Something Is Stirring In The Capital: The Fight Against Social Cleansing Bursts Into Life

the void

With the Tory’s threatening a new benefit cap and cuts to Local Housing Allowance if they win the next election, it is unsurprising that London’s fucked housing market is emerging as a key site of struggle in the capital.

Two diffrent events this week will highlight the grotesque inequality in a city where global billionaires buy luxury penthouses to keep empty as investments whilst people sleep in the streets below

Wednesday (1st October – tomorrow!) the biggest demonstration against the Poor Doors so far is set to take place.  This weekly protest, outside 1 Commercial Street E1, began after it emerged that the residents in the meagre supply of social housing in this yuppy block of flats are forced to use a different door to the toffs who occupy the luxury properties.

The protests are now in their 10th week and are growing.  Last week the lobby of the building…

View original post 489 more words

Workfare exploiter fingered in Southbourne!

Word reaches us that the Spyglass and Kettle Stourwood Ave, Bournemouth, Southbourne, Dorset BH6 3PW Phone: 01202 424888 facebook uses workfare. A storm erupted on social media as a number of comrades called or messaged the establishment. Their responses have varied throughout the day, from:

“Unsure where you find your “facts” but they are ALL false”

And:

“We have only fully employed staff here, on full pay, no work exp, or workfare staff.”

To:

“The team members that we have within workfare are from the job centre who are on job seekers and do earn money each week from the job centre. I see nothing strange”

Which would seem to imply they support the principle of people being forced to work for benefits.

Then:

“We do use the scheme, but as the above comment states there is no abuse of it. 5 people have got full time jobs with us from this job centre scheme to give young people the chance to gain experience and confidence in the work place.”

So they’ve swallowed IDS’ story hook line and sinker, still unaware that workfare is a massive scam that as well as robbing workers of their livelihoods is costing the taxpayer millions. See Johnny Void’s blog for the gory details.

And:

“As I have already pointed out we claim not to be abusing the scheme, not that we have not been using the scheme, and they do get employed by us when they finish the scheme. Speak to the 5 staff we have employed.”

So they get some free labour then give ‘em a job when they have to, that’s nice.

Finally:

‘Ok, point taken, I don’t have any workfare people at the moment and won’t take any on in the future. Can I also suggest that you contact Apple who’s phones are all made in China using slave labour’.

Well of course we do support workers in struggle around the globe as you can see from our archives.

Here’s the point: if you need permanent staff and approach the Job Centre who send you unpaid placements, some of whom you subsequently employ you are doing us all (and them) no favours. The workfare industry gets paid for placing people whether they get a permanent job or not. If you could just get a job straightaway, there would be no profit in it for them. The last thing they want is unemployed people applying for jobs like these in the normal way and being taken on. So the poorest, most disadvantaged workers are supporting corporate entities that serve no one.

If they are serious about giving this up and have learned their lesson they could make amends by paying those staff the difference between their jobseekers allowance and what they should have earned in the first place, backdated to when they started work, as a gesture of goodwill to them and contrition to the working class as a whole.

Every business tainted by this loathsome scheme must be put under pressure until everyone who works receives decent compensation for doing so.

If you exploit us we will shut you down!

Just to complicate the picture, groups of unsavoury UKIP types have been observed entering the Spyglass and Kettle, best avoided, if you can.

Victory at Autogrill: from LabourStart

Thank you – your support helped contribute to this important win.

Back in May we launched a campaign on LabourStart in support of striking German workers at Autogrill.  5,930 of you signed up to support it.

That campaign, called by the NGG union and its global union federation (the IUF), has now resulted in a victory.  

The IUF has issued this statement:

The German Food Workers Union (NGG) have announced a successful conclusion to their fight for a first-ever collective agreement at Autogrill Germany, where workers in Bavaria and Thuringia have been holding strikes since April. On September 9, Autogrill Germany announced it would be joining the national employer organization for the sector, which would bring Autogrill employees under the national collective agreement for the sector.  The NGG has warmly thanked the many thousands who supported the campaign.

It’s always great to report a victory — but I’d like to ask you to do more:

Make sure you’re supporting ALL eight of our current online campaigns.  Workers on the picket line, workers who have been the victims of employer-initiated violence, workers who have been locked out — they all need your support:

• Peru/Colombia: Prosegur must denounce threats and attacks on trade unionists
• Thailand: Drop the charges against Andy Hall
• Poland: LOT sacks union leader
• IKEA: Stop social dumping
• Palestine/Israel: Say No to union-busting of Palestinian workers organizing in Mishor Adumim settlement
• Iran: Free jailed trade union leader Reza Shahabi now
• Poland: Stop union busting at Chopin Airport
• Poland: Solidarity with workers at LIDL

And most important of all: spread the word in your unions about these campaigns.  Share this message by email and on social networks.  Click on any of these links:

   

Thank you!

Eric Lee

Be Brave Scotland! A Vote For No Just Means More Of The Same Shit. Forever.

the void

There are have been few things more joyful recently than watching the British establishment runnung scared as the Scottish referendum draws closer.   When toffs are this panicked you know you’re onto a winner.

It will David Cameron who will pay the price of a vote for Scottish Independence on Thursday.  He will forever be remembered as the Prine Minister who oversaw the break up of the union, and that really means something to the kind of upper class pricks who think Game Of Thrones is an instruction manual on how to run a country.  He will not last long if Scotland votes yes, and questions will also be asked what role Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms played in the result.

But there are far better reasons than just spite to support the yes vote.  One thing that unites increasing numbers of people both north and south of the…

View original post 442 more words

Frack Free Solent news.

Greening Petersfield presents a showing of GASLAND 7.30pm Thursday 18th September, Winton House Centre, 18 High Street, Petersfield GU32 1QA – Map
£4 (£2 concessions) tickets on the door

Film in brief:
Fracking has unlocked a “Saudia Arabia of natural gas” just beneath us. But is fracking safe? When filmmaker Josh Fox is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies and contamination. A recently drilled nearby Pennsylvania town reports that residents are able to light their drinking water on fire. This is just one of the many absurd and astonishing revelations of a new country called GASLAND. Part verite travelogue, part expose, part mystery, part bluegrass banjo meltdown, part showdown.

London Climate March
A national march has been organised in London on Sunday 21st September 12.30 – 2.30pm to coincide with the upcoming climate talks in New York. Meet at 12:30pm at: Temple Place, WC2R 3BD – Map

March ends at Westminster with a huge group photo outside Parliament. More information

Friends of the Earth Frack Down Day
FoE is planning a national anti-fracking action day on Saturday 11th October. One strand of this work is the idea of putting Anti Fracking stickers on wheelie bins. Tim has a number of stickers on order. If anyone thinks their street / village might make a splash with wheelie bins stickered-up on either 11th or your collection day in the week following, please email him

FoE are still developing campaign ideas – you can contribute here:

March in Chichester

If you can’t make it to the London Climate March this Sunday 21^st September, Transition Chichester are organising a local Climate March through the streets of Chichester from 12pm to 1pm to petition the Mayor, District and County Councils.

“In Chichester we plan to march with a petition to the Assembly Rooms in North Street (5 mins) to deliver our petition to the Mayor, where we will invite him to join us and march on to the District Council Offices (10 mins) to hand over the petition to the Leader of the District Council and we will invite her to join us and the Mayor to march on to the County Council Offices in West Street where we hope to deliver the petition to the Leader of the County Council and our MP. End time approx. 1pm”

For more info Contact Transition Chichester or phone 01243 539090

Funtington Public Info Meeting 

Frack Free Solent are helping organise an information meeting about fracking, Friday 24 October at 7.30pm in Funtington Community Village Hall, Southbrook Rd, West Ashling, PO18 8DR. Map

More details to follow.

Contact Frack Free Solent or visit our website

Local fascists convicted of abuse.

Three Berkshire fascists, and one each from Hants and Dorset were part of a drunken mob that harassed Hosan’s kebab van in Thatcham with racial and religious abuse on the 28th February2014. Full story

Accused were: 22-year-old Rory Rowbottom of Hartmead Road, Thatcham; Julie Anne Worthington, aged 35, of Russell Road, Reading; 50-year-old Simon Brammer of Haywards Close, Southampton, and Gary Hazel, aged 38, of Forsyth Gardens, Bournemouth. 44-year-old Edward Cullerne Scovell of Donnington Gardens, Reading, failed to turn up and was convicted in his absence.

Hazel was fined £200 with £200 costs plus a statutory victim surcharge of £20. Brammer was fined £150 with £100 costs and £20 surcharge. Rowbottom and Worthington were eached fined £100 with £100 costs and £20 surcharge. A warrant was issued for Scovell’s arrest.

Of particular interest to South coast antifascists are Simon ‘Rob’ Brammer, pictured below (with Bournemouth fascist Stu Whicher), minus his customary rubber pig mask (can you tell?) and Gary hazel, who spouted a load of bollocks at their recent regional manifestation and showed up at the opening of UKIP’s latest shop. He still has money for beer as he was spotted drinking in Poole this evening by members of BHstopEDL Poole’s John Hardy Centuria.

Hazel got a mention in Bournemouth’s Echo a couple of years ago posturing as an ‘Animal rights campaigner’ – not a species usually favoured by the burghers of Dorset – anyway let’s just put that to sleep, humanely:

Here’s Brammer, on the left (no that’s not the mask), Whicher on the right:

Scottish Referendum An Anarchist Viewpoint.

A comradely message to the Scots from the South of England: It’s really quite simple; the fewer people they have to rule the less power the rulers have, and the less power they have the better for all of us.  Politicians of all stripes are terrified you’re going to vote yes, not to mention the bankers, toffs, royals and other parasites, so do it!

(Vote no and) … ” fight in their wars, keep trident, be reduced probably to a cap-doffing line of beaters on the grouse moors while they’re feeding their kids to our political paedo class”

London’s second Anarcho-folk festival: 13th September 2014, @ Freedom bookshop.

Justice for Citra Mina 78!

In response to poor health and safety conditions, precarious employment and issues around pay and social security contributions, workers last summer formed the Samahang United Workers of Citra Mina Group of Companies Union, which was legally registered on July 24. The company responded with waves of dismissals targeting union members and supporters between September and January 2014, leaving the workers and their families without income. However 78 of the workers stood their ground and are fighting back.

Support the struggle of Citra Mina 78! Let us all demand for their reinstatement with full back wages and the recognition of their union. At home, they are supported by the national center SENTRO, which on June 19 launched a national action campaign to support the dismissed Citra Mina union members Official Facebook page of the United Workers of Citra Mina Group of Companies Union (UWCMGCU). IUF e mail campaign

Press Release: 5 September 2014
Contact: Jumary Arevalo (0910) 9770142

Citra Mina’s Human Right Violations Exposed During the Tuna Congress

Today, hundreds of striking Citra Mina workers trooped to the venue of the 16th Tuna Congress to dramatize their plight and to reiterate the pressing need for the erring company to address its continuing human rights violation.

Bearing “Justice for Citra Mina” banner and chanting, “because of Citra Mina, our families are hungry,” the workers conducted a die-in right outside the hall where the congress is being held.

“We find it ironic for Joaquin T. Lu to chair this year’s Tuna Congress whose theme is ‘Shared Resources, Shared Responsibility’ when his company is not even acting responsibly towards us – its workers,” Jumary Arevalo, president of the Samang United Workers of Citra Mina Group of Companies Union (UWCMGCU), said.

Joaquin T. Lu is the Chairman Emeritus of Citra Mina Group of Companies whose human rights record is now under scrutiny at the global level.

“Let’s make one thing clear, the issue in Citra Mina is the grave human rights violation it caused when it sacked me and 237 of my fellow workers in 2013 when we formed our union,” Arevalo said.

“The company’s offer to reinstate 12 of us is nothing but a cheap PR campaign. The only acceptable solution is for the company to recognize our union and to reinstate with full back wages all of us who are still interested to work,” Arevalo added

The right to self-organization is protected under the Philippine Constitution, ILO Core Convention and the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

Citra Mina Group of Companies has been very artful in shifting its operations from one company to another in order to avoid formation of workers’ unions, which only proves that the company’s anti-union attitude is systematic.

“Worse, Citra Mina Group of Companies now resorts to blaming the international labor community for all its woes,” Arevalo said. “Truth is, Citra Mina is now hitting the IUF and the ITF in an attempt discredit them as they are the ones helping us expose the human rights violations of the company,” he added.

The International Union of Food and Allied Workers (IUF) and the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) are global union federations with millions members around the world.

UWCMGCU has consistently warned that Citra Mina’s human rights violations could potentially damage not just the reputation of the company but of the entire tuna industry of the country. “Citra Mina’s uncooperative attitude is starting to be a liability of the entire industry,” Arevalo said.

Members of UFCW Local 359 at New York’s New Fulton Seafood Market – the entry point for Citra Mina frozen tuna products into the US – were outraged to learn the story of Citra Mina workers in General Santos, Philippines. In a show of solidarity with the workers’ fight for reinstatement and recognition of their union they signed and displayed a poster on July 9 inside the seafood market, and pledged to undertake every possible solidarity action to press Citra Mina to respect worker rights.

Autonomy Films and UNITE Community Group invite you to: NHS vs. PRIVATISATION! Saturday 13th September 2014.

W.I. Hall, North Street, Bridport, 7pm for 7.15pm start (NOTE EARLIER TIME!) Entry £3 or less if you can’t afford it, Vegetarian soup served from 6.30pm. Discussion afterwards:  What can we do?

EVENTS ORGANISED BY OTHERS:

Saturday 6th September 2014 1.30pm Film show – MINERS SHOT DOWN (86 mins)
A documentary film about the Marikana miners of South Africa. Followed by a talk by Peter Alexander who works closely with the Marikana miners. The Colliton Club, Colliton House, Colliton Park, Dorchester, Dorset DT1 1XJ organized by Dorset Socialists FREE

Saturday 6th September. The 999 March for the NHS reaches London.
People have been marching for weeks to protest at the privatisation of the NHS, following the route of the Jarrow Crusade against unemployment in 1936.  The march will be at: Clissold Park N16 11.45 – 12.45pm, Red Lion Square WC1 2pm, Trafalgar Square WC2 3.30pm more details online

Tuesday 9th September 2014 6.30pm Film show – ‘Pride’
New feature film about lesbians and gays supporting S.Wales miners in the 1984/5 strike. At: Cineworld, Yeovil FREE:  ring to book.

Wednesday 17th September 2014 7pm. Film show – ‘Flying Paper’
60-minute film about children in Gaza and their kites. Cerne Abbas Room, United Church, Dorchester DT1 1EE Refreshments. Organised by Dorset Palestinian and Israeli Peace Group ENTRY by donation

ADVANCE NOTICE: Saturday 18th October (Same day as London Anarchist Bookfair) National ‘Britain needs a pay rise’ demo in London organised by TUC.
Assemble 11am on the Embankment near Blackfriars, dept. 12pm for rally in Hyde Park.

And before that, a one-day strike on Tuesday 14th October.

That’s from Unison, same statement can be found at Untie the Onion, it’s mentioned on the GMB site, and many Unison locals have their own plans but it seems there isn’t a single TUC strike page to co-ordinate and promote all the local actions and pickets for this (we’ve looked) why not? Tell you what, if you send your action’s details to us we’ll put them up here. Watch this space.