Tenancy agreements often include expensive clauses for things such as the inventory of
the property, having the property professionally cleaned when you leave, and for
various ‘administration’ tasks such as setting up your tenancy, renewing your contract,
and ‘checking in’ and ‘checking out’ of your tenancy.
Thursday 22nd December saw another picket organized by First bus drivers at the Rusholme Depot in support of their ongoing dispute over pay. Drivers at First's Rushome depo are being paid up to £5000 a year less than colleagues working at the First’s Queen’s Road base just five miles away. The drivers at the Rusholme depo originally worked for Finglands Buses who were taken over by First Manchester in 2013. At the time of the takeover the Finglands drivers were promised parity but after repeated promises by First to harmonizes pay, drivers at Rusholme still find themselves being paid 23% less.
Cafe Plenty issued legal threats just hours after Brighton Solfed tried to talk to them about £4,400 they owe a former worker. Having made clear they were unwilling to resolve the matter, the cafe's bogus threats triggered a campaign of protest highlighting the plight of the former worker organising with Solfed.
A Solfed member involved in the case explained what happened: “In late November, a couple of us went to hand them a letter about the £4K they owe the former worker. Our approach is always to try to resolve things amicably, by talking to them first and give them a chance to rectify their mistake. Since the owner wasn't there, we just left the letter with a helpful member of staff.
Brighton Solidarity Federation has started a dispute with the letting agency Youngs on Upper St James's Street. Two tenants have been organising in regards to structural damp, presence of severe black mould and overall dilapidation issues that created unsafe living conditions - dangerous to the tenants' health - throughout their tenancies at two separate properties managed by Youngs. Both tenants are demanding compensation for such issues and one of them, who is still living in the property, is urgently requesting that a number of neglected and still unresolved problems are attended to by the agency.
Brighton SolFed is making public a dispute with a cafe who are unwilling to settle outstanding pay of over £4K. The former worker, who stopped work at the establishment in early June has been asking to be paid ever since. As attempts to resolve the issue amicably were ignored or frustrated by Cafe Plenty, Brighton Solfed is now going public to warn potential staff and customers.
After getting nowhere, she approached Brighton Solidarity Federation for support. The business are not disputing they owe the money - in fact they finally paid part of the money owed two weeks ago. However £4,482 is still outstanding. After multiple attempts to resolve the dispute, including a face-to-face meeting, we are now stepping up our public campaign in support of the aggrieved worker.
For the past few weeks Brighton SolFed and friends have been supporting a tenant that got evicted with a week's notice!
The tenant, a Spanish immigrant that doesn't speak English at all, had been living in a sub-letted shared room with an other sub-lettee in deplorable conditions of mold. Solidarity Federation helped mediating with the live-in sub-letter, but they refused any facilitation of eviction and responded by violently scaring the tenant to leave the property. After a huge show of support in front of the landlord's flat - where almost 20 members and friends turned up to help - temporary accommodation was found for the tenant.
Brighton lettings agency G4Lets is facing a growing campaign by two groups of tenants organising with Brighton SolFed for the return of their deposits and for compensation after they lived in damp, mice-infested accommodation for a year, and were subsequently charged for pre-existing damage at the properties when they requested the return of their deposits. Both sets of tenants were students at the time of their tenancies.
Manchester Solfed's guide for migrants coming to Manchester has been republished with a updated edition for November 2017.
The guide contains information to help new migrants settle in the city. While focusing on Manchester, much of the guide will be useful to people living anywhere in the UK.
Available in English and Spanish, the guide can be downloaded in pdf format from the links below, paper copies will also be distributed around the city.
We are currently working on a translation into Portugese and we are producing a version for smartphones.
The Migrants Guide is a work in progress and we welcome submissions and suggestions. Please contact the Manchester local if you have anything to contribute.
Don't forget next Saturday, December 2nd the Manchester & Salford Anarchist Bookfair will be taking place. As well as book stalls there will be number of talks taking place on a wide range of subjects. In the evening there will be social with several bands appearing.
Manchester SF will be doing a talk on 21st Century Anarcho-Syndicalism
07427239960
