Jump to Navigation

Welcome to the website of the Solidarity Federation (also known as SolFed or SF-IWA). We are a revolutionary union initiative. Our ideas and activities are described in our magazine Direct Action, and our newspaper Catalyst. For a summary, see the Introduction to SolFed and What is Anarcho-syndicalism?. All members are affiliated to a Local Group and an Industrial Network, our Industrial Strategy and Constitution describe this in more detail.

Home

Company Targeted Low Income Elderly People to Mis-sell Funeral Plans

Staff at a call centre where customers were described as “gazelles” to be hunted have been subjecting, low income, elderly people, to dozens of calls a week to sell them expensive funeral packages. The company, Prosperous Life,  based in Stockport, Greater Manchester, sells more than 1,000 pre-paid funeral plans every month. Staff at the company report that they are put under pressure to push people to sign up for schemes with little regard for their income.

Prosperous Life runs a workplace culture inspired by The Wolf of Wall Street movie, as a means to pressurise staff into mis-selling funeral plans to vulnerable people. Staff were encouraged to refer to themselves as “lions” and potential customers as “gazelles”. A life-sized cardboard cutout of Leonardo DiCaprio as the disgraced fraudster Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street movie was placed in the office.

G4Lets rent strike: tenants successfully regain their deposits

This summer, over a dozen G4Lets tenants successfully withheld their final month’s rent payment to claim back their tenancy deposit. G4Lets are notorious deposit thieves, usually taking most or all of a deposit for dubious and inflated charges that take months to challenge through their chosen deposit protection scheme, MyDeposits.

CJ Barbers: intimidation and histrionics fail to impress

CJ Barbers yet again resorted to violence against union members on Thursday as our campaign to get our member’s unpaid wages back continues.

In a remarkable demonstration of aggression, the owner Hamid Karam and the manager Cyrus Shabani smashed up their own wooden chairs in the middle of the road, wielded the remains at picketers, pushed and hit multiple people, and choked one member before throwing him across the street in front of traffic. They also snatched members’ phones out of their hands as they were filming the disgusting behaviour, smashing one phone in the process.

Cambridge SolFed at Strawberry Fair Saturday 1st June 2019

Cambridge Solidarity Federation will have a stall in Scarecrow Corner at this year's Strawberry Fair, 12noon onwards Saturday 1st June, Midsummer Common.

Strawberry Fair is the most popular free, entirely volunteer run, one day music & arts event in Cambridge (and probably across Europe!), attracting over 20,000 visitors throughout the day, running for over 40 years.

In between enjoying the music and the beer tent, call in and see us for some lighthearted anarcho-syndicalist banter.

We should also have info on local grassroots housing campaigns.

 

CJ Barbers Dispute: Business Threatens to Blacklist SolFed Member

As our dispute with CJ Barbers, which owes one of our members two months in unpaid wages, continues, and the owners still refuse to negotiate (we emailed them on May 4th, offering negotiations: they didn't reply), the son of one of the owners is publicly saying that they intend to illegally send images and personal details of the worker to “every business in Brighton”.

Kevin Karam, the son of Hamid Karam, has made multiple long and rambling posts about us on Facebook, calling SolFed a “gang”, making wildly contradictory statements about the worker’s status at CJ Barbers, referring to SolFed in general as a “bunch of benefit losers”, etc. It's nothing particularly remarkable - the usual smear campaigns that bosses and their friends try when they are backed into a corner.

Eastbourne tenant wins back £100 by challenging deposit deductions

A tenant in Eastbourne has won back £100 by challenging deductions to his deposit. The tenant’s landlord was attempting to make various deductions for replacement items that had been subject to fair wear and tear.

The tenant contacted Brighton SolFed for advice on what he could do in this situation, given that he had already moved out and was unable to gather his own evidence. After some brief discussion about the different ways that deposit theft can be challenged – such as by checking whether your landlord has correctly protected the deposit, and challenging your landlord to produce invoices for items that they allege needed replacing – the tenant opened correspondence with the landlord about the deductions. The landlord immediately agreed to return £100, which the tenant was happy to accept.

No Work Without Pay: Boycott CJ Barbers!

Brighton SolFed has started a public campaign against CJ Barbers, who owe one of our members over two months in unpaid wages. The worker was employed as an "apprentice" for no wages, with the promise of paid work after two months. Unfortunately, this kind of practice is common in the barbering industry in Brighton, so the worker decided to go along with it. After the two months were up, CJ Barbers paid him...£50 a week, for full time work! The worker left two weeks later.

During this so-called “apprenticeship” the worker was given no contract, no opportunity to work towards any qualification, and worked full time hours. This therefore does not meet the legal requirement of an  apprenticeship, which is why we are demanding that CJ Barbers pays our member the full legal minimum wage, holiday pay, and pension contributions for the hours he worked, which total £2821.63.

Far-right "Active for Plymouth" EXPOSED

“Active for Plymouth” is a new far-right group in Plymouth. They act like they’re just a common-sense party run by ordinary people. They are anything but! Their leader is a conspiracy theorist, expelled from his last party for racism. Their secretary has put out hateful campaign material ranting against gypsies. And what's more, there are concerning links to Plymouth's extreme right. We’re putting out the truth of what they’re really about, so that no-one gets taken in by their election campaign this month.

Jason "tinfoil hat" Shopland

Jason Shopland has been trying to get elected for the past few years. Standing for UKIP in 2015, he went on to start "Plymouth Independents" the next year. The party only lasted a few months but still found time to kick out Shopland for racism

UC Off: Dump Universal Credit

Universal credit is a direct attack by the government on us, ordinary working class people.The new benefit system makes it harder to apply and hides a cut on the rates. UC will affect not just unemployed but employed!

Solidarity Federation at the 3rd Liverpool Anarchist Bookfair

For the third year, Liverpool-SolFed will be at Liverpool Anarchist Bookfair. This Saturday, the 13th of April.

We will be having our stall for anarcho-syndicalist literature, information about our campaigns and activity and materials for collective resistance and struggle.

We will also be running a workshop presented by a comrade from Manchester-SolFed.

Pages

About us

The Solidarity Federation is a revolutionary union initiative: a working-class organisation which seeks the abolition of capitalism and the state ...read more

New book out now

Fighting for ourselves - anarcho-syndicalism and the class struggle. A new book by the Solidarity Federation. Click here for more info.

SolFed Workfare Campaign

Donations

If you would like to support us, you can donate to the Solidarity Federation. You can use your your debit/credit card, or a PayPal account if you have one. Donations will be used to support our work, including our free newspaper Catalyst and our workplace organiser training programme.



This site is under construction



Main menu 2

Solidarity Federation - IWA