Paisley: Fighting oppression then and now

Saturday July 6 saw Socialist Party activists involved in one of the most politicised days in the Renfrewshire calendar, Sma’ Shot day. Sma’ Shot day came about as a result of a political battle fought between the weavers of Paisley and their employers, the manufacturers, in the 19th Century.The Sma’ (small) Shot was a cotton thread which bound all the colourful weft threads into the warps of the famous shawls. However, the Sma’ Shot was unseen in the finished garments and so the manufacturers, known locally as “corks”, refused to pay for the thread.

The weavers had no choice but to buy the thread themselves. Without it the shawls would fall apart and the weavers would not be paid for their work. A long dispute followed.

The Charleston drum, which was beaten through the streets of Paisley to summon the weavers in times of trouble, was beaten once again to rally the weavers in protest marches. After a long and hard struggle, the manufacturers backed down and the weavers were paid for the Sma’ Shot.

In 1856 the first Saturday in July, a traditional holiday for the weavers, was renamed Sma’ Shot Day in honour of the victory.

From that day and for many years, the Charleston drum was used to rally weavers and lead them to the departure point for their annual trip, usually “doon the watter” to Ayr.

The demise of the weaving industry, the introduction of the five day working week and a change in local government brought an end to Sma’ Shot Day in 1975, but in 1986 local councillors and the people of Paisley decided to revive this great tradition.

Since then, on the first Saturday of July, once more the beating of the Charleston drum rallies the people of Paisley to a gathering outside Paisley Town Hall, and a procession is held through the streets of Paisley, led by ‘The Cork’, an effigy of one of the manufacturers defeated by the Paisley weavers.

The climax of the day is the ‘burning of the cork’ where the effigy is set alight as a symbol of the victory.

While attempts have been made to turn it into a gala day for the people of Paisley, the march and rally has retained it’s distinctly political character with stalls for the trade unions as well as stalls from the major political parties.

Unite and Unison had a strong presence and the Paisley trades council was also prominant on the day. Unison had a campaigning presence with petitions to support the dispute over pay that their members are involved in at the moment and also one to oppose the bedroom tax.

The Socialist Party had a campaign stall around our Bin the Bedroom Tax Campaign and the campaign was well received, with us selling 18 copies of the socialist and raising over £100 to fund our campaign work. We had a seemingly constant stream of people who were outraged by the bedroom tax, with one person saying ‘They sold all the council houses, then knocked down all the flats, where on earth do they expect people to go?’

The vast majority of people we spoke to who were affected by the tax, hadn’t paid a penny yet which is unsurprising – the bedroom tax isn’t a priority when you’re faced with a choice between heating and eating. Figures last week announced by Renfrewshire council showed that 50% of those affected hadn’t paid any of their bedroom tax while a further 25% were in partial arrears with their bedroom tax. The figures didn’t say how many of the 25% were in receipt of DHP so the non-payment percentage could be as high as 75%.

We were pointing out what could be done at the various levels of government – Hollyrood’s £179million underspend could be used by the SNP to pay for the bedroom tax, the Labour council could re-classify homes or refuse to implement and use their borrowing powers to offset the bedroom tax while building a campaign to get the money back from central government. Our call for needs budgets from the council, and also the need for a new workers party to represent the working class found a real echo amongst those we spoke to.