On Monday 20th June, Solfed arrived once again at the steps of the Serbian embassy in Belgrave square. Following the successful campaign to free the Belgrade 6, we are somewhat familiar with Serbian state and it's repressive tendancies. This time the picket was called in solidarity with the International Anti-NATO Campaign. We hope that international solidarity will work as well as it did last time and lead to swift justice. Text of leaflet below:

Check out the J30 Strike website for info on pickets and actions around the strike in your area.

http://www.j30strike.org/

Check out this great song by a couple of London SF members in the run up to J30!

http://soundcloud.com/catandizzy/bugger-work

Written by Mal Finch, Women of the Working Class was adopted as the anthem of the Women Against Pit Closures campaign during the miners strike of 1984/85. The spirit of working-class resistance and self-reliance represented in the song is needed now more than ever. This song needs to be heard again far and wide.

"We don't need government approval for anything we do/We don't need their permission to have a point of view/We don't need anyone to tell us what to think or say/We've strength enough and wisdom of our own, to go our own way."
 

Monday, 20th June, 10.00 - 12.00

PROTEST IN FRONT OF THE SERBIAN EMBASSY, LONDON

called by Solidarity Federation in solidarity with the International Anti-NATO Campaign.

Text of leaflet:

From 13th to 15th of June the city of Belgrade (Serbia) saw the largest NATO gathering in the world. In response, international libertarian groups organized an Anti-NATO campaign to protest against militarism, imperialism and capitalist exploitation which are all synonymous with NATO. Those gathered in Belgrade in days prior to the rally faced intimidation, harassment and criminalization by the authorities, which forced the Anti-NATO Camp to be cancelled. Simultaneously the campaign faced total media blackout.

Southern Cross: profiteers don't care

Have others been following the results of the near-bankruptcy of this major player in the private sector ‘for profit’ care homes business in Britain? In addition to major changes of ownership and some home closures causing disruption to the residents, the Guardian 17 June reported on the company’s current proposals to slash the already poor working wages and conditions of it’s staff on top of cutting some 3,000 jobs.

My friend who works in one of their homes has indicated that even prior to this, non-filling of vacancies and ‘requests’ for more flexible working were common, but this seems to be a whole new level of attack. The GMB union is supposed to be ‘negotiating’ with the company but I don’t think the full impact of all this has got across to all the workers involved, or those in other or no unions, as far as I can tell.

High-res version here.

1. Labour call in the International Monetary fund (IMF), marking the end of the post-war setttlement and the beginning of rising inequality. This came despite several years of the TUC agreeing to hold down pay.

2. Workers respond with a wave of strikes, many of them unofficial. These culminate in the ‘Winter of discontent’ in 1978/9.

3. Thatcher’s Tory government smashes the workers’ movement, leading to a dramatic fall in strike days and a corresponding rise in inequality.

University leavers are increasingly taking low-skilled jobs, according to new research. A study by the Centre for Economics and Business Research found that 6 months after graduation around 40% of 2010’s graduates were “underemployed” in lower-skilled jobs, up from about 30% in 2006. The information casts further doubts over the controversial tripling of tuition fees, which provoked mass demonstrations across the country at the end of last year, as well as a spate of university occupations.

The fees hike was justified on the grounds that a degree is an “investment” in a career, and that the £9,000 per year would only be paid back out of earnings. However, studies have shown that due to interest building up on student debt, students could end up paying back double the headline amount. This could mean students being saddled with mortgage-sized debts of between £60,000 and £80,000 for a typical undergraduate degree.

Len, a postie from the South Coast writes about the effect of ‘modernisation’ in the Royal Mail, which looks bad for workers’ health and safety and bad for the service - all run by what a computer deems ‘optimal’.

A programme of revisions has been divided into three phases. In our medium sized delivery office we are now in week five of our revision using the “new delivery methods” (NDM).

These new delivery methods are high capacity trolleys (HCTs) with one postie pushing up to 105 KGs, and shared vans (2 posties in a van taking all the mail with them and using golf type and sized trolleys to deliver on foot in a loop from the back of a van). All bikes will be scrapped - even if they are more efficient, cost effective or better for the health of the workers.