UK UK Newswire Archive
Live streaming from Madrid
20-05-2011 20:15
Just like watching the Egyptian revolution in Tahrir Square, but (hopefully) without the mad buggers on camels.Victories for Notts Campaigns
20-05-2011 18:55
Last week saw two victories for local campaigns. Firstly, Hayward House Daycare has been saved from closure. Camapigners have welcomed the announcement, but remain wary. Meanwhile, Office Angels who have been the target of protests across the country (including in Nottingham) for refusing to pay a temporary worker, have now backed down.
On the newswire: Direct action works: Office Angels beaten | PCT kicked by the terminally ill
Previous features: Protests against Office Angels and ATOS | Save Hayward House Daycare
Hayward House
Hayward House provides daycare services to patients with cancer. It emerged in April that the service was to close on September 1st. In fact referrals had been stopped as of April 1st. Patients, volunteers and staff were horrified by the news and a campaign to save the daycare service sprung up very quickly.
Hayward House campaigners reported on Saturday, that they had been informed daycare is not closing “and that patients have been given letters of apology from the NHS.” However details remain hazy. Campaigners don’t yet "know if/when referrals will recommence or whether there will be any substantial changes."
There is some concern "that patients with other life-limiting illnesses will in future be referred to Hayward House too, to be treated by experts in palliative care for cancer patients". This would be consistent with a general shift to "generic" services across the public sector as cuts begin to bite, but without an increase of funding (of which there is no suggestion) this could serve to reduce the number of cancer patients receiving treatment at Hayward House.
Campaigners are described as “relieved, but still wary. And angry.” The campaign is not stopping, with a public meeting held on Monday evening at Carlton Fire Station. They urge anybody with petitions to send them in to strengthen the campaign’s hand with future negotiations.
Office Angels
The campaign against Office Angels began in March when Dan contacted the South London branch of the Solidarity Federation (SolFed). He had worked for Office Angels for three days in December last year. When he began work he wasn’t given a time sheet. DAn queried this, but was told not to worry. On the third day, he received a phone call from Office Angels at his workplace to check up on him. Despite all this, when Dan went to collect his wages Office Angels claimed that he had only worked one day, not three. After phone calls and polite meetings failed, Dan began a thread on online forum LibCom asking for assistance. At this point Office Angels had the nerve to harass him for his online comments, so Dan turned to SolFed.
SolFed began by sending a delegation to the Wimbledon branch where Dan had been employed. This only response to this was Dan being banned from all Office Angels premises. This was then followed up by a picket outside the busy Oxford Street branch. SolFed members went in and spoke to management demanding that Dan be paid and informing them that actions would continue until Dan received his full wages.
The morning before the first public picket, Office Angels contacted Dan, telling him, “this has gone on long enough” and insisting that he would "definitely" get paid. He was promised a manager would contact him by noon with details. When that didn’t happen and perceiving this promise for the stalling tactic it was, SolFed decided to go ahead with the picket and a “communication blockade”. When Dan called up Office Angels later that night, he was told things were being held up in the legal department.
Sensing Office Angels were faltering, SolFed issued a call-out for a national week of action from 9th-15th May. This was taken up by groups across the country. In Nottingham, the local branch of the Anarchist Federation organised a small picket outside the company’s offices on Cheapside. There were also numerous pickets in London, three in Northampton, two pickets in Reading, another two in Brighton, and pickets in Oxford, Leeds, Newcastle, Manchester, Bristol, and Liverpool.
SolFed also began plans for an international week of action against Adecco, the company which owns Office Angels and is also the largest recruitment agency in the world. This would prove unnecessary. On the second day of the Week of Action, Dan was contacted by Office Angels. They claimed to have discovered documentation confirming he had worked 2 days and offered to pay him for them, an offer he declined. As a result, Wednesday’s communications blockade went ahead.
On the morning of Wednesday 11th May, Office Angels again contacted Dan, offering to pay him for the full three days if he was prepared to go to court for the company if they had to go to court to retrieve money from their client, Kinetic. UK law requires that agencies pay their employees regardless of whether they’ve been paid by their clients and Dan rejected this offer and that night they finally offered to pay him. Not wanting to take Office Angels at their word, pickets continued on Thursday, but by Friday the money was in Dan’s account.
Dan offered "a massive thank you to London Solidarity Federation particularly, and everyone else who picketed, emailed and rung. Was actually touched by everyone’s support." In their summary of the campaign, SolFed conclude "direct action works. We achieved what we achieved without lawyers, courts, industrial tribunals, or even union reps. And we won. We planned and strategised and, despite some inevitable hiccups, we orchestrated an escalating campaign against the largest employment agency in the world. We didn’t even play all the cards in our hands and we still forced Office Angel to pay up out of pocket mid-way through our National Week of Action. After all, they still haven’t been paid by their client. In the process we strengthened our class confidence. Everything from giving demand letters to managers to speaking to the public to co-ordinating activities, we’re better at that now than we were three months ago."
Confronting Condolezza Rice as a war criminal at Stanford University
20-05-2011 18:44
NATO the military arm of world fascism
20-05-2011 17:14
This Week in Palestine week 20 2011
20-05-2011 16:15
BOBBY ROBERTS HEADS TO GOSFORTH (not if we can help it )
20-05-2011 15:05
bobby roberts and his sick show has been attracting protests all over the placein whitburn bobby was demo'd loudley
in blaydon he was demo'd loudly and made the papers and tv
today bobby announces his next venue Gosforth race course
KENNEDY: ICELAND activists force action
20-05-2011 14:50
international cooperation of activists force icelandic government to respond on Kennedy spyingTrue Democracy NOW! Manifesto and anglophone group
20-05-2011 14:21
The manifesto and the anglophone group of the world wide growing movement ofTrue Democracy NOW!
“Bin Laden trashed to make way for US alliance with radical Islam”
20-05-2011 14:02
The assassination of Osama Bin Laden, whether true or staged, is part of the US big plan to turn radical Islam from its greatest enemy to a close ally and tool, believes General Vladimir Ovchinsky, former head of Interpol’s Russian bureau. The general, who has dealt with the fight against terrorism for many years, spoke to the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda about the high-profile death and its long-term consequences.
InfoUsurpa 23.05.2011
20-05-2011 10:55
InfoUsurpa brings you events happening in London's radical spaces and beyond
Unless otherwise stated all events are free...
Help out by printing / distributing / sticking it up in your local social centre
Animal rights group encourage microchipping
20-05-2011 08:03
Police + FBI Spies: Italy, USA, Iceland, Germany...
19-05-2011 22:18
fucked up police spying has to be fought on an international level.how do we cooperate and act on this?
how about some big lectures/presentations on the subject in London and Berlin?
Who can help?
Lars Von Trier defames Denmark and praises Hitler
19-05-2011 21:49
At a press conference for the Cannes Film Festival, today 19 May 2011, film director Lars Von Trier answered questions about the Nazi aesthetic in his film Melancholia, by expressing open sympathy for Hitler and the Nazis. Lars Von Trier's e-mail address is
lars.von.trier@filmbyen.com
Invasion of indigenous land in Bolivia. Interview with an indigenous leader.
19-05-2011 21:25
An interview with Adolfo Moye, indigenous leader in the TIPNIS National Park, Bolivia. My translation from the Spanish. Find out how Evo Morales plans to trample through an indigenous territory and national park, and how oil and cocaine threaten the rainforest.Dont Allow Romanian State to make a Hero of its Revolution Homeless
19-05-2011 21:13
I am writing this in support of my friend Ion Matache.Ion is the holder of the “Diploma of Honour in the Revolution of December 1989” yet the Romanian state has left him almost destitute and now (under Law 112?) Ion’s simple home is now to be taken from him, to be "returned" to the decendants of the pre war owners, who plan to demolish it. Please Do not allow this to happen!
Demo Against Santander (Brighton branch) - Fri 20 May 4pm -6.30pm
19-05-2011 20:46
Meet outside Santander on 38 Western Road (first one on the left as you walk from Churchill Sq towards Hove).by the citizens and for the citizens
19-05-2011 18:59
It does not support any political party: it is a movement by the citizens and for the citizens