A number of UNISON activists spearheaded by retired member, Tom Morrison, will launch a Morning Star Readers and Supporters Group at UNISON’s Scottish Council on 2 December 2017.
Watch out for a Morning Star stall at the event and please go on and “like” the UNISON Scottish Morning Star Readers and Supporters Group on Facebook and encourage your friends and families to do so. https://www.facebook.com/unisonscotlandmorningstar/
The Group aims to engage union members politically with the paper and has gained the support of UNISON’s Scottish Committee. All UNISON members are encouraged to get involved in the group’s activities.
Tom said, “In the current class war the group will seek to build readership, hold meetings, raise funds, get stories into the paper and create dozens of new left wing political activists across the country.”
Tom added, “A free press is supposed to hold power to account, but a press owned by the likes of Rupert Murdoch, the Barclay brothers, Lord Rothermere and Richard Desmond is more interested in protecting the wealth and privilege of people like themselves.
“The same applies to broadcasters — even the publicly owned BBC, with their ingrained prejudice against anything that threatens the status quo.”
Socialists need to have their own media. “That’s where the Morning Star comes in,” said Tom, pointing out that it’s the daily paper of the labour movement, with nine national trade unions and one trade union region represented on the committee, accounting for a majority of Britain’s organised workers.
The Star publishes six days a week, “bringing readers the stories the capitalist press won’t — the struggles, strikes and victories of working people, the misery created by a system designed to maximise profit for the bosses, the views and debates of the labour movement, and the culture and history of our class.
“But life for a small title like the Morning Star is a constant struggle to survive in an industry where many papers are going to the wall.
“The readership of the paper has increased over the last two years, but not by enough to keep the wolf from the door,” warned Tom, calling for more people to buy the Star daily — either in print form or by subscribing to the e-edition, which includes an app to let you read it on your mobile phone.