North London SolFed

Last night, Saturday the 21st of May, saw upwards of thirty people attend a public meeting on the upcoming June 30th education and civil service strikes. Hosted by the North London Solidarity Federation, the meeting was very practically focused. Attendees talked about their particular workplace or uni situation and highlighted strategies and tactics which have helped them to organize at work and/or begin talking to their co-workers or fellow students about June 30th and why they shouldn't cross picket lines. We discussed what sorts of momentum-building actions could be undertaken in the run-up to June 30th that will ensure education workers and students are not only aware of the issues but feel empowered and confident enough take strike action.

The past couple of months have seen SolFed engage in an escalating “disruptive action” campaign to redress a case of unpaid wages by the world's largest employment agency. Four days into a national week of action, the Office Angels temporary agency capitulated and gave their ex-worker his due wages.

Today, the 11^th of May, three London locations of Office Angels had the  pleasure of a visit by members of South & North London Solidarity Federation along with supportive action from ? The pickets were part of the weeklong national campaign being orchestrated by the Solidarity Federation in support of Dan, a worker who's been cheated by the Office Angels employment agency.

This past weekend saw much of North London Solidarity Federation take to the streets of London in celebration of May Day. Six others of us, however, took the opportunity to hop the train to Brighton to attend SolFed's national conference. Reflecting the fact that SolFed is an active and growing organisation we were joined at conference by approximately a third of the national organisation. We were also lucky to have two observers from the Swedish Syndicalist Youth Organisation, the SUF, who brought not only greetings from our Swedish comrades but were keen to participate and exchange ideas and experiences.

Police raids on anarchist and progressive social centres in Brighton and London ahead of the royal wedding amount to little more than the force giving the media a good yarn while attacking political activists, according to anarchist union group the north London Solidarity Federation. 

"The Met is well enough informed and funded to be fully aware of what anarchists have planned for tomorrow - which mostly amounts to taking a nice day off and avoiding the telly. Even people who think of anarchists as just thugs must surely realise that no-one's going to be stupid enough to seriously kick off in the middle of a crowd of tens of thousands of monarchists supported by thousands of police?

On Friday 7^th of Febuary, a group of sixteen students and workers of our sister anarcho-syndicalist union in spain, the CNT, held a protest infront of the british consulate in the capital of tneerife in canary islands. This was their first action of solidarity with british students against the cuts in eduaction.

The comrades handed out information to everyone in the street during that morning, but promised this would not be their last action of solidarity. On Friday 25^th of march, the Tenerife comrades protested inside the local university, “Campus Guajara”, a day before the TUC demo in London. They have plans of action for the coming week.

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.