Over last year Newcastle SolFed members have been shifting thousands of the SolFeds national paper, Catalyst at metros, bus and train stations, as people head to or from work. Our regular street presence has been well received by passing commuters, with regulars stopping to chat. Newcastle will continue to build on their their high profile street pitches for 2013.
Liverpool SolFed have agreed to publish the following solidarity appeal from Sociedad Obrera Apoyo Mutuo de Sevilla (Mutual Aid Workers Society of Seville). At a recent local meeting, we agreed to make a solidarity donation to the organisation.
As part of the ongoing national campaign against Workfare, Poundland on Abington Street is bracing itself for the 3rd picket in as many weeks this weekend. Please get involved and help us intensify the pressure. If you can't make the pickets there are other ways you can get involved. Contact us via the website.
We've let them know that we aren't giving up until they withdraw from the Governments forced labour scheme, and start paying ALL the workers. It seems that the staff at Pondland in Northampton are confused as to why unpaid workers are at Poundland. Its because your managers signed up for it.
Coming not long after an SF member made a visit to the Berlin section of the FAU (Freie Arbeiterinnen- und Arbeiter-Union – Free Workers' Union) in July, the Thames Valley Solidarity Federation hosted a member of FAU Freiburg for a talk and presentation on the struggle to organise workers at the Cinema Babylon in Oxford. This was a struggle that was to prove an important turning point for the FAU, and one which briefly saw them banned from being able to call themselves a union. Having been a member of FAU Berlin at the time, our German comrade was very closely involved in the struggle and wanted to share with us the difficulties, the victories and the lessons that had been learnt.
Our members in Hastings are launching a new Local. Tuesday, 9 October 2012 at 19:00, venue tbc. There is a Facebook event here.
If you're interesting in joining the Solidarity Federation, or you're just curious what we're about, please come along.
The Solidarity Federation ('SolFed') is a revolutionary union initiative: a working class organisation which seeks the abolition of capitalism and the state. If you’re a worker (employed, unemployed, disabled, retired...) and think that this life doesn’t give you everything you deserve and that your work does not let you develop yourself, if you want a world without capitalism and hierarchy, then there are good reasons to join the Solidarity Federation.
The Liberal Democrat conference is being held in Brighton on Saturday 22nd September 2012 – there will be a large demonstration organised by Brighton Stop the Cuts Coalition and Brighton Trades Council.
To coincide with this, Brighton Solidarity Federation, Brighton Benefits Campaign and Brighton Uncut are calling for a day of action in Brighton against workfare – instead of ineffectually “having our say” and being ignored by the junior coalition partner, we should physically shut down a high profile coalition policy.
On Saturday 8th September, South London Solidarity Federation
continued its campaign against Workfare, a collection of government
"Back to Work" schemes that result in unemployed people being
forced to work unpaid, undermining the conditions of all workers.
After our success in forcing Holland and Barrett to withdraw from the scheme, we decided on Poundland as our next target.
We held a picket at Poundland's shop in Brixton, We held our banners across the front of the shop, talked to its workers about our opposition to the Workfare programme, handed out leaflets, and dissuaded customers from shopping there.
Last week, at SF's national delegate council two new locals were recognised, we are pleased to announce we now have locals in Croydon and Newcastle. Both locals provided encouraging reports and were founded by members of existing locals, South London and West Yorkshire respectively.
We hope to add more locals in the months and years ahead and have members across the country working on starting new locals, notably across the south coast in Portsmouth, Southampton, Bournemouth, and Hastings.
Our Scottish members based in Edinburgh and Glasgow will hopefully be launching locals at some point in the future and back down south we have members in Cambridge looking to start a local.