Ryanair Don't Care campaigner John Foley appeared at Liverpool magistrates court on Thursday (September 8th) following his rooftop protest at Liverpool John Lennon Airport.
SolFed members and supporters held a solidarity demo outside the court to support John and help promote the campaign.
Below is an interview we did with John and a few photos from the demo.
Today at the Shard site near London Bridge, around 200 site electricians protested against an attack by employers on their pay and conditions. The “Big Eight” 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. It would also get rid of seniority, making it easier for employers to pick and choose who works on site.
As the recession has affected the building industry especially badly, the employers think this is a good time to take on the electricians, who are one of the strongest groups of workers in the building industry. If they win then they will attack pay and conditions across the board in construction.
Solfed members were present at the Shard building site in King's Cross, London at silly-o-clock in the morning (well, 6.30am) to lend a bit of solidarity to electricians. Workers across the country are facing a concerted attempt from the "big eight" construction companies, Bailey Building Services, Balfour Beatty Engineering Services, Tommy Clarke, Crown House Technologies, Gratte Brothers, MJN Colston, SES and SPIE Matthew Hall, to knock 35% off wages in the industry.
Below are pictures from early on (it later grew to about 200 people) and a short interview with protest organiser Alan Keayes, full report to follow! For more information and updates, you can check the campaign blog: http://jibelectrician.blogspot.com.
In January 1986 the Wapping dispute was unleashed with the overnight move of Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers to a new non-union printworks and the sacking of 5,500 workers.
Murdoch’s vast resources and the support of the Tory government and its anti-union laws enabled the company to build and staff the Docklands works and dismiss the original workforce.
A year-long strike failed to win justice for them, as the plant was staffed by strike-breaking labour recruited by the electricians’ union, the EETPU, in one of the greatest acts of treachery in labour movement history.
Today saw SolFedders join with some 100 members of the public to support an unofficial strike by University of London cleaners at Senate House. The cleaners, who are primarily Latin American immigrants and who are employed by the privateer Balfour Beatty, struck over unpaid wages. With some cleaners not having been paid for three months, it was decided yesterday that official union channels weren’t working and the workers called for a strike to begin today at 8am.
On Tuesday 23 August, youth workers in Oxfordshire went on strike over the County Council's plans to off-load its 26 youth centres in favour of “community hubs”, putting 80 professional youth worker jobs at risk and devastating services.
In Oxford a free coach had been put on by Unite. I joined a group of 20 or so supporters and striking youth workers and set off to the pickets in Banbury.
We arrived in Banbury at around 11am to join the already large and colourful picket at Banbury Youth Centre. This was the second picket of the day after a line at the council office from 8am. The atmosphere was good, considering the situation and the miserable weather, thanks to the large amount of support from passing traffic and pedestrians.
Below we reproduce some photographs of the rooftop protest held by John Foley at Liverpool John Lennon Airport. To avoid embarassment to the airport and Ryanair, the police placed a news blackout on the protest, meaning the local media were unable to report the story. As a result, Solidarity Federation was the only organisation publicising the action against Ryanair's exploitation of young cabin crew recruits.
The airport's management has particular reason to be concerned as they only realised John was on the roof of one of their buildings after he'd been there for over an hour and a local journalist informed them.
After spending 15 hours on the roof, John was arrested and spent 28 hours in police custody.
With the government's response to the events of early august being to throw long prison sentences around left, right and centre, here's the text of a general prisoners support leaflet produced by North London Solfed. A pdf of this will hopefully be up soon.
The government's response to the events of early August has been predictably heavy-handed. With nearly 2000 arrests in London alone—and many more across the country— our government seems determined that harsher policing and prison sentences are going to be their only response..
The past week has seen the London Locals of the Solidarity Federation participate in and organise a variety of practical class struggle activities.
Things kicked off last Saturday when SF members attended the "March for Unity" in Dalston. Organised to protest against the social causes of the recent wave of riots, hundreds of community activists, trade unionists, parents, students, workers, and pensioners walked from Hackney to Tottenham. Anarchists marched alongside NLSF's banners as well as the London-wide ALARM banner and a number of red and black flags.
Workers' rights campaigner John Foley has begun a rooftop protest at Liverpool John Lennon Airport to highlight the exploitation of cabin crew by Ryanair.