(en) Britain, WILDCAT! Local newsletter of Liverpool Solidarity Federation ? Winter 2012 - BOYCOTT RYANAIR

iverpool Solidarity Federation is calling on our friends and comrades in the libertarian 
workers? movement and beyond to boycott Ryanair. ---- Our local has worked closely with 
the Ryanair Don?t Care campaign to highlight the airline?s exploitation of young cabin 
crew, particularly its practise of charging new recruits 3,000 euros for their training 
and terminating a certain percentage of them before their probationary period has ended. 
-- The campaign was started by John Foley after his daughter?s employment with Ryanair was 
terminated while she was onboard a flight, leaving her stranded abroad with no money. 
John, who is a SolFed member, used various forms of direct action to highlight the 
airline?s exploitative recruitment-for-termination policy, including a rooftop protest at 
Liverpool John Lennon Airport, gate-crashing Ryanair?s AGM and handcuffing himself to the 
goalposts during a Premier League game last season attended by Ryanair boss Michael
O?Leary.

John is clear that the campaign is not just about justice for
his daughter, but for the likely thousands of other young cabin crew
that have been affected over the years.

Recently, we called for a communications blockade on the birthday of
David Bonderman, the Texas billionaire who is the chairman of
airline. We believe a boycott is the logical next step in the ongoing
campaign against Ryanair?s profit-driven recruitment swindle.

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NORTH-WEST IMBECILES HUMILIATED IN LIVERPOOL

Responding to a call-out by the neo-fascist North-West Infidels for a demonstration in 
Liverpool on 3rd November, local anti-fascists came out in force to oppose them.

Anti-fascists outnumbered the fascists by four-to-one and after cowering behind their 
police protection for an hour or so, the fascists left with their tails very much between 
their legs. One well-known local fascist was reportedly set upon and chased out of town by 
local youths.
Liverpool has sent a clear message to fascists: You are not welcome on our streets!

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Liverpool SolFed extends solidarity greetings to those attending the
Manchester & Salford Anarchist Bookfair on December 1st 2012!

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Revolutionary icons
In a new series of articles we celebrate some of the local personalities
from Liverpool?s radical past, starting with...

Mat Kavanagh (1876-1954)
Originally born in Ireland, Mat Kavanagh was to become one of the
most prominent working-class anarcho-syndicalists in Britain
during the first half of the 20th century.
He was a contemporary of famous anarchists such as Peter Kropotkin,
Malatesta, Rudolf Rocker and, while working as a barber in London, he
cut the hair of George Orwell who described him as ?an old Irish IRA
Anarchist hairdresser? (probably due his involvement in the Easter Rising
in Dublin, 1916).
Mat helped establish the Liverpool branch of the Industrial Union of
Direct Actionists, an anarcho-syndicalist group that aimed ?to organise the
workers on a revolutionary economic basis?.
He was renowned for his oratory skills, regularly giving public speeches
in Liverpool and delivering lectures at an anarcho-communist Sunday
school set up by Jim Dick and Lorenzo Portet. The school was inspired by
the ideas of the libertarian education reformer, Francisco Ferrer. At an
open-air public meeting, over 500 people listened to Mat condemn the
execution of Ferrer by the Spanish state in 1909. He also contributed to
various publications including Solidarity, the newspaper of the Anti-
Parliamentary Communist Federation.
Unlike some anarchists, Mat was staunchly opposed to the First World
War and in fact his only son was killed in the conflict.
Following Mat?s death, Freedom printed an obituary of him which stated
he was ?imprisoned no less than 9 times, always on revolutionary issues
and could discourse most entertainingly on the prisons of these islands?.
Near the end of his life, Mat lived at the Whiteway Colony, a community
based on utopian social ideas with residents that included anarchists and
refugees who fled the Spanish civil war.
We?ll leave the final word about Mat to the late Albert Meltzer, a veteran
anarchist and a member of our organisation when it was called the Direct
Action Movement:
?For the young anarchists of the 30s, of whom I was one, and right until
the 50s, Mat was our link with the traditional working-class Anarchism of
the past and our mentor as no other.?

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? Liverpool SolFed would also like to pay homage to the anarchist Ethel MacDonald (1909-
1960), whose anniversary falls on December 1st. Ethel was from North Lanarkshire in
Scotland and, although she was not a figure in Liverpool?s anarchist movement, we believe 
it is important to remember her contribution to the struggle for working-class 
self-liberation.
Active in anarcho-communist groups, Ethel travelled to Barcelona following the outbreak of
the Spanish civil war. There she was involved in the foreign language information centre 
of the anarchist CNT trade union and gave regular broadcasts on Radio Barcelona. In a
broadcast on February 19th 1937, she said: ?Belief in parliament does not lead to freedom, 
but leads to the emancipation of a few selected persons at the expense of the whole of the 
working class.? She was also tireless in her efforts expose the counter-revolutionary 
actions of the Stalinists during the civil war. There?s an excellent documentary available 
on YouTube called An Anarchist?s Story - Ethel MacDonald. We encourage anyone who hasn?t 
seen it and has an hour to spare to watch it!

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WHO WE ARE: The Solidarity Federation is a revolutionary union initiative: a
working class organisation which seeks the abolition of capitalism and the state.
Capitalism because it exploits, oppresses and kills working people and wrecks the
environment for profit worldwide. The state because it can only maintain hierarchy
and privilege for the classes who control it and their servants; it cannot be used to
fight the oppression and exploitation that are the consequences of hierarchy and the
source of privilege. In their place we want a society based on workers' self-
management, solidarity, mutual aid and libertarian communism.??
For more info, visit: www.solfed.org.uk or email: solfed@solfed.org.uk