Cleaners win at Great Ormond Street, alleged statue-topplers charged in Bristol, and more workplace and repression news
from Cautiously pessimistic shared with thanks
Another quick round-up of workplace and repression news:
The United Voices of the World union have a big victory to report at Great Ormond Street Hospital, where hundreds of outsourced staff are now being brought in to direct NHS employment. Their other main campaign at the moment is at Sage nursing home in North London, where staff have voted to strike over pay, union recognition, sick pay and annual leave.
“If you are interested in getting involved in the campaign, now is the time, with leafleting happening over the next few weeks.
Leafleting meet up point: ….. Golders Green Station
Times: ….. Wednesday 16th December 5 – 7pm
If you have any questions about the campaign or would like more information on leafleting, please email Isabel and Molly at sagenursinghome@uvwunion.org.uk.”
As well as the official UVW accounts, you can also keep an eye on Jewish Solidarity Action, who’ve helped organise the leafleting in Golders Green. It’s not directly UVW-organised, but there’s a “Care Workers: Taking The Fight into 2021” event happening on December 17th, with speakers from both the UVW campaign at Sage and the We Are With You Unison strikers in Wigan.
In Brighton, students have organised a solidarity rally in support of the UCU strike aimed at defending IT staff from job cuts, on Monday 14th. You can see a calendar of other dates connected to that strike here.
A petition is being circulated demanding the reinstatement of Louise Lewis, a Kirklees NEU rep suspended after trying to arrange proper risk assessments. I’ve seen a write-up which mentions that Lewis’ union branch have balloted for strike action over the issue, but not seen any results confirmed yet.
The IWGB are holding an online rally on Wednesday December 16 as part of their “clapped and scrapped” campaign demanding a fair grievance and dismissal process for app-based delivery workers. They’re also launching a strike ballot among outsourced staff at the University of Greenwich.
The Let’s Get Rooted/Angry Workers network are staying busy as ever, with a report from the Heathrow strikes, an interview with an Amazon worker, and a leaflet on Amazon workers’ actions in Poland that they’re distributing among Amazon staff in Croydon and Bristol. Speaking of Heathrow, it’s going to be a busy month there as British Airways staff will be taking nine days’ strike action starting on Christmas against attempts to fire and rehire – see the Heathrow Workers Power project, now on both fb and twitter, for more on that as it develops.
In repression news, the big news here is that four people have been charged with criminal damage for allegedly being part of the Colston statue toppling in Bristol, with their first court date set for January 25th.
Over in the US, there’s various updates to report. Anarchist political prisoner Eric King has tested positive for the coronavirus, but the good news is that his mail ban appears to have been lifted, at least for the time being, so he can now receive letters and reading material again. He has an Amazon book wishlist here, and you can write to him at
Eric King 27090045
FCI Englewood
9595 W Quincy Ave
Littleton Co 80501
His support crew add “Please keep it light, nothing about his case, COVID, or mail ban. He misses everyone SO MUCH and just wants to hear from his friends. He was pretty sick but feels he may be on the mend.”
There’s also a legal update, he has new lawyers from the Civil Liberties Defense Centre and has had a motion to postpone his trial granted.
Friends of Dick, an organizer from Atlanta held without bail in an ICE detention facility on charges related to this summer’s uprising, have set up an email address to make it easier for people to send him letters. You can write to him at writetodick@protonmail.com, and see a bit more background on their twitter page. For more of an introduction to him, here’s an article he wrote about emotional labour last year.
Jason Walker, a writer and organizer held in the Texas prison system, is coming up for parole shortly, and there’s information about how you can support his parole bid here. Xinachtli, another radical Texas prisoner, is also eligible for parole soon but the info about his case doesn’t seem to be posted anywhere public yet. Elsewhere, there’s a call-in campaign to win clemency for Ed Poindexter, an elderly Black Liberation/former Black Panther prisoner held in Nebraska, and a call to try and get Keith “Malik” Washington, a long-time organizer who was recently released from prison and is now in a halfway house, released to home confinement.
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