Personal is Political


I was shocked when I first read Rory MacKinnon's story in Private Eye and I was also puzzled as to why the behaviour of the Morning Star and the RMT union had never featured anywhere else in the mainstream press.

So I have reproduce Rory's full story on the blog site - originally I had included a photo of Caroline Lenaghan's injuries, but you can see these and read Caroline's words for yourself (Domestic Violence and International Women's day RMT) at: carolinelenaghan.wordpress.com

I think I'll drop Rory a note and offer to meet up with him for a chat because I despise everything about this kind of behaviour and in fact it reminds me of what happened when I resigned from the Labour Party back in 1999 when I was Unison's Head of Local Government in Scotland.

My own union (and employer) for whom I had worked with great distinction for over 20 years tried to argue that I had brought the union into disrepute - because my resignation from the Labour Party attracted publicity from the press and media in the run up to the 1999 election to the Scottish Parliament.  

Now can you imagine that - how can someone's resignation from a political party be any business of their employer?

But that's what happened and although this ridiculous accusation was subsequently dropped, because it had no substance, the 'damage' was done and I decided that it was time to move on and do something different with my life.

So I empathise with Rory MacKinnon, I understand what he's been through and I hope his story is read and discussed by all of the delegates to the 2014 TUC Congress as they gather for their annual' bash' in Liverpool this coming weekend.         

“The public has no right to know”: how the Morning Star threatened to sack me for reporting domestic violence allegations

[First published in a guest post at Another Angry Woman. TRIGGER WARNING - DOMESTIC VIOLENCE]
morningn-star-17-12-2013My name’s Rory MacKinnon, and I’ve been a reporter for the Morning Star for three years now. It’s given me a lot of pride to see how readers and supporters believe so strongly in the paper, from donating what cash they can to hawking it in the streets on miserable Saturday afternoons. I was proud to represent a “broad paper of the left”, asmy editor Richard Bagley always put it: a paper that saw feminism, LGBTQ issues, racial politics and the like as integral to its coverage of class struggle.
It’s for this reason that I thought I would have my editor’s support in following up domestic violence allegations against the Rail, Maritime and Transport union’s assistant general secretary Steve Hedley. Instead the Morning Star’s management threatened me with the sack, hauled me through a disciplinary hearing and placed me on a final written warning.
If you want to see my reasons for writing this, skip to the bottom. But I’m a reporter, and in my mind the most important thing is that you all know exactly what’s happened behind closed doors. So let’s get on with it.
“On this occasion he kicked a pot of paint at me, threw me around by my hair and pinned me to the floor repeatedly punching me in the face.”
Leneghan said she had approached both police and the union after their break-up to seek an investigation: her RMT rep confirmed that police had suggested “a high chance of conviction”but that the six-month window for a charge of common assault had since expired.
Despite this, the union’s then-leadership had decided not to refer the allegations to its national executive for a formal investigation. It was at this point that Leneghan decided to go public (you can find Leneghan’s full statement and photographs here).
Now, I don’t pretend to have any inside knowledge, and at the time I had only just been assigned to a post in Scotland and was busy trying to get my feet in under the table up there. But I am a journalist, and when the union agreed to consider an appeal from Leneghan only to see it eventually withdrawn at her request* – amid a pretty vile reaction from some elements of the left – I mentally filed it away as something to keep an eye on.
In March of this year I went as a Morning Star reporter – with the RMT’s approval – to cover its women’s conference in Glasgow. Women I knew of in the RMT were still talking about Leneghan’s case, and it made sense to me as a reporter to follow it up in the public interest, so I took advantage of a Q&A session with the union’s national organising co-ordinator Alan Pottage – a session on recruiting women organisers and combating sexism in the workplace – to ask whether he thought the lack of formal investigation into the allegations against Hedley had affected women members’ perceptions of the union. Pottage declined to comment and the session continued, but when delegates reconvened for the afternoon session the union’s equalities officer Jessica Webb and executive member Denis Connor approached my seat and forcibly ejected me from the conference. (You can find my full statement on the incident here).
The very next day the Morning Star’s editor Richard Bagley informed me that I had been suspended following allegations of gross misconduct and that any public comment I might make “could risk bringing the paper into disrepute and could have a bearing on [my] case”. (You can see the letter here and subsequent charges here.)
Six weeks [correction: one month] later, I found myself back in London for a disciplinary hearing, with the company’s secretary Tony Briscoe bringing the charges and Bagley sitting in judgement. But as the Morning Star management’s minutes (for some reason presented as a verbatim transcript), and my own notes here show, it quickly became clear that the real nature of the accusations had nothing to do with the charge sheet and everything to do with appeasement.
From the minutes:
“RB: You have three years’ experience as a Morning Star journalist. Given the type of stories you’ve covered previously do you think the paper would have published a story on the issue you raised?”
—–
“RB: So let’s clarify the role of the Morning Star here: internal union matters are different from inter-union matters.”
—–
“TB: It’s debatable whether the NUJ (National Union of Journalists – Rory) code of conduct applies in a situation such as this and the fact you asked it raises a question about your approach. The question feels more like something a Daily Mail reporter would ask than someone from the Morning Star. You should have known better. This indicates a lack of journalistic etiquette and has damaged our relationship with the trade union movement.”
And from my own notes:
TB: “I would have thought the role of the Morning Star reporter was to progress the aims & goals of the paper.”
—–
TB: “I would expect that sort of question to be asked in the Daily Mail or the Sun.”
—–
TB: “I would say the public has no right to know about the ins-&-outs of the relationship between Leneghan & Hedley.”
Shortly afterwards I received Bagley’s written judgement. Again, you can read it for yourself here, but the thrust of the Morning Star’s editorial policy is below:
“After three years at the paper you should reasonably be expected to be familiar with the paper’s news priorities, which do not include reporting internal union rows or personal controversy. Your actions suggest a fundamental failure to grasp the Morning Star’s news focus, and by extension the role of any journalist employed by it.”
I was placed on a final written warning with twelve months’ probation, then went on to appeal(dismissed, ruling here), but that’s boring procedural stuff that isn’t really relevant.
What’s relevant, to my mind, is that readers cannot trust the Morning Star’s current leadership to report on abuse allegations and failures to formally investigate when they concern favoured figures in the trade union movement, even when those figures are elected officials. As the edition for 24 July shows, however – coincidentally the same day I had decided to give my notice – those Nasty Tories cannot expect such discretion. Feminist principles are a weapon with which to attack the right, but not an end in itself for the left.
I’ve written this because I was told that “the public has no right to know.” I think the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union’s members do have a right to know about their leaders’ decision not to hold a formal investigation into reports of violence against a female member, and I think the Morning Star’s readers and supporters also have a right to know that the paper’s senior staff have an explicit policy of suppressing such allegations.
It is quite possible that the Morning Star’s management committee – a panel which includes the National Assembly of Women’s Anita Wright – have not been told anything about this. If so, I hope that they will investigate and reassert the paper’s editorial independence. I am not trying to wreck the Morning Star here. I am insisting that it commits to its feminist principles and treats readers with the respect they deserve.
Rory MacKinnon
Morning Star reporter (2011-2014)
mackinnon.rorySPLATgmail.com
@RoryMacKinnon

UPDATE – This post was drafted on Saturday 26 July, the day after informing the Morning Star’s management of my intent to quit. On Monday 28, the paper announced company secretary Tony Briscoe’s retirement and editor Richard Bagley’s departure “for family reasons”. Bagley would continue to work for the paper, the report added.
* 6:53pm: Caroline writes, “There’s a mistake here,the executive refused me to appeal, after that the only route was the agm, which is the quashed one, as i realised all my documents, statements etc had been distributed to hundreds of people without my knowledge”.

Personal is Political (30 August 2014)


Private Eye, the UK's best and only fortnightly satirical magazine, contained this rather disturbing report under the banner of one of its regular columns 'TUC News'.

TUC NEWS

"Last month the Communist Morning Star gave space and prominence to a demand by Women's Aid that Tory MP David Rufffley must face "strong disciplinary sanction" for assaulting his ex-partner. Short shrift was given to his claim that because the ex-partner had accepted his apology no more needed to be done. As readers were reminded: "Domestic violence is a criminal, not a private matter."

Well if it's committed by a Tory MP, that is. When the alleged perpetrator is a senior trade union official, the Morning Star will discipline any of its hacks who have the temerity to pursue the story. That is what it did to Rory MacKinnon, its Scotland correspondent, who quit last week after three years on the paper.

In March this year MacKinnon was sent to cover a women's conference in Glasgow organised by the RMT transport union. For months women he knew in the union had been talking about Caroline Leneghan, an RMT member who had written a blog-post about the violence allegedly inflicted on her by Steve Hedley, the RMT's assistant general secretary, with whom she was in a relationship until last year.

On one occasion, she wrote, he "threw me around by by my hair and and pinned me to the floor repeatedly punching me in the face". She published photos taken at the time, showing her horrendously bruised and swollen face.

Finding himself attending an RMT women's conference - and one which the RMT was launching its new policy on, er, domestic violence - MacKinnon thought it a good moment to ask if the union's refusal to hold a proper investigation into the allegations against its assistant general secretary  might affect female members' perception of the union. 

He put the question at a Q&A session with the union's national organising co-ordinator Alan Pottage, who declined to answer. Soon afterwards, however, the hack was forcibly ejected from the conference.

On the next day, Morning Star editor Richard Bagley told MacKinnon he was being suspended while his bosses investigated allegations of "gross misconduct" and "bringing the paper into disrepute". A month later he was summoned to London for a disciplinary hearing, with the company secretary Tony Briscoe acting as prosecuting counsel and Bagley sitting as judge.

Briscoe told MacKinnon the question he'd put to the RMT official "feels more like something from a Daily Mail reporter would ask than someone from the Morning Star. You should have known better. This indicates a lack of journalistic etiquette and has damaged our relationship with the trade union movement." The public had no "right to know" about whatever occurred between Hedley and Leneghan.

Bagley agreed. "After three years at the paper," he said in his judgement against MacKinnon , "you should reasonably be expected to be familiar with the paper's new priorities, which do not include reporting internal union rows or personal controversy. Your actions suggest a fundamental failure to grasp the Morning Star's news focus, and by extension the role of any journalist employed by it."

Having belatedly grasped the paper's "focus" after being put ion a final written warning for behaving like a journalist, MacKinnon handed in his notice last month and left on 8 August, writing a post on his  blog explaining why he had resigned. The same day he received a magnificent Stalinist leaving present: a letter from Bob Oram, chair of the Morning Star's management committee and senior organiser for, er, the RMT union.

"You are formally under investigation for an allegation of gross misconduct," Oram wrote. "I recognise that you are in your final day of employment and will not be available for interview, but...." The accusations were "gross breach of trust and confidence" and "brining the Morning Star into disrepute".

Has it ever occurred to Oram and the other men who run the paper to charge themselves with the same offence?"  

Now I think I'll have a look at what Rory MacKinnon has to say on his blog site because this seems like an extraordinary way for the Morning Star and the RMT to behave - and the annual TUC Congress is only days away. 

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