Libcom
Tim Burgess: 'celebrity' Charlatan scab
As journalists at the BBC strike to defend their jobs while senior execs get huge payoffs, former front man of middle-of-the-road Britpop act The Charlatans, scabs on them by covering for Lauren Laverne who joined the walkout. Presumably, as he is so desperate, being a scab is the only way he can get on the radio.
Thousands of members of the National Union of Journalists at the corporation walked out on 18 February against job cuts. As the corporation makes compulsory redundancies while advertising posts externally and giving huge payoffs to failing bosses like George Entwistle who quit during the Jimmy Savile scandal.
After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which he made a scab. Jack LondonZerowork journal
Online archive of the Zerowork journal, an autonomist Marxist-influenced magazine based in the US which published two issues between 1975 and 1977.
Academies & Lies: Downhills Primary documentary
Documentary detailing the community campaign against the forced academisation of Downhills Primary in 2012.
Some interesting scenes in this documentary. Effectively charting the campaign against something that was clearly a done-deal long before parents or school workers were told anything about it.
we do not think that private business and profit should have anything to do with the education of our children Downhills parent“The real enemy?” Why we should reject left unity as a concept
A number of pieces have been written recently on “unity” amongst the left and the ways we can achieve that. What follows are the reasons I reject left unity as a notion and the kind of real unity that the workers' movement needs – and, to a large extent, already has.
I've written about this previously in relation to specific issues, both here and here.
Betrayal - a critical analysis of rape culture in anarchist subcultures
An important zine on rape culture in the anarchist milieu and what tends to happen during accountability processes stressing survivor autonomy.
Trigger warning for abuse.
Unions - reading guide
libcom.org's reading guide around trade or labour unions and the role they play in modern society.
Key texts- Unions - an introduction - libcom.org's clear and concise guide to unions, their function and how we think workers should relate to them.
The tenant movement in New York City, 1904-1984
Ronald Lawson's history of New York City's rich tradition of tenant mobilization during the 20th century.
Edited by Ronald Lawson with the assistance of Mark Naison.
This document including all associated files, may not be published, re-transmitted or otherwise reprinted without the prior written permission of Ronald Lawson. For such permission, contact Mr. Lawson by email at either rlawson@cloud9.net or law$ubst@qc1.qc.edu.
Rutgers University Press
New Brunswick, New Jersey
Factory in Greece starts production under workers' control
Striking workers at the Vio.Me factory in Thessaloniki, Greece who have not been paid since May 2011 have decided to restart production under workers' control on 12 February 2013.
With unemployment climbing to 30%, workers’ income reaching zero, sick and tired of big words, promises and more taxes, unpaid since May 2011 and currently withholding their labour, with the factory abandoned by the employers, the workers of Vio.Me.
Credit, wages and Occupy: what system are we fighting?
John O'Reilly on the Occupy movement in the United States and the direction it took.
“Those who make revolution halfway only dig their own graves”
– Jacobin leader in the French Revolution, eventually put to death by Robespierre
The street where God did not strike down Feigenbaum
A short account of anarchist connections to Hanbury Street in the East End of London.
The article A Rose By Any Other Name (here at libcom) dealt with Rose Street (later Manette Street) in central London and its continuing links with anarchism.
Winning together - collective identity and workplace action
A member of the Solidarity Federation Tech & Digital workers network recounts the building of a collective identity in their workplace, pushing a collective grievance and building on workplace victories.
I was sat at home during the christmas holidays when I recieved an email from my line manager from work. The email said that me and all of the my fellow workers in the department were to get a significant payrise, backdated to November. 'Congratulations!' said the email.
It was at this point that 'solidarity' became more than just a word. It was a realisation that we all shared the same interests and could only really fight for them together. It went from being an abstract concept into a real shared experience.The grapes of wrath - John Steinbeck
Nobel prize-winning author John Steinbeck's realist masterpiece looks at the plight of a family of tenant farmers forced to leave Oklahoma during the great depression.
Wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready - I'll be there, too. Tom JoadLanguage teaching, open plan education, and organising prospects in the industry
A blog entry detailing my recent experiences as a language worker--examining the structure of my particular workplace and potential opportunities for organising in the industry.
For a little over a year I've been employed teaching English at a school in Eastern Europe. The company I work for is part of a massive global chain. Although ultimately owned by a major multimedia company with stakes in newspapers, textbook publishing, and online media, the 'brand' is franchised regionally.
Anyone who has worked in the industry understands that TEFL is a business run by and for global corporations.South London Women’s Hospital occupation 1984-85 - Past Tense
Past Tense tell the inside story of the work-in and occupation of a women's hospital in South London faced with closure.
First I’ll give you some background on hospital occupations, which goes back to the late 1970s. In the early 1970s both the private and private sector was being restructured: partly in response to IMF directives, and in response to the relatively high wages and defenses (‘restrictive’ work practices that workers built up through the years.
Work - reading guide
Libcom.org's guide to reading around the subject of work and wage labour in capitalist society, and struggles against them.
Key texts- Work - an introduction - libcom.org's, clear, short introduction to work, what is wrong with it, and what we can do about it.
Work - an introduction
libcom.org's brief introduction to work, what we think is wrong with it and what we, as workers, can do about it. This is a draft version for comments so please let us know what you think in the thread linked to below.
What is wrong with work?For the majority of us, most of our lives are dominated by work. Even when we are not actually at work, we are travelling to or from work, worrying about work, trying to recover from work in order to get back to work tomorrow, or trying to forget about work.
Freedom bookshop torched
London based anarchist bookshop Freedom was damaged in an arson attack in the early hours of Friday morning. Nobody was hurt in the fire which partially gutted the ground floor and damaged the building's electrics.
Freedom Press is Britain's longest running anarchist publisher and traces its history back to the original Freedom paper started by Charlotte Wilson and Peter Kropotkin in 1886.
Towards a new neighbourhood: Building something new in the shell of the old
When thinking about what kind of housing model we really want for the future, we can see the new structures sprouting in the very acts of resistance we have today.
Resistance, in the political and social sphere, is both the means and the ends.
Direct action is the logical, consistent method of Anarchism. Emma GoldmanA world without money: communism - Les Amis de 4 Millions de Jeunes Travailleurs
The first two parts of an ambitious three-part pamphlet series discussing communism and in particular the necessity of communism being a moneyless system.
[i]Originally published in France in 1975-1976 under the title, Un monde sans argent: le communisme, in three parts in three separate pamphlets, of which the above text constitutes Part Two.
Lincoln and Emancipation - Howard Zinn
Historian Howard Zinn on Abraham Lincoln and the eventual abolition of slavery in the US. Which shows that Spielberg's new film, Lincoln, is far from historically accurate.
John Brown1 was executed by the state of Virginia with the approval of the national government. It was the national government which, while weakly enforcing the law ending the slave trade, sternly enforced the laws providing for the return of fugitives to slavery.
- 1. Libcom note: John Brown was an American abolitionist who attempted to lead a violent uprising against slavery.
