Leaflet we wrote after 115 redundancies were announced at Sussex university, where several of our members work or study.
Our Jobs under threat
Defending Ourselves Against Cuts
Across the country, education is under attack. In the past month, job losses have been announced in many places, including 200 at the University of Cumbria, 130 in Manchester MMU, £35m cuts at Leeds university, and of course 116 redundancies at Sussex. Politicians from all parties are united in wanting to make ordinary people pay the costs of capitalism in crisis, and they are starting with higher education.
8-page leaflet looking at what we can learn from the 2007 postal strike, the 2008 public sector strike and the 2009 Visteon occupation.
The leaflet was produced for a demo against the Labour Party Conference on Sunday 27th September. It is based on several previously published articles and we try to draw the lessons of recent relevant struggles in the UK.
For Workers’ Control
Lessons of recent struggles in the UK
Recent years have seen promising signs of a working class fightback, after decades of attacks on working class living standards.
But it is still early days. What can we learn from recent struggles? How can we turn isolated victories into a class-wide fightback to improve our working and living conditions, and resist the further cuts that have been promised in the next few years? We can start to answer these questions by studying the lessons of recent workers’ struggles in the UK…
4-5 editorial: Savage Cuts in Spending - Realities and Possibilities
6-7 Hugging Bankers - the rehabilitation of thieves and their narrow self-interest
8-9 Tilting at Windmils - the Vestas workers’ occupation, climate change and class struggle
10 Scabs Are Rubbish - Leeds bin workers on strike against pay cuts
11 Bridging the Great Divide - fan power is challenging football’s growing gulf in class
12-13 The Last Bastion of Ageism - the appalling state of care for older people in Britain
13 Grey Power! - resistance and organistion by older people
14-15 The Drug Laws ain’t Working - how prohibition stimulates a whole range of social problems
16-17 (Not Just) Opposing the British National Party
18-19 Community Unions: Two Birds with One Stone - an anarcho-syndicalist view on community organising
20-22 Autonomy and Solidarity - interview with the Goldsmiths College-based anarchist group
22-23 have your say: Capitalism Kills 1\ The Corner House\ Capitalism Kills 2
24-25 international: Serbia - Free Our Comrades\ Ireland - Rising Class Tensions\ Spain - Boicot!
26-29 reviews: Past Tense - A Post-Fordist Struggle\ Weekly SchNEWS Jim Stanford - Economics for Everyone Tripp York - Living on Hope while Living in Babylon\ Michael Schmidt & Lucien Van der Walt - Black Flame\ Lewis H. Mates - The Spanish Civil War & the British Left
30-33 closer look: Creating a Culture of Class Consciousnes and Resistance in the Workplace
34-35 DA resources: Solidarity Federation booklets / contacts / information / friends & neighbours
This is a leaflet we produced in August 2009, explaining some basics of anarcho-syndicalism.
If you want a copy, please get in touch with us, or download the attached pdf file.
What is anarcho-syndicalism?
Anarchism is a revolutionary political current that declares “freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice and socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality.”
Syndicalism is the workers’ movement. Deriving from the French word for Trade Unionism (Syndicalisme), it seeks to unite workers on an economic basis to fight for their interests.
Anarcho-syndicalism is anarchism applied to the workers’ movement. From small educational groups to mass revolutionary unions, libertarian organisation grows and is controlled from the bottom up.
A contradiction at the heart of Chaos: Regulation of global financial markets to solve boom and bust is a non-starter
Occupy and Defy: the Visteon workers’ struggle & their union
Lewisham Occupation
Fujitsu Attack on Pensions
Dirty deeds done dirt cheap - Immigrant cleaners: the “hard-to-organise” are self-organising; The Amey Five; Lancaster Workers; Mitie Workers; Why the Unions Fail us
Breaking isolation: Domestic abuse and workplace support
The Big Green Con: Seeing through the sham of “green” capitalism
The Great Dock Strike of 1889
No Platform for Fascism
Have your say - Anarchism & Crime; The Miami Five; English National Resistance; Left Luggage
A Rebellious Tradition
(Spain) CNT vs. Ryanair;
(Peru) General Strike for the Amazon
(International) Killing for Profit
(Reviews) Live Working or Die Fighting (Paul Mason); Meltdown: The end of the age of greed (Paul Mason); A Grand Cause: The hunger strike & the deportation of anarchists from Soviet Russia (G. P. Maksimov); The Federación Uruguaya Anarquista (translated & edited by Paul Sharkey); Salvador Puig Antich & the Movimiento Ibérico de Liberación (edited by Anna Key & translated Paul Sharkey)
(Closerlook) Seeing sense in the age of stupid: Alienation, power and the case for social tranformation
SF literature; contacts; locals; other local contacts; other contacts & information; friends & neighbours
This is a leaflet we produced about the conflict in Gaza, for international solidarity with civilians in the middle-east – against all governments and gangsters.
One thing is absolutely clear about the current situation in Gaza: the Israeli state is committing atrocities which must end immediately. With hundreds dead and thousands wounded, it has become increasingly clear that the aim of the military operation, which has been in the planning stages since the signing of the original ceasefire in June, is to break Hamas completely. The attack follows the crippling blockade throughout the supposed ‘ceasefire’, which has destroyed the livelihoods of Gazans, ruined the civilian infrastructure and created a humanitarian disaster which anyone with an ounce of humanity would seek an end to.
Anarcho-syndicalism, a theory and practice of working class revolution, was developed not by scholars working in libraries but by the workers themselves. The anarcho-syndicalist movement of the 20th century extended to all the industrialized countries of the world and even agricultural regions. This was not a fringe phenomenon but involved millions of workers.
Mainstream labour unions and social-democratic parties have become increasingly powerless to protect the gains of workers. In this situation, anarcho-syndicalism — the revolutionary, non-authoritarian alternative to reformism — is once again on the agenda. This critical study of anarcho-syndicalism in the last century reveals a history of struggle which has often been neglected but holds many valuable lessons for the present.
Translator's introduction
Preface
Part 1: Revolutionary Syndicalism
Chapter 1: From the First International to Revolutionary Syndicalism
Chapter 2: the Rise of the Revolutionary Syndicalist Movement
Chapter 3: Revolutionary Syndicalism and Anarchism
Chapter 4: Revolutionary Syndicalism during the First World War
Part 2: Anarcho-syndicalism
Chapter 5: The Revolutionary Years
Chapter 6: From Revolutionary Syndicalism to Anarcho-syndicalism
Chapter 7: The World Anarcho-Syndicalist Movement in the 1920’s and 1930’s
Chapter 8: Ideological-Theoretical Discussions in Anarcho-syndicalism in the 1920’s -1930’s
Part 3: The Spanish Revolution
Chapter 9: The Uprising of July 19 1936
Chapter 10: Libertarian Communism or Antifascist Unity?
Chapter 11: Under the Pressure of Circumstances
Chapter 12: The CNT Enters the Government
Chapter 13: The CNT in Government - Results and Lessons
Chapter 14: Notwithstanding “Circumstances”
Chapter 15: The Spanish Revolution and World Anarcho-syndicalism
Part 4: Decline and Possible Regeneration
Chapter 16: Anarcho-Syndicalism during the Second World War
Chapter 17: Anarcho-syndicalism After World War II
Chapter 18: Anarcho-syndicalism in contemporary Russia
Anarcho-syndicalism, a theory and practice of working class revolution, was developed not by scholars working in libraries but by the workers themselves. The anarcho-syndicalist movement of the 20th century extended to all the industrialized countries of the world and even agricultural regions. This was not a fringe phenomenon but involved millions of workers.