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Liverpool

There is currently a local in formation in Liverpool - see http://liverpoolsf.org/

Stop abuses in hospitality sector!

Liverpool SolFed is organising a campaign against bad working conditions in the hospitality sector. The hospitality industry, which includes workplaces like pubs, restaurants, hotels, canteens, etc. has an important presence in the city and is well known for abuses and exploitation. Our aim is to get willing workers of the sector together to fight back against abuses and for better conditions.

Campaign against insecurity in Sandemans

At Easter, Liverpool-SolFed made a call out to protest against working conditions at Sandemans, a company who offers “Free Tours” in Liverpool and across Europe. “Free Tour” does not mean that guides are volunteers. In Sandeman’s case they are ‘self-employed workers’ and their incomes are based on the tips that are given at the end of the tour and out of those tips workers have to pay a variable amount of money per tourist to the company. This is, according to Sandemans, a “marketing fee”.

SolFed in Liverpool streets for May Day

Although Liverpool-SolFed is still a small a very recent group, we were present in the May Day demonstration in Liverpool. A few comrades join the parade from Toxteth Library to St. Georges Hall alongside with different unions and groups active in the area. 

DISPUTE CLOSED WITH ALPHA CARE

Last Monday we reached an agreement with Alpha Care which satisfies the economic demands made by a former worker.

Have tenancy fees already been banned?

On 23rd November 2016, the Treasury announced in the Autumn Statement that they “will ban fees to tenants as soon as possible”. So, right now fees are still legal in England & Wales, and it is not very clear when they will be outlawed.

SolFed is back in Liverpool!

After a few years’ absence, SolFed is back in Liverpool. During recent months, we have been meeting with comrades in Manchester, supporting their activities and trying to find out how to restart things here. Now a few of us have decided to take the step to start the process of becoming a SolFed Local.

Keith Hodgson - 1962-2013

Keith Hodgson, long time activist in the Liverpool anarchist scene, died on Saturday 23rd February 2013, aged 50. Keith, like many of his generation, was radicalised by the re-vitalised Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and by the Thatcher onslaught against working class rights and freedoms in the 1980s. As a young anarchist and CND activist, Keith rapidly moved to the direct action wing of the anti-militarist movement and also worked voluntarily in the CND Merseyside offices. This combination of organisational work and street activism was typical of Keith over the years.

Labour Party fails to co-opt grass-roots anti-Bedroom Tax campaigns in Liverpool

Report from one of our member's blog.


Today (Saturday 16th March) in Liverpool finally saw the knights in shining armour from the local Labour Party riding into town to rescue the city’s working class from the clutches of the evil Tories. Or at least that’s how the Labour left would like to portray the situation. The reality, as they surely know, is very different.

Following the Labour snub to the local campaigns in Liverpool, feelings were running high among tenants who have been involved in campaigns in the city for many months and following the mass bans of angry tenants from the Labour event page on Facebook it was clear the platform wasn’t going to tolerate any deviation from the Labour line.

Report: Blacklist Support Group meeting in Liverpool

A meeting of the Merseyside Blacklist Support Group took place last Saturday (February 23rd). The event was attended by numerous blacklisted construction workers and addressed by a panel of speakers including Steve Acheson, a blacklisted electrician from Manchester who has been picketing the Fiddler’s Ferry power station for the last 5 years to highlight the injustice inflicted on him.

Steve spoke about the collusion between trade union officials and construction companies that led to him and countless others being denied employment due to their trade union activities (often simply raising health and safety concerns on sites). Steve said he had only three terms of employment over a nine-year period and had been removed from all of them as a result of being blacklisted.

General strike conference and a lesson in the arrogance of trade union leaders

In September 2012, TUC Congress overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for co-ordinated national action, up to and including a general strike.

As the first step towards putting this motion into effect, a conference took place in Liverpool on 26th January organised by Merseyside Association of Trades Union Councils. Tellingly, the conference received no funding at all from the North-West TUC.

Members of our SolFed local attended, with the aim of engaging with rank-and-file trade unionists and arguing in favour of working-class self-organisation and direct action against austerity. We distributed a leaflet which read:

Wildcat! - January 2013 issue

The January 2013 issue of Liverpool SolFed's local newsletter Wildcat! can be read below or downloaded as a PDF here. Printed copies are also available in News from Nowhere on Bold Street.

DAVID CAMERON VISITS LIVERPOOL, LEAVES WITH TYRES (AND JOE ANDERSON) SQUEALING

This month saw the visit of David Cameron to Liverpool, apparently by invitation of class traitor
Mayor, Joe Anderson. News of Cameron’s arrival was only released on the day itself. This was
no doubt a ploy by Anderson and the cops to try and stop any greeting party or protest. They
failed….

Around 100 trade unionists, members of Solidarity Federation, and other local anarchists

The Northern Ireland flag protests: Politics of Distraction

A member of the Belfast local (in-formation) comrade has written this article to be read in conjunction with this piece we published last week.

On December 3rd Belfast City Council decided, by 29 votes to 21, to reduce the number of days the Union flag was flown above the city hall from 365 to 17 days a year.

Within minutes of the vote a protest of over 1000 loyalists broke through the rear gates and into the grounds of the city hall. One security guard and a number of police were injured.

Liverpool Against the Cuts occupy Liverpool City Council chamber

While delegates from Labour councils across the country met at the BT Convention Centre in Liverpool, likely at public expense, to discuss how best to implement cuts while keeping their council seats under the banner of “Austerity With Fairness”, members of Liverpool Against the Cuts, Birmingham Against the Cuts and comrades from across the country decided to forgo a police pen outside the Convention Centre in favour of occupying the council chamber inside the Town Hall, making it, temporarily at least, the People’s Chamber.

Can't We All Just Get Along?: An apolitical response to political events in Belfast

A member of the Belfast local (in-formation) writes...

On 16th December 2012 about 1000 people gathered at Belfast City Hall in the wake of 2 weeks of demonstrations, some of them violent, by Loyalist protesters angered by the City Councils' decision to fly the Union Flag only on 'designated days' rather than the full 365 days a year as it has done up until now. The gathering at City Hall was billed as being 'about peace' and 'to show that Northern Ireland has moved on'. Leaving aside the facts that the approximately 1000 attendees were 1000 out of about 3500 who had proclaimed to be 'attending' on facebook, and the fact that a Loyalist demonstration the previous day at the same location was able to attract roughly similar numbers, we have to ask, 'moved on' to what?, and for whom?

Liverpool public meeting: Combat The Bedroom Tax!

Between 80 and 100 people attended a meeting organised by the Liverpool Claimants Network to discuss and plan local resistance to the government’s proposed Bedroom Tax. The initial presentation by a member of the network gave a good overview of what the Bedroom Tax is, the implications it has for housing association tenants, and the need to organise direct action against what is a callous attack on the working-class.

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Our leaflets

International week of action against Ryanair - placards
Poster designs, two unbranded and one with the SF logo on, for use at pickets and protests against ryanair recruitment scamming. (pdf)
International week of action against Ryanair - leaflets
Liverpool Solidarity Federation and unbranded versions of a public leaflet for the action against Ryanair. (pdf), (pdf)
International week of action against Ryanair - demand letters
As we begin the week of action against Ryanair, we hope that people across the world are writing, faxing, emailing and making phone calls in protest at the airline's exploitative recruitment practi (pdf)
Combat Workfare public leaflet
Leaflet handed to the public during the Combat Workfare demonstration in Liverpool. (pdf)
Workfare staff leaflet
A leaflet for the Combat Workfare day of action, specifically aimed at workers in the companies that support the workfare programme. (pdf)
Leaflet for Liverpool NHS demo - "Labour Won't Save the NHS"
Leaflet distributed by Liverpool Solfed members outside the Royal Liverpool Hospital. (pdf)
Liverpool leaflet for Adecco picket
(pdf)


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