Oct 27, 2023
In this episode, we speak with Paul O'Connor the senior national officer at the Public and Commerical Services (PCS) union - one of the largest unions in the UK, representing workers across all government departments and in the private sector.
Paul tells us about the safe passage for refugees policy the
union's members wrote with Care4Calais, and why it is a genuinely
humanitarian way to stop the small boat crossings of the
Channel.
We also touch on working class solidarity, anti-fascism and, the
Bibby Stockholm, the hostile environment, and how a string of
governments have created the asylum-seeker backlog.
--Get in touch---
Twitter: @FleetCivil
Mastodon: @civilfleet@kolektiva.social
Instagram: thecivilfleet
info@civilfleet.com
civilfleet.com
Support:
ko-fi.com/civilfleet
---Show Notes---
For more on the PCS union, see: pcs.org.uk
For more on PCS and Care4Calais' Safe Passage Policy, read about it
here:
https://care4calais.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Safe-Passage-Policy-Paper.pdf
If you'd like to email your MP about PCS's safe passage policy, see
here: action.pcs.org.uk/page/134188/action/1
Ben and Paul speak about the Tories throughout this episode. The
Tories is the nickname of the ruling Conservative Party.
For more on The World Transformed, the festival Ben mentions in the
episode, see here: theworldtransformed.org
See here for more on the UK Border Force training to push refugees
back across the Channel already, here:
https://thecivilfleet.wordpress.com/2022/01/14/uk-border-force-may-have-begun-attempts-to-push-refugees-back-across-the-channel-already-evidence-suggests/
For more on Channel Rescue and Care4Calais, see episodes 11 and 17
of The Civil Fleet Podcast
Ben and Paul speak about Priti Patel a few times in this episode.
She was the UK's Home Secretary from 2019 to 2022. She was replaced
by Suella Braverman. The Home Secretary is a similar governmental
role to interior minister in many European countries.
For more on the UK's treatment of refugees, the Rwanda Scheme, the
Hostile Environment, the Illegal Immigration Act and the Bibby
Stockholm see episodes 21, 25, 32, 38, 39, 40, 42 and 44.
Paul mention Detention Action. For more on them, see: detentionaction.org.uk
Ben and Paul speak about the FBU, which is the Fire Brigades Union.
For more on the union's solidarity work with refugees, see here:
https://www.fbu.org.uk/news/2023/03/05/trade-unions-unite-solidarity-refugees
Paul mentions the Scottish Rolls-Royce workers who refused to work
on fighter jets bound for Chile in the 1970s, when the country was
ruled by the western-back dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.
For more on that, check out the documentary film Nae Pasaran, here:
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/naepasaran
For more on the vast amounts of money the UK government has spent
in France trying to stop people from crossing the Channel, see this
Al Jazeera report from March 2023:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/10/uk-to-fund-france-detention-centre-as-leaders-agree-migration-deal