Edinburgh Anarchists

A 2nd day of general strike in Greece, a meeting of the European Central Bank and the prospect of bond markets opening overnight to allow betting during the vote count. As well as this, British Airways continues its vendetta against its workers.

With an online strike ballot due to finish this week and likely to bring about further action, “Big” Willie Walsh has fired a Unite official for doing union work in the run-up to the aborted Xmas strike.

While eyes are on the vote, real action is happening elsewhere. Whatever colour rosette wins the 3-legged race, a crackdown is coming and we have to stand together to fight it.

The rail union the RMT were supposed to be striking around now but have halted their action after a court ruled it unlawful. This decision used the same logic as the British Airways cabin crew one over Xmas.

The injunction is on the basis that a ballot must cover 100% of the effected workforce, and only 100% of that group. Otherwise it’s not a legitimate ballot. This is obviously a pretty harsh restriction to work around, since no decent-sized group is going to have a membership list that’s completely mistake-free at all points in time.

But if this is the standard for a union ballot, then why don’t we apply the same standard to the upcoming General Election? The results of that ballot effect everybody living in this country, but not everybody here gets a say – prisoners can’t vote, the mentally ill can’t vote, folk with the wrong coloured passport can’t vote.

Anybody got a spare £10,000 and fancy trying to take out an injunction against the General Election?

The picket of the scab Council waste depot (mentioned here) has been going well – last Saturday saw around 50 hardy souls sending a strong message to Turley & the gang. Drew the eye of the Evening News ADHD massive as well.

Same again this weekend, see you there!

A message for Adam Crozier

Post workers in the UK are taking 2 days of strike action next week. It’s apparent that, with less than a year left in government, the Labour Party is determined to make this its last mark. A document setting out the hardline stance to be taken by Royal Mail bosses refers to having the full “buy-in” of “the shareholder”, i.e. the government. Now we learn that part of this strategy is the hiring of 30,000 scabs.

Privatisation of the RM has been a goal for the 12 years of New Labour government, only prevented by the long-standing militancy of the post workers. Nevermind that no-one wants the post privatised except those set to profit from it. They can’t privatise the post until they break the workers’ organisation. They refuse to make good the pension deficit until they do so. In that time we’ve seen:

• the workers’ pension fund deliberately run down
• operating surpluses (i.e. profits) creamed off by the Treasury instead of reinvested
• the easy, profitable parts of the work (e.g. City of London) opened up to private companies (not “competition”, as they have no Universal Service Obligation)
• multiple provocations responded to by wildcat strikes
• an increase in parcel volumes through internet shopping, also hived off to private companies
• lies about “decreased volumes” – are you getting more or less junk mail?

With the release of the strike strategy, it’s clear that this has been as long in the planning for New Labour as the Miners Strike was by Thatcher.

• Essential reading: Letter from a Postman at Libcom library.
• Not related at all to Peter Mandelson or Adam Crozier: New Scientist – Bosses use aggression to cover their stupidity.

On Sunday 24th May, 3pm, in ACE there will be a screening of ‘Rocking the Foundations’ a really inspiring film about a militant Australian union, The Builders Labourers Federation of New South Wales.

The union took the struggle from wages and conditions to a new level, and initiated strikes, green bans, and other direct action, on environmental, political, and social issues!

The film screening will take place on Sunday 24th May at 15.00 in ACE.

Hosted by the Industrial Workers of the World, Edinburgh Branch

At risk of being lost in the G20 meltdown London protest flood comes the news that workers in Enfield and Northern Ireland have decided to occupy their factories in response to getting fucked over by Ford.

Yesterday workers at the 3 factories owned by Ford Cars subsidiary Visteon in Basildon, Enfield and Belfast were called into the offices by management at 2pm and laid-off with immediate effect. They were not even given time to collect their belongings or provided with any redundancy pay (other than an initial week’s wages that had been held back from them in the first place.

Visteon is a tax dodge that was set up by Ford in 2000. It has been variously used as a way by Ford for not providing normal legal provisions for workers. Recently, it was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange after shares dropped from 7c to 2c.

the workers demands are:

• Full back pay
• Full legal notice in compliance with UK law
• The same conditions of redundancy that Ford workers receive

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