…they’ve taken a site on RBS’s Gogarburn campus as of 9:15pm:
At 9.15PM tonight Climate Camp took the site on RBS HQ. Get on site as
fast as you can! Defence help urgently needed. Come to RBS Gogarburn
Gardens, off Gogar Station Rd. More info later. x
That’s the 48 or the 35 bus then.
Privatisation for council services, climate-change promoting oil-intensive industries. Opposite concerns? No, linked by the need for the rich to keep making money off of our backs. Fight one, you should fight the other too.
Handily, you can do one then the other, with time for coffee in between 
Join the Lobby of Edinburgh City Council
Thursday 19 August 8.30am, Quadrangle Edinburgh City Chambers.
We will call on the council not to privatise our services and not to cut our jobs and attack our working conditions
STOP THE CUTS – FIGHT FOR EVERY JOB – DON’T PRIVATISE OUR SERVICESEdinburgh Council leader Jenny Dawe said: “The council faces increasingly difficult financial times in the years ahead due to the unprecedented nature and scale of the global recession and the UK budget deficit. This will be starkly reflected in the government settlements we can expect”. Edinburgh City Council aims to cut it’s budget by more than £90 million by 2012 and states it will be forced to “slash” core services. Council chiefs have short-listed 15 firms to take part in talks about running everything from bin collections to school meals and payroll.
” We need to lobby the council and urge them” : NOT TO CARRY OUT THE TORIES “DIRTY WORK”Bring banners, placards, loud hailers but more importantly get others to come along. Already in Edinburgh we have had great victories against school closures, community centre closures, outsourcing of care services and the bin workers have shown great strength in resisting the cut of thousands of pounds in wages by voting recently to reject the councils deal. All our public services and thousands of jobs are at stake, which means we need to raise our level of struggle into a mass coalition of all those prepared to fightback against every attack on services, jobs and against privatisation. JOIN THE LOBBY on Thursday 19th August
And then there’s the Climate Camp “swoop”
SWOOP TO TAKE THE LAND
Thursday 19th August 2010, 12 noon, Edinburgh
This year, once again, there will be an exciting public swoop to take the land for the Camp for Climate Action 2010.
Everyone is invited to join, whether on foot or bike. The more people that join us the more successful it will be.
HOW DO I JOIN THE SWOOP?
1) CHOOSE A MEET-UP POINT Firstly, select your meet-up point in Edinburgh for the day of the Swoop. Each spot will be greeted by a different flag on the day:
- The Castle Gates will be greeted by the Black and Green flag
- St Andrews Square will have the Pink flag
- Bristo Square there will be a Rainbow flag
- The Bike B-loch will be meeting in the car park at Duddingston Loch accompanied by the Skull and Cross Bone flag.
2) SIGN UP FOR SWOOP TEXTS Sign your phone number up to our text messaging alert system. Please do this! It will keep everyone in the loop as we collectively swoop to take the land. Sign up at: http://climatecamp.org.uk/actions/edinburgh-2010/swoop and remember your phone on the day!
4) GO TO YOUR MEET-UP POINT Arrive at your chosen swoop point by 12 noon on Thursday 19th August, look out for your flag, and prepare for action!
After a lengthy absence, some folk are trying to revive a Critical Mass bike ride in Edinburgh. Meet point
is the Mound at 5:30 for a 6:00pm start.
Members of Edinburgh Chiapas Solidarity Group recently returned from the Zapatista-controled areas of Mexico, where there’s a Health Centre built using money raised by the group. Their grassroots, all-volunteer effort has raised more than £24,000 for some of the most marginalised people on the planet. That’s some fine aftertaste for your coffee.
This meeting features a speaker from Chiapas on the ever-precarious situation there.
AUTONOMY, REPRESSION AND RESISTANCE
EDUCATION, HEALTH, LAND,
JUSTICE, SELF-GOVERNMENT…
WALKING NEW PATHS
Speaker from Chiapas at Augustine Church, George IV Bridge, 7:30pm, Weds 21st. Admission Free.
The wounds caused by the UK government’s use of anti-terrorist legislation to freeze Icelandic assets at the beginning of the credit crunch clearly went much deeper than 1st thought. Right to the very heart of the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in fact.
All flights out of Edinburgh airport are cancelled, meaning that the seafront at Cramond is free of aircraft noise for the first time in living memory. Bliss!
And it gets better! The Guardian reports that it’s causing massive disruption to politicians’ election campaigning here:
The cancellation of flights has now had a severe impact on election campaigning in Scotland, for Labour, the Lib Dems and the Tories, with all the main parties hurriedly trying to rearrange high profile visits from senior figures flying up from London.
After the Lib Dems confirmed that a visit by Treasury spokesman Vince Cable to Edinburgh and Dunfermline had been scrapped, the defence secretary Bob Ainsworth had to cancel a visit to Rosyth dockyard to campaign for Labour’s candidate and the Tories abandoned Ken Clarke’s trip to the Borders.[...]
The growing disruption is also likely to force the Lib Dems to cancel tomorrow’s plans to launch their Scottish general election manifesto in Shetland, the islands constituency of party leader Tavish Scott, who is also heavily dependent on air services.
What’s not to like? The eruption even targeted the Icelandic finance minister!
The Norwegian ambassador had to be rescued as our finance minister who had to be taken out by helicopter.
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.
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
Next week sees a cluster of events under the banner of Edinburgh Feminist Freeschool. See the full schedule here. Most of the events are on the 17th – 19th, and some (those on the Saturday) are women / trans only.
Topics include Self defense, massage, women & the middle east, home schooling, poetry, polyamoury and bike maintenance.
Cover of Chris Carlsson's new book "Nowtopia"
Chris Carlsson, the author of Critical Mass: Bicycling’s Defiant Celebration is in Edinburgh to talk about his new book, Nowtopia and related topics. He’s going to be at Word Power (Nicholson Street) on Wednesday 15th April from 6pm, and so should you be.
After the book talk, there’s a social at the Forest from 9pm, featuring music from Orkestra Nowtopia.
Here’s what “they” say about his latest book:
Outlaw bicycling, urban permaculture, biofuels, free software, and even the Burning Man festival are windows into a scarcely visible social transformation that is redefining politics as we know it. As capitalism continues to corral every square inch of the globe into its logic of money and markets, new practices are emerging through which people are taking back their time and technological know-how. In small, under-the-radar ways, they are making life better right now, simultaneously building the foundation – technically and socially – for a genuine movement of liberation from market life.
Nowtopia uncovers the resistance of a slowly recomposing working class in America. Rarely defining themselves by what they do for a living, people from all walks of life are doing incredible amounts of labor in their “non-work” time, creating immediate practical improvements in daily life. The social networks they create, and the practical experience of cooperating outside of economic regulation, become a breeding ground for new strategies to confront the commodification to which capitalism reduces us all.
The practices outlined in Nowtopia embody a deep challenge to the basic underpinnings of modern life, as a new ecologically-driven politics emerges from below, reshaping our assumptions about science, technology, and human potential.
With historical grounding, a toolbox drawing from multiple schools of anti-capitalist thought and theory, and a refreshingly pragmatic approach, Carlsson opens our eyes to the revolutions of everyday life.
Chris Carlsson, executive director of the multimedia history project “Shaping San Francisco,” is a writer, publisher, editor, and community organizer. He has edited four collections of political and historical essays. He helped launch the monthly bike-ins known as Critical Mass, and was long-time editor of Processed World magazine.
What I say is: it’s damned good and inspiring stuff in its stories of what regular folks are co-operating in day-to-day, whether that’s guerrilla gardening or bike repair co-ops. I’m not convinced that this necessarily leads to a “breeding ground for new strategies to confront the commodification,” as these kind of projects regularly get assimiliated into a status quo, but that just makes a jumping-off point for interesting debate. Exactly what book tours are for!
