Anarchic update news all over the world - 23.04.2018

Today's Topics:

   
1.  Britain, Brighton Solfed - EVICT THE EVICTERS!
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL #282 - SNCF: CHSCT, a tool
      to resist the frenzied exploitation (fr, it, pt) [machine
      translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  Britain, Solidarity Federation: Next week, SolFed will be
      launching our new pamphlet (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  France, Alternative Libertaire: Tract AL - Extend and
      generalize the strike (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
  
 5.  wsm.ie: Poll shows Yes to Repeal has a large majority and No
      has failed to gain ground (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  black rose fed: "ELECTORAL PURSUITS HAVE VEERED US AWAY":
      KALI AKUNO ON MOVEMENT LESSONS FROM JACKSON By 
     Adam Weaver
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1






We're outside the landlord of Youngs estate agency this morning, which is another agency 
in Brighton called Halls Estate Agents. We're demanding that they pressure Youngs to pay 
the £5,500 that they owe a tenant who lived without a bedroom for nine months, had three 
ceilings in his flat collapse, and renovated it at his own expense. Since asking for 
further repairs to be done, the landlord has started an eviction process. ---- If Halls 
won't pressure Youngs to pay up, we're demanding that they evict Youngs from their tenancy 
at 39 Upper St James's Street. Since the start of Brighton Solidarity Federation's 
campaign in support of the tenant, the owner of Youngs, David Pay, has placed the phone 
number of both the tenant and his partner in the window of the agency and invited the 
public to make contact with them, in what amounts to a serious breach of the Data 
Protection Act and an incitement to harassment. We don't think Halls should be doing 
business with someone who treats people like this.

We're also outside Youngs (who have shut up shop as a result of the picket), because we 
wouldn't want them to feel left out of the fun ?

Evict the Evicters! An injury to one is an injury to all!

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Message: 2





Ten fatal accidents per year, professional diseases shoveled, a worrying suicide rate ... 
Sad balance sheet for the railway company and its subcontractors. Only union action 
prevents the situation from getting worse. The announced disappearance of CHSCT is a blow. 
---- The SNCF is about 600 CHSCT, six functional commissions per large body of trades 
(equipment, equipment, commercial, traction ...) and a national commission CNHSCT 
certainly devoid of power, but which allows to have a global vision . This fairly dense 
network boosts the union's capacity to act on issues concerning the health, working 
conditions and safety of 150,000 railway workers and contractors. Each year, 300 to 400 
CHSCT investigations are triggered following serious work accidents, and over 600 CSHCT 
alert rights are activated to denounce situations of "serious and imminent danger".

The recent unitary strike in the cleaning company H. Reinier-Onet, in Saint-Denis [1], 
highlighted the particularly painful working conditions and the domination relationships 
that subcontract workers are undergoing. . The CHSCT are a point of support to fight, 
because the Labor Code specifies that among its missions, there is the "prevention and 
protection of the physical and mental health and the safety of the workers of the 
establishment and those put at his disposal by an outside enterprise "(L.4612-1).

It should be known that every year, only for the "privileged" of the SNCF, a dozen fatal 
work accidents take place, and dozens of deaths are officially recognized following 
occupational diseases (615 deaths in fifteen years ). To this must be added the suffering 
at work due to the "shock strategy" of the incessant restructuring and the managerial 
methods that go along with it, and which is certainly not unrelated to the high number of 
railway suicides in the right-of-way. railways (57 in 2017). All this in a deafening media 
silence, and facing the omerta of the direction.

Negotiation with knives drawn on redrawing
Using the CHSCTs, trade union action consists of highlighting these phenomena through 
surveys and expertise, and organizing responses locally with the employees concerned.

On some national issues, such as asbestos, battles have been waged in connection with the 
exposed railroads and with victim associations such as Andeva. SNCF has thus been 
repeatedly convicted of inexcusable misconduct, and SUD-Rail has carried out a judicial 
procedure for "harm to anxiety" involving hundreds of employees exposed to asbestos and 
subjected to enhanced medical surveillance.

There is currently a negotiation at the SNCF, on the establishment, on 1 January 2019, of 
the social and economic committees (CSE) which will merge the instances DP, CE and CHSCT, 
with a redistribution and a reduction of means in sight. Whatever the outcome, the union 
teams will have to adapt to continue the fight. It is not because one breaks the 
thermometer that the fever will fall again!

Sébastien (AL Paris North East)

[1] Read the interview with Oumou Gueye in Alternative Libertaire of February 2018.

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?SNCF-Les-CHSCT-un-outil-pour-resister-a-l-exploitation-forcenee

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Message: 3





The pamphlet is called the Stuff Your Sexist Boss (doesn't want you to know). It is the 
result of a lot of Solfed members putting together their exeriences with organising 
against sexism in the workplace. With a cover illustration especially drawn by Bahar 
Mustafa. ---- Sexism is a constant presence in many workplaces where it can take many 
forms. From lower pay, to expectations of unpaid work, to sexual harassment by bosses, 
other workers or customers, sexism means women and workers seen as women are treated 
unequally on the basis of sex or gender. Our new pamphlet looks at the reality of sexism 
in the workplace and what we can do about it. ---- As anarcho-syndicalists we favour 
direct, collective strategies that build and maintain a culture of resistance in the 
workplace. While it's not always possible to directly confront sexism at work, there is 
still much that can be done to make work more bearable and undermine sexist behaviour. 
Coping strategies can allow workers to deal with things on a personal level while tactics 
of resistance can help you to actively fight against unequal treatment, objectification, 
harassment and structural disadvantage. In this way workers can organise and fightback, 
building a culture of solidarity and support at work, which ultimately means you and 
others experiencing sexism are less isolated and more likely to win.

The launch event will take place on Friday 27. April at DIY Space for London - see the fb 
event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/176171779680280

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Message: 4





To stop the breakage of the public services, to block the liberal offensive, to get rid of 
precariousness and misery it is possible. The general strike is the only way to win today 
and to repair the defeats of the past years. And to prepare a future free from the rules 
of capitalism. ---- It is now necessary to accelerate ---- It is with demonstrations with 
no tomorrow that we lost in 2010, 2016 or 2017 despite beautiful mobilizations. It is with 
the extended and renewable strike that we will win. Capitalism has reached a stage of 
savagery where more than one crumb seems negotiable: then we will take all the cake  ! The 
magnificent effort already made by the railway workers, the courage of the students facing 
unparalleled police violence, the mobilization at Air France, the successful days in the 
public service and in particular in health can not be ruined.

AG of cities and collectives
The renewed strike, voted in AG of strikers, coordinated at the branch and local level 
remains the most effective way for workers to maintain control of their strike. The 
inter-union and inter-professional associations in the cities are also bodies which allow 
the extension of the movement, the mutual solidarity, the mutual aid between employees in 
struggle. And then all groups of users, local collectives that arise and support 
mobilizations can also bring a plus to comfort the strikers. Activists of Libertarian 
Alternative will not neglect any space useful for the extension of the strike.

The strike remains at the center of the challenge of capitalism by stopping the production 
and circulation of goods, destroying the hope of shareholder appreciation. But other 
actions are also possible to block the operation of the machine and here also the 
activists of our organization are available.

Tract in pdf
The strike, school of communism
Democracy, in the construction of the general strike movement and generalized social 
subversion, is not a little more than prettier. True democracy, the control of the 
movement by the strikers themselves, voting in regular GA is the guarantee that the 
movement is not betrayed by any "leader" whatsoever. But it is also the practical exercise 
of direct democracy that we build in the perspective of a society free from the demands of 
private ownership of the means of production and the return on capital.

We are not only struggling to better distribute wealth, but to abolish the very 
possibility that some accumulate through the work of others. The authoritarian-led strike 
is the school of authoritarian socialism. The strike, animated by everyone, is the school 
of self-management communism.

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Etendre-et-generaliser-la-greve

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Message: 5





The Irish Times with MRBI published an opinion poll on the Repeal the 8th referendum this 
morning that once more showed a strong Yes lead and a static No.  It is the 6th poll of 
the year so we thought it useful to generate a side by side comparison of the Yes & No 
votes for all 6.  The polls were carried out by MRBI, Red C and Behaviour & Attitudes. 
---- Todays IT/MRBI poll has ---- Yes 47% ---- No 28% ---- Don't Know 20% ---- Won't vote 
3% ---- With undecided excluded that come down to 63% Yes to 37% No ---- With the chart 
above we eliminated undecided from all 6 polls. ---- Other significant finds from this 
mornings poll included; ---- A narrow majority of Fianna Fail votes favour repeal ---- 39% 
Yes ---- 37% No ---- This is very bad news for No campaigns as it suggests there will be 
no further opportunism from Fianna Fail TDs who might otherwise think campaigning for a No 
would damage their Fine Gael or Sinn Fein rivals.  This is now only the case in some rural 
areas and the advantage would be small but the Fianna Fail party nationally would have to 
be conferenced that any further prominent opportunism from rural Tis would further damage 
their chances of an urban recovery rather than the permanent loss of seats to Sinn Fein. 
Fianna Fail did a press stunt yesterday where several party members appeared with a 
Together for Yes banner, cynically we suspect this was because they were forwarned of 
todays poll showing No had failed to gain.

Most importantly the Yes vote appears to be very very solid with 80% of Repeal voters 
saying they would never change their mind.  Its probable the sheer toxicity and 
disinformation of the No campaign as well as the saturation coverage in terms of 
billboards and online ads has backfired and solidified the Yes vote.

Also of great significance undecideds are leaning 2:1 towards Repeal - this is unusual in 
a referendum where the assumption is that a majority of undecided would opt for the status 
quo and vote no.

If the two findings above are accurate the No campaign has no chance of winning on polling 
day.   This along with their failure to significantly increase their share of the vote 
since February suggests outside of some major Yes mishap it's over for them.

In this MRBI poll voters also reported a high degree of knowledge of post referendum 
legislation - only 15% said they were unaware - and Repeal voters showed the highest level 
of knowledge.  This means the No strategy of fake claims and misleading posters has not 
only failed but probably backfired and instead is motivating Yes voters and alienating 
undecided's.

But while there are strong grounds for optimism it's not over yet. Dangers include the 
attempts by No to make the campaign bitter and nasty, particularly in Dublin, to try and 
drive down turnout, particularly of younger voters. They probably hoped to provoke a 
response in kind from the Yes campaign but it has stayed focused on compassion and women's 
health.

The Irish Times headlined this as a slippage in the Yes vote in comparison with their 
January poll, something that is present until undecided are excluded when the apparent 
shift is then smaller than the margin of error.     RED C showed a similar slippage 
between their January and March polls which we discussed in depth at 
https://www.wsm.ie/c/repeal-8th-opinion-polls-analysis but at this point we'd acknowledge 
that its likely there was a loss of soft Yes votes back then before there was significant 
campaigning.

The weakest point for Yes remains the 12 week unrestricted access which is why No will 
continue to try and centre that discussion and avoid the discussions being centred on 
protecting womens health and fatal foetal abnormality. There the No vote is very soft 
indeed, half of No voters in the B&A poll actually wanted abortion access in those cases, 
meaning No could lose half their vote if protecting women health becomes the main issue 
under discussion.  The other half are the core 15% ‘let women die' - a figure that has 
remained constant for the last few years.

 From their messaging its clear that the No campaign recognise that they are not likely to 
erode many Yes votes on the 12 week issue and the Irish Times poll confirms that.  The 
percentage saying 12 weeks goes too far (41%) is almost identical with the percentage 
saying abortion is wrong and should not be more widely available. (40%).  56% said they 
had reservations on 12 weeks but it was a reasonable compromise.  Presumably a recognition 
that there is no other way of providing abortion in the case of rape and that 12 weeks is 
the current reality in Ireland because its  the end of the period where the abortion pill 
can be used.  The abortion pill may be illegal right now but the reality is women are 
taking it every week and that usage is increasing.  Unless the state starts prosecuting 
women for its use - and that would carry a 14 year jail sentence without repeal  - women 
will continue to use it regardless of the outcome of the referendum.  Most voters want 
these women to be able to access medical care with the risk of jail.

This mornings poll should have been the strongest by far figures for No campaign as they 
were organised to campaign earlier and are spending huge amounts on billboards & ads while 
#Together4Yes was still in the process of raising funds. Two weeks back No spokespeople on 
Twitter were crowing that the Yes campaign was nowhere to be seen - and this poll would 
have been collected in that period.  Last week saw the enormous crowdfunding drive by 
Together for Yes with 550,000 being raised through over 10,000 small donations, many with 
names and indeed moving stories attached.  Just who is funding the No campaign on the 
other hand is murky and unclear - its widely understood that huge quantities of dollars 
have flowed in over the last years because extreme US christian groups see Ireland as a 
key battleground in their ‘crusade'.

What has also been striking on Twitter is that the No canvass groups remain smaller and 
appear to have become less frequent, particularly in Dublin while the Together for Yes 
canvass groups have appeared everywhere, including rural areas that didn't see Marriage 
Equality canvassing and some of the groups are enormous.  We've seen photos of canvass 
groups in individual Dublin constituencies that have had 50-70 people on them.  We suspect 
the early start of the No campaign and the enormous amount of money they are spending on 
achieving saturation advertising everywhere from billboards to children's computer games 
has really motivated Repealers to donate and canvass.  A massive rebellion against the 
hated 8th amendment is very much in full swing and the status quo looks like its going 
down to a major defeat, and not just in the cities.

These are the 4 polls carried out since Repeal 8th referendum was declared. They show the 
impact of campaigning, mostly of the No side as Together for Yes got underway later. So 
both anti-choice groups, Save the 8th and Love Both have had no real impact on voters 
despite the enormous spend on posters, billboards & online ads.

Incidentally we have seek the claim that todays MRBI poll was the first time the Yes vote 
when don't know are included fell below 50%. This claim is false, the yes vote was at 49% 
for both the B&A polls here, ie for the period of the campaign it has remained just under 
50% for all but one poll.

The polls to date

MRBI January - 
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/clear-majority-backs-abortion-on-request-up-to-12-weeks-poll-shows-1.3368816
Red C January - https://www.redcresearch.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/SBP-Jan-2018-Poll...
B&A February - http://banda.ie/wp-content/uploads/Sunday-Times-Report.pdf
B&A March - http://banda.ie/wp-content/uploads/J.8878-Sunday-Times-March-2018-Report...
Red C March - https://www.redcresearch.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/SBP-March-2018-Po...
MRBI April - 
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/irish-times-poll-public-favour-repeal-of-eighth-despite-slip-in-support-1.3467503
Subject: Repeal 8th, Pro-choice

Author: Andrew N Flood

https://wsm.ie/c/poll-yes-repeal-has-large-majority-april18

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Message: 6






Introduction ---- Pledging to make Jackson become "the most radical city on the planet," 
the July 2017 election of Chokwe Antar Lumumba as Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi is by many 
accounts an inspiration as to the ability of the left to critically engage in social 
change through elected office. By no means an isolated effort, Lumumba's election is the 
result of decades of base building and social movement growth, most notably highlighted in 
their use of community assemblies and the work of Cooperation Jackson, which promotes the 
creation of worker cooperatives. ---- The origins of the campaign are rooted in the 
politics of Black self-determination and is spelled out in the Jackson-Kush Plan (referred 
to as the J-K Plan) formulated from 2004 through 2010 by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement 
and New Afrikan People's Organization. The Plan laid out an analysis and a collective 
model which was based on three pillars: building people's assemblies for grassroots 
decision making, building an independent Black political party; and building a solidarity 
economy. Most important though is that the plan was very explicit that electoral efforts 
would be "on a limited scale" and that the focus on popular assemblies, building 
autonomous and dual power institutions "is primary."

Trouble in Electoral Waters
But since last year's election victory not all has gone as planned. Kali Akuno, one of the 
key figures within the Jackson movement, has been raising critical questions of the role 
of electoral politics in the movement. Often doing interviews and speaking engagements 
highlighting organizing efforts in Jackson, Akuno is a key figure of Cooperation Jackson, 
one of the primary authors of the Jackson-Kush Plan and co-editor of the book Jackson 
Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black Self-Determination in Jackson, 
Mississippi.

As Akuno wrote in November 2017 for Black Agenda Report, the electoral focus was intended 
to be "adjunct component of a broader objective ... to build a transformative, 
anti-colonial power from the ground up through the People's Assembly as an autonomous 
vehicle of self-governance," but the reality is that "this understanding has been lost or 
ignored, and even more disappointing, has not really been pursued by the forces claiming 
adherence to the J-K Plan."

He continues his criticism around the narrative that has been promoted within the larger 
left, one that he calls a "misplaced hope" that is "sadly being employed to prop up 
liberal notions about the utility of electoral politics to the[broader]left ...[and 
which]uphold and promote the false notion that capitalism can be tamed and reformed 
through electoral politics."

More troubling for social movement work in Jackson is that the Lumumba administration has 
come to power at a moment where the local government faces what Akuno calls a "Syriza 
trap." This is a dynamic often faced by the left in power whereby it is forced to 
administer the very austerity they fought to oppose. Currently in Jackson, as Bruce Dixon 
writes, the central business district is now under state control, the privatization of its 
schools, the water system and the destruction of black neighborhoods for development 
development projects is "nearly imminent," and an "emergency management regime coming to 
strip elected city government of the ability to do much of anything without approval from 
bankers" is likely to be imposed. What will come of this remains to be seen.

However, the key question is that of the use of electoral politics to advance social 
movements and in a recent Labor Notes panel presentation (transcript below) Kali Akuno 
states the dynamic in unambiguous terms: "I think the social movement development work 
that got us to this point, I think is gradually being eroded and then sidelined and 
there's much more of an emphasis being placed on now on how to sustain ourselves in 
office." As Kali wrote in Black Agenda Report the focus on winning elections "negates the 
pursuit of autonomous power, the execution of a radical program, and the building of a 
revolutionary vehicle."

With that said, the wider left is wise to take a great pause and critical examination 
before using Jackson as an electoral model to be emulated. This strategy is a well-worn 
path and something around which we suggest the radical left should rightly be wary.

We have included a list of recommended readings on this topic at the end of this post.


"Doing Politics Differently" Panel Discussion Presentation by Kali Akuno
2018 Labor Notes Conference, Saturday, April 7, 2018

Note: Due to audio issues the opening 30-60 seconds of the presentation were not recorded. 
Akuno stated that while he had prepared comments for the presentation the other speakers 
prior to him raised important issues that he felt should be debated.

Now what does it all mean? In our case in Jackson, and I'm going to speak for myself, 
because we are in a place right now where there's an intense level of debate within the 
movement itself about what is the way forward, what are the strategies and tactics to move 
what our principal aims and objective are? And there's a fundamental question: Are we 
still on the same page about what the fundamental aims and objectives are?

Speaking for myself, as one of the key thinkers and framers of the project[the 
Jackson-Kush Plan]for whatever that's worth, for me, starting with that notion that the 
system as its constructed as it's been set up since the founding of the settler-colonial 
project, is inherently a reactionary project and cannot and would not tend towards 
democracy. So that's the basis from where I started from and from which these politics 
emerged from.

So the first piece is, I'm pushing to try to create as much democratic space as possible 
for the social movement without necessarily the expectation that winning office or even 
trying to accomplish certain reforms is actually going to get me where I'm trying to go.

The social movement in communities actually developing the capacity to govern themselves 
is more the final aim and I think a lot of times electoral politics gets in the way of us 
really aiming and pushing ourselves and those who we love, and work with, and live with, 
towards that other direction. And I would argue that some of our electoral pursuits have 
veered us away from that in Jackson as well, at least in this current iteration of the 
politics of the last couple of months, or last two or three years I would say.

That said we've laid out a couple of things like the four solutions[reference to a 
previous panelist's discussion of four responses to tackling issues around state power]and 
I think that was a good summation. In our case I think we've tried to do the bottom three, 
two, three and four[which are to forego electoral politics or use an "occupy model;" 
reduce importance of elected officials and build alternatives; and build different 
relationships between elected officials and movements]and tried to do them all 
simultaneously and I think we have an uneven record in that regard. And our project if you 
look at it, particularly looking at the Jackson-Kush Plan, I think you'll clearly see the 
outline of the two, three and four that we were trying to work on and build. The critical 
piece has always been who and what should be in the lead? That's a question that we have 
struggled with.

At this point I would honestly have to say that the dominant forces both internally and 
externally have been around electoral politics, and I think that that's an error. This is 
Kali speaking, and I think that that's an error. I think the social movement development 
work that got us to this point I think is gradually being eroded and then sidelined and 
there's much more of an emphasis being placed now on how to sustain ourselves in office, 
how to build alliances that will enable more of our candidates to be able to retain 
themselves in office. In the wake of those compromises - and in effect that's what they 
are I would argue - as you make those types of compromises you will wind up jettisoning 
more and more of your program. The critical piece probably of what you're asking[refers to 
a question from the audience]is I think that our development in this day and age of a 
clear program that we can rally working class and oppressed around is fundamental and 
primary: far more so than pursuing or even trying to elect people to office.

Because there's still the fundamental question of where are we trying to go, which is 
different than what we think is possible. And I want to pose that very clearly and 
distinctly as two different things. I think when we move our engagement to what we think 
is possible we move our politics within the limits of the system as it exists and aren't 
looking to push beyond what exists. And I think we clearly live in an era where, straight 
up, the world that the US was able to impose upon the world after WWII - that world is 
crumbling, it's crumbling fast and crumbling hard. And unlike many people I don't think 
Trump's election was an aberration. Whoever was going to be in office this term, whether 
they were going to be an outright racist, or not, was still going to have to work on 
renegotiating the terms of empire. That was going to have to be done - capital dictates 
that, not any of the politicians themselves. So somebody was going to have to do the dirty 
job of getting the NATO partners to cover more of the money. Can we renegotiate terms of 
trade with China and can we reposition the world around climate change in a particular way 
to do certain types of offsets and financial flows? That was on the agenda period, 
regardless of who was going to sit in that seat both in the presidency and the two 
different structures of the supposed legislative branch, which doesn't really do that much 
anymore.

That reorganization was going to be forced upon us anyway. The question is how do we begin 
to build a politics that exceeds that and understands the limitations and understands the 
challenges that exist right now are actually, I would pose to us, key opportunities if we 
allow our imagination to see it that way? Right now I think the biggest challenge that we 
have is we know there are millions of people in this country who are pissed off, 
righteously pissed off: do we have the ability to reach them? Do we have the ability to 
offer them a program that speaks to their immediate interests and towards a better future? 
That is to me the critical piece that we don't have a consensus upon and I think some of 
the limitation is our own imagination and we're still stuck trying to figure out how to 
get the most out of the present system as opposed to let it die, let's create the new, 
what do we need to do to think do we organize ourselves to get to that point. And I think 
that's a deeper, fundamental question I want to see us look at.

Recommended Follow Up Readings
The Lure of Electoralism: From Political Power to Popular Power

Socialist Faces in High Places: Syriza's Fall From Grace and the Elusive Electoral Road

A Blue Print for a Party of an Old Type

"If You Want a Better Capitalism": An Interview on Social Democracy with Gabriel Kuhn

Below and Beyond Trump: Power and Counter Power

Please note: Kali Akuno's remarks at Labor Notes have been published with permission. 
Additionally, while we fully support the points being raised by Akuno we want to be clear 
that his analysis and ideas are his own and he may or may not have differences with ours.

http://blackrosefed.org/electoral-pursuits-have-veered-us-away-kali-akuno-on-movement-lessons-from-jackson/

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