End Workfare - Street Party in Bristol - 13th December 2014

Join the anti-workfare Street Party in Bristol this Saturday, 13th December 2014.

Meeting at the Castle Park bandstand at 2pm sharp before moving off to visit some firms who profit from using unpaid workfare labour. Please try and make this and pass it on to your mates.

Bristol Solidarity Federation will be there, so look out for our banner! Our friends and comrades in Bristol Anarchist Federation and Bristol IWW are also helping mobilise for the event.

There is a facebook page for the event: "As we approach solstice we are told that we are in a season of giving – yet some companies still aren’t giving workers a wage. As we approach solstice we are told that we are in a season of giving - yet some companies still aren't giving workers a wage!

Solidarity with the John Lewis Cleaners – For a Living Wage for All Workers

As part of an ongoing campaign, cleaners at a South London John Lewis have entered into a pay dispute with their employer. Although John Lewis purports to run on a socially responsible cooperative business model, the men and women who clean its shops are locked out of this “partnership”. Instead, they are hired through subcontractors who pay, at best, slightly above the national minimum wage.

Coming on the back of other successful living wage for cleaners campaigns, the John Lewis cleaners are demanding an immediate increase.

Anti workfare protest in Reading against Costa Coffee and support for London IWW cleaners against John Lewis

At 12pm on Sunday 15th July, SolFed members dragged themselves out of bed to join forces with local AFed and IWW activists to extend the anti-workfare campaign to the Costa coffee chain. A cup of coffee from the independent coffee shop next door helped us get ready for the picket. We managed to hand out around 150 leaflets, and, as before, we felt that people were generally very sympathetic to our action (apart perhaps a traditional Catholic, (French) National Front voter).

Solidarity with the London John Lewis Cleaners Strike

The North London Solidarity Federation would like to extend our deepest solidarity to the John Lewis cleaners engaged in a struggle to secure the London Living Wage.  By exposing John Lewis' overt failure to live up to its proclaimed co-operative model, the cleaners have shown that company schemes are not the way to secure a decent wage.  Instead, only collective struggle can force bosses to provide us with decent working conditions and respect on the job.

Members of North London SolFed will make every effort to turn out to support the cleaners at their upcoming strike and will encourage all our friends and contacts to do the same.

London Living Wage for All Cleaners!  No Cuts to Hours!  No Speed Up!

Reading Pizza Hut targetted by SolFed and the IWW in anti-workfare campaign

In perhaps the greatest team-up since The Avengers (Emma Peel and John Steed, not that comic book superhero rubbish) members of SolFed and the IWW organised a protest and leafleting of Pizza Hut in Oxford Road, Reading, tonight at 5-30, fighting against thunder, lightning and torrential rain to make the case against workfare. Joined by members of TUC unions they leafleted the local community and found many sympathetic voices from people who had themselves been threatened with the joys of workfare. The Pizza Hut staff were happy to come and talk to us and understood why we were there and we encouraged them to send a message to their regional office to abandon the workfare scheme. They obliged by faxing one of our leaflets through to their regional officer.

Fighting Workfare At Royal Mail

Most people will have heard about the CWU leadership endorsing the Royal Mail's participation in the workfare scheme, whilst at the same time ignoring rank and file members views on forced labour and attacks on workers rights.

Concerned posties from SOLFED, IWW, Boycott Workfare, and CWU send you the following call out, and request for solidarity.

See you on the picket!

Solent Solfed 

NO TO WORKFARE AT ROYAL MAIL- APRIL 2ND 11am

Open Letter to all members of the Communication Workers Union, (CWU)

Picketing Pizza Hut

Members of Brighton SF turned out to support a picket of Pizza Hut organised by the IWW union last Saturday. Pickets braved snow and freezing temperatures to answer the call for solidarity from Pizza Hut workers in Sheffield, who are organising with the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World). Below is the text from the IWW Pizza Hut workers' union explaining the current dispute, which has been brewing for a year. Brighton Solidarity Federation extend our solidarity to the Pizza Hut workers' organising efforts and the IWW.

 

Solidarity Picket Glasgow With IWW Pizza Hut Workers Report

On Saturday 4th February for an hour over lunchtime members of Clydeside Industrial Workers Of The World, Glasgow Anarchist Federation and Solidarity Federation gave out 500 leaflets explaining the demands of the IWW Pizza Hut Workers Union in Sheffield. We asked members of the public to refuse to eat at the prime site Argyle Street Pizza Hut until management negotiates with the collective demands of organised workers in Sheffield.

London Supports Sheffield Pizza Hut Workers

Today saw members of North and South London SolFed join a picket in solidarity with Sheffield Pizza Hut workers. Organised by the IWW and targeting the busy Pizza Hut at the Strand, twenty picketers gave out leaflets to prospective customers and members of the public. The workers in Sheffield, who've organised with the Industrial Workers of the World, have been in a year-long dispute with the company over wage rates and holiday pay.

Despite the cold weather, the picketers were in high spirits and gave out hundreds of leaflets over the course of the afternoon. The picket was part of a national day of action against the pizza chain, with shops all around the country being picketed at the same time.

Guildhall cleaners protest

 Guildhall cleaners and their supporters, including SF members, held a 5.30am protest yesterday after a union rep was suspended. Sodexho, a company with interests in private prisons and detention centres, took over the cleaning contract on Monday. On Wednesday they suspended the union rep. At one point management even tried to lock him in a room.

The protest was loud and defiant and management called the police three times to try and stop us from using drums and megaphones.  Passers by were sympathetic with one person commenting that the cleaners in her building had also had problems with being paid late.  She took leaflets to give them.