedented in recent times. In response Liz Truss’s Conservative Government is threatening legislation which will deepen what is already a repressive context for trade union organising in the United Kingdom. In this context it is important to recognise the central role trade unions and other campaigns such as the peace movement have made to democratic political cultures.

A new book of activist testimonies, Diverse Voices Against Injustice, resulting from collaborative work between academics at University of Glasgow, staff at Glasgow Museums and the Scottish Labour History Society, positions the banners of trade unions and other political campaigns as central to cultures of dissent. Banners are a key way in which working class and other marginalised groups assert their voice, offering visions for shaping society in more just ways.

While media and political figures often use terms such as "the white working class", the testimonies in the book draw attention to important, multi-ethnic histories of the labour movement in Glasgow. Recording these histories matter for, as Suki Sangha a past chair of the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) Black Workers Committee notes, "we don’t always hear many stories about black and minority ethnic workers organising in the trade unions".

The committee’s distinctive green banner, including the words "equality unity, community, diversity, justice and freedom", has been carried on many demonstrations. These include the annual St Andrew's Day trade union-organised march against racism, industrial disputes and mobilisations against the far-right. Organisations such as the Indian Workers’ Association, a branch of which was established in Glasgow in the early 1970s, have been important in struggles for justice and against racism, including within the trade unions.

Banners play an important role in the culture of internationalist protest. The banners of the anti-apartheid movement, the links between struggles in Glasgow and the campaigns for freedom for Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners in South Africa. In 1981 Jim Cathcart created a banner to mark the Freedom of the City being awarded to Mandela, while he was still imprisoned on Robben Island, depicting him reaching out from prison towards Glasgow; the banner is now in the Glasgow Caledonian University Archive Centre.

The anti-apartheid activist Suganya Chetty makes clear, however, that racist violence was meted out to some of the activists in Scotland involved in the freedom struggle, emphasising that while the movement had broad support, this was far from universal especially on the political right. Such banners contributed to a progressive sense of place, articulating a vision of Glasgow as a city that stands for solidarity, as seen last year in the protests against deportations in Kenmure Street.

These histories resonate with key contemporary struggles such as the 2018 equal pay strikes and the Black Lives Matter movement when banners were again integral to protest cultures. As the momentum builds towards further protests and strikes these recent histories of activism in the city can offer important inspiration.

Dr David Featherstone, of the University of Glasgow’s School of Geographical & Earth Sciences, is a co-editor of Diverse Voices Against Injustice