Issue #4 Spring 2014
AUTONOMY AUTONOMY AUTONOMY
A Scottish freesheet for social change from below
Anti-workfare campaigners swooped on four Salvation Army shops in Edinburgh on
3rd March, blockading them all
and turning away customers and a delivery lorry. Salvation Army managers were visibly rattled as a giant banner
proclaiming ‘IF YOU EXPLOIT
US WE WILL SHUT YOU
DOWN’ blocked the entrance to
their shops. The blockade of the Forrest Road Starvation Army shop was particularly successful, only two people entering the shop in a street teeming with lunch-time passers-by. At the large Earl Grey Street charity shop a Salvation Army worker pushed one of the protestors from Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty (ECAP) in a vain attempt at intimidation. Here as at the other shops panic-stricken management phoned desperately for assistance which never came. The police were one step behind the protestors all day, and were totally unable to prevent any of the four blockades. The Salvation Army are a notorious user of government slave labour schemes both locally and UK-wide. In Edinburgh Mandatory Work Activity provider learndirect have hinted they are their main user and ECAP demonstrated at the Salvation Army's Leith Walk shop in December in solidarity with a claimant ordered to undertake four weeks unpaid labour there. An ECAP spokesperson
said: “With the new Communi-
ty Work Placement scheme starting in April we are step-ping up our direct action against workfare exploiters with a UK-wide week of action from 29 March
–
6 April. We urge all charities and employ-ers to boycott this exploiting scheme and all work-for-your-benefits programmes. We ap-peal to all workers, especially in the voluntary sector, to pres-sure their employer to boycott workfare. And we appeal to the unemployed and all claimants to join us to make the workfare
schemes unworkable.”
Free/Donation
Climate change & capitalism
Sex workers’
rights
in Edinburgh
Events and groups
around the country
30 years on: the 1984-
5 Miners’ Strike
Bedroom Tax
latest news
March sees the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the national Miners' Strike of 1984. Here, the miners of the
Polmaise Colliery
near Stirling are shown during a sit-in protest. Already out on strike from 21st February after threats of closure, they began action before anyone else and stayed out for the full 57 weeks of national action.
It’s also claimed that they were the only colliery that didn’t need a picket line because support was so strong.
The miners’ strike was a clash between the most militant
section of the labour movement and a state that used all the powers in its possession to finish off working class power. Though the state closed the pits, the example of
solidarity in struggle shown by the miners and women’s
support groups should never be forgotten.
Anti-workfare pickets shut down Salvation Army
Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty |
ecap@lists.riseup.net Faced with workfare
–
know your rights and con-tact ECAP for support. Info on upcoming week of action: boycottworkfare.org
International
Women’s Day
Back in February, the Scottish Government an-nounced it would provide funding to mitigate the Bedroom Tax in Scotland. An extra £15 million was allocated for tenants in social housing with
a ‘spare bedroom’. This has rightly been called a
significant victory for the campaign against the tax which put real pressure on the parties to bring this about.
It doesn’t mean, of course, that the Bedroom Tax
has been scrapped in Scotland. The funding will be used for Discretionary Housing Payment (DHP) and social housing tenants still need to apply for this. The Scottish Anti-Bedroom Tax Federation have made the following demands in light of the miti-gation:
1. That all tenants get a full refund for the years 2013/14 for money paid on the bed-room tax and to cancel all arrears. 2. That tenants are automatically granted DHP by their councils; If tenants are in receipt of housing benefit, they automati-cally get DHP. No further means testing. 3. That all councils and housing associations stop the legal proceedings against their tenants which have run up arrears due to the Bedroom Tax. 4. Councils take action now to remunerate those who should have been exempt from the Bedroom Tax from the pre-1996 DWP loophole. 5. The Scottish Anti-Bedroom Tax Federation is calling on all councils and social land-lords to launch a campaign of awareness as to how tenants can claim the mitiga-tion, in order to remove the confusion that exists around
the Scottish Government’s recent [February] announce-
ment.
However, at the time of writing (14th March), the Scottish Government is still waiting on Westminster to remove a cap on housing payments. Five weeks have gone by without a
response, meaning that the money isn’t available for tenants
who could be threatened with eviction. Although the Scottish Government will apparently try to find other ways to make the money available to tenants the situation is still unclear. In the meantime, £2 billion is being cut from welfare in Scot-land this year, according to the Scottish Government. This should put things in perspective and re-emphasise the need for grassroots organizing against the cuts. Check out the week of action against workfare 29 March
—
6 April in events.
The end of the Bedroom Tax in Scotland?
PAGE 2 AUTONOMY
International Women’s Day in Edinburgh
‘These hysterical women’, a feminist collective based in
Edinburgh and largely made up of Spanish economic exiles organised a demonstration against the new abortion law passed by the conservative party Partido Popular (PP). Around 150 people joined at The Mound in Edinburgh to claim legal, free and universal abortion. The new law makes illegal for women to choose. Abortion will be allowed only in case of rape or danger to the mental health of the woman. In the first case an accusation has to be done before a judge; in the second case damage to her mental health has to be diagnosed by two accredited psychiatrists. In the case of foetal abnormalities incompatible with life, she will have to carry the baby to term.
They read a statement claiming that ‘Nobody else can
choose for us. And we don't need legislations to regulate our
bodies. It is my body, it is my choice. As simple as that’.
From: indymediascotland.org
These Hysterical Women
can be contacted on facebook.
As always, if you are directly affected by the Bedroom Tax seek advice about appealing or applying for DHP from groups like Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty who run regular Tuesday solidarity sessions (12-3pm at ACE, 17 West Montgomery Place EH7 5HA ).
PAGE 3 AUTONOMY
16/3
—
There Will be Blood (2007) 23/3
—
Daisies (Vera Chytilova, 1966) 6/4
—
Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe
Tornatore, 1988)
30/3
—
Autonomia film night
.* Porto Maghera: the
last firebrands (2004) & Investigation into a citizen above suspicion (1969).
*18.00 start.
13/4
—
Old Boy (Park Chan-wook, 2003)
Free Entry
| Screenings begin at 18.30 at the
Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh, 17 W. Montgomery Pl, EH7 5HA.
Another victory for Glasgow Solidarity Network:
direct action wins illegal letting agency fees back
In January, Glasgow Solidarity Network celebrated the successful conclusion of its first campaign in 2014. This is what happened: Back in 2010 a couple were charged £187 by a letting agency as an (illegal!)
‘administration fee’ in order to secure a
new home. When they moved out in
2013 they wrote a letter to the agency
quoting the relevant passages from Scottish Housing Law and demanding the return of their money. There was no response to this letter so they made a couple of phone calls to the agency which brought assurances that it would be looked at. However, these assurances were only followed by weeks of silence. Three paths opened up to them: letting the agency rip them off; a lengthy
–
and costly
–
small claims court procedure; or attempting a more direct form of action. They opted for the latter and looked to the Glasgow Solidarity Network to show solidarity and provide aid in getting the money back. A call-out went out and those who could attend sat down with the pair and agreed that this was a winnable case. The first action took place mid December 2013 with thirty people walking
into the letting agency’s
premises on a very rainy and stormy morning to support the pair in the handing-over a demand letter asking for the fees back and giving them until the new year to pass them back before further action was taken. The delivery went very well, in good spirit, and attracted people who never had participated in anything like this. It was also fantastic to experience the coming-together of people who had never met the couple
–
an injury to one is an injury to all. Everyone was pleased with the action
–
everyone apart from the letting agency staff! The manager was so unhappy about the visitors that he decided to hide in a little room off the main office and let his colleague deal with the situation by herself. However, the agency did not return the money within the deadline set in the letter. The Network, together with the two affected people, then planned the
next step in the ‘escalation process’. It
was decided that the bad news from the agency should be met with bad reviews online, and so a week of action was organised via this blog, Facebook, and personal contacts. Success was almost immediate.
The “Bad News Gets Bad Reviews”
action started on Monday. On Wednesday morning the letting agency manager contacted their ex-tenants and offered the immediate return of their money. The manager stated that the agency had lost business contracts worth over £2000 because of the reviews. GSN called for an end of
the campaign as the manager’s
assurance was deemed trustworthy. Indeed, the cheques arrived in the post two days later. Victory! If you have had a deposit or admin fee wrongfully taken, a boss stealing money from your final pay packet, or have a boss/landlord issue that
can’t be solved
through the usual channels, then get in touch and get involved in the Network. This most recent case demonstrates that direct action gets the goods and that solidarity works.
If you’ve had admin fees taken by a
letting agency, or have a similar problem with a landlord or boss, contact
Glasgow SolNet
:
glasgowsolnet@gmail.com |
07842 935713
Does the left need an electoral party?
An Edinburgh AFed member argues against the case for left-wing electoralism.
“Where parties are involved in
extra-
parliamentary activity it’s
usually to their detriment, by co-
opting things or exploiting them.”
How then should we organise? Join the discussion at:
afed.org.uk/scotland