On the evening of 29^th September, a number of SolFed members trekked to the swanky West End of London to stand in solidarity with the Spanish working class.

We arrived, banners in hand, first to the Spanish Consulate and then to the Embassy. Our arrival coincided with a national day of action called by a coalition of radical Spanish unions, including SF's sister organisation, the CNT. With events planned all over Spain, these militant workers and militant workers' organisations are calling for a general strike to overcome the brutal austerity cuts the Spanish state is attempting to force on Spain's working class.

West Yorkshire Solidarity federation has been passed the following information which directly affects one of the locals members.

News has just come in that Scope (essentially a national non advice giving organisation) is going to shut down DIAL UK following an earlier merger.  This will affect disabled people’s advice services at a time when the need is greater.  Added to this experienced staff are being dumped.  Scope will claim that it has no option following cuts in funding, but they are still managing to pay their chief exec thousands.

We have been told the following:

Today we heard that the trustees of Brighton's Community Base were meeting to push through privatisation plans and redundancies to the staff directly employed there (numbering two or three). Community Base is a charity providing a home for community and voluntary groups in Brighton and Hove and services to the local community. They use income from affordable services, including the provision of office space and the use of meeting rooms, to repay a mortgage on their centrally-located seven floor building.

North London Solidarity Federation have written a statement sending our solidarity to comrades in Brazil.

A secção do norte de Londres (Reino Unido) do sindicato Associação Internacional de Trabalhadores envia a sua solidariedade para com a luta dos seus companheiros pertencentes ao Sindicato de Artes e Ofícios Vários de Araxá em Minas Gerais, Brasil.

Estes trabalhadores tem sido sujeitos a várias situações inaceitáveis, inclusive baixos salários e demissões injustificadas praticados pelo seu empregador FF Comercial (marcas Lotto e Finta). Eles contam agora com o nosso total apoio para com a sua luta que passa também a ser a nossa luta.

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In time for Freshers Fair, we've printed some of Ed Goddard's excellent pamphlet on student radicalism at Sussex. Ed Goddard is a former member of Brighton SF currently living in Italy, and an admin of the libcom.org website. Come see us on the Anarchist Society stall to get a copy, or download as a pdf here.

Translation of a Spanish statement building for a general strike. See below for the original text.

Various union organisations and social movements release a schedule of joint mobilisations leading towards a general strike

Throughout summer, various union organisations across the federalist sphere – such as the CGT, CNT, COBAS, CSC and Solidaridad Obrera – have held various meetings in order to put into motion a mobilised response, based on the unity of action and class, towards the end of a General Strike against the cuts and loss of rights put in place by both the government and European institutions and upon the orders of the bosses and the markets.

A leaflet in support of Queen Mary staff and against the cuts there.  Designed to be given out to students and the public.

Today at 7.30 am electricians briefly occupied a building site in protest at attempts to cut their pay and conditions.

The conflict is because the “Big 8” of construction employers want to withdraw from the JIB (Joint Industry Board) agreement on pay, grading and seniority. They want to bring in new grades of semi­skilled electricians earning £10.50 and £14 an hour instead of the current hourly JIB rate of £16.25.  The protests against this change have been going on for several weeks now all across the country. Last week at the Olympic site workers blocked the site entrance for some time but, as the site is so huge, the management just moved people coming in to work to a different gate, so the protesters blocked the main road near the site for twenty minutes. The demo today was bigger, maybe 250- 300 people, and started out next to Farringdon Station.

 Guildhall cleaners and their supporters, including SF members, held a 5.30am protest yesterday after a union rep was suspended. Sodexho, a company with interests in private prisons and detention centres, took over the cleaning contract on Monday. On Wednesday they suspended the union rep. At one point management even tried to lock him in a room.

The protest was loud and defiant and management called the police three times to try and stop us from using drums and megaphones.  Passers by were sympathetic with one person commenting that the cleaners in her building had also had problems with being paid late.  She took leaflets to give them.

A successful international campaign took place on August 19th, in solidarity with the workers at the Ford Visteon plant in Cadiz (Spain). The workers are facing the threat of imminent closure of the factory, thus leaving more than 450 people unemployed.   Meanwhile, once again, we are reminded how multinationals can do and undo at will and with full impunity, even if it means leaving many families without a livelihood, as well as greatly affecting both the region and the sector because of the direct and indirect jobs that will be lost.