HAVE you ever wondered why the media no longer reports on union conferences and what can be done about it?

I suspect just about everyone reading these scribbles knows it’s about class interests and has at least begun to think about the second half of the question.

I am reminded of these key questions after spending last week, as I have done for the last few years, reporting on the conference of Unison — the largest trade union in the country. As far as I know, during those years, I was the only reporter from a national daily newspaper who bothered to be there.

In the interests of openness — for those that may not be aware — I used to work for Unison. Firstly, as the regional secretary of the region of the West Midlands, then latterly, for nearly a dozen years, as an assistant general secretary. I left soon after losing the last general secretary election.

The corporate media has failed to show the remotest interest in the plight facing the public service workers represented by Unison.

A long table is always assigned for the media along one side of the conference hall. The reality is that aside from the occasional, always friendly freelance reporters employed by the union or the sometimes unfriendly reporters from some ultra-left newspaper, I tend to be alone.

The lack of corporate media at the conference is a deliberate statement that the challenges facing the working class are of no interest to them or, presumably, their readers.

The corporates are missing out on hearing the stories of organising and resistance from across the length and breadth of the country.

One of the biggest stories of many during the conference, which should have captured the imagination of any media, was the accounts of modern-day slavery.

The always excellent Staffordshire Community Health Branch held a fringe meeting where a migrant care worker explained to a packed room the disgusting way that she was being treated by an employer and by the system more broadly.

I joined the meeting and heard the story of courageous Memory Chamangwana, a migrant worker who suffered what can only reasonably be described as slavery — whether it’s very modern or not is up for debate.

I have heard past stories of how the so-called Windrush generation was treated in much the same way. They, like Chamangwana, sometimes had their jobs and accommodation tied to their jobs. Essentially, a failure to do exactly what the employer wanted at all times could leave you without a job and somewhere to live.

The current version is tied to visas that primarily appear to work on the basis of what employers want rather than any notion that migrant workers are human beings.

The largely migrant woman care sector workforce is treated in a way that is subhuman. The fact that employers are allowed to get away with clearly exploitative behaviour is nothing short of a national and international disgrace.

I include the international dimension to this because the originating countries must also know about the treatment of their nationals, but seem content to turn a blind eye as long as the money that these workers send back “home” continues to flow.

Meanwhile, I heard stories during the conference itself of women migrant workers who felt forced to endure sexual exploitation at the hands of lecherous employers so they were not thrown out of their job and then the country.

It is a scandal that these behaviours are being experienced by anyone, including many of the people we rely on to care for our elderly loved ones.

What is clear, from other testimony at the conference, is that sexual exploitation and harassment are an all too common experience for far too many women at work, whether migrant or not.

The corporate media can’t be bothered to turn up to listen to the harrowing experiences facing working-class women in the workplace. Its priority appears to be centred on attacking trade unions — often the last line of resistance that people brave enough, like Chamangwana, have to defend them.

But just hearing these stories and reporting them is not good enough. That is not the sole role of the people’s media that the Morning Star is a part of. Our job must be to stir people to action.

Listening to folks like Chamangwana, who are able to tell their own stories unfiltered, is a vital first step in creating the anger that we can then convert into hope that something can be done. Doing this, we can then create action and, if we do our job well, continued activity.

But we need to think more seriously about how we can extend the people’s media.

I doubt most people reading this are content with the corporate media continuing to represent their class interests while we largely — at least on a mass basis — fail to represent ours.

We are blessed with some excellent socialist media alongside the Morning Star — still the world’s only English language print daily socialist newspaper.

Internationally, there is the brilliant Breakthrough News, People’s Dispatch and Black Agenda Report — all of which I dip into every day.

There are also multiple news sites across the global South, such as TeleSur, that perform a similar role. The question for me is how can we build something much more cohesive that is not at the mercy of the corporate news wires.

Linking these often excellent efforts is necessary if we are to successfully amplify and link together the struggles of working people.

We must engage in and win the battle of ideas on all communication fronts.

We need to give much more collective thought to how we can build a linked-up people’s media that can actually make a difference and is not in competition with each other.

But it must always include listening to the actual struggles that working-class women and men are engaged in, rather than the ones we imagine.

Paying more attention to reporting union conferences and conventions across the global majority is a vital part of the process.