15.12.1994

UWC welcomes new president

The Unemployed Workers Charter announced at the beginning of December that its new honorary president is to be Vic Turner, the former dockers’ leader, following the sad death of Ernie Roberts.

Vic held many trade union posts as a dockers’ representative and in 1972 was jailed for five days as one of the Pentonville Five.

Joining the Communist Party in 1953, he led rent strikes in London’s East End in the mid-fifties. With the destruction of the Party three decades later, Vic joined Labour and was elected onto Newham council in May 1994.

“I am delighted to be following in the footsteps of such working class leaders as Jack Dash and Ernie Roberts as UWC president,” said Vic. “Unemployment has been with us so long that it has almost become ‘acceptable’. Our job is to end that way of thinking.

“The way to defeat unemploy-ment is for employed and unemployed workers to unite in one mighty force against the bosses and their system.”

Vic this week has become a supporter of the CPGB (see inside)