demonstrations, pickets and protests

On Saturday (23rd October) members of Brighton Solidarity Federation joined the Radical Workers Bloc on a march to demand an end to the cuts being imposed on the working class in the ‘austerity budget’ – the greatest attack on the working class in decades.

We join the fight against the cuts now because they will bring immediate and real hardship and suffering to working people. But the answer does not really lie in a readjustment of the government’s budget.

The real answer lies in a fundamental change in the way we organise our society and economy. The fight over cuts is symptomatic of the fight between the wealthy, the capitalists, and the workers. It concerns how the wealth generated in society is distributed: but a slight shift one way or the other is not enough.

Today members of Brighton SolFed delivered letters of protest to two Brighton stores. This was part of an international day of action called by workers in Peru and supported by the International Workers Asscociation (IWA), in response to the sacking of 35 trade unionists. The union members were working in a factory for ‘Topy Top’, one of the major suppliers to high street store Zara, and also a supplier for Gap. Both Zara and Gap stores were visited and letters of protest delivered to local management.

Topy Top is a profitable firm and the largest of Peru’s textile exporters. According to a 2008 report by the Fair Labor Association, in the factory 60+ hour weeks are common, there are no health and safety measures and bullying and “brutal harassment” is routine. Workers have been forming unions to improve these conditions, Topy Top responded by sacking all known union members. This is an unacceptable attack on workers organisation and freedom of association.

On Saturday 23rd October 2010 a number of trade unions have called for a march in London to lobby the TUC to fight the cuts. This is the same day as the annual London Anarchist Bookfair and a day when a large number of anarchists are in the city. We are calling on all anarchists and militant workers to join us in forming a 'Radical Worker's Bloc' on the demonstration, not to beg the trade union bureaucrats to take action, but to argue that we fight the cuts based on the principles of solidarity, direct action, and control of our own struggles.