A great turn out again to all that turned out for today's anti-workfare picket at the Clayton Street branch of Poundland - a big thank you and well done to all that took part. See you all next time!

Anyone wishing to help in SolFed's anti-workfare campaign should get in touch

Blacklist Support Group statement on the death of chief blacklister Ian Kerr.

Ian Kerr, chief executive of the Consulting Association and full-time blacklister of trade unionists and environmental activists since 1969, when he started work for the infamous Economic League died on Tuesday.

His £50,000 a year salary + bonus + BUPA + Mercedes company car lifestyle, funded by the major UK construction firms including Sir Robert McAlpine, Balfour Beatty, Skanska, Carillion, Kier, BAM, AMEC and AMEY came to a halt when the illegal conspiracy was closed down in 2009.

At a recent appearance at the Scottish Affairs Select Committee investigation into blacklisting, he remained totally unrepentant about decades of victimising safety reps in the building industry. Kerr was supposed to have supplied an additional witness statement to the inquiry naming names of senior company Directors who were the ring leaders of the human rights abuse. 

On Saturday 8th December as part of the Boycott Workfare Week Of Action a couple of dozen people from Clydeside Industrial Workers Of The World, the Crutch Collective, Glasgow Anarchist Federation, Glasgow Solidarity Federation, the Right To Work Campaign and other individuals leafleted a branch of Superdrug in one of the city centre's busiest streets. The one thousand leaflets given out highlighted Superdrug taking on even more people on the Government's 'Work Experience' workfare scheme for the Christmas period. The extra people on workfare means less holiday pay for the regular staff. There was a lot of police about and Superdrug had hired extra security for the day. However the combination of the picket, the leaflet saying, 'Don't Shop At Superdrug' and the added security costs meant we succeeded in our objective of costing Superdrug money for using Workfare. Thanks to everyone who took part.

We are Calderdale Solidarity Federation, a new Local in-formation made up from members who live and/or work in the area of the Calder Valley - Halifax, Mytholmroyd and Hebden Bridge - and currently are active as members of West Yorkshire SF. Given the large area that WYSF covers, we have decided to form our own Local to spread anarcho-syndicalist ideas and ways of organising in our own communities, whilst still maintaining strong links with WYSF.

Please get in touch, at westyorkshire[at]solfed[dot]org[dot]uk or through the West Yorkshire SolFed contact point on this website, if you would like to get involved or find out more.

The struggle against workfare continues. As a part of the national day of action members of the North London SolFed picketed several shops around Holloway.
As the stores coped with increased demand, Christmas season traditionally meant opportunities for temporary work in retail. This is changing. Under the guise of work experience, businesses increasingly take on benefit claimants instead. For today’s picket we chose shops where we heard this was happening. We started at Superdrug and  later moved to Argos. We held pickets outside, where we engaged with customers. We also went to the shops and talked to staff – if we don't stop workfare together, it may replace their jobs too.
Workfare is hurting all of us, workers and those unemployed. Paid work is increasingly replaced with unpaid forced labour. It's an attack on us all. We press on with our message to the bosses – workfare has to stop.

This article was written by a SolFed member and originally appeared in the "How do you build a movement?" column of the Occupied Times.

The article focuses on a practical approach to organising in which theory follows practice, is designed to appeal beyond a politicised core, and by which a movement is built by achieving concrete and escalating victories.

OT Issue 18 here.

It is a disgrace that public funds are being spent on blacklisting trade unionists on the Crossrail project. 

Workers have been dismissed from the largest construction project in Europe for raising safety concerns about high voltage cables and for joining the UNITE union. For nearly 3 months there have been daily protests about blacklisting on Crossrail and the firms involved have constantly denied that it is taking place.

On Tuesday Ian Kerr, chief officer of the Consulting Association blacklisting organisation told MPs that his members had talked at length about Crossrail during meetings to discuss the list: "An awful lot of discussion took place at Consulting Association meetings about the Crossrail project.'

The demonstration on Saturday 24th November against the closure of A&E and Maternity wards at Lewisham Hospital drew a huge turnout of between 10,000 and 15,000 people yesterday.
Seasoned older marchers agreed it was the biggest demo in the borough since the New Cross Fire of 1981 or Lewisham’s 1977 mobilisation against the National Front.
The numbers, in pouring rain and on the same day as a demo against the ongoing atrocities in Gaza, showed massive popular feeling and determination to fight the closure.
The crowd was very local and very diverse, all the different populations of Lewisham from the local pensioners forum to small woolly-hatted girls holding placards saying “I could have died by the time the ambulance reached Woolwich” walking alongside huge numbers of NHS workers.
If the closures go ahead it would mean just one A&E would be left serving a population of 750,000 people, — a punishment for being the “wrong” type of population.

The North London local of the Solidarity Federation would like to offer our sincerest congratulations and solidarity to the Counihan family who recently had their housing benefit reinstated by Brent Council.  The fight you've led has been inspirational and militant.  It serves as an example for the sort of struggles that are going to be needed if we're to win the to fight against the onslaught of cuts facing the working class.

We will be advertising your upcoming march and public meeting to our members and contacts. Congratulations again and please keep us informed of upcoming actions and campaign developments on northlondonsf (at) riseup.net