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Stokes Croft: after the storm

APRIL'S RIOT in Bristol’s Stokes Croft is fast fading from memory,  but for residents in the area the underlying issues have not been resolved. The flashpoint Tesco Express store  - opposed by many residents as out of character for the area - has reopened, although campaigners have been granted the right to a Judicial Review. But the resentment towards the police remains, as does the background tension of austerity measures.

As Colin, a nurse and Stokes Croft resident says, “even now it seems difficult to fully understand what led to the riots.”

“Would you really risk ten years in jail for violent disorder to ensure the area’s distinctive character survives? The anger was aimed at easily identifiable agents of the state, a state that is enforcing austerity on us all.”

Industry focus: problems in the postal service

Len, a postie from the South Coast writes about the effect of ‘modernisation’ in the Royal Mail, which looks bad for workers’ health and safety and bad for the service - all run by what a computer deems ‘optimal’.

A programme of revisions has been divided into three phases. In our medium sized delivery office we are now in week five of our revision using the “new delivery methods” (NDM).

These new delivery methods are high capacity trolleys (HCTs) with one postie pushing up to 105 KGs, and shared vans (2 posties in a van taking all the mail with them and using golf type and sized trolleys to deliver on foot in a loop from the back of a van). All bikes will be scrapped - even if they are more efficient, cost effective or better for the health of the workers.

Don't work - a very dangerous idea

THE CO-ORDINATED strikes on June 30th have put strike action back on the agenda. Business Secretary Vince Cable recently threatened to tighten the law if big strikes take place, while media commentators have been falling over themselves to label strike action a relic from a bygone age. So what are strikes, and why are they important now?

Lies, damned lies and unemployment statistics

ACCORDING TO the headlines, UK unemployment fell 88,000 in the three months to April this year to 2.43 million, the biggest drop since the summer of 2000. This was heralded as proof that the government’s policies are working, and that the private sector is creating more jobs than the 143,000 public sector positions slashed during the same period. But dig a little deeper and the spin unravels.

The Office for National Statistics is open that the fall “was mainly due to an increase of 80,000 in the number of students not active in the labour market.” This seems to have been due to them simply being reclassified, rather than them all suddenly finding jobs. So that leaves just 8,000 jobs ‘created’.

Temp agency bows to the power of direct action

Campaign of “disruptive action” wins temp’s unpaid wages

APRIL AND May saw the Solidarity Federation (SF) engage in an escalating campaign of  “disruptive action” against a part of the world’s largest employment agency. A successful international campaign of pickets and communication blockades resulted in an Office Angels temporary worker being paid wages withheld from him since last December.

Out of Iraq and into Libya: where there's oil there's war

BRITISH TROOPS only ended operations in Iraq at the end of May, and already a new conflict is underway in Libya. The new war has been a game-changer in a number of ways. Most obviously, it marked the “second wave” of the Arab Spring, the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt appearing smooth and rapid in comparison to the drawn out street battles in Bahrain, Syria and Yemen. But it also proved to be the point at which support for “humanitarian intervention” was once more acceptable after the Iraqi quagmire.

Canada: locked out postal workers occupy depot

FOLLOWING WEEKS of rolling strike action in a dispute over ‘modernisation’, Canada Post locked out its 50,000 workers on the night of 14 June. The last time the union went on strike was in 1997 when the workers were off the job for two weeks before being forced back to work by federal legislation. Winnipeg postal worker Michelle Fidler explained “nobody ever got rich working at Canada Post in the position I’m in. I make ends meet. I don’t have a fancy car or a big house, and I work hard. And I don’t think the general public knows exactly how difficult that job is.”

Stop work to stop the cuts?

WHAT DOES it take to stop the cuts? June 30th represents the first co-ordinated strike action against austerity, under the pretext of defending pensions, due to the legal restrictions on joint strikes. But how do hundreds of thousands of people stopping work help stop the government?

At first glance, it might not seem to make sense. Cuts, we are told, are a response to a struggling economy. So why try and harm the economy by shutting large parts of it down for the day? But turn the question around, and what other option do we have?

A Postmans experience

In our medium sized delivery office we are now in week five of our revision using the “new delivery methods” (NDM). Our office has been divided into three phases: phase one starting five weeks before phase two and ten weeks before phase three.

These are HCT (high capacity trolleys; one postie pushing up to 105kgs) and shared vans (two workers in a van taking post with them and using golf cart-type trolleys to deliver). All bikes will be scrapped. I'm neither for nor against bikes generally but our patch has decided that there will be no bikes no matter the reason even if they are more efficient, cost effective or better for the health of the workers. And what a shambles it is because of this as well.

Training Organisers in the Education Industry

In preparation for the upcoming June 30th strike, yesterday saw the North London Solidarity Federation host an organiser training specifically designed for workers and students in the education industry.

Coming out of a public meeting hosted by NLSF last month, militant education workers and radical students opted to have a training geared toward their specific issues. For SF it was the first time we attempted to tailor our training for students and all agreed it was a success. While the issues varied from participant to participant—from making sure June 30th is a success to planning occupations—everyone left the training with an increased sense of confidence and strategy to take back to their schools on Monday morning.

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