The Global Chain Gang

Auto, a games industry worker and SolFed member, writes about the horrific working conditions of those at the other end of his industry's supply chain; workers in the infamous factories of Foxconn. He argues that despite being halfway around the world, we're not so different after all...

Last month I wrote an article about crunch time in the games industry; the large amounts of unpaid overtime that have become a common feature of the game development cycle. However, us tech workers in the west are simply the thin end of the wedge. If you want to see true horrors of exploitation, simply spin the globe and look at to the east. To China, Taiwan and all the other new darlings of the manufacturing industry.

Office Angels Picket - Bristol

Bristol solidarity Federation will be continuing with their support of the Office Angels temp who has never been payed in full for the three days work he did last year.

As part of the national week of action called by SF-IWA we are planning a picket of the Office Angels branch, 35-38 High Street, Bristol. This will commence at 11.00am on Thursday, 12th May. We urge anyone free to come down and support this campaign. Members of Bristol SF have been involved in the struggle against the casualisation of work for many years. This initiative is part of on-going work to ensure that workers are not robbed of their pay, their rights and their safety.

We demand that Dan is paid in full for the work he has done.

Coordinated strike action should be built from below

It is now a near certainty that we will see coordinated public sector strike action within the next couple of months. Solidarity Federation - which has members in the public sector unions which will be striking - stands in support of all workers acting to defend their jobs and the services those jobs provide to working class people.

UCU have already balloted. PCS is putting an emergency motion to its conference in May. The NUT sought permission to ballot at its recent conference. Even the moderate ATL already has a mandate to ask members for strike action. The only question now is how events unfold once the ball gets rolling.

New 'theory & practice' pamphlet series launched

This series is published to both document interesting accounts from workers in struggle, as well as attempts to draw the theoretical lessons from them. Both original and republished texts are included. Most, but not all, are from the anarcho-syndicalist tradition. All are selected for their relevance for workers looking to organise today. The first two titles cover the Workmates collective on the London Underground, and an expanded reprint of the (now out of print) 1995 SolFed pamphlet on the shipyard struggles in Puerto Real.

2nd picket in 24 hours at Brighton Office Angels

We picketed the Brighton branch of Office Angels for the second time in 24 hours this morning to keep the pressure up in the dispute over unpaid wages. After running out of leaflets yesterday we printed another batch overnight to inform passers by and potential Office Angels workers of the details of the dispute, and to encourage them to get in touch if they've also been mistreated by Office Angels.

Office Angels pickets spread to Brighton

Brighton SolFed today answered the call for solidarity from South London SolFed, who have been organising pickets against employment agency Office Angels over a non-payment dispute at their Wimbledon branch. Dan worked for Office Angels for three days in December of last year. He was assured by the company that the lack of a time-sheet would 'not be a problem'. However, Office Angels are refusing to pay him the wages he is owed - falsely claiming he only worked for one day, despite them having called him at work on his third day. After completely ripping him off, they had the nerve to harass him for seeking advice on an internet discussion forum.

T&P 1: Workmates: direct action workplace organising on the London Underground

In the late 1990s, plans to outsource track maintenance on the London Underground were being pushed through by the government. Workers at one depot responded by forming a new workplace group, both inside and outside the existing union, the RMT. This pamphlet charts the highs and lows of the Workmates collective, highlighting their successes and failures, their radically democratic organising method and their creative forms of direct action. We hope it can provide an inspiration to other workers frustrated with the limits of the existing workplace organisations.

A copy of the pamphlet costs £2 including postage and packaging (to UK, please get in touch for international or bulk orders).

NLSF report-back from National Conference

This past weekend saw much of North London Solidarity Federation take to the streets of London in celebration of May Day. Six others of us, however, took the opportunity to hop the train to Brighton to attend SolFed's national conference. Reflecting the fact that SolFed is an active and growing organisation we were joined at conference by approximately a third of the national organisation. We were also lucky to have two observers from the Swedish Syndicalist Youth Organisation, the SUF, who brought not only greetings from our Swedish comrades but were keen to participate and exchange ideas and experiences.