Edinburgh Anarchists

Surely the Evening News didn't just lift this picture off of Indymedia without attribution? They wouldn't be dumb enough to put it on the front page...

A recent article in the cash-strapped, poorly-written Evening News claimed that half of council manual workers are ready to give up their work-to-contract over pay cuts. EEN fact checkers failed to clock that a mass meeting of all those same workers were unanimous in their message: Not a penny off our pay. Here’s the press release in response to the transparent attempt to divide & rule.

Street cleaners have hit out at Council leaders’ claims that they are “set to give up their protest” in the long-running dispute over wages and conditions.

“It’s absolute nonsense.  There’s no truth in it at all,“ a Council street cleaner said.  “Everybody I spoke to today at work was of the same opinion.”

“The vast majority of manual workers will not be going back until the wages are re-paid to the binmen whose wages have been docked.”

The Council claimed that a “formal agreement” has been put to the street cleaners.  But a street cleaner stated: “The only letter we have had through the door from the Council is one stating that our wages are being cut to between £12,000 and £14,000.”

ACTION CONTINUES

Hundreds of Council manual workers agreed at a mass meeting on 9th October to continue their work-to-rule and overtime ban to oppose wage cuts and changes in conditions.  “Nothing’s changed,” a street cleaner told us, “This is Council PR.  They can’t give separate deals to different sections of workers.”

And a street cleaner slammed the Council’s “partial performance” policy of docking the wages of binmen who are working to rule.  “The binmen are the only people in the City of Edinburgh Council being hit by so-called “partial performance.”  It’s victimisation!” he insisted.

And a bin worker stated: “The management are using bullyboy tactics and harassment.  Our depot’s like a police state.”  He explained that several binmen signed off sick by their doctor are being refused sick pay by the Council.  “This is illegal,“ he declared.

“SUPPORT THE COUNCIL WORKERS”

The Council workers solidarity group, who have been blockading the private bin lorries, stated: “The Council manual workers are fighting the first battle against the Council’s plans for massive cuts and privatisation of many services.  We urge Edinburgh citizens to support the Council workers – this affects us all.”

Meanwhile a Council source revealed that Council bosses recently held a summit meeting to discuss how much longer they can continue paying “astronomical sums” to the private companies who are operating bin lorries during the dispute.  Council leaders are still refusing to comply with Freedom of Information requests to reveal the sums being paid to Assist, Shank Waste Management and other companies.

The Council’s claims that the street cleaners were about to end their industrial action were reported as if they were fact in the Edinburgh Evening News on 19th October.   It is believed that some supporters of the council workers are investigating a submission to the Press Complaints Commission.

GET INVOLVED
More info, and to get involved, contact Council workers solidarity group edinburghmuckraker@riseup.net
Organising meetings currently held weekly,  next meeting 6pm Tues 27 October at ACE, 17 West Montgomery Place, EH7 5HA  All interested very welcome.
The Edinburgh Muckraker news-sheet and stickers can be collected free from ACE, open Saturday 11-6, Tuesday 1-4pm, Thursday 6-8pm

From a first hand report. (Background to the dispute and an earlier action.)

Two WCR scab bin lorries were blockaded for an hour in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket on 25 September. This was the third successful blockade of the scab bin lorries operating in the Edinburgh Council Cleansing workers dispute.

The two lorries were spotted by the roving band of Scab Stoppers as the scabs went to pick up rubbish bins in the Grassmarket. The crowd of around 25 quickly surrounded the lorries, which were then abandoned by the dispute breakers for the next 40 minutes or so. Eventually they returned, but were unable to drive off due to protesters being present at the front and back of both lorries – though one scab supervisor was heard to urge the driver to just reverse into the path of the demonstrators.

IWW union placards proclaimed NO WAGE CUTS , NO MORE CUTS, BIN THE SCABS and SOLIDARITY WITH COUNCIL BIN WORKERS. Copies of the new EDINBURGH MUCKRAKER news-sheet, telling the truth about the Council’s efforts to cut its workers wages, were distributed. The scab lorries were covered with bin solidarity stickers. When the police eventually turned up the crowd melted into the closes of Edinburgh’s Old Town, no arrests and everyone free to renew the direct action solidarity in the near future.

This action followed successful half-hour long blockades at Hunter Square/ Blair Street on 18 September and at Spittal Street/ Bread Street on 21 September. The blockades were highlighted on the front page of the Edinburgh Evening News on 22 September.

BIN SOLIDARITY organising meeting – 7.30pm Tues 29 Sept at ACE, 17 W Montgomery Place EH7 5HA

Info edinburghmuckraker [at] riseup.net

Oil traders, seeking the most profitable way to turn around a cargo of sulphur-contaminated fuel realise that “Claude [Dauphin] owns a waste disposal company” and that they could get rid of their caustic wash slurry in a “creative” way. Disappointingly, the best they could come up with was to dump it in Ivory Coast and give it to a local contractor with “no experience, or facilities. [but] For a very low price his hired tanker-trucks took away the black slurry.”

That’s not creative. The Neapolitan mafia do this too; though to be fair they probably don’t make “7m!!” (James McNicol) on each cargo.

The result:

In the following weeks at least 95,000 people in the port city sought hospital treatment. Thousands of families were forced to leave their homes. Dao, 39, closed his business for a month. “I can still feel the effect after it rains,” he said late last year. “I have pain in my chest.”

In Vridi, an industrial area near the port, at least one tanker load was dumped into shallow sewerage canals inside the Cap Logistics factory, opposite a baby food manufacturer. The canals are exposed on several locations along the main street, where informal restaurants cater for the thousands of factory workers in the area.

Isabelle N’gbe, who heads the 4,500-strong Vridi Workers Toxic Waste Victims Association, said a street vendor, Kara Tounzon, 47, died soon after the dumping while thousands fell ill.

“The government advised workers within one kilometre of the dumping site to stay away but people had to come to work to get money,” said N’gbe.

Realising their mistake, the traders at Trafigura held their hands up, apologised and began to pay compensation to theit victims Trafigura hired the scrupulously ethical libel law firm of Carter-Ruck and the equally fragant PR agency Bell Pottinger (80s tories following DuranDuran on the comeback trail). In keeping with their high moral standing, Bell Pottinger said they were “appalled”.

…by a UN report into the incident. Cynical but still highly profitable traders have made a “no liability” compensation offer and there’s been no word of criminal proceedings into their fatal actions. Graham Sharp, Claude Dauphin, Lord Strathclyde, Eric de Turckheim are just 4 of them who aren’t worried about a knock on the door.

Meanwhile in Leeds, where binworkers are engaged in industrial action v similar to that in Edinburgh

West Yorkshire Police were continuing to question six people arrested in connection with an attack on the home of Leeds City Council leader Richard Brett, the man who has become the public face of opposition to the workers’ demands.

An attack? Disgraceful. What, like broken windows? Er, no.

Supporters of the Leeds refuse collection strike, dumped several bags of rubbish on the doorstep of council leader Richard Brett this morning.

I understand there were no mercaptans, oil products or hydrogen sulphide released from those bags…

These 2 stories illustrate so many of the points that anarchists know well: laws work for the rich; environmental burdens fall hardest on the poor; the profit motive and capitalist system are enemies of our health and our environment.

They also illustrate why we have to keep fighting for the twin goals of a world free of exploitation and environmental degradation. The law won’t do it for us and we can’t let these crimes be forgotten.