Edinburgh Anarchists

Want to do something for the victims of the Haiti earthquake but worried that your money might get used on 4x4s to escort journalists around Port-au-Prince?

A group in Miami is organising fundraising on behalf of Batay Ourviye, one of few groups to have fought for and won union recognition in Haiti’s “free trade zones”.

Here’s the link: http://tinyurl.com/BatayOurviye

And here’s what they say:

A natural disaster has descended upon Haiti whose scope we only are seeing the surface of at this time.

Right now we can have the deepest impact by committing ourselves to act in solidarity with the autonomous social movements of Haiti directly. They present the best possible option for the Haitian people, and are in the greatest need.

Our act of solidarity should, in no shape or form, be solely an act of humanitarian aid. It should not be an apolitical act, and we shouldn’t give the green light to those that wish to capitalize on the suffering of others. Click here for a statement on solidarity with the Haitian people.

Support Solidarity and Grassroots Relief

Give now to Batay Ourviye. Your money will go to directly support workers impacted by the earthquake by providing food, water, and health care. Your dontaion will also support the purchasing of minutes on cell phones so survivors can contact loved ones, and coordinate a grassroots relief effort.

Batay Ourviye – a grassroots Haitian Organization
As a movement, Batay Ouvriye strives to organize workers, peasants, working people in general, and the oppressed masses in general around their specific demands, in an autonomous and democratic manner. Click here for more information about Batay Ourviye.

Miami Workers Center is supporting Batay Ourviye by facilitating online and credit card donations.

Much handwringing in the news this week over an apparent “epidemic of middle class shoplifting”. Turns out we’re the best in Europe at it, and look at what’s happening:

Hundreds of retailers said shoplifting surged as goods were taken for personal use and not for re-sale by organised criminal gangs.[...]

employee theft is also rising. Branded “silent shoplifters” in the trade, employee thieves are more prolific and steal goods worth £1,585.

First off, these aren’t separate groups of people. “Middle class” is a cultural category, but these are workers as much as the ones in the stockroom. (If you have to go to work, you’re working class, whether that’s as a teacher or a mechanic.)

I think that people are waking up to the fact that they’ve been sold down the river. Their pensions are under attack, their wages are being cut, their jobs are under threat. Our electricity bills rise at the same time as massive profiteering by the privatised utilities (Scottish & Southern Energy also called one of their workers a terrorist). And at the same time, our services are being cut to pay for a deficit caused by an economic crisis we had no part in creating. And yet there’s literal billions of our money thrown at the banks.

They’ve been taking the piss and maybe, just maybe this is a sign of more of us waking up to the lies.

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.