You are here

Home

Bristol

Bristol Anarchist Bookfair 2016

This year's Bristol Anarchist Bookfair is looking at "Building an anarchist future". As part of this dialogue Bristol SF will be hosting a workshop on:

Healthcare Beyond the State. For a people's NHS

What can we learn from recent NHS struggles that could help shape a health service based not on some golden age that never was but instead on the principles of direct democracy and mutual aid? How can we provide progressive healthcare without the bureaucrats and the bosses?

Here is how Bookfair Collective hope that the workshops and meetings with develop the theme of "Building an anarchist future".

Police Harassment of Bristol Solidarity Federation Member

As a Bristol SF member recently arrived at a UK airport he was not expecting to be approached by plain clothed police and invited to have a little chat. This blatant attempt to harass and intimidate one of our members swiftly ended as the SF member, after realising they were not going to detain him, attempted to record the conversation and chased them off.

Bristol SF have a clear message for the police. We are about working-class solidarity, internationalism and freedom. Your creed is suspicion and paranoia. Your role is to protect privilege and crush dissent. We will never talk to you.

Fascists seen off in Bristol

Attempts by the nazi Bristol United Patriots to march through Bedminster, on Saturday 17th October, ended with them being routed and seen off. Their feeble attempts to mobilise failed to happen because of community action and brave resistance by anti-fascists. Members of Bristol Solidarity Federation joined up with others to ensure that they were not free to spread their message.

One Bedminster resident said he "was chuffed to fuck" to see people willing to come to his neighbourhood and stand up to racists and fascists.

End Workfare - Street Party in Bristol - 13th December 2014

Join the anti-workfare Street Party in Bristol this Saturday, 13th December 2014.

Meeting at the Castle Park bandstand at 2pm sharp before moving off to visit some firms who profit from using unpaid workfare labour. Please try and make this and pass it on to your mates.

Bristol Solidarity Federation will be there, so look out for our banner! Our friends and comrades in Bristol Anarchist Federation and Bristol IWW are also helping mobilise for the event.

There is a facebook page for the event: "As we approach solstice we are told that we are in a season of giving – yet some companies still aren’t giving workers a wage. As we approach solstice we are told that we are in a season of giving - yet some companies still aren't giving workers a wage!

SolFed Out in Force Against Union Busting Bank

SolFed have been out in force in response to a sacked union organiser from our sister union in Spain, the CNT. Pickets were held in Brighton, Bristol, Newcastle and Middlesborough (see below). Santander have outsourced thousands of jobs in Spain, making it easier to control employees working in oppressive conditions - union organisers are targetted by the notoriously crooked family cartel run bank.

All pickets were well received, Santander having an already shoddy reputation in Britain, it was no suprise to those asking what the row was about to find that the bank is targetting union activists.

Newcastle SolFed were joined in Middlesborough by Teeside Solidarity Movement whose members eventually swelled the picket to envelope the bank and show the power of international solidarity. 

From Swindon and Bristol (and Dorchester *Update*): Solidaridad con la CNT

A fourth International Day of Action saw Westcountry members of the Solidarity Federation take to the streets of Bristol, Dorchester and Swindon in support of a Spanish worker sacked for organising a union branch in his workplace. The worker, a member of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT union was fired during a campaign by his colleagues for decent contracts and against illegal outsourcing by ISBAN, a subsidiary of Santander. Solidarity actions took place in 13 countries around the world.

Payment made - blockade off. Communications Blockade of Anglian Home Improvements

*Stop Press*

The blockade has been called off due to payment being made in full. Great result.

SF at the 2014 Bristol Anarchist Bookfair

This year Bristol SF are participating in two workshops.

At 1.00pm, in Marquee Z, we will introduce "State Repression in Spain". This talk will be hosted by a Spanish comrade. Below is an short introductory text to set the background of this talk.

During the last four years Spanish society has witnessed a period of intense social protests against austerity, corruption, evictions, unemployment and so on. The greater and more radicalised the protest the bigger the state repression. The intensification of demonstrations and actions has resulted in an escalation of detentions and absurd fines. Every form of protest is now a new article in the criminal code.

SOLIDARITY WITH ARRESTED SPANISH COMRADES. AGAINST NEW LAW OF "PUBLIC SAFETY"

Solidarity With The Arrested Comrades For Fighting In Spain.
Against The Reform Of The New Law Of "Public Safety"

Members of Bristol Solidarity Federation answered a call-out for solidarity and showed their opposition to the recent arrest of Spanish Anti-fascists and and the introduction of punitive anti-protest laws.

Below is the text of the leaflet produced by Spaniards living in Bristol.

On the streets in support of the CNT

Multinational banking group Santander was targeted for union busting across the breadth of their empire on Tuesday 1st October 2013 by the anarcho-syndicalist International Workers Association (IWA). A number of actions were held in Britain by the Solidarity Federation (SF-IWA). In Bristol, the local SF-IWA section was joined by members of Bristol Anarchist Federation, BARF & migrant Spanish workers to deliver a message of resistance to the company and solidarity with the sacked union organiser of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT-IWA) union. The CNT has been organising within Isban, a computer services company owned by the Santander Group into which thousands of workers have been transferred. Workers at Isban are controlled and dismissed through the use of employment agencies.

Pages