What: Pret a Manger communications blockade

When: Wed 28th November

Since forming PAMSU earlier this year, Andrej and other workplace activists have faced victimisation from management.  For Andrej, this has reached a point where he has been sacked on trumped-up disciplinary charges.  His final hearing will occur on Thursday the 29th of November.

Despite the wet weather, today a member of NLSF joined PAMSU in leafleting some half-a-dozen Pret a Manger shops in central London.  Demanding reinstatement for sacked union activist Andrej, we handed out several hundred leaflets, began conversations with customers, and established contacts with a handful of workers inside the shops.

To celebrate David Bonderman's birthday on November 27th, Liverpool Solidarity Federation and the Ryanair Don't Care campaign are calling for a communications blockade of TPG's London office. Bonderman is a founding partner of TPG. He is also the chairman and director of Ryanair.

He introduced the employment practices at Ryanair which continue to exploit thousands of young people all over Europe wishing a career in aviation as cabin crew, at the same time making millions in lining Bondeman and O'Leary's pockets. Mr Bonderman started his career in the Attorney General's office in the U.S in Civil Rights. In 2009 after Bonderman was contacted by Ryanairdontcare Campaign founder John Foley and a protest took place outside TPG Capital head office in London his wikipedia career history was changed to ''special assistant''.

The Manchester & Salford Anarchist Bookfair takes place on December 1st at the People's History Museum. Members of Manchester SolFed and Liverpool SolFed, as well as comrades from other northern locals, will be there to represent and promote the anarcho-syndicalist tendency. Stop by for a chat if you're planning to attend! Click here for more info on the stalls and talks confirmed so far.

Farm workers in South Africa are currently on strike to demand higher wages and the right to organise in the face of a programme of suppression and intimidation by the predominantly white farm owners and in defiance of the political and Trade Union establishment.

Friday the 23rd of November will see Wal-Mart, which owns UK chain ASDA and which has an entirely non-union workforce, hit with coordinated strikes and protests.  The date of these strikes is not arbitrary.  It's “Black Friday”, the busiest shopping day of the year in the US. 

This article, written by a American-born SolFedder who's worked retail in the past, seeks to explore the strikes: their roots and their implications for the American working class.

Following a successful picket on Monday, the Pret a Manger Staff Union received has received a write-up from Morning Star daily paper.  Continuing to build on the success and energy of that picket, PAMSU has created a short YouTube video which explains the reasons behind the action, interviews supporters of the union, and shows members and supporters marching into St. Pancras Station and confronting management about their union busting and victimization of workplace activists.

PAMSU activists were today joined by members of the North and South London locals of the Solidarity Federation and some 25 other supporters in a vocal and mobile picket of Pret a Manger shops in central London.  Our message to Pret was no doubt loud and clear: end victimization of all union members and full reinstatement for PAMSU founder Andrej.

If today's numbers and energy are any indication, the Pret a Manger Staff Union is on the march.  Keep watch on this space to find out about upcoming actions and how you, as a Pret worker or union supporter, can get involved in the campaign.

Bristol Solidarity Federation were joined by Bristol Anarchist Federation and Bristol IWW to protest against Poundland's continuing participation in the Workfare Programme.

A clear message was relayed to the store management. "We will be back again and again until you formally withdraw from the scheme". When quizzed about the local use of Workfare, the store replied that anyone taken on under the scheme was treated exactly the same as anyone else employed by Poundland. So, we asked, do they get paid the minimum wage? "No they don't, they only get their benefits" Was all they could respond. Free labour for the shops, unemployment figures manipulated by the government and huge profits for the workfare placement providers like A4E.

A SolFed member who has worked as an electrician since the late 1970s shares his experience of the electric supply industry, privatisation and trade unions.

I started an apprenticeship at 16 from school in the local electric company. It was then a nationalised industry and everyone was in one of the recognised (by the company) trade unions (a closed shop). There were many different departments and staff could move between them as workload dictated. As an apprentice I spent time in each department to give me experience of each and to hopefully decide in which one I would ultimately stay.