Anarchic update news all over the world - 25.04.2018

Today's Topics:

   
1.  Czech, afed: Spring Congress of the Anarchist Federation --
      Report from a regular meeting of our Federation.
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  alas barricadas: The traps of identity by Miquel Amorós
      (ca) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  Britain, brighton solfed: Brighton hospitality worker gets
      paid after a single picket, filed under: (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  vrije bond: Peter Storm about: 1 May; origin, development
      and meaning (nl) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL #282 - Unédic: Employees
      who are unemployed, at the risk of stateization (fr, it, pt)
      [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  London Anarchist Communists Group (ACG): Universal Credit!
      Stop It! Scrap It! (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1





In mid-April, the first annual Congress of the Anarchist Federation (AF) took place in 
Prague. Whoever follows the events of the organized anarchist movement certainly knows 
that there are always two congresses within the AF that summarize the activities of 
regional groups in the past inter-period and their plans for the future, the work of 
individual working groups within the federation and events and projects that go across the 
federation are planned. And that's one of the central goals of federal organization. The 
Federation serves as a platform for communication and coordination of supraregional 
activities, such as building contacts with foreign groups and engaging in the 
International Federation of Anarchist Federations (IFA) or ensuring the quality of 
publishing activities.

Present representatives of regional groups agreed that the activity of individual members 
and members is very often tied to other projects of the broader anti-terrorist movement, 
which is not to the detriment, yet it is important that AF as such also has some outcomes 
to promote a federative way self-organization. His need may not be so obvious in the 
capital, where there is a relatively large concentration of anti-authoritarian activists 
and activists, but it is an essential organizational element for organizing itself outside 
of Prague.

The agenda included, among other things, the status of a federation fund, which consists 
of membership contributions. Their recommended minimum is $ 50 per month. IFA's 
contributions, its regular meetings, possible joint AF campaigns, or, for example, the new 
autonomous area in Prague, are currently supported by a one-time contribution.

The Foreign Secretariat reported on current events at the IFA and its member federations. 
At the same time, delegates and AF delegates were scheduled to attend the various 
international meetings scheduled to take place in the coming months. Of course, issues of 
security and the dissemination of basic security culture have also been dealt with outside 
the organization. Similarly, possibilities and possible organizational measures were 
discussed in connection with the expansion and development of new forms of Internet 
communication, sharing of data and information.

Representatives of the AF Publishing House presented an editorial plan for the next 
period, mainly related to the preparation of book novels to be premiered at the Anarchist 
Book Festival this year on May 19 in Eterny, Prague. And there is really something to look 
forward to. This was followed by a debate about other activities we would like to 
contribute to the bookfair. They also discussed the proposal to resume publishing an 
anarchist reporter, Zdola , which could deal with some subject in part, but most of the 
texts would be news, especially foreign, which had already appeared on the federation's 
website.

In addition, there were discussions on the support of prosecuted activists and activists, 
the problem of the efforts of the repressive forces to infiltrate the movement through 
paid confidants, the way media outputs and their co-ordination within the wider movement. 
In the meantime, there has been a long-awaited campaign promoting anarchist ideas or our 
engagement at First May.

There is a lot of work ahead of us, and it is true that there is not much to do with it. 
It should be remembered that if we have some common goals, dreams and visions, they will 
not be fulfilled otherwise than through self-organization. So do not hesitate to engage in 
anarchist and other anti-authoritarian activities and groups, cooperate, develop your own 
initiative, and do not be discouraged by the fact that things do not change like a magic 
wand. Only joint, long-term and systematic work within an organized movement can have 
results and bring us closer to our visions.

https://www.afed.cz/text/6826/jarni-sjezd-anarchisticke-federace

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Message: 2





When international capitalism enters a dangerous critical phase, where the life of the 
majority of the planetary population depends completely on dire provisions taken by 
irresponsible people in order to overcome recession and ruin, in Europe, and more 
specifically in Catalonia, the conscience of the crisis seems to hide behind conflicts of 
very inferior rank, like for example, the one that maintains the Spanish State against the 
secessionist will of certain Catalan power groups, supported mainly by addicted 
businessmen and by the provincial middle class. The case presents strange similarities 
with the staging, in France, of the "Muslim" issue, a true staging set up to hide the 
social issue behind an ethnic, cultural and religious issue.

Under the prism of sovereignty, the working condition of a large part of the Catalan 
population dissolves into an illusory national identity artificially inflated in the 
media, and the social struggle is absorbed in the apparent struggle between a central, 
authoritarian and repressive government, and a "people" Catalan, peaceful and democratic 
where they exist, which aims to self-determine. It seems that the sovereignty discourse, 
monopolizing the political debate, has given the finishing touch to the class struggle. No 
one mentions the workers, but as a secondary subject represented by unions clearly 
favorable to the "right to decide." In reality, the proletariat has been subsumed and 
degraded in the wild concept of "poble". The moment can not be more confusing. The 
propagandist activity and the appropriation of the media space by the legally opposing 
sides, abruptly expel from the public stage the social question in favor of the identity 
question, or worse, of Spanishism. The nuances do not count; Everyone is obliged to choose 
their field: either with Spanish fascism, or with bourgeois Catalan democracy. Or with the 
constitutionalist lie or with the phantom of independence. A kind of moral blackmail 
condemns us to choose between one ideological prison or another; to pronounce ourselves 
for a certain type of oppression, in short, to adopt any chimerical identity. The protest 
against the total expropriation of the decision of the individuals on the part of an 
economic and political ruling class, in Barcelona and counties,

The fascination for a State that harbors the Catalan "nation" is so much, and so wisely 
cultivated by experts and communication professionals, that for its supporters it is 
offensive to doubt its effectiveness in solving all kinds of problems, from the one of 
evictions to unemployment and precariousness; from the destruction of the territory to 
that of undocumented immigrants; from gender equality to cuts in pensions and social 
services, etc. And if, unfortunately, the obstacle is visibly impossible to jump, Madrid 
can always be held responsible. The petty bourgeoisie and the new middle classes born of 
the tertiarization of the economy, seriously affected by the crisis, constitute a good 
part of the social base of sovereignty, the most credulous and most subjugated by the 
heroicity of its imprisoned or exiled leaders. We will hardly find proletarians in their 
ranks. For this reason, "democratic" and citizen nationalism emerges in the current 
context in opposition to emancipatory ideologies such as self-managed socialism, 
confederalism, libertarian communism and revolutionary syndicalism. Or better said, as an 
alternative narrative to subversive theories capable of truthfully exposing the current 
situation to the oppressed classes. The fight against the effects of the crisis stops 
being articulated around the working condition and happens to do it around the 
nationality. If the concrete community of workers has been weakened by the onslaughts of 
trade unionism of concertation, unemployment and consumerism, an abstract community is 
formed instead, virtually related, interclass and essentialist: the Catalan people. The 
nationalist montage speaks in the name of this abstraction.

The catastrophes of globalized capitalism and the corrupt government of the state right 
have created a particular ideological climate in Catalonia, perfectly exploited by the 
network of sovereignty interests, which has managed to neutralize any other opposition and 
bring all the water to its mill. Faced with a corrupted and despotic "democracy," the 
nationalist leadership likes to show itself as the agent of a true democracy, obedient to 
the mandate of the "people." The past, which could easily disprove such authenticity, has 
been erased in the patriotic imagination. The sovereignist has no memory. Suddenly, all 
the institutions, at this point quite discredited, are legitimized at the expense of the 
infamous central government: the Government, the Parliament, the Bureau, consellers, 
undersecretaries, Mossos, diputats, regidors, patronals, parties ... The repression, 
centered in the top leadership, has contributed a lot. All the sovereign political class 
acquires a virginity at a price of balance, and with it, the brutal autonomic police and 
the Government of the cuts, the BCN World and the Palau case. The State, through which the 
ruling class is constituted in a democratic society, remains incontestably consecrated. 
But "democracy", which today is nothing more than the political form of capitalism, and 
which in its final critical phase adopts increasingly obvious authoritarian and 
spectacular forms, both in Catalonia and in Spain, usually acts as a deactivating 
mechanism of a latent anti-capitalist conflictivity, diverted by union bureaucracies to 
vacant land. The Catalan originality is that the aforementioned democracy stands as the 
main argument of the oligarchic plots of nationalism with which this ensures a huge bag of 
loyal voters. The false questions have no other mission than to disguise the real ones for 
the benefit of domination, flying the red and yellow or the stellar.

Undoubtedly, by recomposing the Catalan political and social scene in a nationalist key, 
the sovereign forces have dislodged the official "left", the old one and the new one, the 
social democrat and the citizenry, both unable to separate themselves from the identity 
fashion and distance themselves from their common places, their symbols and their myths. 
He has no choice but to choose between two masters and get behind the "unionism" or 
nationalism. Something similar could be said about Catalan anarchism. During the civil 
war, official anarchism converted into a slogan a phrase falsely attributed to Durruti: 
"We renounce everything except victory." This was to justify a shameful abjuration and a 
useless tactic made on the basis of capitulations. As it came off, Anarchism would fare 
better the more it rejects its postulates, methods and objectives. Well, the "country" 
libertarians have taken good note. By pure activism or by really sympathizing with 
nationalism, they have no qualms about forgetting history by mobilizing behind nationalist 
slogans; in depositing their ballot paper in the ballot box sanctifying the elections; in 
vindicating a "democracy" to the Catalan and its more conventional institutions, and in 
contributing its grain of sand to the construction of a republican State, from which one 
can expect a love of civil liberties similar to that of the monarchical version of which 
it is intended to segregate. To capital, do not touch it; in the Catalan movement nobody 
is anti-capitalist, unless it is a mouthpiece; He's going Democrat. We are inclined to 
think, after having crossed paths with some especially Pharisees, that the anarchism of 
postmodernism and identity militancy has become the refuge of an extremist sector of the 
middle class, very minority, but visible. In short, the spearhead of a new easement. Well, 
but fortunately, that is not all anarchism or even by far, although it would gain quite an 
impact on the social struggle rather than parapeting behind the principles.

The main task of revolutionary criticism would be to dispel the confusion by means of a 
deep and clear analysis of the capitalist regime as it manifests itself in Catalan 
society, in no different from the European one. In the light of true social antagonisms, 
nationalist topics vanish. Only from these can a community of struggle capable of acting 
against Capital and the State be constituted. The awareness of contradictions is still to 
come, and with so much nationalism, it will take more than the bill, but given that the 
proletarianization of society will worsen as a result of the destructive implosion of 
capitalism, the middle class will lose protagonism and citizens' budgets and nationalists 
will crumble, as if lifted on a mud pedestal.

For the presentation of the book "I do not wish a State to anyone", in Espai Contrabandos, 
Barcelona, April 19, 2018 (Speakers: Corsino Vela, Santiago López Petit, Tomás Ibáñez and 
Miquel Amorós).

http://alasbarricadas.org/noticias/node/39847

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Message: 3





A Brighton hospitality worker supported by SolFed has won a victory against the 
exploitative conditions prevalent in the local hospitality sector, as a restaurant paid 
£1,200 in response to pay demands made by the worker. ---- The public campaign in support 
of the worker ended after a single picket - and some back-and-forth emailing - with the 
worker receiving all the money she had asked for. ---- The worker's demand of £1200 was in 
relation to outstanding pay. Unusually, the worker had been told she would be paid a set 
weekly amount, depending on whether she worked 5 or 6 days. Her contract stipulated that 
she was employed and paid for 32 hours a week. However, since work days usually lasted 
around 11 hours, in reality she worked close to double what she had been contracted for.

The worker explained: "After my unpaid trial shift, my manager and me had a chat about 
pay. He told me that their workers don't get paid per hour, they get paid per week. They 
simply paid me £340 for a 6-day week and £280 for a five-day week."

It is a basic workplace right that workers are told in writing how much they get paid, 
with the minimum wage defined per hour. As of 1. April 2018, the minimum wage stands at 
£7.83 per hour for over-25s, £7.38 per hour for 21-24, £5.90 per hour for 18-20, and £4.20 
for under 18s.

There was also a problem around paid holidays, which were not specified in the minimal 
"contract" the worker had been given. According to labour legislation, every worker has a 
right to at least 28 days paid holidays per year (including public holidays ) for a full 
time worker. In the situation of casualised working conditions, such as in this case, paid 
holidays can be worked out easily per hour worked, using the official calculator. Paid 
holidays start from the day the job starts, and in the case where worker has paid leave 
left when their job finishes, they need to receive payment in lieu of holidays.

In the present case, no holiday pay was made to the worker when she was dismissed from her 
job. In fact, when her job was terminated unexpectedly after an argument with a co-worker, 
resulting from a wider climate of tension in the workplace, the restaurant threatened to 
not pay 6 days that had already been worked. When the restaurant ignored her requests for 
outstanding pay, the worker contacted Brighton SolFed.

Following a letter from SolFed, the company investigated the events which had led to the 
dismissal. At first, the company attempted to dodge the issue, and lower amounts were 
offered. However, sustained pressure and the immediate threat of further pickets soon led 
to a full climb down. While the restaurant has made no admission of wrongdoing, they paid 
up in full- one part in outstanding pay including holiday pay, and another part as a 
"goodwill" payment.

"I'm really happy. Although I suffered for two months, in the end I got all the money I 
was owed."

"When you're in that situation it can be hard to see what's happening. Open your eyes - 
you can do better and there's people out there who can help you."

SolFed is often asked why we don't go through the ‘proper channels' like employment 
tribunals or ACAS (the arbitration service) where there are clear breaches of employment 
rights. Employment tribunals can only be used by workers who have been employed in a 
company for 2 years, which excludes many people in casualised jobs.

However, even when these options are available they are not designed to work in our 
interests. At worst their function is to block and frustrate workers with a  grievance by 
tying them up in procedures. At best they are staffed by people who think workers and 
bosses have equal rights. This is something we reject because it ignores power relations 
in work and so props up a system that says it's ok for bosses to profit from the work of 
others.

What this short dispute shows to workers and bosses alike, is what can be achieved with 
solidarity and direct action which keeps the worker fully in control of their dispute.

Wage theft is rife in the hospitality sector in Brighton, but SolFed's hospitality worker 
campaign has already won tens of thousands of pounds of holiday pay for exploited staff in 
hotels and restaurants. Do you want to join the fight against wage theft and 
casualisation? Whether you're having difficulties in your workplace or just want to be a 
part of it, get in touch at brighton@solfed.org.uk.

http://www.brightonsolfed.org.uk/brighton/brighton-hospitality-worker-gets-paid-after-a-single-picket

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Message: 4





Sunday, April 29, 2018, 17:00, Bookstore The Fort of Shako, Jodenbreestraat 24, Amsterdam 
---- We will soon be celebrating the 1st of May. There are demonstrations and other 
activities in various cities. But what is the origin and meaning of the First May, where 
does the tradition come today and why does 1 May still happen today? About these questions 
Peter Storm, activist and blogger at ravotr.nl, will give a lecture. He will discuss the 
origin of May 1 and outline how the celebration has evolved in the course. Plus: why is 1 
May still going today?
May 1 , amsterdam , Fort of Sjakoo , lecture , Peter Storm
https://www.vrijebond.org/peter-storms-over-1-mei-oorsprong-ontwikkeling-en-betekenis/

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Message: 5





A draft law is being prepared concerning unemployment insurance. The social partners were 
invited to negotiate to give birth to a hollow text, leaving the government free. The 
upcoming reform should confirm the regime's misuse and increased criminalization of the 
unemployed. ---- The articulation of anti-social reforms of the government respects a 
strict coherence: after the labor law and before the Social Security, it is the turn of 
the unemployment insurance to know the pangs of a first work of dismantling. A reform 
concerning this social organization has therefore been under development since the 
beginning of the year. And the government's maneuvers go through several stages. ---- 
Threat of stateization of the regime ---- Already, the ordinances of the second half of 
2017 had abolished employee unemployment contributions and replaced them with an increase 
in the CSG. This first reform, as well as the announcement of a possible stateization of 
the regime, manifest the will to question the very nature of unemployment insurance, 
namely a conquest of the labor movement, one of the pillars of Social Security.

In December, the second step was to propose to the social partners to negotiate on imposed 
topics, with the repeated threat of the government putting the regime under State 
trusteeship if no viable solution was found. But ... negotiate to find a solution? The 
pretext constantly invoked by the State and the Medef to tear down Unédic is always the 
same: the debt and the deficit. If one must recognize a cumulative debt of about 37 
billion euros, on the other hand, for several years, the amount of contributions, about 35 
billion for 2016, covers the allowances paid ... The Unédic's budget is therefore at the 
balance. However, the organization has an annual deficit of about 3.5 billion ... In 
reality, the deficit of Unédic is not related to the unemployment insurance scheme but to 
funding employment center. Because Unédic's share in the funding of Pôle emploi amounts 
precisely to ... 3.5 billion per year. The state, for its part, only finances Pôle emploi 
for about 1.5 billion. So in fact, Unédic's debt is the debt of the state,!

Impossible financing
But the infamy is much more terrible since the government, in its permanent double speech, 
seeks to make the current financing of unemployment insurance strictly impossible. 
Throughout the campaign, candidate Macron promised to extend unemployment benefits to 
self-employed workers and resigning employees. Wishful but above all completely 
hypocritical wishes. If the annual accounts of the unemployment insurance are in 
equilibrium, widening the scope of the beneficiaries of the compensation will necessarily 
involve either increasing its funding or degrading the terms of compensation.

Based on these elements, it is now easier to understand the government's message to labor 
organizations. When they are asked to negotiate in order to find a solution, in the end, 
we can hear the government say to them: "  Make it easy for you to run unemployment 
insurance yourself or we will take care of it. But if it is us, we will destroy everything 
to make it a state agency, which will be to hand over the keys of the house to Medef  .

A hollow interprofessional agreement

The social partners therefore met each week from 12 January to 22 February on five topics: 
the opening of compensation to resigners, the compensation of self-employed workers, the 
use of precarious contracts, the control of the unemployed and the governance of 
unemployment insurance. These negotiations resulted in an annual interprofessional 
agreement (ANI) whose emptiness is only matched by the abysmal lack of concrete proposals. 
As regards the resigning members, the proposed measures would probably have limited 
effects, given the very selective conditions (five years of uninterrupted contributions, a 
reconversion project approved by a parity body, a limited dedicated budget). Regarding the 
independents, the NNA refers to a working group which will have to make its conclusions by 
the end of 2018. We can understand the caution of the social partners, and especially the 
trade unions, concerning these first two imposed topics. Because the goal of the 
government, far from wanting to universalize a principle of solidarity, is mainly to 
continue to attack the labor law by facilitating resignations, and promoting the passage 
to status discount as the self-entrepreneur.

Third theme: precarious contracts. Great moment of tartufferie since on the one hand, the 
perimeter of the debates was limited to the contracts of less than one month, and on the 
other hand, the ANI refers to necessary negotiations within the professional branches, 
that of course to avoid to the employers any device of taxation of the short contracts ...

Regarding the control of the unemployed, the fourth theme imposed, the ANI refers to the 
joint reference document of 12 December 2017, which reaffirms the need for personalized 
support for the unemployed and an expenditure activation policy. Finally, concerning the 
governance of unemployment insurance, the last theme imposed, the social partners reaffirm 
their commitment to the autonomy of the system and its contributory nature.

So this text, in the end, does not commit anything ... except to prepare the ground for 
the government by leaving it free for a radical reform of the regime. A bill should be 
presented by Muriel Pénicaud to the cabinet at the end of April. It is at this moment that 
one will grasp all the measure of the reforms envisaged by the power.

In the meantime, the Minister of Labor announced the color concerning the control of the 
unemployed: increase in the number of staff dedicated to control, increased penalties and 
return of the "  reasonable offer of employment  ". The current power has never hidden: 
for him, Pôle emploi has the role of controlling and sanctioning private employment to 
accept any job poorly paid conditions deplorable work.

In recent years, a collective uniting associations of unemployed, Pôle Emploi employee 
unions and some political organizations, including Alternative libertaire, seeks to make 
its voice heard to warn about the dangers that weigh on the unemployment insurance. Let us 
hope that in these periods conducive to mobilization, a convergence will be established 
between unemployed and employee for the defense of the regime. Unemployment insurance is 
just as important as old-age or sickness insurance. To resign oneself to seeing it 
disappear would be a decisive victory for the power in power.

François Molinier (Friend of AL)

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Unedic-Les-salarie-es-prives-d-emploi-au-peril-de-l-etatisation

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Message: 6





London ACG comrades supported and were present at the rally put on by the Disabled People 
Against Cuts against Universal Credit yesterday outside the House of Commons. There was 
much enthusiasm to continue to fight it under the slogan Stop It! Scrap It! rather than 
feeble Stop it! Fix It! offered by various Labourites as well as a call to set up 
anti-Universal Credit groups in all localitiies.

https://londonacg.blogspot.co.il/2018/04/universal-credit-stop-it-scrap-it.html

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