In January 1986 the Wapping dispute was unleashed with the overnight move of Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers to a new non-union printworks and the sacking of 5,500 workers.

Murdoch’s vast resources and the support of the Tory government and its anti-union laws enabled the company to build and staff the Docklands works and dismiss the original workforce.

A year-long strike failed to win justice for them, as the plant was staffed by strike-breaking labour recruited by the electricians’ union, the EETPU, in one of the greatest acts of treachery in labour movement history.

The High Court ordered the sequestration of the funds of SOGAT, the largest union involved,following distribution workers in London refusing to handle Murdoch’s papers. Other unions were fined for contempt or ordered by the courts to refrain from solidarity action.

Today saw SolFedders join with some 100 members of the public to support an unofficial strike by University of London cleaners at Senate House.  The cleaners, who are primarily Latin American immigrants and who are employed by the privateer Balfour Beatty, struck over unpaid wages. With some cleaners not having been paid for three months, it was decided yesterday that official union channels weren’t working and the workers called for a strike to begin today at 8am. 

As well as facing the consequences and disrespect of unpaid wages, the workers and make less than cleaners at nearby SOAS and Birkbeck, who've secured the so-called the “London Living Wage”. Considering that this is Balfour Beatty's first contract in higher education, the role of privisation, cuts, and a living wage formed the backdrop for today's noisy protest and work stoppage.

On Tuesday 23 August, youth workers in Oxfordshire went on strike over the County Council's plans to off-load its 26 youth centres in favour of “community hubs”, putting 80 professional youth worker jobs at risk and devastating services.

In Oxford a free coach had been put on by Unite. I joined a group of 20 or so supporters and striking youth workers and set off to the pickets in Banbury.

We arrived in Banbury at around 11am to join the already large and colourful picket at Banbury Youth Centre. This was the second picket of the day after a line at the council office from 8am. The atmosphere was good, considering the situation and the miserable weather, thanks to the large amount of support from passing traffic and pedestrians.

Below we reproduce some photographs of the rooftop protest held by John Foley at Liverpool John Lennon Airport. To avoid embarassment to the airport and Ryanair, the police placed a news blackout on the protest, meaning the local media were unable to report the story. As a result, Solidarity Federation was the only organisation publicising the action against Ryanair's exploitation of young cabin crew recruits.

The airport's management has particular reason to be concerned as they only realised John was on the roof of one of their buildings after he'd been there for over an hour and a local journalist informed them.

After spending 15 hours on the roof, John was arrested and spent 28 hours in police custody.

With the government's response to the events of early august being to throw long prison sentences around left, right and centre, here's the text of a general prisoners support leaflet produced by North London Solfed. A pdf of this will hopefully be up soon. 

The government's response to the events of early August has been predictably heavy-handed. With nearly 2000 arrests in London alone—and many more across the country— our government seems determined that harsher policing and prison sentences are going to be their only response..

TVSF Minutes 3rd August

Present: Mons, Hale, J, Michael, Auto   Apologies: Honeybee, Steed, Alabama

Action Points:

-          Auto:

-          to email national treasurer to say it’ll be done by September and we are paying.

-          to send hale details of subs, bank details, etc.

-          to finalise details of workplace training with Jerome Baxter and ask about the SP guy

-          Mons:

-          to send rananegra’s email round list (edit: I might have already sorted this with the treasurer, not sure, I’ll check) so people can get on the list it gets sent to

The past week has seen the London Locals of the Solidarity Federation participate in and organise a variety of practical class struggle activities.

Things kicked off last Saturday when SF members attended the "March for Unity" in Dalston. Organised to protest against the social causes of the recent wave of riots, hundreds of community activists, trade unionists, parents, students, workers, and pensioners walked from Hackney to Tottenham. Anarchists marched alongside NLSF's banners as well as the London-wide ALARM banner and a number of red and black flags.

Workers' rights campaigner John Foley has begun a rooftop protest at Liverpool John Lennon Airport to highlight the exploitation of cabin crew by Ryanair.

The first 45 minutes of last Thursday's talk in Brighton by a member of the Seattle Solidarity Network are now online. The talk covers the origins o SeaSol and the rationale behind it, as well as examples of their fights, their tactics and the anatomy of a typical struggle. After this, there was an hour's discussion of tactics, question and answers, and some more short films shown. We hope to edit together the lot into a video when we get the opportunity.

SeaSol Brighton, August 2010 by brighton-1

On Thursday the 18th of August, about 10 members from the London Locals of the Solidarity Federation met outside a Ford dealership in south London to demonstrate in solidarity with Spanish auto workers who are fighting the closure of their factory.