Members of Solidarity Federation West Yorkshire and Calderdale Locals and Leeds Anarchist Federation joined over 1,000 marchers at the Leeds Anti-Bedroom Tax demonstration called by Hands Off Our Homes - Leeds on 20 April 2013.

Protesters assembled outside Leeds City Art gallery before a short march round the city centre, finishing with a rally and speakers.

SF opposes all government austerity measures as despicable attacks on the living standards of our class. Working class solidarity and direct action like strikes and eviction-prevention are what is needed to beat back the rich scum in power.

Hull SolFed recently held a picket against the Workfare scheme outside of the new Poundland store, in the centre of town. Four SolFed members were joined by three members of the local unemployed peoples group in distributing leaflets and asking shoppers not to use Poundland. The picket managed to both turn customers away and engaged a lot of sympathetic passersby in conversation about the workfare scheme. The stores managers were unpleased with the picket, asking Humberside police to move us a small distance away from the doors (Approx 6 inches, in fact!). One member decided to respond with loud slogans, causing more interest than before.

The continuing struggle against workfare was taken, by Bristol Anarchist Federation, to the door of shameless exploiters at Homebase. Bristol Solidarity Federation responded to the request for support and turned up to spread the clear message - "Workfare is Slavery"

After it was recently revealed that management at the Haringey branch of Homebase had it tapped into a seemingly endless source of free labour. It was clear that a new target of anti-workfare activists was emerging. The Haringey store bosses had been caught bragging about that it was getting 750 hours of free labour every week in their store.

In the morning some of us went to the 1000 Mothers March against the benefit Changes in Tottenham with Haringey Solidarity Group. There was good turn out of 5-600 and a lively local march made its way from Tottenham green up the high street.                                                                                        We peeled off and headed down to Turnpike Lane to picket Poundland along with members of Solent Solfed, (who'd come down for the party later that evening) from 1pm onwards. We moved down to Homebase at about half 2, despite the rain, and the response at both stores was good. We had a lot of people taking leaflets, a few cheers from teenagers passing by and a few stopping for a chat about their experiences on the work programme. We packed up around 4 and headed home/to the café for a well earned cuppa.

North London SolFed and Haringey Solidarity Group picketed Homes for Haringey on Wednesday 10th April. It was our second picket there over the use of workfare by the council housing provider and a charity Groundwork. After sacking one third of their gardening staff two years ago, they are now forcing benefit claimants to do the work for no pay.

The tenth issue of Education Worker, the bulletin of the Education Workers Network of SolFed focuses on victimisation in education, including articles on victimisation of NUT reps, the Halesowen Four and London Met.

Classroom assistants were out on strike on Tuesday 26th at Horizon and Downsview special schools in Hackney, over a regrading issue which would see low paid staff lose out by around £200 a month.
All the permanent classroom assistants were out on strike. Classroom assistants on probation and agency staff went in but held up messages of support at the windows.
The classroom assistants, who do a lot of the frontline work with special needs children, told us how they felt the management didn’t value their work or care about their wellbeing at all, even when they get hurt at work. They said they stayed in the job due to love of working with children, but they felt totally undervalued.

Despite the freezing temperatures and snow showers on Saturday 23rd March, members of Feminist Fightback, North London Solfed, Boycott Workfare and other local groups, residents and anti-workfare protesters picketed Argos in Leytonstone and Poundland in Wembley.

In Leytonstone, for a large demonstration the reception from the public was generally very positive, with residents driving past slowing down and opening windows asking for leaflets. Plenty of people stopped to chat despite the cold.

We picketed Argos as part of the Boycott Workfare week of action and we were originally going to picket Superdrug as well who pulled out a day before the demo; no doubt in part due to pressure from anti-workfare groups and campaigns across the country.