A quick roundup of ongoing struggles and upcoming events:
At SOAS, an occupation’s just ended after occupiers received confirmation that:
- The refectory will remain open, and staff redundancies have been reversed.
- All catering staff will be moved onto the better terms offered to other outsourced SOAS staff under the IFM contract, by 1st of August 2017.
- Negotiations will begin with Elior to end all zero-hours contracts.
- Negotiations with Unison will ensure that catering staff receive the unpaid London Living Wage increases in full.
At the Ritzy in London, there’s been an ongoing community picket since a number of workers were sacked for their union activity. If you’re in the South London area, contact South London supports the Picturehouse strikers to get involved. There’s also an upcoming strike date on July 1st, although I’m not sure if that’s just Hackney or if other Picturehouse locations will also be involved.
Throughout the upcoming week, the Scottish Action Against Austerity alliance will be taking action over disability benefits, mainly in Edinburgh and Dundee. On Monday 26th, people in Barnet will be demanding immediate action over dangerous housing there. On Wednesday 28th, Plan C Manchester are hosting a discussion on what to do after the election, and London Anarchist Federation are doing the same on Thursday 29th. On that subject, the Angry Workers of the World recently published an article on “From Solidarity Networks to Class Organisation in Times of Labour Hallucinations”, which is brilliant and well worth reading for anyone thinking about these questions – in the past I’ve complained about some criticisms of Labour being far too abstract when it comes to what an alternative could look like, and the AWW piece is the exact opposite, a very rooted examination of what it actually means to try and put anarchist/communist ideas into practice in West London in 2017.
In legal/repression/prison news, as well as the upcoming verdict in the Jobstown trial, there’s a few pieces of breaking news coming in from the US: Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, a revolutionary prisoner and organiser who’s been a thorn in the side of the Texas prison system for a while, has suddenly been moved and no-one knows where he is, so there’s an appeal to contact those who are meant to be in charge and find out what’s going on. Steve Martin just got sentenced for his participation in the Ferguson uprising of 2014.
As a reminder, upcoming events on this subject include the international day of solidarity with anarchist prisoner Eric King on June 28th, the fortnight of action against indefinite sentences in the UK from 9-23 July, the birthday of Ferguson prisoner Dakota Moss on July 17th, and the international day of solidarity with antifascist prisoners on July 25th.
Cautiously pessimistic 
Reblogged this on Wessex Solidarity.