SOLOMON HUGHES recommends Sunjeev Sahota’s recent novel set in a trade union election campaign for its fresh approach to what unites and divides workers, but wishes the union backdrop was truer to life
From Germany May 2 1933 to Odessa May 2 2014
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MASSACRE: The Trade Unions House of Odessa, Ukraine, during the clashes on May 2, 2014
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ON May 2 1933, exactly 91 years ago today, Hitler ordered the suppression of German trade unions and banned the German General Trade Union Federation, their central body.
He did so under the terms of the Reichstag Fire Decree passed immediately after the Reichstag fire on February 27 1933. The decree marked a key moment in the Nazi ascent to power and the suppression of any remaining opposition. Over the summer of 1933, labour leaders, especially members of the Communist and Social Democrat parties, were being rounded up for despatch to Dachau, the first concentration camp.
It is a date that we should remember today here in Britain as the legal assault on trade union freedoms becomes ever heavier. It is also a date that we should remember for another reason.
Exactly 10 years ago, on May 2 2014 — and exactly 81 years later, there was another attack on trade unionists. This was at the Trade Union Centre in Odessa.
Following the Nato-backed putsch against the elected Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych in early 2014, people worldwide were shocked to learn of what happened in Odessa.
With the police standing by, fascist-backed mobs made a brutal arson attack on the trade union house: 48 trade unionists were burned to death and over 200 were injured.
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