Poundland are having people work for their dole money under the workfare scheme. Claimants have to work for free or lose their benefits. This undermines paid jobs, so it's bad for unemployed workers and employed workers both. Come and picket them with the Brighton Benefits Campaign on Saturday.
If you're having trouble with the boss or landlord, or just want to find out more about the Solidarity Federation, we're holding a drop-in session this Sunday morning at 10am at the Cowley Club, 12 London Rd, Brighton. Drop in for a coffee and a chat. We are a revolutionary union initiative - we're not legal experts but we can help you find out your rights and suggest direct action tactics to get what you deserve.
If you're having trouble with the boss or landlord, or just want to find out more about the Solidarity Federation, we're holding a drop-in session this Sunday morning at 10am at the Cowley Club, 12 London Rd, Brighton. Drop in for a coffee and a chat. We are a revolutionary union initiative - we're not legal experts but we can help you find out your rights and suggest direct action tactics to get what you deserve.
Bristol Solidarity Federation picketed a branch of giant employment agency and arch strike-breakers Adecco last week in solidarity with striking workers at the Asea Boveri Brown (ABB) factory in Cordoba, Spain. The strike was called in protest at ABB plans to make workers employed at the factory by subcontractors EULEN redundant and replace them with EUROCEN non-union labour with no experience or qualifications. EUROCEN is the logistics division of the ADECCO Group of companies. The dispute was fuelled by serious breaches of health and safety in the factory and by management's refusal to honour collective agreements. Adecco has been providing scab labour to try and break the strike.
We have just published the first issue of a new newsletter focussed on direct action solidarity: tackling the little gripes and grievances from workplace bullying to wage theft to stolen deposits. Since mid-2011 the Brighton Local of the Solidarity Federation has been running a stall in locations around the city and more recently in Bognor.
Rather than the usual political stall about the big issues of government cuts and policy decisions we decided to use it to talk directly to people about their issues at work, with their landlords or at the Jobcentre. The aim has been to encourage the idea that these problems we face aren’t just something we are having difficulty with as individuals, but rather that they are part of a whole range of wider issues faced by the working class (those who rely on wages and/or benefits to make a living).
ADECCO is the largest employment agency in the world. Beside profiting on precarity and casualisation, ADECCO and other employment agencies are fast becoming the go-to source for scabs and strikebreakers. Case in point: At the Asea Brown Boveri factory in Cordoba, Spain workers have struck over pay and conditions.
Topping off a successful week that included an all day picket of the union-busting employment agency ADECCO, yesterday the North London local of the Solidarity Federation held our 2012 annual general meeting. Attended by about two-thirds of our membership, the meeting included a mix of long-term members (including one who was in Direct Action Movement before it became the Solidarity Federation) and others who've only joined in the past few months.
Red and black flags waved as a dozen people from the Anarchist Federation, Industrial Workers of the World, the Scottish Socialist Party, the Solidarity Federation and other individuals took part in a picket of the Glasgow premises of Adecco for one hour between 4 and 5pm on Friday 20th January.
On 31 January, workers in HM Revenue & Customs are taking strike action over the threat of privatisation. Their employer is bringing in private contractors Sitel and Teleperformance to hire temporary staff at vastly reduced rates of pay to take calls.
