cuts

After a slow start, protesters at a March 2nd demonstration in Hackney against Labour council budget cuts made their voices heard with a drive for the doors which temporarily saw panic in police lines amid chants of "let us in" and "it's your jobs next."

The night had started off slowly, with barely 50 people hitting the pavement outside the council's Mare Street headquarters as the cuts discussion and vote, widely seen as a rubber-stamping of government funding plans, went through.

But numbers grew as the evening got colder until around 200 people were stood outside the heavily-fortified building. Police picketed every door with at least three full riot vans on standby and barriers adorned the main entrance in a nod to events which saw Camden and Lewisham councils browbeaten by their subjects late last month.

Members of NLSF from east London took part in the march against cuts in Newham being imposed by a Labour-run council.

Around 150 people marched on the last day of February in the cold and rain to voice their opposition to local cuts, of which £100million were voted through at the council meeting.[1] This means the loss of thousands of public sector jobs, community centre closures, cuts in the voluntary sector and care for the elderly.

Newham against the cuts is an independent anti-cuts group, but many of the leftists present seemed hopelessly stuck in the 1980s, shouting against the 'Tory Cuts!' and maintaining a stifling and defeatist attitude, even sticking to the pavements so as not to disrupt the traffic.

Members of Northampton Solidarity Federation joined the protest outside the county offices this afternoon to oppose the cuts being decided upon inside.

In honour of the event the red and black flags of anarcho-syndicalism were waved causing a few people to come and ask us who we were and what we stood for.  A good chance to discuss our position in relation not only to the cuts, but to government and capitalist economy in general.

As a perk, many happy punters went home with a copy of Catalyst under their arm.

As for the event itself, it was a fairly mild affair, with a few speakers and a few chants.  All in all, less noise was made than at the picket in the morning, when a bunch of kids turned up in green t-shirts and enlivened the event.  Radical at 5 years old...

The next official anti cuts demonstration in the town is set for 12th March.

The North London Local of the Solidarity Federation would like to show our deepest solidarity with the Wisconsin working class.  While we, like the IWW to whom this statement is directly addressed, share a critique of the trade unions we also recognize that the attack on public sector collective bargaining is much larger than the AFL-CIO.  It is full frontal assault on all workers in Wisconsin and will reverberate not only in that state but across the entire country.  Such a move will put downward pressure on the wages of private sector workers, organized and unorganized alike, will embolden employers to demand concessions, and, if successful, will likely be copied by state and local governments across the US.