With all the media-driven excitement about the upcoming royal wedding, there's been a lot of speculation about 'what the anarchists will be doing' that weekend. To their credit, we've even been contacted by numerous journalists seeking information on what the Solidarity Federation, as one of the largest anarchist groups in the UK, is planning. The answer to that question is that we're not planning anything. Our feelings on the matter are those of indifference. Of course, in a rational society there'd be no hereditary privilege and, in fact, there would be no inequality at all. However, at this moment in history, it's capitalism, not feudalism, that is ruining the lives of working people.

"Office Devils" leaflet handed out at picket lines in support of a cheated agency worker.

As part of the the 3rd National Day of Protest against Benefit Cuts West Yorkshire Solidarity Federation organized a picket of the ATOS Origin regional headquarters (who carry out medicals for the DWP) followed by a picket of A4e and Best who get paid for getting people into low paid employment.

About 20 people turned up including WYSF, AF, SWP and a guy who’d come from Manchester despite having walking difficulties. 

Outside ATOS there was a noisy presence and a “photo opportunity”, where a professional photographer took various photo’s, don’t know where these ended up.

Following this we headed off to A4e/Best.  Along the way we lost the SWP who disappeared and never turned up at A4e/Best.

South London Solidarity Federation interview following events on March 26, in Central London translated into Portuguese by Agência de Notícias Anarquistas, a Brazilian-based activist news portal.

[As autoridades detiveram mais de 200 pessoas na seqüência dos protestos do "26M" (26 de março) em Londres contra as medidas de austeridade apresentadas pelo governo. A manifestação contou com a presença de mais de 500 mil pessoas, num desfile pelas ruas da capital que culminou com um comício em Hyde Park. Peter Wright, da organização South London Solidarity Federation, participou da manifestação e nos fala a seguir sobre a situação dos detidos.]

Agência de Notícias Anarquistas > Ainda tem ativistas presos pelos protestos do “26M”?

Auto, a Solidarity Federation member and games industry worker writes about the practice of 'Crunch Time' - the long hours of unpaid overtime in the games industry and the reasons behind it.

Imagine if you had to give your company over fifteen hours of extra unpaid work a week. Imagine if you hadn’t been able to cook yourself a proper meal in over two months. Imagine if you came home late at night and left for work early in the morning, that’s if you even leave work at all. Welcome to the modern games industry!

Members of Bristol Solidarity Federation have been fighting about the casualisation of work for many years. We have therefore decided to support the campaign against Office Angels. We demand that the ex-employee at the centre of this campaign is payed in full for the work he did, we also go beyond that initial demand and wish to see a culture of solidarity so that agencies realise that they can't mistreat workers and get-away with it.

Temporary workers face unacceptable conditions every day. They work without sick pay or maternity leave, are ...vulnerable to unfair and instant dismissals and have no union support. Rising unemployment and a bleak economic climate will force even more of us to accept these precarious conditions - yet another example of working class people being exploited by an economic system that only benefits the rich.

El pasado 26 de marzo la gente se lanzó a las calles en el Reino Unido para protestar y resistir los recortes sociales y los ataques a la clase trabajadora. Las cifras oficiales ya han admitido que sólo en Londres hubo unas 500.000 personas. Miles de organizaciones de todo tipo y color se organizaron en torno a una variedad de actividades que contó desde la marcha kilométrica de Blackfriars Bridge a Hyde Park, hasta la ocupación y ataques a empresas símbolo de la crisis económica y las injusticias en el sistema tributario, sin faltar la respuesta a las cargas policiales y los discursos soporíferos de los líderes laboristas.

Members of Brighton SolFed supported a 20-30 strong protest and picket at ATOS healthcare in Brighton today as part of a national day of action against benefits cuts. The protest was organised by the Brighton Benefits Campaign (BBC), a group of claimants and workers fighting the cuts to welfare provision. ATOS is a private company paid millions of pounds to stop sick and disabled peoples benefits by declaring them 'fit to work' via a computer programme, which has given absurd diagnoses such as describing hand amputations as 'mild' and thus no barrier to work.

Today, as part of a national day of protest against benefit cuts, Liverpool Solidarity Federation picketed the offices of ATOS origin in the city centre. We were supported in our action by members of UK Uncut Liverpool.

We were there to raise awareness of the role being played by ATOS in the government's war against disabled people.

The company is being paid £300 million by the government to carry out ‘work capability assessments’. The assessments are supposedly aimed at finding out if people receiving sickness benefits are fit to work. The real purpose is to strip benefits from as many people as possible and save the government money.

Meeting 7-4-2011, Great Expectations Pub, Reading, 7pm

Present: Ian, Mike, Izzy, Michael, Tobias, Peter

Apologies: Carole

1.      Workplace Reports

Izzy –Selling pasties/pub – a familiar issue affects Izzy’s work of unpaid overtime that is effectively compulsory. Some colleagues have resigned, perhaps over this. The TUC issued a report earlier this year on the benefits for employers of unpaid overtime http://www.tuc.org.uk/workplace/tuc-19200-f0.cfm

Tobias - Has been a teaching assistant for 6 weeks at his old school. Doesn’t mix much with the full-time teaching staff. There has been some talk of pay cuts and some duties are already carried out effectively unpaid.