On Sunday 8th January 2012, Merseyside Police attempted to illegally evict Occupy Liverpool from their city centre squat. A member of Liverpool Solidarity Federation was in attendance to observe and lend assistance to the occupiers.
The Ryanair Don't Care campaign, supported by Liverpool Solidarity Federation, is calling for an international week of action against exploitation and recruitment-scamming by Ryanair starting on March 12th 2012.
The Ryanair Don't Care Campaign was started by John Foley when his daughter was sacked as a flight attendant mid-flight and abandoned abroad, penniless. This would lead to the exposure of a cynical and highly exploitative recruitment scam by the airline.
After sitting in the files for two years this hour-long talk in Manchester by a member of the Spanish Confederación Nacional del Trabajo has only just been formatted and uploaded to the web. In it, the formative years of what would become the largest anarchist organisation in history are described in detail, from 1840 when socialist ideas first started to penetrate into the Iberian Penninsula, up to its establishment as one of the biggest players in 20th century Spanish politics, one which would influence the world in unexpected and far-reaching ways.
We are living in times of unprecedented attacks on our living conditions on all fronts, of rising social tensions and sometimes violent eruptions of class conflict. And yet if anything, the surprise is not that there have been riots and the odd strike, but that there have been so few. How are we to make sense of this? How are we to fight back, to take the initiative? Against capitalism, what do we want to put in its place? The 20th century discredited state socialism, and rightly so. But with it, a whole history of international class struggle, of revolutions and counter-revolutions, victories and defeats, spontaneous uprisings and vast workers’ organisation has been eclipsed too.
This pamphletaims to recover some of the lost history of the workers' movement, in order to set out a revolutionary strategy for the present conditions.
Cleaners at the Guildhall have been holding a sit in and stopping work since the 22nd of December because of mistreatment and intimidation. Early this morning management called the police, who came and intimidated and threatened the cleaners. The cleaners protested that they were holding a completely peaceful sit-in. They finally left due to police threats to drag them out physically.
The following is a report by our Portuguese sister organisation about austerity measures and the recent general strike..
On the last 24th November a new general strike took place in Portugal, exactly one year after the previous one. This was the seventh general strike in Portugal in 37 years and the third convoked by the two main labor unions CGTP and UGT.
The first picket I went to was at the Western Infirmary, as I knew a couple of people on the picket there. The picket was big enough, but largely symbolic as the RCN nurses were going in. I was told lots of the nurses are planning to join Unison. Later I was told one of the consultants donated £40 to the picket.
In this video, John Foley shares some of the highlights of the last year of campaigning against Ryanair's exploitation of its employees. Liverpool Solidarity Federation continues to offer support to John and his direct action campaign. A member of Occupy Liverpool also explains why people at the camp support the campaign as well.
For background info on the Ryanair Don't Care Campaign, see here.