Those of you thinking of coming to Ed Afed’s Resistance Film Festival tomorrow / Saturday should take note that the start time has moved to 12:30.
So now you don’t have to feel guilty about skipping a bit because you don’t like to go to the pub before lunch 
Edinburgh AFed are curating a one-day, free, film festival on Saturday 20th March at the Banshee Labyrinth on Niddrie Street (formerly Nicholl Edwards). Celebrating “cultures of resistance” across the world, the diverse films share the theme of collective action against political or economic injustice.
A conscious shift away from the documentary-heavy format of most activist film festivals sees the screening of new and old class-conscious classics.
They include John Sayles’ Matewan, featuring the screen debut of indie singer Will Oldham as a teenage preacher in a mining town standing together in the teeth of state and capitalist siege.
And last year’s Army of Crime, which makes Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds look like a cartoon. The Group Manouchian, refugees and Jews, actively resisted the Nazi occupation of France, a country which despised them as terrorists and “aliens”. In its uncompromising politics and refusal to gloss over difficult moral choices, this 2009 film could prove to be a 21st century “Battle of Algiers” and is sure to provoke debate.
If Spanish anarchist feminists and Serbian anarchosyndicalism sound like too much, there will be the opportunity to relax with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Bagpuss’s wildcat strike. As well as rock karaoke, beer, books and friendly chat. All welcome.
A call for support in the long-running council manual workers’ dispute (see Edinburgh Muckraker for background).
SUPPORT EDINBURGH REFUSE WORKERS’ PICKET OF SCAB DEPOT
6am Saturday 13th March
Craigmillar Community Recycling Centre,
Old Dalkeith Road (See below for directions)Join Edinburgh refuse workers in picketting the workplace used by private contractors providing cover for the their ongoing industrial action. Edinburgh’s refuse workers, along with street cleaners, grave diggers, toilet attendents and other manual workers have been fighting against cuts to their pay of up to £6,000. By working to health and safety rules and banning overtime they have kept up the fight to defend their wages for over 8 months.
The Council is cynically using Single Status (equalising pay between men and women) as an excuse to slash pay for its lowest paid workers. Workers now face cuts to their pay and conditions being imposed after the Council failed to reach agreement with unions.
Private companies have been providing scab labour thoughout the dispute and the Council has ignored Freedom of Information requests seeking to find out just how much this has cost the City but many have estimated the cost to be several million pounds.
If this dispute is lost the average wage for Council workers will fall from around £19,000 to around £13,000 which will be disatrous for hundreds of workers.Directions to picket;
Head out of City Centre on Dalkeith Road (A7) to Cameron Toll roundabout. Take the second exit on roundabout onto Old Dalkeith Road. Continue for 500 yards until you see sign for ‘Recycling Centre’ to the left.Lothian Buses nos 21, 24, 38, 33, 38, 48, 49.
The first 33 on a Sunday leaves Haymarket at 5.46am and North Bridge at 5.53am arriving at Cameron Toll at 6.03am
Some additional info about who works in that depot (hey, it’s the Council, it can’t be simple)
Just a few points re the ‘SUPPORT EDINBURGH REFUSE WORKERS’ PICKET OF SCAB DEPOT’ below.
- The scabs working overtime out of Craigmillar Depot on a Saturday and Sunday are not ‘private contractors’. A few of the scabs are fulltime City of Edinburgh Council employees who are Unite the Union members; some of the other scabs are fulltime City of Edinburgh Council employees who have attempted to justify scabbing by either coming out off or not being members of any trade union, most of the scabs are City of Edinburgh Council employees on temporary contracts who have refused to join a trade union or support the work to rule.
- The majority of staff that will be going into Craigmillar Depot over the weekend work on the Task Force (Street Cleansing) side of things, on a 4on 4off shift pattern (this is a normal working day for these employees and is not overtime). With the exception of the Task Force Managers; Unison members & Unite members from the Red & Blue Street Cleansing Shifts have fully adhered to and supported the work to rule within CEC Waste Management and will continue to do so. There has also been a few allegations/investigations into street cleansing staff giving the scabs (refuse & task force managers) a hard time, however, nothing has progressed to the CEC disciplinary process thus far.
After the Success of Saturday’s AntiNazi Demos there will be a Fundraiser for ACE in the upstairs of the Forest Cafe on Wed 24th From 10pm featuring :-
Also before that from 9pm “Talk to Frank” will be on Downstairs in the Cafe with the Fantastic Fabulous Freeloadin Frank and the Bucking Fastards.
With Contributions from Wise L Leathermonk and The Weather Underground.
Message fae Old Hat Books Collective:
Hello all!
Please come along to our Femstruation Week reading party this Wednesday!
The theme is “What Your Mother Never Told You!”
Decide for yourself what this means and come along and read us some things that made you think!
Short passages, haikus, poems, slogans, whole books, plays or jokes, please come and share!
There will be tea, but please bring cakes to share too!
The parties are always fun and good places to see what the library is about and to meet new people and hear lovely words!
Wear an old hat if you’d like too!
5pm – 7pm!
Please tell all your friends and make this event of Femstruation Week fully rad!
Over and out,
Old Hat Books. xxx
Oh, you can bring pictures too, to show and tell. We like pictures.
Our friends at the Edinburgh Anarchafeminist Kollectiv have released the programme for the previously-trailed Femstruation Week, taking place from 13th-20th February.
Events include “Bloody Valentine” on the 14th, “What Your Mother Never Told You”-themed open reading event courtesy of Old Hat Books, and more,
Apparently this is public: the English Scottish Defence League are coming to Edinburgh (they say) on February 20th.
So, there will be counter-protest(s). Discussion at the Meadows Bar on Buccleuch St., tomorrow (Weds 9th) @ 7PM.
Edinburgh Anarchafeminist Kollectiv are planning a week of events aiming to break taboos around menstruation. I think it’s scheduled for February next year. More when we know it, in the mean time, visit their blog and get in touch if you want to get involved.
The Nato Welcoming Committee have tea and cakes ready for the arrival of the world’s least favourite military alliance. Sign up for text alerts (not with your everyday mobile, natch) to be informed of the meeting point and be there sharp at 11am.
Full message from NatoWC here.
For months the NATO Welcoming Committee has been calling on people to come to Edinburgh and take part in action against NATO and against militarism. We have now produced a map of the city centre of Edinburgh showing the location of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and some other institutions which are linked to the militarist system. Our primary target remains the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, the location of the NATO meeting. However, if we cannot reach it, it is important to remember that there are many targets around the city of Edinburgh just as deserving of attention. To find the target maps and other maps visit http://natowc.noflag.org.uk/the-target
To make it as hard as possible for us to be contained and stopped from taking action the meeting place for the demonstration will not be announced until 10.30 am. People should be in the city centre in their affinity groups or with friends by this time. Once the location has been announced people should move to the meeting place and assemble at 11am sharp.
We had this posted to us, makes sense to repost it here now:
In St Andrews, we say “Nae Tae G20!
No to G20 neo-liberalism! No to economic exploitation! No to environmental destruction!
Yes to sustainability, community cooperation and peoples’ representation!
Yes to liberation, solidarity, equality, human rights and peace!
Yes to revolution!
On the first weekend in November, the financial leaders of the world’s twenty richest countries will be hosting closed door meetings in order to decide how our world should be run. The Group of Twenty (G20) finance ministers have chosen to host these meetings in the town of St Andrews, Scotland, and in response groups of residents and students have paved the way to make our voices heard.
We the residents and students of this community are coming into the streets to say loud and clear, “The G20 is not welcome in our town,” or as the Scots say, “Nae tae G-20!” We are joining together to say that the neo-liberal development, trade and environmental policies furthered by the G20 will not solve the global financial crisis, not solve the global ecological crisis and do not address the ever-increasing wealth gap. We are resisting the G20 because it is a mechanism of the global ruling elite that seeks to enrich the “1st world” at the expense of increasing poverty for the “underdeveloped” and “developing” world.
There are a number of organizations making exciting plans in St. Andrews during the weekend of the G20 meeting, and while Put People First (g20standrews.org) has organized an educational event, we have set our sights on getting people into the streets to show our collective dissent. To this end we have called for two days of festive actions:
- Friday, November 6, 2009, 11:00am, join us for a protest rally at the center of town fountain, located near the intersection of Market Street and College Street.
- Saturday, November 7, 2009, 1:30pm, join us for a march, also starting at the fountain at the center of town. The march will be gathering at 1:30pm and departing by 2:00pm.
In addition to these actions, groups are encouraged to organize locally in their communities, and come to St Andrews to share their creative resistance with us during these two days. We will do our best to support your action if you require some assistance.
This action has been endorsed locally by Stop the War, the Scottish Socialist Party, numerous St Andrews University student societies, and assorted Scottish workers unions.
Please direct all questions, endorsements, press inquiries and hate mail to NaeTaeG20@gmail.com and for more information as it arises visit: http://naetaeg20.wordpress.com/
