Absolutely no excuse for sitting on your arse watching ‘talent’ shows and Yankee pig operas, get out and meet some fellow radicals!
If you’re going to either the AFN or Freedom event, please look in and support the other as well, it’s only a couple of minutes walk each way, it’s all the same firm innit!
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tower Hamlet residents and anti-fascists host a community gathering prior to EDL Counter-mobilisation on 7th September
Event: An evening of Resistance to Fascism and Racism in the East End
Date: Saturday 31st August, 6pm – 12am
h2. Location: The Rag Factory, 16-18 Heneage St (off Brick Lane), London E1 5LJ
On Saturday 31st August, the Bengali, Jewish, English, Irish and other varied communities of London’s East End will come together to celebrate and discuss working class resistance to racism and fascism, both past and present.
The event called “An evening of Resistance to Fascism and Racism in the East End” is organised by the national Anti-Fascist Network (AFN) and is taking place near Whitechapel’s famous Brick Lane. It will run from 6pm to 12 midnight at The Rag Factory, 16-18 Heneage St (off Brick Lane), London E1 5LJ. Entry is free though donations will be welcome.
There will be distinguished speakers such as Daniel Trilling, author of “Bloody Nasty People”, a profile of the British National Party; Julie Begum, founding member of Women Unite Against Racism; and Max Levitas, a veteran from the Battle of Cable Street. Participation, ideas and argument from the audience is very much encouraged.
Natasha Weldon, a spokesperson for the AFN, said:
?This event is an important warm-up to AFN’s counter-mobilisation in Altab Ali Park to oppose the EDL from 11am on September 7th. This is our community and we will come out in force to defend it. Racism is not welcome is East London, and we will make sure that the EDL will not pass.?
So expect film, food and lively debate as reflections from previous struggles will be put forward to inform the upcoming mobilisation against the English Defence League’s march to Tower Hamlets on Saturday 7th September. All anti-racists and local community members are welcome but EDL members clearly will not be.
After the discussion, music will be provided with a DJ set by Asian Dub Foundation member Pandit G.
Since the murder of Lee Rigby, Tommy Robinson and the EDL have seen their support and media profile surge dramatically. This unprecedented coming together of various anti-racist campaigners, activists and community members demonstrates the strength of opposition the EDL will face on the 7th of September.
For more information see London Antifascists
The event is also on Facebook:
Handy graphics and flyers to download here:
Colour leaflets are now being distributed across London, plus stickers with the design below – pick either up from Freedom bookshop. Why not add your local meet up and contact details and print a few up? You can download pdfs below. Versions in Bengali, Urdu, Eritrean, Somalian, Ethiopian and Polish available shortly. Spread the word and tell all your mates to come and make it the biggest show of strength against the EDL!
Plus here’s some handy web banners and images:
Sticker design:
PDFs:
It seems that the Pompey EDL organiser, Mickey Bayliss (from Bath) has finally lost his mind.
On Saturday Bayliss and his followers disgraced themselves in Portsmouth (See previous post). We think that in his own head he imagined the entire populace of Portsmouth bowing down to him as he entered the city on a white horse, surrounded by a sunbeam and wearing a suit of armour, as columns of his loyal foot soldiers went door to door dragging Muslims out of their homes. Instead he managed to get a selection of the top 150 racists on the south coast to throw bangers around for an hour, and the entire populace of Portsmouth thinks he’s a fucking pathetic fascist cunt.
Bayliss seems to have taken the news that he has no support pretty badly. Like a typical fascist he has now declared war on the Portsmouth News for not…
View original post 238 more words
As the entire world knows by now, Ulwell Cottage Caravan Park in Swanage, Dorset, is a terrible employer taking advantage of struggling precarious workers, treating them with disrespect and dismissing them when they complain.
in October 2012 Ulwell sacked a swimming pool attendant for drawing attention to breaches of health and safety and working time regulations and for union membership. A contract manager named Neil Long further threatened him with local blacklisting – don’t they ever learn?
This worker just happened to be part of two of the south’s keenest class-struggle groupings, Bristol IWW GMB and Wessex Solidarity; we have friends in low places, and supported by the SolFed and Dorset Socialists our communications blockade was spread to 4 continents by social media.
Not much point picketing a holiday camp in November so we waited for a busy Saturday in August and assembled at the site in the charmingly named ‘Darkie Lane’ – I shit you not! We’re looking into this now and will get it changed if it’s the last thing we ever do. Any historical background on this would be much appreciated but we suspect Dorset’s murky past involvement with the slave trade, the Drax family being notorious culprits. That association doesn’t seem to bother Ulwell park but the irony was not lost on us; we expect we can shame the council into doing something about it, get in touch if you’d like to help.
Our call out was answered by 17 assorted Anarchists and Socialists with a fantastic age and gender balance, some taking direct action for the first time. By chance we met a member of Surrey and Hants AFed. Had it not been for the sudden fascist manifestation in Portsmouth we would have had twice that number, some did both. See here for a log of one very militant day.
Crap employers take note, we stand ready to do this for each and any employee you mistreat, an injury to one is an injury to all.
If you exploit us we will shut you down!
PRESS RELEASE: 1pm Friday August 16th 2013
110 Bridgwater Royal Mail strikers, out on the gate for their eighth day tomorrow, Saturday 17th, are more determined than ever to secure a decent settlement from their employer. They have also welcomed an intervention on their behalf from Len McCluskey of the Unite union.
The Bridgwater postmen and women are in the Bristol Branch of the CWU/Communication Workers Union, which is dealing with scores of local strike ballot requests from all over the country, as the Government prepares for its autumn plan to sell Royal Mail off.
Most of these local issues are the same: excessive workloads; a punitive managerial regime that disciplines staff of up to 45 years service for working too slow; finally, managers breaking local and national agreements with the CWU that protect health and safety, earnings levels, and permanent and full-time job opportunities.
Dave Chapple, Bristol CWU Branch Chair and shop steward at Bridgwater’s Friarn St office, said:
“Bridgwater lads and lasses on strike have reacted with calm and a quiet determination to an extremely aggressive supervisory regime that has been trying to provoke wildcat strikes for a month or more now. Managers have secretly spied on us, peeked under toilet doors, bullied us out of tea and fag breaks, refused legitimate overtime claims, taken us off our own duties, changed duty start and finish times without agreement, chivvied us in public for not walking or cycling fast enough, threatened temporary contract staff with reductions in hours, and banned and threatened CWU Reps with disciplinary action for performing their legitimate union activities. All this because we dared to challenge an imposed and un-agreed summer ‘savings’plan.
Stronger than ever despite your systematic bulling regime, we now have this serious message to send to senior Royal Mail managers at regional and national level:
You have made a serious mistake in trying to beat Bridgwater by starving us back to work. You have seriously underestimated our strength: after 8 days out, we are stronger than ever, thanks to the support we are getting daily from other Royal Mail workplaces, CWU Branches and trades unionists all over the country. Please can you now admit your tactics are misguided: please pension off your hawks, sit down with us and work out a decent future at Friarn St, where there is no place for bullies, a future that can, together, Save our Royal Mail and Keep the Post Office Public! “
Bridgwater postmen and women are also on strike this Monday 19th, and have requested their CWU HQ a whole week commencing 2nd September. Sympathetic members of the public, our friends in the media, and all our brother and sister trade union members are welcome on our picket lines between 5am and 9am. Postcode is TA6 3XX.”
Dave Chapple also said: “We especially welcome members of the Unite union to our picket line. Up to 150 members of Unite-Royal Mail managers-have been crossing our picket lines during our last seven strikes days, and attempting to undertake our delivery work: we now understand that Len McCluskey himself has written to all these managers instructing them not to come to Bridgwater to try and break the strike. That’s great news for us!
ENDS
For photos, requests to interview, invites to speak, messages of support, further information, and donations to the Bridgwater Royal Mail dispute fund, please contact Dave Chapple on 0777 6304 276, E-mail
Cheques to be sent to Dave Chapple 1 Blake Place, Bridgwater, Somerset, TA6 5AU; and made out to “Bridgwater Trades Union Council.”
The attached photo was taken on 29th June and is credited to “Exeter TUC”: It shows the TUC anti-austerity bus blocking the Bridgwater Delivery Office gate with 60 pickets!
We rose early and breakfasted well as we anticipated the day ahead. The targets had been well defined, plans drawn up with military precision and we were off.
The first action involved a picket and communications blockade by a powerful alliance of unionists and activists from Bristol General Membership Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Dorset Socialists, Wessex Solidarity, Solent Solidarity Federation.
The picket was set up because a good and conscientious worker at Ulwell Cottage Caravan Park in Swanage had been sacked in October 2012 for drawing attention to health and safety concerns, was victimised for membership of the IWW and threatened with local blacklisting.
The picket was in place promptly at 10.00 in the morning and was a good natured, lawful and peaceful affair that did raise some curiosity amongst the holiday makers at the park.
It was wonderful to see holiday makers and activists getting along so well and a large number of leaflets were handed out explaining why we were there. The activists went to extraordinary lengths to reassure the holidaymakers that we weren’t there to spoil their holiday and that if they agreed with our contentions to express their concern to the management at the park who are notoriously bad employers in the Dorset area.
Several holidaymakers expressed their solidarity with our action before they went off to enjoy their day and we can only hope that they had a wonderful time.
Reaction from the management at the park proved to be a different story. One young man who we believe to be a junior (in status not age) member of the family that own the park was rather rude and not a little threatening to one of our female activists who had travelled all the way from the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. It gives me enormous pleasure to report that this solid comrade was well able to stand her ground and not be intimidated by this inappropriately butch moron.
The communications blockade which, we believe was being conducted from all over Europe, seems to have kicked in around this time and was proving extremely effective. We observed, with some pleasure, that a certain Mrs Karen Jackson, admin manager and daughter of the site owner appeared after about half an hour of setting up in a state of some agitation and with a massive amount of paper. Job done.
After about an hour and a half a large 4×4 police vehicle turned up crewed by a couple of Dorset’s finest. Within less than 5 minutes the jolly boys in blue had been reassured by an activist there was nothing to worry about, accepted one of our leaflets and drove off to, obviously, more urgent duties never to be seen again.
By about 12.30 our point had been made and we moved on to support another action in Portsmouth while the IWW in America continued the communications blockade.
A redoubtable group of concerned Portsmouth citizenry had gathered to tell the English Defence League (EDL) that they weren’t welcome there. Why Nazi’s would want to advance their cause in a British naval port that had been bombed to bits by Nazi’s during World War 2 is anyone’s guess. We can only wonder.
Sadly we were badly held up in traffic at Ringwood. We arrived in Portsmouth at around 3pm and we able to link up with some of the people who had turned out to oppose the laughable EDL action.
Eye witness reports from reliable sources witnessed that for the most part, the bone heads in the EDL, after throwing some fireworks at innocent passers-by and being not a little the worse for drink had comprehensively defeated their own shambolic effort by turning on each other and fighting amongst themselves.
Tired but happy we got home around 10pm after a lot of road miles, chanting, singing, having nice conversations with holiday makers and some top-notch solidarity with the citizens of Portsmouth.
The icing on the cake had to be something we saw on the newsstand at Bournemouth railway station when we stopped off for a well earned coffee and bar of choccy.
‘Police give in to mob rule’ screamed the headlines from a Daily Mail newspaper, one of many on the stand which judging by the number still there at 8.30pm hadn’t sold too well that day.
The headline was referring to a story from Balcombe that Cuadrilla, the drilling company involved in the fracking controversy in Sussex had suspended operations.
How much better could it get? Well 3 victories in one day won by committed activists from all across the spectrum of decent and well motivated working people has to be something to crow about – doesn’t it?
So there we have it. A grand testimony to what decent ordinary people can achieve when they stand in solidarity with each other regardless of race, gender, creed, or sexual preference or state borders.
If I was an establishment bourgeois toff I would be very, very worried by these developments and with good cause.
Anon – somewhere in Dorset – Sunday 18th August
LabourStart News Wire Libcom latest
Wessex Solidarity 