Crisis in the air – Where are the workers’ voices?

Angry Workers of the World

Will they listen? And who is Britain?

British Airways announced that it would be sacking it’s entire workforce of 42,000 people and re-hiring three quarters of them on worse pay and contracts – up to a 12,000 would be made permanently redundant, and for those that get the new contracts, some of the longest serving cabin crew would see their pay slashed by up to 75%! The deadline for a union agreement has passed, leaving BA employees in limbo as to their employment status and what happens next. A good write up has been done about the current situation here [1], so we won’t repeat it in this article. Instead we will focus on: the general tendencies within airline/airport work; the role of the unions and their strategy going forward in this particular dispute; and what’s happening on the ground at Heathrow from a workers’ perspective.

As the pressure to…

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“Tracksuits, Traumas and Class Traitors”

Anarchy in the Sticks!

Long awaited book now out by our good friend DP Hunter. Sadly you won’t be able to pick them in Dorchester at the bookfair in August but you will be able to order them online.

Peregrin

“Tracksuits, Traumas and Class Traitors” available now from the Class Work Project

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“Tracksuits, Traumas and Class Traitors” is about the ways in which economically and socially marginalised people practice abolition on a daily basis. It’s about the fight for dignity in the face of unrelenting contempt. It uses some of the authors own experience living in poverty throughout his first 25 years, as he goes in and out of prison, the care system and homelessness, and how he and his fellow travellers navigate trauma and each other.. It’s about the violence of white supremacist patriarchal capitalism, and the ways in which this violence hurts our bodies and minds. It’s about love, care and solidarity…

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Another win for Dorset Wobs!

Recently we successfully managed a disciplinary and grievance case on behalf of a Fellow Worker charged with misconduct. The employer seemed hell-bent on dismissing our member with no regard for procedure or evidence. The casework was skillfully handled by one of our newest trained reps. Our Fellow Worker wrote:

“Throughout what for me was a very stressful Time my Union worker with their professionalism and calm approach has taken the anxiety out of the process.

By going through the company’s policies and using them against the company won the day for me as they couldn’t argue with a firm precise response. Attention to detail is the key and I was looked after with such”

Want to help the work along? – Join the Union – Get involved!

Photo gallery: #RiseUp4Revolution days of action in Wales and England

Kurdistan Solidarity Network

The 18 and 19th July was an international day of solidarity with the revolution in Rojava. The international statement calling for action read:

We, as Women Defend Rojava, the Internationalist Commune, Make Rojava Green Again, and RiseUp4Rojava, are, therefore, calling for global action days on the 18^th and 19^th July against colonialism, fascism, patriarchy and femicides, ecological destruction, and all forms of oppression. We will demonstrate, occupy, blockade, protest in creative forms all around the world, and show our common antifascist struggle in one front, letting the ones who prevent us from living in dignity and freedom know what we think of them. Therefore, we are calling upon everyone to join these actions days and to share them with us!

We RISE UP 4 THE REVOLUTION!

The revolution in the Middle East, and all around the world will win – fascism will be crushed.

Video…

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A response to the Organizing.Work review of ‘Class Power on Zero-Hours’

Angry Workers of the World

Our book ‘Class Power on Zero-Hours’ has been beaten to a pulp by Marianne Garneau, a comrade from Organizing.Work, you can check out the review here:

Better luck next time

There are a few reasons why we’re responding to this review at length. There is a basic human factor, we aren’t robots! We think the review is pretty unfair. We think we get set up as a straw man by omitting facts and taking things out of context, just to be lectured and bashed around the head with an ‘organizing for dummies’ manual. If you have worked hard in a place for years, that can hurt, but that in itself wouldn’t really need a longer response. 

We think we’re being used as a straw man in a wider debate within the ‘left labor’ and IWW milieu about the relationship between ‘organizing’ and political organisation. We think that this is…

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KSN Jin: Solidarity with the women of Bakur

Kurdistan Solidarity Network

Solidarity statement from the women’s movement in Wales, Ireland, Scotland and England to the women’s movement of Bakur, northern Kurdistan.

We will not bow before their fascist mentality, we will strengthen our struggle and assure the release of our activists – Kongra Star

Once again the world’s media stood silent after yet another attack by the fascist Turkish state and its ruling AKP party on the free women of this world. In the early hours of yesterday morning, the 15th July 2020, armed police raided a number of houses in Amed in the Kurdistan region of Turkey (Bakur) arresting several women journalists and activists. Amongst those arrested was Ayse Gokhan,a friend of Kurdistan Solidarity Network Wales, Ireland, Scoland and England. Many of you may remember hearing Ayse’s voice in the second seminar of our ‘Lessons from the Rojava Revolution’ education series.  Just this weekend, she participated as part of a…

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Stop the retaliatory abuse against Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson now!

Cautiously pessimistic

An appeal in support of US prison organiser Kevin “Rashid” Johnson:

Dear Comrades, Friends and Supporters,

I am writing this to inform you of recent events that have transpired involving Kevin “Rashid” Johnson. As many of you already know, Rashid was made a target of abusive and retaliatory practices back in May for publicizing the dangerous, inhumane and unsanitary conditions that prisoners were faced with amid a global health crisis at Pendleton Correctional Facility, where he is currently being detained. These conditions included but were not limited to inadequate food and nutrition, lack of any PPE, lack of cleaning supplies to disinfect their cells in attempts to control the spread of the virus, and COVID-19 positive prisoners being housed among those who were not infected etc.

After leading a hunger strike with the participation of close to 200 prisoners during its height and penning several articles in response to…

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J.K. Rowling and the Changing Room of Nonsense

Anarchasteminist

Content warning: The following discusses transphobia, child abuse, rape and sexual assault. No explicit descriptions will be given of abuse or sexual violence.

Millionaire and mediocre fantasy author turned mediocre detective fiction author turned mediocre film producer J.K. Rowling has been a topic of conversation in trans communities on social media lately. In particular a blog post in which she lays out her “concerns” regarding trans people’s access to public services and healthcare. Considerable effort has gone into debunking this article point by point already and I won’t be replicating this work here, instead I wanted to focus on one particular piece of evidence Rowling uses and what it says about transphobia.

In her long and rambling blog piece, Rowling cites statistics suggesting that the majority of sexual assaults and harassment incidents in public changing rooms occur in unisex facilities. The suggestion being that reform of the Gender Recognition Act…

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Corona virus pandemic comment number four, from the south of England. By Mal Content.

Wessex Solidarity

C.W. Profanity, cannibalism.

One nasty side-effect of all this is a widespread acceptance that there is some virtue in doing as you’re told, or that a government can rule by decree, in fact you cannot make statute law by announcing things on twitter. Their intent has been to condition the population into following arbitrary “rules”, raking over the details of what is permitted rather than thinking for themselves, with predictably catastrophic results.

Whatever you decide to do you should have a bloody good reason for doing it.

Why are people calling for “clarity” from the fucking government? Can they not make their own minds up? I find it hard to credit that anyone listens to the incoherent blitherings of Boris de Pfeffle fucking Johnson, let alone discusses them. Remember when he said he wanted the pubs to stay open but he didn’t want anyone to go there?

Did you…

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A message from the collective.

Anarchy in the Sticks!

Dear Comrades,

We have just received the following message from the venue:

“Unfortunately it looks like there are no plans to re-open the Corn Exchange anytime soon, especially early August.

We are looking at bringing forward our repairs to the main roof so rescheduling to next year will seem to be your best option at present.”

The Corn Exchange staff are our friends and their well-being is important to us as is that of our attendees, they also have to labour under a dead weight of politicians and bureaucrats, which doesn’t help.

So with a heavy heart we are calling off Anarchy in the Sticks 2020. Up to last week we were still taking bookings, believing we could run it safely. We were especially excited about hosting Ellen Clifford of DPAC to talk about her new book ‘The War on Disabled People: capitalism, welfare and the making of a human…

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