Do you want to organise in your workplace? Do you want help others organise? Do you want to form a solidarity network to fight dodgy landlords and grasping bosses? Do you want to do some grenade organising and flyer random workplaces or blocks of flats just to see what happens? Do you want to do all that along anarchist principals and not get bogged down in union bureaucracy or derailed by party political wrangling? Well, North London Solidarity Federation wants to do those things to, and we will be holding an open meeting at London Action Resource Centre, 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 1ES, from 2pm to 4pm, on Saturday the 23rd of November, with the aim of getting some of those projects going in London.
For our fifth reading group we will be reading Anarchism and The Black Revolution by Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin. Ervin was a Vietnam war conscript who became an anti-war activist, went on to join the Black Panthers, and became an anarchist while in prison for high-jacking an aircraft to escape to Cuba after being alleged in an attempt to kill a Ku Klux Klan leader. Anarchism and The Black Revolution, written in prison and first published in 1979, is not only a classic work of late 20th century anarchism, but brings a black perspective to anarchism that has often been missing in a movement dominated by the ideas of white European thinkers.
There will be two linked actions happening on the 26th of October. First, there is a call-out to all workers in the London and surrounding areas to help extend solidarity with members of the UVW during upcoming strike. Over 70, mainly migrant, security guards who are UVW members and employed by Wilson James across the Natural History and Science Museums have returned an overwhelming vote (96%) in favour of strike action following a recent ballot. Support their picket at 10am on Saturday 26 October, London SW7.
The London Anarchist Bookfair will be taking place on October 12th and Solidarity Federation will be running a stall, so come along and say hi and grab some literature. The stalls will be at Rich Mix, 35-47 Bethnal Green Road E1 6LA, with the venue opening to the public from 10am.
A member of the federation will also be giving a talk for the bookfair; Does the Union Make us Strong?
After an initial run of Anarcho-Syndicalist theory and practice, we are going to change things up and read something from a different perspective for Octobers’s reading group. From this point on we will alternate from month to month between more syndicalist/workplace focussed books and more general anarchist and radical books, both to add some variety and to provoke debate.
We will be reading at Palestine, Mon Amour, by Alfredo M. Bonanno, aiming to discuss what has changed since it was written, and what has remained the same. Description from Active Distribution here:
For our third reading group we will be moving away from history and theory and looking at modern forms of anarcho-syndicalist practice, and instead of reading a single book we will be reading three pamphlets that cover different struggles, with the aim of discussing what kind of tactics are needed to build a truly radical working class movement.
For our second reading group we will be reading Fighting for Ourselves. Written by members of SolFed, this book looks at different currents within the workers movement, what went wrong during the 20th century, what we can learn from those failures, and chart a possible way forward in the 21st century.
We are starting a new reading group, and for our first book we will be reading Anarcho-syndicalism: Theory and Practice by Rudolf Rocker. Written during the Spanish Civil War, this book is a short explanation of classic anarcho-syndicalism at its height, and is a good introduction to the general tradition of politics that the Solidarity Federation comes out of.
On Sunday, 12th of November, members of North London Solidarity Federation and Hackney Anarchists, who can be contacted at HackneyAnarchists@riseup.net, held a solidarity picket outside of the Greenwich IKEA in support of our comrades in CNT-AIT Madrid who are in dispute with an IKEA contractor; Foldeco Development S.L.
Foldeco uses racist abuse against its workforce in an effort to keep them in line and squeeze more productivity out of them. We handed out over 150 flyers to customers going in and out of IKEA detailing this abuse, and encouraged them to take their custom elsewhere, as IKEA is directly profiting from Foldco’s bullying of its workforce. The reaction to our picketing was generally positive and some people stopped for a longer chat with us.
Solidarity to everyone internationally who suffer under a system that puts profits ahead of human dignity.
The North London Solidarity Federation is running an introduction to the group with the aim of getting more people involved and becoming more active. All are welcome to come along and discuss what syndicalism is, what SolFed is, what we have done, what we would like to do, and why you should get involved.
SolFedNL@riseup.net | twitter.com/nlsolfed | facebook.com/northlondonsf | network23.org/solfednl and find us on radar.squat.net
For our fifth reading group we will be reading Anarchism and The Black Revolution by Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin. Ervin was a Vietnam war conscript who became an anti-war activist, went on to join the Black Panthers, and became an anarchist while in prison for high-jacking an aircraft to escape to Cuba after being alleged in an attempt to kill a Ku Klux Klan leader. Anarchism and The Black Revolution, written in prison and first published in 1979, is not only a classic work of late 20th century anarchism, but brings a black perspective to anarchism that has often been missing in a movement dominated by the ideas of white European thinkers.
There will be two linked actions happening on the 26th of October. First, there is a call-out to all workers in the London and surrounding areas to help extend solidarity with members of the UVW during upcoming strike. Over 70, mainly migrant, security guards who are UVW members and employed by Wilson James across the Natural History and Science Museums have returned an overwhelming vote (96%) in favour of strike action following a recent ballot. Support their picket at 10am on Saturday 26 October, London SW7.
After an initial run of Anarcho-Syndicalist theory and practice, we are going to change things up and read something from a different perspective for Octobers’s reading group. From this point on we will alternate from month to month between more syndicalist/workplace focussed books and more general anarchist and radical books, both to add some variety and to provoke debate.
For our third reading group we will be moving away from history and theory and looking at modern forms of anarcho-syndicalist practice, and instead of reading a single book we will be reading three pamphlets that cover different struggles, with the aim of discussing what kind of tactics are needed to build a truly radical working class movement.
We are starting a new reading group, and for our first book we will be reading Anarcho-syndicalism: Theory and Practice by Rudolf Rocker. Written during the Spanish Civil War, this book is a short explanation of classic anarcho-syndicalism at its height, and is a good introduction to the general tradition of politics that the Solidarity Federation comes out of.
