The Solidarity Federation will be at the London Anarchist Bookfair again this year. It will be the first place you can get your hands on our new pamphlet 'Fighting for ourselves: anarcho-syndicalism and the class struggle'. Our other publications will also be available alongside books, posters and tshirts.
This year the Solidarity Federation will be presenting the following talks:
Nobody Expects The Solidarity Federation! - Room 318, 11-12
South Africa, 2005: Durban’s corrupt council planned to evict an entire community out of the central city to the edges where the rich wouldn’t have to look at them any more. With no allies or resources the people of Kennedy Road decided to fight back, forming Abahlali base Mjondolo. AbM is now the biggest shack dwellers’ movement in the country. And the government itself is running scared.
AbM member Lidela Figian will talk about the group, how it works and what it does.
Below is a brief account of the first meeting of the Solidarity Federation's Tech & Digital Workers' network, held in Oct 2012. The Tech & Digital network is made up of those SF members who work in the industry and is aiming to help get workers in the industry organising together.
This October saw the Tech & Digital Workers' network of the Solidarity Federation hold it's first meeting at the Freedom offices in London.
There was a very good attendance, including both SF members and interested non-members. There was a good number of different fields represented at the meeting including; I.T. Support, web development, solid state electronics, games and research among others.
The accepted wisdom is that if you can speak and write ‘properly' you are ‘intelligent', if not, you are stupid. However, it is effectiveness of communication that matters, not whether a particular prescribed formula is followed or not.
Unit 1: Introduction - The origins of Capitalism (go to Unit 1, get PDF)
Unit 2: Britain - The radical period 1750s-1840s (go to Unit 2)
Unit 3: The First International(go to Unit 3)
Unit 4: France 1870-1918 - Early revolutionary Unions (go to Unit 4)
No such thing as a decent quality free lunch? Probably not, but A History of Anarcho-syndicalism is both free and (we hope) decent quality. It has been produced by the SelfEd Collective, labour free and at minimal costs. If you have no Internet access and require printed materials, these will be supplied at cost.
A History of Anarcho-syndicalism is designed to;
The governement has today significantly increased the sanctions for non-compliance with the benefits regime, including the controversial unpaid, forced work 'workfare' schemes. Under a 'three strikes' policy, benefits will be stopped for three months, six months, and then three years for failing to meet a series of conditions, many of which relate to workfare. According to a notiification letter given to all JSA claimants, this includes:
On the day some of us met up at Charing Cross station, in every corner you could see union branches and anti-cuts groups from up and down the country meeting up in the concourse.
We arrived at the Embankment to a sea of banner and as wemarched we met both people we knew from round London and people from all across the UK. We met Welsh comrades who'd come over night or on the 5am coach which made us feel pretty lazy.
SolFed's Education Workers’ Network will host our first workplace organiser training on Saturday, 17th November 2012, 10am-6pm; at SOAS, London (1st floor, Brunei Gallery building, opposite the main SOAS building entrance).
This will be a day of training sessions & discussions on workplace issues for workers in educational organisations regardless of job, role and whether unionised or not. It is addressed at anyone who wants to:
build a network with fellow education workers;
learn to take on management and organise workplace struggle;
share ideas & experiences on building solidarity and confidence in the workplace.
Programme includes basic workplace organiser training & workshops on:
Reflections by ASI-IWA, our Serbian sister section, at the occasion of their tenth anniversary.
In previous ten years ASI has intensively supported the organizing of revolutionary libertarian workers' movement. Apart from direct participation in workers' and student strikes and protests, we are regularly publishing our weekly bulletin “Direktna akcija” (Direct Action) and sustain active publishing activities. This year, as it has for the past eight years, our publishing-research body — Center for Libertarian Studies (CLS) will be participating in The Belgrade Bookfare with the intention to make the theory and history of the workers' movement accessible to people, as well as to confront commercialization of culture, and support spreading and strengthening of progressive thought and radical social critique.