Join North London SolFed for a presentation on the new agency workers regulations.

This free presentation is open to all.  Bring friends, workmates, or anyone who's suffered through an agency contract.

WHEN: March 10th | 4-6pm
WHERE: London Action Resource Centre, Whitechapel www.londonarc.org
CONTACT: North London Solfed | nelsf (a) solfed.org.uk | 07811 017 091

Please see attached for flier.
 

Currently there are currently five workfare schemes in use in the UK, below we explain them

• The Work Programme: Coalition’s flagship workfare scheme which replaced Labour’s Flexible New Deal in summer 2011. Claimants are referred to private companies who can organise mandatory unpaid work placements for as long as six months. Refusal means loss of benefits.
   
• Mandatory Work Activity: The Job Centre can order claimants to work up to 30hrs a week for a period of four weeks without pay. Refusal to comply means loss of benefits.

 Over the last week, the companies in the BESNA agreement pulled out one by one. Unite are still in negotiations so the long term outlook is unclear, but in the short term the BESNA agreement* has collapsed.

Hi, we are Solent Solfed, a new local in formation from isolated members of Brighton Solfed. Brighton is extremely active and has been very supportive, striving to include us in all their events and activities. Now we need our own local to spread Anarcho-syndicalist ideas in our own communities, whilst still maintaining strong links with Brighton and other likeminded groups.

We are both syndicalists who favour direct unionism over the trade union model - supporting a culture of militant resistance and working class solidarity in the workplace and the wider community - and anarchists looking for better ways of organising. 

Brighton SF are backing the March 3rd national day of action against workfare called by Boycott Workfare. We'll be supporting the actions organised locally by the Brighton Benefits Campaign. We urge all SF Locals to do the same, supporting local events or organising something if nothing is planned. We think workfare is an attack not just on the unemployed, but also undermines the conditions of workers in paid employment. We think concerted direct action can beat it, and will be redoubling our efforts to this end.

Police tried to cause trouble so they could make arrests yesterday as a group of about 50+ protesters broke away from the TUC to protest at the Tory Local Government Conference to show the public what was going on. The TUC meekly hid away in City Square in Leeds, the breakaway (inc WYSF) moved to the edge of the square were people could see us. The police tried to stop this even claiming they'd "provided a space for us". They were informed they couldn't stop us so did a sort of weak kettle (stopping any group of people leaving or joining but not really individuals). Most of the cops tactics was intelligence gathering, which when disrupted "accidentally" with flags etc really seemed to piss them off. As far as we are aware there where no arrests.

Saturday the 25th of February saw six members of the North London Solidarity Federation hold a successful stall on Kilburn High Road. Donning hi-vis jackets emblazoned with SF logos and armed with a large batch of “Stuff Your Boss” workplace rights leaflets, we felt ready to face the Saturday shoppers.

We had some extremely useful conversations with members of the public, many of whom were facing attacks on their working situations and had felt let down by their trade unions. We also spoke to many of the non-unionised retail workers who stock shelves and scan barcodes in the shops which line the high street. Predictably, they had abysmal working conditions and many employees seemed genuinely grateful for the workplace rights leaflets, some taking extra copies to give to their workmates.

A private sector worker and SolFed member speaks out about why they have joined in the resistance against privatising public services - and argues for the struggle to spread to the private sector itself.

Originally written for the Oxford Save Our Services blog.

There has been much praise heaped upon the private sector recently. Successive governments have argued that opening up public services to the private markets is a good thing. The private sector is more efficient, more dynamic and more flexible than the old-fashioned public sector, they say. The one thing all this praise of the private sector has in common, however, is that it all comes from people at the top. From the businessmen and their friends in parliament. You'll not hear much praise from someone like me. After all, I'm just the person who makes them their money.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development have predicted that 725,000 public sector jobs and up to 900,000 private sector jobs will go in the next five years, as a result of spending cuts and the VAT increase. While some will go through retirement and natural wastage, a lot more workers will be facing redundancy. Here is a brief guide to the law around it.

Redundancy happens when an employer ceases to carry on its business, or stops or diminishes some part of its business. The law covers England, Scotland and Wales, with different legislation in Northern Ireland, though its provisions are similar.

For a worker to be made redundant, their dismissal has to be attributable to the reduction in employees. It doesn’t need to be motivated by a company in difficulties, any reorganisation that results in fewer staff will be a redundancy.