North London

In solidarity with the sacked workers of EULEN-ABB in Spain, London locals of SolFed like our comrades in Brighton, took the streets today with a picket in front of Adecco’s London Bridge office. After a strike going on since last November, the Spanish employment agency EULEN fired all of the workers in the local strike committee, for the benefit of its contractor ABB. A global agency firm Adecco, a majority owner of numerous other brands in the industry, moved in supplying temp workers to scab the site -An attack against workers rights and an initiation rite for ABBs new program of union busting and a contract with Adecco’s local branch, EUROCEN.

Today saw two members of the North London Solidarity Federation join striking gallery assistants and members of the public at a picket line rally at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. The strike, over budget cuts and staffing levels, was scheduled to last only two hours and was planned to cause disruption during the Gallery's busiest time.

SolFed members in particular made an effort to flier potential patrons, explain the issues behind the strike, and request they refrain from entering the museum for the duration of the strike. After spending some time at the Gallery itself, the strikers led a short march to the to the Da Vinci exhibition which was taking place next door.

Today saw the London Solidarity Federation hold a picket in support of a victimised Whole Foods worker. The action was held in conjunction with protests in Boston, New York, Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, Reno and San Francisco.

The demonstration had been called in defense of Natalia, a San Francisco Whole Foods worker who was sacked for speaking up in support of herself and her workmates and took place outside the Soho branch of Whole Foods in London.

This morning the weekly protests got very lively as the rank and file electricians occupied the Grattes Brothers HQ. With only a few days left of the ballot for strike action, we gathered at 6.30 outside the gates of the building site at Kings X. Electricians and supporters leafletted the workers going in and there was a short attempt to block the gate but the police kept a pathway open so people could still go in to work. After listening to some speakers, we marched around the back of the site and blocked the access road, stopping some trucks going in. However we soon realised that this was a smokescreen and we were going for another target.

The electricians had called a national day of action for the same day as the student protest of November 9th, which looked like it could have a lot of possibilities. Would these two very different movements be able to link up?

In recent months cleaners at Guildhall in the city of London, and Senate House, University of London have gone on strike and held protests over unpaid wages, working conditions and victimisation.

The North and South London Locals of the Solidarity Federation extend our solidarity to the workers at Queen Mary University. With the threat of redundancies across campus, workers have become energised, linked up with students, and exhibited a growing degree of organisation. In response, university management have suspended the Queen Mary UNISON branch secretary on trumped up disciplinary charges.

While the Solidarity Federation recognises the power of the union rests not in its officials, but in an active and self-organised membership, management clearly believe they can defeat their workforce by 'beheading' the union. Such attacks must be resisted.

As we speak, hundreds of thousands of people are gathering in city centres across the world in order to stand against the status quo. We’re all here to voice our discontent with the way that our society and economy are organised, and the suffering and damage this causes to our lives, but what do we want to put in its place? And how will we get there?

The world is in crisis. All around us the global economy is failing to answer the needs of ordinary people. In the UK, the government has introduced round after round of spending cuts, attacks that are directed at the vast majority of the population. Savage attacks on the unemployed, sick and disabled sit alongside mass public sector redundancies, and attacks on parents accompany increasing prices through the VAT increase. That we are right to reject this world is not in question.

On the evening of 29th September, a number of SolFed members trekked to the swanky West End of London to stand in solidarity with the Spanish working class.

We arrived, banners in hand, first to the Spanish Consulate and then to the Embassy. Our arrival coincided with a national day of action called by a coalition of radical Spanish unions, including SF's sister organisation, the CNT. With events planned all over Spain, these militant workers and militant workers' organisations are calling for a general strike to overcome the brutal austerity cuts the Spanish state is attempting to force on Spain's working class.

Today at 7.30 am electricians briefly occupied a building site in protest at attempts to cut their pay and conditions.

The conflict is because the “Big 8” of construction employers want to withdraw from the JIB (Joint Industry Board) agreement on pay, grading and seniority. They want to bring in new grades of semi­skilled electricians earning £10.50 and £14 an hour instead of the current hourly JIB rate of £16.25.  The protests against this change have been going on for several weeks now all across the country. Last week at the Olympic site workers blocked the site entrance for some time but, as the site is so huge, the management just moved people coming in to work to a different gate, so the protesters blocked the main road near the site for twenty minutes. The demo today was bigger, maybe 250- 300 people, and started out next to Farringdon Station.