post strikes suspended: this deal is no deal! resume action!

by Joe Thorne

CWU Letter to Branches including text of final agreement with Royal Mail (large PDF)

At the top of the CWU-Royal Mail agreement is a header. “Final Draft – 5 November 2009 —- 1.10AM”.  This innocuous line is emblematic of the CWU negotiating team’s strategy: it indicates that the text was agreed more than 7 hours after the strikes were called off.  What sort of negotiation strategy is this – to abandon the bargaining power represented in industrial action, on the promise of a deal yet to be finalised?

let’s form postcode gangs!

By Joe Thorne

No, not the postcode gangs that generate periodic moral panics in the mainstream media.  We need a new sort of postcode gang: made up of workers and activists who visit the picket lines set up by postal workers as part of their ongoing strikes against cuts in Royal Mail.  The next strikes are on Friday 6th and Monday 9th November. Why not take half an hour to go down your local picket line (there is a delivery office for each postcode), find a little out about the dispute and show some solidarity?

To find out where to go, check out the Next Strikes page on www.supporttheposties.net

workers revolt against vygotsky – an account of unofficial action at tower hamlets college

The following piece was written by one of the Tower Hamlets College (THC) ESOL teachers who were on strike for four weeks until recently.  For context, it would be best to read our previous coverage – Lessons of the Tower Hamlets ESOL Strike – first.  The article is not current, though it has not previously been published.  It was begun at the end of the summer term 2009, has had a few updates since, and describes unofficial action taken at a training day, which included materials by educational theorist Lev Vygotsky*(whose work it is in no way necessary to be aware of in order to read the following).  The article shows the power of workers to make themselves unmanageable, and some real dynamics of taking assertive action at work in 2009.

By ‘Rachel’

Some local supporters witnessed an open air meeting of our union branch on Friday 3rd July where we had to take the decision of what to do on the Monday of the last week of work. Monday was not a strike day because it was planned as something more important. Teaching finished on Friday and the following week has always been a week of paid Continuing Professional Development – ‘CPD’ where there is a variety of sessions on offer and staff can choose what they’d like to do from a varied list of options including more practical things like learning new software programs or exploring new teaching theories.

tower hamlets college: strike solid!

by Joe Thorne

On Wednesday, at the end of the third week of the strike, a mass meeting of Tower Hamlets College UCU members voted overwhelmingly to continue the strike: 156 for continuing action, 14 abstentions, no votes against.

The struggle suffered a setback on Monday when it emerged that the ballot for strike action of UNISON members (i.e. of admin workers at the College) failed 13 to 12.  Apparently, however, a mass meeting of UNISON members last week voted 60 strong for strike action, with 3 abstentions.  Some UNISON members did not receive a ballot paper (often the case in strikes – members not receiving ballots need to be chased up, and replacements must be arranged).  But, in part, the result is also a reflection of an the atomising procedure that is the secret ballot: which is established in law specifically because it makes it harder to organise collective action.

However, the strike remains strong.  Picket lines are always welcoming, receptive, and worth a visit.  (Locations and other ideas for how you can help on our previous report.)  The strike fund stands at an impressive £25,000, though with 250 striker in their fourth week without work to support, it does need to be augmented.  The strike has a number of positive features which the whole movement can learn from:

tower hamlets college: the struggle continues!

Rally this Saturday: 2pm – 4pm Altab Ali Park, near Aldgate East Station, just south of Brick Lane.

Teachers at Tower Hamlets college are now in their third week of indefinite strike action against cuts to jobs and courses.  Indefinite strike action (rare in the UK), the level of commitment and creativity shown by the strikers, and the wider social objectives of the struggle make it a crucial battle for us to support.

Visitors are welcome at picket lines outside the college’s three sites, from 7.30am each morning (though showing up at any time will be appreciated, and a list of other ways to help appears at the bottom):

• Poplar E14 0AF
• Arbour Square E1 0PT
• Bethnal Green E2 6AB

urgent: vestas eviction due tomorrow, solidarity needed, free transport from london

An eviction of Vestas is planned for mid-day tomorrow (Friday), if you can drop stuff and come then meet at Waterloo station tonight at 22.00pm. Transport will be fully paid for. If the 600 jobs and Britain ’s only onshore wind turbine factory are to be saved then the factory needs to be occupied and defended. Experience at Visteon, the SOAS occupation and Lewisham Bridge has shown that solidarity is needed for successful occupations, and that victory is possible. With more people defending the factory it will be much more difficult for the bailiffs to evict the occupiers, or for the Vestas bosses to remove the blades and equipment. Eviction is pending, the workers inside are under huge pressure, if you can show support then please do…

victory at lewisham bridge

A message from the occupiers.  For our previous coverage see here and here.

On Thursday 30th July Ben Bradshaw´s (secretary of State at the Department of Culture Media and Sport) secretary called Hands Off Lewisham Bridge with “a very important message”; that the English Heritage Grade II listing awarded to Lewisham Bridge Primary School remains in place. This is a great victory for the campaign as it means that Lewisham Council must return the children and staff to the school in September as Chris Threlfall promised. We expect the return to school should not subject to any delay that will cause staff and parents further disruption. For example we understand that the school kitchen needs to be refurbished as parts of it were dismantled for the move to the Mornington Centre. So we expect any necessary works to start as soon as possible (cleaning, refurbishment of the kitchen and health and safety checks).

the truth about the postal strikes

A message distributed to supporters of the ongoing postal strikes.

There has been a lot of misinformation put about by management about the current strikes. They say it is about local issues that other areas have already signed off on – flexibility, or georoutes – so you don’t need to strike, its just London being bolshy.

They claim that the union is lying, that they are talking to the union and nobody will be forced to go part time. And of course they are laying it on thick with the blackmail that if we strike it will hurt the business, customers will leave and our jobs could suffer. All of this is just spin. Here’s the facts:

vestas occupied!

Workers at the Vestas wind turbine blade plant on the Isle of Wight have occupied their factory in Newport in an attempt to prevent its closure, which was scheduled for the end of this month. Their brave fight in is an example of what workers can do when they get together and take militant action to save jobs and sustainable industries.

We call upon everyone around the country to send whatever support they can to the workers at Vestas. We all have an interest in a sustainable future, and we all have a responsibility to show solidarity to workers in struggle.

We have already reported on the significance of this struggle, both in terms of its concrete objectives, and in terms of how it came about.  The occupation has occured against a background of non-unionised workers, and activists from Workers’ Climate Action appear to have made a significant contribution to the organisation so far, including introducing the idea of an occupation.

More news will follow when we have it.  A list of resources, events, and things you can to do help follows.

solidarity with cleaners in struggle: public meeting – 4th august

A public meeting has been called by the Labour Representation Commitee on Tuesday 4th August to discuss solidarity with cleaners in struggle. This once agan raises the question of why senior figures in the Unite United Left have not so far been prepared to offer their solidarity to union members in struggle.  Download  pdf leaflet here.

Tuesday 4th August, 6:30pm
Somerstown Community Centre, 150 Ossulston Street, London, NW1 1EE, (5 minutes from Euston Station)

In recent years brave union organising efforts have been mounted by migrant workers to demand basic rights and a living wage. A number of cleaning companies have responded by sacking union members and activists; they have colluded with the Border Agency in immigration raids to break organised workers. This is an urgent issue for the whole labour movement – come and discuss what should be done.

Spanish translation follows.

the greek uprising, six months on

By Nikos Sotirakopoulos

Saturday night, 6th of December 2008, in the Exarhia area of Athens: a countercultural and libertarian stronghold. A group of young people have a verbal altercation with two members of the police special forces. The policemen leave the scene only to return after several minutes. Suddenly, one of the officers, Epameinondas Korkoneas, removes his gun and fires into the group. The bullet strikes and fatally wounds 15 year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos, who falls to the ground dead.  It was the incident that triggered more than 20 days of rioting and unrest that would shock the country. They were “the days and nights of Alexis” as the participants have called them, in memory of the murdered boy.

soas occupied! free the cleaners!

SOAS (a college of the University of London) has been occupied by student and supporters over the immigration raid which we reported recently.  SOAS management appear to have been involved in the raid, but in any case it is clear that it represents an attack on workers as a response to their decision to organise for a living wage.  The ‘two tier workforce’ is not a necesary fact, it is created and enforced through state violence.

45-50 Immigration police entered through the fire doors and the main entrance to the room and surrounded the cleaning staff; the police officers were in riot gear. They cleaners were locked in the room and then led one by one into another room, where their immigration status was checked during which they had no representation or even a translator (many staff are native Spanish speakers). A lot of the cleaners were in emotional distress. A trade union representative was refused access to the staff.  The raid was instigated by the cleaning contractor ISS who requested the police action. Two members of SOAS Management were present during the raid liasing with the police, suggesting that they had prior knowledge of the raid.9 Cleaners, five of whom are UNISON members were taken into detention. One detained cleaner was six months pregnant, she is thought to have collapsed during the events.

We cannot let this stand.

A press release from the occupation follows.  Occupiers are asking for solidarity:

1. Support at a rally at 4.30pm today on SOAS steps (off Russell Square).  Join and strengthen the occupation.

2. Messages of support to freesoascleaners@gmail.com, messages of protest to Paul Webley, SOAS Principal at pw2@soas.ac.uk – particularly appreciated from trade unionists.

3.  Occupiers blog here.  Facebook group here.

students and staff fight to save esol teaching in tower hamlets

By Alice Robson

Friday 12 June saw hundreds of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) students, staff and supporters march in East London in protest at major cuts to ESOL announced at Tower Hamlets College.

nuclear waste transport protests in germany: ‘we shall be in the way’

by Ella Seebacher

‘Castor kommt. Du auch?’ (Castor is coming. You too?) has been the uniting chant since April 1995, when the first cross country transport of radioactive waste from France has brought the rural farming village Gorleben in the region of Wendland in Lower Saxony in the north-east of Germany to controversial fame. It triggered an overwhelming movement of protest, such as Germany has not seen since the student revolution around Rudi Dutschke in the 1960s. Typically, the corporate newspapers had a field day with pointing out the millions of Deutschmarks the immense police operation to stop the ‘Atomchaoten’ (nuclear rioters) would cost the taxpayer and were quick to blame ‘den schwarzen Block’, the anarchists. But no, far from it, the anti-nuclear protesters taking part were coming from all ways of life: the guy who runs a gardening service, the carpenter, the supermarket cashier, farmers, grandmothers, small town politicians sitting in the constituency of Lüchow-Dannenberg, teachers and pupils. Doctors and punks and indeed, a complete army of vicars from every village and small town around expressed their opposition loudly.