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The 3rd National Day of Protest Against Benefit Cuts

As part of the the 3rd National Day of Protest against Benefit Cuts West Yorkshire Solidarity Federation organized a picket of the ATOS Origin regional headquarters (who carry out medicals for the DWP) followed by a picket of A4e and Best who get paid for getting people into low paid employment.

About 20 people turned up including WYSF, AF, SWP and a guy who’d come from Manchester despite having walking difficulties. 

Outside ATOS there was a noisy presence and a “photo opportunity”, where a professional photographer took various photo’s, don’t know where these ended up.

Following this we headed off to A4e/Best.  Along the way we lost the SWP who disappeared and never turned up at A4e/Best.

As propostas das prisões são claras: retirar essas pessoas das ruas

South London Solidarity Federation interview following events on March 26, in Central London translated into Portuguese by Agência de Notícias Anarquistas, a Brazilian-based activist news portal.

 

[As autoridades detiveram mais de 200 pessoas na seqüência dos protestos do "26M" (26 de março) em Londres contra as medidas de austeridade apresentadas pelo governo. A manifestação contou com a presença de mais de 500 mil pessoas, num desfile pelas ruas da capital que culminou com um comício em Hyde Park. Peter Wright, da organização South London Solidarity Federation, participou da manifestação e nos fala a seguir sobre a situação dos detidos.]

When it comes to the Crunch - Unpaid overtime in the Games Industry

Auto, a Solidarity Federation member and games industry worker writes about the practice of 'Crunch Time' - the long hours of unpaid overtime in the games industry and the reasons behind it.

 

Imagine if you had to give your company over fifteen hours of extra unpaid work a week. Imagine if you hadn’t been able to cook yourself a proper meal in over two months. Imagine if you came home late at night and left for work early in the morning, that’s if you even leave work at all. Welcome to the modern games industry!

Office Angels mistreating workers

Members of Bristol Solidarity Federation have been fighting about the casualisation of work for many years. We have therefore decided to support the campaign against Office Angels. We demand that the ex-employee at the centre of this campaign is payed in full for the work he did, we also go beyond that initial demand and wish to see a culture of solidarity so that agencies realise that they can't mistreat workers and get-away with it.

Temporary workers face unacceptable conditions every day. They work without sick pay or maternity leave, are ...vulnerable to unfair and instant dismissals and have no union support. Rising unemployment and a bleak economic climate will force even more of us to accept these precarious conditions - yet another example of working class people being exploited by an economic system that only benefits the rich.

La ‘Gran Sociedad’ del Reino Unido se levanta contra los recortes sociales

El pasado 26 de marzo la gente se lanzó a las calles en el Reino Unido para protestar y resistir los recortes sociales y los ataques a la clase trabajadora. Las cifras oficiales ya han admitido que sólo en Londres hubo unas 500.000 personas. Miles de organizaciones de todo tipo y color se organizaron en torno a una variedad de actividades que contó desde la marcha kilométrica de Blackfriars Bridge a Hyde Park, hasta la ocupación y ataques a empresas símbolo de la crisis económica y las injusticias en el sistema tributario, sin faltar la respuesta a las cargas policiales y los discursos soporíferos de los líderes laboristas.

National day of action against benefits cuts in Brighton

Members of Brighton SolFed supported a 20-30 strong protest and picket at ATOS healthcare in Brighton today as part of a national day of action against benefits cuts. The protest was organised by the Brighton Benefits Campaign (BBC), a group of claimants and workers fighting the cuts to welfare provision. ATOS is a private company paid millions of pounds to stop sick and disabled peoples benefits by declaring them 'fit to work' via a computer programme, which has given absurd diagnoses such as describing hand amputations as 'mild' and thus no barrier to work.

National day of action against benefit cuts in Liverpool

Today, as part of a national day of protest against benefit cuts, Liverpool Solidarity Federation picketed the offices of ATOS origin in the city centre. We were supported in our action by members of UK Uncut Liverpool.

We were there to raise awareness of the role being played by ATOS in the government's war against disabled people.

The company is being paid £300 million by the government to carry out ‘work capability assessments’. The assessments are supposedly aimed at finding out if people receiving sickness benefits are fit to work. The real purpose is to strip benefits from as many people as possible and save the government money.

Have you been mistreated by Office Angels?

Solidarity Federation are organising a campaign against this agency after an ex-employee asked for our assistance. Dan worked for Office Angels for three days in December of last year. He was assured by the company that the lack of a time-sheet would 'not be a problem'. However, Office Angels are refusing to pay him the wages he is owed - falsely claiming he only worked for one day, despite them having called him at work on his third day. After completely ripping him off, they had the nerve to harass him for seeking advice on an internet discussion forum.

Bristol Anarchist Bookfair

The Bristol Local will be at this years Bookfair. Were we will be distributing material on Anarcho-syndicalism and hoping to meet other people interested building work-placed opposition to the state and capital.

During the last year the Bristol members of Solidarity Federation have been actively fighting against the governments cuts, have run work-place organising workshops and co-operating with other local groups committed to class struggle anarchism in the South West.

Occupying the BBC

Today, members of Liverpool Solidarity Federation joined members of Liverpool Uncut who had organised an occupation of BBC Radio Merseyside.

The occupation took place at 2.30pm, when over a dozen people entered the building and announced that they were staging a sit-in. The protesters announced that they were protesting against "the appalling coverage" of UK Uncut actions in London on March 26th and would show "how civilised the UK Uncut occupations are by having a lovely tea party."

Whilst the occupiers sat down to eat cakes and drink tea and coffee, a contingent of 8 police officers arrived. They could do little more than stand around, awkwardly. When asking who was in charge, replies of "we all are" and "we operate on consensus" were met with blank looks.