Edinburgh Anarchists

Glasgow’s Burgh Angel is a great wee example of what the future of media could look like. Based in Maryhill, with an ultra-local but not parochial focus it’s distributed free in places like chips shops and pubs, widely read and respected and with no-bullshit working class community politics at its core. They have no truck with being trampled over by an unrepresentative council with a development agenda that doesn’t include them.

They do vital work giving their community a voice, free of commercial and party-political interference, and they’ve just launched an appeal for funds: for sympathetic folks to set up a standing order using this form.

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

Still the case, the miners' fight is your fight.

…that’s a headline you’ll see a lot in the next year. I don’t have any particular insight into the struggle, but I did come across this fantastic set of 4 Xmas Cards produced by a miners’ support group in South Wales. I have scanned them at the highest resolution I could and have uploaded the full set to the site (direct download link, ZIP, 2Mb).

As well as the haunting monochrome images, the cards have poems inside, written by striking miners and their families. If you find it hard to imagine just how strongly felt this dispute was, just read “Ode to a Scab”, or “Kids’ Questions”. Ever think that Margaret Thatcher deserves a bit of sympathy in her later years? Feel the despair caused by her deliberate policy to destroy the labour movement and this particular part of it.

And never forget that it wasn’t just her. She couldn’t've done it without MI5′s “counter subversion”, without the Metropolitan Police beating pickets for overtime, and without the willing lies of the media, including the saintly “impartial” BBC. (Was it them or ITN that re-edited their Orgreave footage to make it look like the miners charged first? Doesn’t matter I guess.)

(PS shout out to South Wales Anarchists who might be interested in this post.)

Poem by striking miner, inside a card

"Support the Miners" one of 4 Xmas cards produced during the Miners' Strike