UK Indymedia - UK Workers' Movements Newswire Archive

City cleaners demo report and new callout

25-02-2009 00:28

Sacked cleaners and their supporters gathered for the second time outside the Willis Building in the heart of the City of London, where they used to work until forced out by cleaning contractors Mitie, apparently determined to use the recession to break union organisation. 'We'll back and that's a fact" they chanted at the end, and they will be - this Thursday.

Full article

Defend Yahya al-Faifi

25-02-2009 00:18

Thursday 19th February was an international day of action to Defend Yahya Al Faifi and his family, who live in Cardiff, are now threatened with deportation after their asylum application was refused. The family were forced to flee Saudi Arabia in 2004 after receiving threats for Yahya’s trade union activity.

Full article | 3 comments

More charges of union complicity in mass sackings at BMW’s Oxford plant

24-02-2009 17:16

Workers reported for shifts at the BMW plant in Cowley, Oxford, on Monday after a one-week shutdown, still uncertain as to the future of some 500 agency staff.

Full article

Class Solidarity with the General Strikes in French Oversea Territories

23-02-2009 20:46

After a 4 weeks long general strike in Guadeloupe which has also extended for 10 days in Martinique, the struggle of the workers of these two French West-Indian islands enters a difficult phase. The French government has just refused its support for the draft agreement on a wage increase which took shape between the trade unions and the employers organization.

Full article | 1 addition | 1 comment

BMW Workers Self-Organising Against Bosses and Sellout Union

23-02-2009 19:40

At 6 am this morning there was a small picket in response to the lay off of 850 agency workers, outside two gates of BMW's mini car plant in Cowley, Oxford. We were expecting a mass picket of laid off temp workers. These workers have been self-organising against their bosses and the corrupt union leaders who've essentially sold them out.

Full article

PHILIPPINES: Scrap the Visiting Forces Agreement now!

23-02-2009 12:08

The secret Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) document exposed by Sen. Joker Arroyo is the latest in a string of arguments to hang the iniquitous agreement. The secret document is an insult that adds to the injury of Daniel Smith’s contempt of our justice system.

Full article

Murder of Small Farmer Rights Organizer Sparks Protests in Yaracuy, Venezuela

21-02-2009 14:25

Small farmer rights groups plan to march across the city of San Felipe in Venezuela’s Yaracuy state this Saturday to demand that the hired assassins of Nelson López, a small farmer rights organizer, be brought to justice. López, who was shot fifteen times in the back last Thursday, is the 213th small farmer (campesino) to be murdered since 2001, the year the government of President Hugo Chávez passed a sweeping land reform law which set the conditions for re-distribution of idle sections of large estates to small farmers, according to the Ezequiel Zamora National Farmers’ Front (FNCEZ), one of the groups convoking Saturday’s marches.

Full article | 1 comment

Report exposes false claims of British unions’ “Britons First” campaign

21-02-2009 13:17

A report issued February 17 by Britain’s Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) exposes as false the central claims of the GMB and Unite trade unions in the recent dispute at the Lindsey oil refinery in North Lincolnshire.

Full article | 1 addition

Release Delshad Zorab and grant him asylum in the UK

20-02-2009 15:12

On the morning of Friday February 13th Delshad Namiq Zorab was taken from his home in Doncaster to a police station and then to Campsfield IRC. Many of you will have met Delshad: he has been an active campaigner for the right to asylum. Now, locked in Campsfield IRC, he fears that he will be forcibly deported to Iraqi Kurdistan where he has every reason to believe that his life would be in real danger. This is despite the fact that his appeal for asylum is still pending: Delshad should not - even under this Government's asylum laws - be detained or deported.

Full article | 1 comment

Capitalist Crisis: Introductory Reader - PDF here

20-02-2009 13:16

'GOOD TIMES! BAD TIMES!! An Introduction to the Capitalist Crisis and what it means for us'

FEATURES: Background to the Current Crisis and Recession / Reports on Crisis: England / What Recession Means for Us / Financialisation Primer / Analysis from Silvia Federici & George Caffentzis, Mario Tronti and Alain Badiou

Full article

Philippines: Urban poor strongly represented in new socialist party

20-02-2009 12:21

Bulacan, Philippines, February 1, 2009 – “We are the bat people, the people who live under bridges in Manila”, explained urban poor organiser Ka Lisa as she took a small group of international observers around a section of an urban poor relocation settlement in Bulacan, about 60 kilometres north of Manila.

Full article | 1 comment

LAMBETH UNISON RAISES OVER £2000 IN SOLIDARITY WITH GAZA

19-02-2009 21:55

The Lambeth Branch of UNISON, the second largest trade union in the UK, has raised over £2000 for Medical Aid for Palestinians through a fundraising drive throughout the Borough’s workplaces. Nationally, UNISON has committed to send a donation of £10,000 to Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) and Lambeth Branch activists collected a further £2020.43 for MAP’s Emergency Appeal for Gaza through a series of collections amongst Lambeth’s workers.

Full article

A day of action for Yahya and target BMI Airlines

19-02-2009 21:33

Today was an international day of action for Cardiff based trade unionist Yahya Al-Faifi, who is under threat of deportation to Saudi Arabia.

Full article | 1 addition

Dissident Island Radio 20th Feb - Financial Meltdown: Crisis and Opportunity

19-02-2009 12:43

Dissident Island and the London Freeschool have teamed up to bring you an hour long panel discussion exploring the causes and potential outcomes of the current economic crisis.

Full article | 4 comments

Community hit by New Deal funding crisis

19-02-2009 12:19

A SHEFFIELD regeneration agency slammed for wasteful spending has almost run out of money two years early - leaving community projects with a sudden cash shortage and putting 120 jobs at risk. Burngreave New Deal for Communities has just £400,000 left of its £52 million Government-funded budget, supposed to last 10 years between 2001 and 2011.

Full article

Fighting casualisation - info cafe' on Euromayday and precarious labour

18-02-2009 16:39

This informational event brings together documentaries showing
different examples of activism on precarious labour and aims at opening up a
debate on what comes next in the struggle against insecurity and
casualisation in the workplace.

Full article

Our friends in the South

18-02-2009 00:37

As we face increasingly international and interconnected crises around food, finance and climate, we need to know more about our global allies in the South. James O’Nions looks beyond the familiar but limited NGOs that stand for North-South relations in the mainstream media

Full article

Class Solidarity with the General Strike of the Caribbean Workers!

17-02-2009 22:30

After a 4 weeks long general strike in Guadeloupe which has also extended for 10 days in Martinique, the struggle of the workers of these two Caribbean islands enters a difficult phase. The French government has just refused its support for the draft agreement on a wage increase which took shape between the trade unions and the employers organization.

Full article

International Media Censorship Against Venezuela

17-02-2009 17:55

Chavez: Third phase of the Bolivarian Revolution will be a huge revolutionary step forward.

Full article

Protest this Thursday: Don't Deport Trade Unionists to Saudi!

17-02-2009 17:33

Yahya Al Faifi and his family, who live in Cardiff, are now threatened with deportation after their asylum application was refused. The family were forced to flee Saudi Arabia in 2004 after receiving threats for Yahya’s trade union activity. The trade union movement has called for an international day of action on Thursday 19th February.