Today's Topics:
1. London Anarchist Communists Group: Report back on First
Coordination Meeting of the CGA 30th June 2018
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #285 - Dockers: A blow to
one is a blow to all (fr, it, pt)[machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. fau, deliverunion: Deliverunion Survey - Foodora Rider
Opinions of Shift Planning App (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Britain, solfed: UNDEREMPLOYMENT, CASUALISATION AND THE
FUTURE OF WORK (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. Poland, rozbrat Anarchist Federation fa-poznan: The first
brochure in the series Biblioteczka @ -TAK-u - Temptation of
nationalism [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. liberta salonica: Liberty in Turgut Kaya Anarchist
Federation (gr) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
At the first coordination meeting of the Anarchist Communist Group since its founding
congress in February, comrades from Leicester, London, Surrey and Scotland met together in
London to coordinate activities and propaganda. ---- There was an in-depth discussion on
the National Health Service. At the end of the discussion it was decided to produce a
pamphlet on the NHS which should be out later in the year, as well as leaflets and
detailed analysis on ACG social media. ---- There was further discussion on bringing out a
third issue of our news sheet, The Jackdaw, which would be an 8 page issue. This will
appear at the beginning of September. ---- It was also decided to bring out other
pamphlets in addition to our NHS pamphlet. These would include The Italian Factory
Councils, The Friends of Durruti and the Spanish Revolution, anarchist communist
perspectives on revolution, class, religion and land, and anarchist communist perspectives
on organisation, a total of four.
In addition a new leaflet on Universal Credit will be produced, as well as stickers on
Universal Credit,migrants, and landlords. Banners and flags bearing the ACG logo would
also be produced.
There was also discussion on the content and organisation of our forthcoming Day School,
Libertarian Communism 2018, in November in London.
At the end of the meeting, an observer decided to join the ACG. There was an enthusiastic
atmosphere throughout the meeting, as there had been at our foundation conference.
https://londonacg.blogspot.com/2018/07/report-back-on-first-coordination.html
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Message: 2
All the ports of France have their eyes riveted on the fight being played at this moment
in Lorient. The community of agglo wants to dismiss 10 dockworkers and replace them with
workers without status. The CGT federation is raising the pressure. ---- What is the
difference between a dockworker and a precarious worker ? The statute. The status of
docker ensures regularity of wages despite intermittent work - the waiting time between
two boats to load or unload on the port. ---- What's happening in Lorient ? An unfortunate
precedent: the port authorities are trying to fire 10 dockworkers and replace them with
non-status workers. It is a blow to the whole profession and its rights. ---- What is
happening in the rest of the country ? Solidarity mobilization, orchestrated by the CGT,
to prevent this bad blow to weaken the dockers of the other ports.
The port of Lorient was managed until 2016 by a subsidiary of Veolia, the CEP. Dockers
were used for fish allotment by Keroman Services Industries (KSI), a company 60 % owned
by CEP. It is mainly fish caught by Scapêche (a subsidiary of Intermarché). The work is
done at night so that the fish is sold in the morning.
But in 2016, the port passes into the hands of the mixed economy company (SEM) Keroman,
whose main shareholder is the community of agglo de Lorient. The PIU then divested from
KSI and ceased to sit on the board of directors. From then on, the days of KSI and the
dockers it employs are counted. This results in the liquidation of KSI on April 18, 2016
and the dismissal of 10 dockers.
Two two-hour walkouts in all ports
Other solutions would have kept the dockers: SEM could have hired them directly, or resume
KSI. But the SEM and the elected officials of Lorient mainly see the opportunity to get
rid of status workers. The pretext mentioned is that the docker status does not fit well
with " the operation of a fishing port whose inputs are inherently random ".
A standoff is therefore between the CGT Ports and Docks de Lorient trade union and the
SEM. Blocking actions ensue, during which the dismissed workers have seen their
replacement by 20 to 25 temporary ... Like what activity is not down ! Simply, elected
officials like precariousness (for the workers, not for them of course).
As decision-makers turn a deaf ear, the dockers are increasing the pressure with the
support of their entire federation. On May 4 and May 16, two-hour walkouts affected all
French ports. In Lorient, a demonstration brought together several delegations from
different ports, the local interpro, with the presence of the secretary of the federation,
Tony Hautbois. We walked to the sound of drums from Le Havre, to the town hall, which
received a delegation. The situation is still not settled, the federation leaves the
threat of a disengagement of all French ports for twenty-four hours and a great
demonstration dockers in Lorient.
Ronan (AL Lorient)
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Dockers-Un-coup-porte-a-l-un-c-est-un-coup-porte-a-tous
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Message: 3
Having trouble with the newly-introduced shift planning app (Rooster)? Take our survey
https://polls.fau.org/index.php?r=survey/index/sid/454877/lang/en and let us know!
We want to better understand the obstacles that riders are facing in doing their unpaid
shift planning on a weekly basis.
The Deliverunion campaign is based on riders' own workplace issues and demands. Help us
today and take our shift planning survey
https://polls.fau.org/index.php?r=survey/index/sid/454877/lang/en
https://deliverunion.fau.org/2018/06/14/foodora-app-survey/
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Message: 4
Underemployment is the term used for workers who get fewer hours than they want and need
to live on. In the UK there are now at least 1.4 million workers on zero-hours contracts
and 865,000 agency workers, many of whom struggle to get enough hours a week to survive
on. Added to which, companies are increasingly employing people on a part-time basis,
often on contracts of 10 hours or less. This leaves workers dependent on any extra hours
management may choose to offer them. According to the Office for National Statistics, just
under 10% of the working population or 3.3 million people want more hours; or to put it
another way, are part unemployed. To put this into context there are now twice as many
people underemployed as there are unemployed.
The practice of underemployment puts management into a powerful position, enabling them to
dictate working conditions and create a workplace culture of fear and permanent
insecurity, where workers feel they have to put up with just about anything or risk being
sanctioned by not being offered any extra hours available. Studies have shown that, where
there is a high level of underemployment, the culture of the workplace is characterised by
discrimination, sexual harassment and assault, high levels of stress and mental illness,
bullying, arbitrary rules, favouritism and wage theft. It can also make balancing work,
childcare, and school a nightmare given the need to take on extra hours often at short
notice to make up pay.
"We only find out on the day, or the day before, about how many hours we will work and
about our start and finish times. I am a single mother of two children and it is very
difficult for me. "
The reality behind underemployment was revealed in a survey of 450,000 USDAW union
members. The survey was largely of workers in retail, warehouse and distribution along
with road transport. The survey revealed that 60% of respondents have contracts for 30
hours or less. Almost two-thirds (64%), of those taking part in the survey, regularly work
additional hours above their contracted hours. The survey found that two-thirds would like
these extra hours to be guaranteed. It also found that one in every three of respondents
said they would like to work longer hours.
The survey also found an increasing use of agency workers with one in twenty workers (5%)
reporting that at least half of the workforce are agency staff. It was also found that
many workers have to take on extra jobs to make ends meet with 8% having a second job,
with a further 20% looking for a second job. The survey also shows an alarming increase in
the use of short-hours contracts - contracts of 10 hours or less - as a means of avoiding
the bad publicity now associated with zero hours contracts. The overwhelming majority that
took part in the survey stated they wanted more job security and guarantees over hours
with 98% stating that they believed that workers should have a right to contracts that
reflect their normal hours.
The USDAW survey is alarming as it points to a big growth in underemployment in the
traditional sectors of the economy where it has generally been assumed jobs are more
secure. It now appears that these sectors are moving towards the conditions found in the
"gig" economy, where the majority of employees' hours vary from week to week according to
business needs.
"Agency workers at my workplace are very unhappy with the way they are treated. They come
into work; many have spent up to £6 just to get to work; when they arrive, they find that
they are sent home after one hour."
That big-named companies are now using underemployment, as a means to cut cost and
increase profits, should not come as too big of a surprise. This process has been
underway in the US retail sector for many years and has become commonly known as "short
shifted." In the US, retail companies have introduced just in time scheduling" and use
other "lean" manufacturing practices managing an increasingly part time workforce and cut
wage cost to the bone.
The key to the introduction of these "lean" manufacturing practices has been the use of
the latest technologies, which has allowed retailers to track sales patterns and predict
labour costs with far greater precision. This has enabled US retailers to cut or increases
workers hours in line with fluctuations in business. For example, if there is bad
weather, the scheduling algorithm can indicate that employees should be sent home before
their shift ends. Another example is to use detectors embedded in the welcome mat in shops
that measure conversion rates - how many people enter the store in relation to how many
walk out with bags - and plan work schedules accordingly.
Methods like this, have allowed, even large retail companies employing thousands of
workers, to tailor the working hours of individual workers to cut cost. To the extent that
companies are able to use sales per hour of individual workers for one week to determine
their work schedule for the next. This not only cuts cost, it puts constant pressure on
workers to sell more or have their hours cut. This has led to guaranteed full time
employment increasingly the preserve of managers and long-term employees with the majority
of the workforce on part time contracts with many in constant need of extra hours.
"I'm not considered full-time but during the holiday season I work full-time hours. Only
managers can get full-time status officially."
Not surprisingly these "lean" manufacturing practices has spread beyond retail in the US
and are now being used in fast food and full-service restaurants, hotels, entertainment,
construction, and information sectors. The USDAW survey would indicate that "lean"
manufacturing practices are being imported into the UK economy. Amazon, for example,
regularly sends workers home when not enough work is available and uses the practice,
common in US retail, of getting workers to compete with each other for the reward of extra
hours.
In the UK, much has been made of the dangers posed by new technology and focus has rightly
been on increasing automation and the threat to jobs. However, the danger of technology
being used to casualise low-tech "unskilled" jobs, is just as real. This may well have big
implications for the future of work in the UK. Already there is evidence that, in the UK,
companies are reluctant to invest in labour saving technology due to the price of labour
being cheap. With new technologies been used to drive down labour cost, making automation
less cost effective, we may well see the workforce increasingly dominated by state
subsidised, underemployed workers, whose lives by necessity revolve around the constant to
need to work more hours to make up pay. A scenario even more likely, should some form of
universal basic income be introduced.
As a union, Solidarity Federation is committed to developing new methods of organising to
meet the challenges of a rapidly changing economy. Part of which includes running a
workplace organiser training course which is open to everyone. For more information
contact training@solfed.org.uk.
http://www.solfed.org.uk/manchester/underemployment-casualisation-and-the-future-of-work
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Message: 5
Nationalism still tempts the impoverished, because other perspectives seem more bleak. The
culture of the ancestors was destroyed, so from a pragmatic point of view, it failed. The
only descendants who survived are those who have inhabited the system of the invaders and
survived at the ends of the garbage. The utopias of poets and dreamers and numerous
"mythologies of the proletariat" also failed. They have not worked in practice. They
turned out to be vain dreams about the beyond. In fact, this proletariat is as racist as
the heads of the police. ---- The packer and keeper have lost contact with the old
culture. The fantasies and utopias are not interested in them, they essentially treat them
with the same disdain with which a practical businessman treats poets, wanderers and
dreamers. Nationalism offers them something specific, something that has undergone trial
and error testing - and is ready for action. From a mundane point of view, the descendants
of the persecuted have no reason to continue being persecuted, since nationalism puts them
before the prospect of being persecutors. Closer and further descendants of victims can
create a racist national state. They can lead other people to concentration camps, dispose
of other people as they want, fight a genocidal war against them, expropriate them to
obtain initial capital. And since they can be done by "racial relatives" of Hitler's victims,
Every oppressed population can become a nation, a photographic negative of the oppressor
nation, a place where the packer has become the supermarket manager, where the former
watchman becomes the police commander. Using an improved strategy, any watchman can follow
in the footsteps of the pretorian guards from ancient Rome. The bodyguards of a foreign
mining company can proclaim themselves a republic, free the people, and free him, until he
has nothing left to pray for the liberation to come to an end. Even before taking power, a
gang could call itself a Front and offer the poor, something that is still missing to the
poor, the poor, an organization collecting contributions and a squadron of assassins, that
is one more taxpayer and another police, this time a folk one. In this way, the people can
be freed from the last traces of their ancestors-victims. All relics remaining after
pre-industrial times and non-capitalist cultures can finally be destroyed once and for all.
The idea that realizing the genocide, that the memory of extermination, can only bring
people to dismantling the system, is wrong. The constant temptation of nationalism
suggests something quite the opposite: that the realization of the genocide was successful
for the people to mobilize themselves in the genocidal armies, that the memory of the
extermination was successful for the people to make new exterminations. Sensitive poets,
reminiscent of loss, and the researchers who documented it, are like those pure science
fans who have discovered the structure of the atom. Specialists in applied sciences have
used their discovery to break up the nucleus of the atom, to create a weapon that will
break the nucleus of each atom. Nationalists used poetry to break up and bond human
populations, to mobilize genocidal armies, to carry out further exterminations.
Pure science lovers, poets and researchers do not feel guilty for devastated villages and
burned bodies. Are they really innocent?
I believe that at least one of Marx's remarks is true: every minute dedicated to the
capitalist production process, every thought devoted to the industrial system, strengthens
the enemy power of nature, culture and life. Applied science is nothing foreign - it is an
integral part of the capitalist production process. Nationalism did not come from abroad.
It is the product of the capitalist process of production, like chemicals poisoning lakes,
air, animals and people, like nuclear power plants irradiating microenvironment in
preparation for irradiation of the macro-environment.
In the postscript, I would like to answer the question before it falls. The question is:
"Do not you think it's better that the descendant of the oppressed people will become a
supermarket manager or a police chief?" I will answer with another question: "Which head
of the concentration camp, which national tormentor or executioner was not a descendant of
the oppressed people?"
(Fragment of the book)
The book published in the series A-Taku Library creates an editorial collective in
cooperation with the publishing house Brotherhood Trojka. You can order it on the Bractwo
Trojka website:
A-yes - we are publishing an anarchist street newspaper from September 2015. It is a
nationwide project that we constantly try to improve and develop. You have the proof for
it in your hands. In the Attachment Library series, we present texts that due to their
volume could not be found in the pages of our newspaper. Texts that continue and develop
the topics raised in the Attack, which we found interesting for the modern anarchist
movement and important from the point of view of the current public debate.
The paper itself is not enough for us, because what is the issue without practice? For us
it has and still has a lot of meaning. For this reason, we take an active part in the
activities of the anarchist movement by participating in countless meetings, discussions,
direct actions, and demonstrations. We are a group that wants to coordinate and strengthen
anarchist activities throughout the country. We try to reach people and groups of
beginners and those more experienced. We help in establishing contact with other
individuals / groups, we exchange experiences and skills. We also create and disseminate
nationwide materials promoting anarchism - leaflets, posters, stickers.
Please contact people and groups who want to cooperate, regardless of whether and to what
organization they belong to, or support our activities financially.
Contact: akoordynacja@op.pl We invite you to cooperation. Contact: atak@riseup.net Fb /
atak.gazeta Page with propaganda: www.akcja.type.pl
http://www.rozbrat.org/informacje/publikacje/4625-pierwsza-broszura-w-serii-biblioteczka-tak-u-kuszenie-nacjonalizmem
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Message: 6
The fighter and supporter of the Kurdish movement Turgut Kaja began a hunger strike on
31/5/2018. The reason for this is the threat of extradition by the Greek authorities to
Turkish justice following a decision of the Supreme Court on 30/5/2018. The last pending
issue is in the hands of the Minister of Justice, who, if he agrees, then Turgut Kaya will
once again be faced with the authoritarian regime Erdogan to serve the rest of the penalty
imposed on him because of his policies his positions and his participation in the Kurdish
movement. ---- Turgut Kaya is a member of the TKP / ML (Turkish Communist Party / Marxist
Leninist), a journalist and historian, and is struggling since his student years. In
addition to the persecution of the Turkish authorities, he was arrested in Greece in April
2015 along with three other Turks as part of a pan-European operation against members of
the Confederation of Turkish Workers in Europe. He was released and arrested again last
February after Interpol's "red" alarm.
Turkish law based on statistics repeatedly violates the rights of detainees, as fighters,
trade unionists, journalists and intellectuals are prosecuted because they oppose the
authoritarian and brutal Erdogan regime. The Turkish state holds the first and second
positions in convictions for violating the right to life, convictions of torture,
violation of the right to personal security, convictions for violations of the right to a
fair trial, and wanting to reinstate the death penalty.
It is obvious, therefore, that the Supreme Ice sends Turgut Kaya to the snakes pit. This
is a decision, which at first seems contradictory. For nearly the same reasons a year ago,
he had decided not to issue the 8 Turkish officials, because it was judged that if they
were extradited to Turkey, they would not have been "fair trial" and that their lives were
at risk. The rationale of the decision considered that the human rights and dignity of the
individual prevail in this particular case. We can, therefore, observe the different
treatment of state law when it comes to revolutionary anarchists and communists.
Moreover, we do not consider the SYRIZA / ANEL government unlikely to use Turgut Kaya as a
means of exchange with the two Greek soldiers. This scenario seems less and less unlikely,
as this case remains buried in the hands of virtually the deep state and its diplomatic
maneuvers.
Turgut Kaya is on a hunger strike seeking political asylum and being released immediately
as he is actually entitled. We must stand solidarity. We must stand against the
Greek-Turkish sacred alliance against those who struggle.
NO TO THE PUBLISHING OF THE TOURNAMENT AGAINST THE TURKEY OF AUSTRALIAN TURKEY
IMMEDIATE RELEASE - GRANTING POLITICAL ASYLUM
Anarchist Federation
anarchist-federation.gr
anarchist-federation@riseup.net
twitter: twitter.com/anarchistfedGr
fb: facebook.com/anarxikiomospondia2015
Youtube: Anarchist Federation
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