(en) Britain, Anarchist Federation - AUTONOMY #4 Spring 2014 - A Scottish freesheet for social change from below

Inside:---- Bedroom Tax -- latest news:---- International Women?s Day:---- Sex workers? 
rights in Edinburgh:---- Climate change & capitalism:---- Events and groups around the 
country:---- Anti-workfare pickets shut down Salvation Army ---- Anti-workfare campaigners 
swooped on four Salvation Army shops in Edinburgh on 3rd March, blockading them all and 
turning away customers and a delivery lorry. Salvation Army managers were visibly rattled 
as a giant banner proclaiming ?IF YOU EXPLOIT US WE WILL SHUT YOU DOWN? blocked the
entrance to their shops. ---- The blockade of the Forrest Road Starvation Army shop was 
particularly successful, only two people entering the shop in a street teeming with
lunch-time passers-by. At the large Earl Grey Street charity shop a Salvation Army worker 
pushed one of the protestors from Edinburgh Coalition Against
Poverty (ECAP) in a vain attempt at intimidation.

Here as at the other shops panic stricken management phoned
desperately for assistance which never came. The police
were one step behind the protestors all day, and were
totally unable to prevent any of the four blockades.

The Salvation Army are a notorious user of
government slave labour schemes both locally and
UK-wide. In Edinburgh Mandatory Work Activity
provider learndirect have hinted they are their
main user and ECAP demonstrated at the
Salvation Army's Leith Walk shop in December
in solidarity with a claimant ordered to
undertake four weeks unpaid labour there.

An ECAP spokesperson said ?With the new Community
Work Placement scheme starting in April we are stepping
up our direct action against workfare exploiters
with a UK-wide week of action from 29 March ? 6 April. We
urge all charities and employers to boycott this exploiting
scheme and all work-for-your benefits programmes. We appeal
to all workers, especially in the voluntary sector, to
pressure their employer to boycott workfare. And we appeal to
the unemployed and all claimants to join us to
make the workfare schemes unworkable?.

Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty
ecap@lists.riseup.net

Faced with workfare ? know your rights and
contact ECAP for support Info on upcoming week of
action: boycottworkfare.org

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30 years on: the 1984-5 Miners? Strike

March sees the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the
national Miners' Strike of 1984. Here, the miners of the
Polmaise Colliery near Stirling are shown during a sit-
in protest. Already out on strike from 21st February after
threats of closure, they began action before anyone else
and stayed out for the full 57 weeks of national action.
It?s also claimed that they were the only colliery that
didn?t need a picket line because support was so strong.

The miners? strike was a clash between the most militant
section of the labour movement and a state that used all
the powers in its possession to finish off working class
power. Though the state closed the pits, the example of
solidarity in struggle shown by the miners and women?s
support groups should never be forgotten.

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The end of the Bedroom Tax in Scotland?

Back in February, the Scottish Government an-
nounced it would provide funding to mitigate the
Bedroom Tax in Scotland. An extra ?15 million
was allocated for tenants in social housing with
a ?spare bedroom?. This has rightly been called a
significant victory for the campaign against the
tax which put real pressure on the parties to
bring this about.

It doesn?t mean, of course, that the Bedroom Tax
has been scrapped in Scotland. The funding will
be used for Discretionary Housing Payment
(DHP) and social housing tenants still need to
apply for this.

The Scottish Anti-Bedroom Tax Federation have
made the following demands in light of the miti-
gation:

1. That all tenants get a full refund for the
years 2013/14 for money paid on the bed-
room tax and to cancel all arrears.

2. That tenants are automatically granted
DHP by their councils; If tenants are in
receipt of housing benefit, they automati-
cally get DHP. No further means testing.

3. That all councils and housing associations
stop the legal proceedings against their
tenants which have run up arrears due to
the Bedroom Tax.

4. Councils take action now to remunerate
those who should have been exempt from
the Bedroom Tax from the pre-1996 DWP
loophole.

5. The Scottish Anti-Bedroom Tax Federation
is calling on all councils and social land-
lords to launch a campaign of awareness
as to how tenants can claim the mitiga-
tion, in order to remove the confusion that exists around
the Scottish Government?s recent [February] announcement.

However, at the time of writing (14th March), the Scottish
Government is still waiting on Westminster to remove a cap
on housing payments. Five weeks have gone by without a
response, meaning that the money isn?t available for tenants
who could be threatened with eviction. Although the Scottish
Government will apparently try to find other ways to make
the money available to tenants the situation is still unclear.

In the meantime, ?2 billion is being cut from welfare in Scot-
land this year, according to the Scottish Government. This
should put things in perspective and re-emphasise the need
for grassroots organizing against the cuts. Check out the
week of action against workfare 29 March?6 April in events.

As always, if you are directly affected by the Bedroom Tax seek
advice about appealing or applying for DHP from groups like
Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty who run regular Tuesday
solidarity sessions (12-3pm at ACE, 17 West Montgomery Place
EH7 5HA ).

-------------------------------------------------------

International Women?s Day in Edinburgh

?These hysterical women?, a feminist collective based in
Edinburgh and largely made up of Spanish economic exiles
organised a demonstration against the new abortion law
passed by the conservative party Partido Popular (PP).

Around 150 people joined at The Mound in Edinburgh to
claim legal, free and universal abortion. The new law makes
illegal for women to choose. Abortion will be allowed only in
case of rape or danger to the mental health of the woman.
In the first case an accusation has to be done before a judge;
in the second case damage to her mental health has to be
diagnosed by two accredited psychiatrists. In the case of
foetal abnormalities incompatible with life, she will have to
carry the baby to term.

They read a statement claiming that ?Nobody else can
choose for us. And we don't need legislations to regulate our
bodies. It is my body, it is my choice. As simple as that?.
From: indymediascotland.org

These Hysterical Women can be contacted on facebook.

======================================================

Another victory for Glasgow Solidarity Network:-- direct action wins illegal letting 
agency fees back

In January, Glasgow Solidarity
Network celebrated the
successful conclusion of its first
campaign in 2014. This is what
happened:

Back in 2010 a couple were charged
?187 by a letting agency as an (illegal!)
?administration fee? in order to secure a
new home. When they moved out in
2013 they wrote a letter to the agency
quoting the relevant passages from
Scottish Housing Law and demanding
the return of their money. There was
no response to this letter so they made
a couple of phone calls to the agency
which brought assurances that it would
be looked at. However, these
assurances were only followed by
weeks of silence.

Three paths opened up to them: letting
the agency rip them off; a lengthy ?
and costly ? small claims court
procedure; or attempting a more direct
form of action. They opted for the latter
and looked to the Glasgow Solidarity
Network to show solidarity and
provide aid in getting the money back.

A call-out went out and those who
could attend sat down with the pair
and agreed that this was a winnable
case.

The first action took place mid
December 2013 with thirty people
walking into the letting agency?s
premises on a very rainy and stormy
morning to support the pair in the
handing-over a demand letter asking
for the fees back and giving them
until the new year to pass them back
before further action was taken. The
delivery went very well, in good
spirit, and attracted people who
never had participated in anything
like this. It was also fantastic to
experience the coming-together of
people who had never met the couple
? an injury to one is an injury to
all. Everyone was pleased with the
action ? everyone apart from the
letting agency staff! The manager
was so unhappy about the visitors
that he decided to hide in a little
room off the main office and let
his colleague deal with the situation
by herself.

However, the agency did not return the
money within the deadline set in the
letter. The Network, together with the
two affected people, then planned the
next step in the ?escalation process?. It
was decided that the bad news from the
agency should be met with bad reviews
online, and so a week of action was
organised via this blog, Facebook, and
personal contacts.

Success was almost immediate.

The ?Bad News Gets Bad Reviews?
action started on Monday. On
Wednesday morning the letting agency
manager contacted their ex-tenants
and offered the immediate return of
their money. The manager stated that
the agency had lost business contracts
worth over ?2000 because of
the reviews. GSN called for an end of
the campaign as the manager?s
assurance was deemed trustworthy.
Indeed, the cheques arrived in the post
two days later. Victory!

If you have had a deposit or admin fee
wrongfully taken, a boss stealing money
from your final pay packet, or have a
boss/landlord issue that can?t be solved
through the usual channels, then get in
touch and get involved in the Network.

This most recent case demonstrates that
direct action gets the goods and that
solidarity works.

If you?ve had admin fees taken by a
letting agency, or have a similar
problem with a landlord or boss,
contact Glasgow SolNet:
glasgowsolnet@gmail.com |
07842 935713

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Does the left need an
electoral party?

An Edinburgh AFed member argues
against the case for left-wing
electoralism.

?Where parties are involved in
extra-parliamentary activity it?s
usually to their detriment, by co-
opting things or exploiting them.?

How then should we organise? Join
the discussion at:
afed.org.uk/scotland

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ACE cinema presens

16/3?There Will be Blood (2007)
23/3?Daisies (Vera Chytilova,
1966)
6/4?Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe
Tornatore, 1988)
30/3?Autonomia film night.* Porto Maghera: the
last firebrands (2004) & Investigation into a
citizen above suspicion (1969). *18.00 start.
13/4?Old Boy (Park Chan-wook, 2003)
Free Entry | Screenings begin at 18.30 at the
Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh, 17 W.
Montgomery Pl, EH7 5HA.

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Edinburgh City Council withdraws sauna licenses: -- what does it mean for sex workers?

Here, we reprint the statement
made by SCOT-PEP, a charity
which promotes sex workers?
rights.

SCOT-PEP is disappointed in Edin-
burgh City Council's decision to
remove licenses from the saunas. This
will mean that women are working in
constant fear of traumatising and coun-
ter-productive raids on their workplaces.
This will further erode the already shak-
en trust that women working in these
premises have in the police and in the
justice system; making women far less
likely to feel able to report crimes
against them. Violent people will know
to target these women precisely because
they will know that the women feel una-
ble to rely on police help.

Violence against sex workers increases
when our workplaces are criminalised. In
2007, when Edinburgh brought in kerb-
crawling legislation that targeted street-
based sex workers and clients, reported
attacks on sex workers went up by 95%
within six months.

Premises will be driven under ground,
away from service providers such as
health workers. With Police Scotland
persisting in its policy of using condoms
as evidence of sex work - against the ex-
plicit recommendations of the World
Health Organization - workers will fear
to keep large quantities of condoms on
their premises, as this could be used to
criminalise women. This policy has obvi-
ous negative implications for the ability
of women to protect their health, as well
as wider public health implications in
Scotland. Police Scotland and Edinburgh
City Council would do well to recall that
the saunas were put in place to tackle the
HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s. Complacen-
cy on this issue is ill-founded. HIV was
successfully tackled in Edinburgh
through policies that centred harm reduc-
tion; if we remove those policies, we may
well see a corresponding rise in HIV
transmission.

Raids on saunas are a waste of police re-
sources, especially at a time when organi-
sations like National Ugly Mugs, who
seek to prevent violence against sex work-
ers, are facing catastrophic loss of fund-
ing. SCOT-PEP pioneered the first UK
'ugly mugs' scheme, to enable sex workers
to share with each other information
about violent people posing as clients. Sex
worker-led organisations are the experts in
what sex workers need to be safer; the ex-
perts in what sex workers need to access
services more effectively. The further crimi-
nalisation of sex workers, those associated
with sex workers, and our workplaces, has
been shown again and again to endanger
those working, whether they are there
through choice, circumstance, or coercion.
Sex workers need health services and a
justice system that prioritises our safety -
which has to include our safety if we con-
tinue working, as well as if we choose to
'exit'. The removal of the sauna licenses
puts sex workers at risk.

SCOT-PEP calls on Edinburgh City
Council to listen to the voices of current
sex workers, who are calling for full
decriminalisation, including of our col-
leagues, managers, workplaces, and
clients. Sex workers are also calling for
better services based around what each
individual states they need, rather than
upon imposing a rigid ideological frame-
work onto sex workers. Sex workers
need full decriminalisation now, and
better services.

From : www.scot-pep.org.uk

------------------------------------
In February, Edinburgh AFed
hosted a talk by the excellent Sex
Workers? Open University, a
project created by and for sex
workers. Notes from the talk
should be online soon. For more on
what they do, go to:
www.sexworkeropenuniversity.com

------------------------------------

Introducing...the Scottish Radical Library

The Scottish Radical Library (SRL) houses hundreds of books,
journals, posters and archives at the Autonomous Centre of
Edinburgh, 17 West Montgomery Place, Edinburgh, EH7
5PU. It is a unique resource in Scotland and has a
substantial collection of materials of social, cultural and
economic interest, comprising thousands of items donated by
users, supporters, members and publishers. The SRL exists
to preserve, promote and celebrate cultures of resistance and
to serve as a self-managed public space to learn and to share -
a real 'people's library'. We hope that the literature we
stock empowers and inspires people to make positive
changes to the world - from challenging unequal power
structures to breaking down prejudiced attitudes to
others and ourselves.

Be a part of the SRL at this exciting time as we digitize our
records to get a fully searchable catalogue online and expand
our collection. We are looking for volunteers to help with our
new tech project, to add new books to our records, and to help
organise and promote the library. You can now contact us
at srl@noflag.org.uk. Get in touch!

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Who?s afraid of ruins? -- Capitalism & climate change

Capitalism is locking-in climate
change for centuries, but in the
process, making radical social
change more realistic than
tinkering around the edges.

I : Ruins

There is an oft-quoted passage from the
Spanish anarchist militant
Buenaventura Durruti. Many readers
will know it by heart. It reads:

?It is we who built these palaces and
cities, here in Spain and in America and
everywhere. We, the workers. We can
build others to take their place. And
better ones! We are not in the least
afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit
the earth. There is not the slightest
doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might
blast and ruin its own world before it
leaves the stage of history. We carry a
new world here, in our hearts. [...] That
world is growing in this minute.?

Durruti's quote brims with the optimism
of a social revolution in full-flow. The
insurgent proletariat and peasantry had
met an attempted military coup in the
streets, and in response launched a
profound social revolution. Land and
workplaces were seized and reorganised
along collectivised lines, moving as fast
as possible towards libertarian
communism.

Three months later, Durruti was dead.
The revolution was not far behind. And
with the revolution dead and nothing
left to fight for, Franco's forces swept the
remnants into prisons and mass graves.
Durruti's optimism gave way to fascism,
and the unparalleled destruction of the
Second World War.

Eight years after Durruti's death, the
ruins got a lot scarier. The Trinity test,
the world's first atomic bomb, exploded
with a yield of 20 kilotons in the desert
of New Mexico. Soon after, the Japanese
cities of Hiroshima, then Nagasaki, were
reduced to ruins in an instant. The mass
destruction of World War II could now be
visited on cities in a single warhead. The
spectre of mutually assured destruction
would dominate the remainder of the
twentieth century.

II : Climate change

Today, we are facing an arguably graver
threat. Mutual destruction was assured
in the case of any state launching a
nuclear strike. Survival required, in
effect, that states did nothing.

But with climate change, this logic is
reversed. Now, it is inaction which
assures mutual destruction. The
inertia inherent to the states-system
has thus far scuppered all attempts
at a binding international emissions
reduction framework. The already
weak Kyoto Protocol expired without
replacement, and the professed goal
to agree a new protocol by 2015 looks
a lot like kicking the can down the
road. This time wasted is time we
don't have.

The latest report from the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change makes use of 'Representative
Concentration Pathways'. These
represent four outcomes for
atmospheric greenhouse gas
concentrations, and their associated
'radiative forcings' in 2100. In the
most aggressive of the pathways
atmospheric greenhouse gas
emissions peak in 2020 and decline
thereafter (atmospheric
concentrations lag behind emissions,
so the peaks come later).

But this is not going to happen,
barring immediate, drastic cuts to
fossil fuel use. At least 1,199 new
coal-fired power plants are currently
planned worldwide, which in itself
makes a 2020 peak of greenhouse gas
emissions impossible. The window for
gradual, reformist climate change
mitigation may already have closed.
The window for revolutionary climate
change mitigation is rapidly closing.

III : Disaster communism

To speak of disaster communism is
not to express a preference for a post-
apocalyptic style. It is a sober
realisation of the irreversible climate
change which is being locked-in by
present day development. We don't
claim devastation as a sufficient, or
even desirable, basis for a communist
revolution. That's the case even if it
does draw class lines, and brings
looters into conflict with the state (as
with Hurricane Katrina), or provides
space for self-organised disaster relief
(as with Hurricane Sandy).

Rather, to speak of disaster
communism is to recognise the Earth
we inherit is one where the ice caps are
melting, the glaciers are retreating, the
sea levels are rising, the oceans are
acidifying, food webs are collapsing, the
rate of extinctions is growing, storms
are getting stronger, flooding is
becoming commonplace, and where
agriculture will struggle to adapt to
changing climate. It's true that there's
no such thing as a natural disaster.
Capitalism's pursuit of endless growth
is driving climate change. But even if it
is overthrown, even if that happens
soon, we'll be living with the
consequences for centuries, or even
millennia.

As capitalism accelerates climate
change, ?possible? reforms become
utopian and ?impossible? revolution
becomes realistic. We live in strange
times. Capitalism is blasting and
ruining not just its world, but the Earth
systems which sustain human
civilisation. We are going to inherit
ruins and abandoned cities, there is
only the slightest doubt about that. But
we still also know how to build, and to
build better.

For more like this, check out:
libcom.org/outofthewoods