The Wardman Wire

[Update 12/5/2009: I have spoken to USDAW and can clarify the following two points:

1 - The Out of Court Offer that has been made is a comprehensive offer of settlement for all matters including unpaid wages and all other matters in dispute.

2 - The Employment Tribunal hearing is formally "suspended" not "cancelled". This preserves the option of continuing the case should the settlement offer not prove acceptable to all staff involved.

USDAW are now starting a process of consultation with all 32 people in the Employment Tribunal action; the hearing this week only included a small number of test cases.]

Breaking news is that the Employment Tribunal relating to staff of the former SPCK Bookshop Chain has been cancelled, as the Interim Manager has offered an Out of Court settlement, which is likely to be accepted.

I am told that the settlement is likely to be acceptable to USDAW, who have fought a year-long Industrial Tribunal claim against the multi-headed hydra of several organisations created by J Mark Brewer and his brother Philip on behalf of bullied, victimised, sacked and unpaid staff.

This is a direct result of the imposition of an Interim Manager by the Charity Commission, which in turn is a direct result of complaints submitted by campaigning bloggers and others committed to scrutinising the exploitation and mismanagement of the chain by the Brewer Brothers, detailing information that had been discovered over a period of months by a wide network. These complaints happened as far back as last August.

It is also a direct result of a campaign of accurate reporting, initially by Dave Walker, but then by dozens of blogs (including this site) which have discovered information, documented abuses, exposed lies (and probable perjury), and kept on going regardless.

I am hopeful that the fact that the charity is now controlled by the Charity Commission rather than the modern version of Shyster, Flywheel, and Shyster means that payments will be made of unpaid wages going back the best part of two years. Based on information I have picked up over the last months, there are quite substantial sums involved, well into six figures.

Special acknowledgements are due to the legal team at USDAW for dealing with a monstrously complicated case, and the staff who kept on fighting. It is also a victory for blog campaigners and fellow travellers who knitted it all together, especially Dave mentioned above and my colleague at SPCK/SSG News and Information, Phil Groom, and Unity at Ministry of Truth.

Several important aspects of the SPCK case – compensation to one significant group of staff for lost wages, and possibly bullying and victimisation – will have been resolved if this goes through, so we can have a big party. And some ex-staff can take a well-deserved holiday when the money comes through.

Aside: Not Cynically Nihilistic Political Bloggers

Please indulge me while I make one special personal point that still makes me furious 6 months later: This history is a response to claims implying compehensive cynical nihilism in the political blogosphere. I mean this kind of thing, as spoken by Hazel Blears:

“Political blogs are written by people with disdain for the political system and politicians, who see their function as unearthing scandals, conspiracies and perceived hypocrisy. “Until political blogging ‘adds value’ to our political culture, by allowing new voices, ideas and legitimate protest and challenge, and until the mainstream media reports politics in a calmer, more responsible manner, it will continue to fuel a culture of cynicism and despair.

Political bloggers came in on this campaign to help with raising the profile. And helping to recover this amount of money does not sound to me like “not adding value”. Some things will not be forgotten, and that speech is one of them. I’ll leave it there, though, before this paragraph turns into an essay.

Onwards and Upwards

All this, that still leaves:

1. Staff that are not in the tribunal.
2. Suppliers.
3. Staff wages, pensions, national insurance contributions are lost in the Texan fog somewhere.
4. And of course all the other trusts and entities, American setups, shop companies, missing money.
5. And then someone will have to continue rebuilding as many viable independent bookshops as possible to pick up the threads.
6. The whole matter of bringing J Mark and Phil Brewer to legal account for their actions, if possible.

The next big immediate issue is bookshops still controlled by the Messrs Brewer, such as Durham and Chichester. The instruction to leave Durham is for 2010, and the loss of any contribution to the cathedral from the shop for 2007-8 (which vanished into the fake bankruptcy proceedings) or 2009-10 (which may or may not appear) may cost the cathedral 50k-100k ukp. That’s my estimate based on rough figures I have picked up along the way for past contributions. And there is still the small question of where $542k transferred from SSG to Brewer organisations and the $165k taken out of the Durham Cathedral Bookshop ended up. Considerable monies ($35k+) have also gone missing from the Chichester Shop via suspcious routes in the 12 month period revealed by the sworn bankruptcy documents. I hope that the suppliers (most of the $1.6m debts declared accurately in the fake bankruptcy when J Mark Brewer forgot mention the £1.5m of freehold assets in the business and was instructed to take remedial education in Legal Ethics) will now be able to take action. Maybe – even better – the Charity Commission will begin to look into these questions next.

Wrapping Up

Score an eventual two out of two for Lilliput on the Employment Tribunal issues. Now we need to keep going until we reach 10 on all the rest. I’m off to write another Press Release.