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Category: Protest

  • Hong Kong police arrest 10 for ‘collusion with foreign forces’ over protest fund

    Hong Kong national security police on Thursday arrested 10 people for “collusion with foreign forces” and “inciting riot” over a now-defunct fund set up to help those targeted for involvement in the 2019 protest movement.

    “The National Security Department of the Hong Kong Police Force today … arrested four men and six women, aged between 26 and 43, in various districts for suspected ‘conspiracy to collude with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security,’ … and inciting riot,” the police said in a statement on the government’s website.

    “The arrested persons were suspected of conspiracy to collude with the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund to receive donations from various overseas organizations to support people who have fled overseas or organizations which called for sanctions against Hong Kong,” the statement said.

    The arrests come after the arrests of Cardinal Joseph Zen and other trustees of the now-disbanded Fund prompted an international outcry in May 2022.

    Police searched the arrestees’ homes and offices with court warrants, seizing documents and electronic communication devices, it said, adding that the 10 are being held “for further enquiries.”

    “The possibility of further arrests is not ruled out,” it said, warning the general public “not to defy” the national security law.

    Hong Kong police typically don’t name arrestees, but Reuters identified one of the 10 as pro-democracy activist Bobo Yip, who was photographed waving at journalists as she was taken away.

    From left, retired archbishop of Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen, barrister Margaret Ng, professor Hui Po-keung and singer Denise Ho attend a press conference to announce the closure of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, in Hong Kong, Aug.18, 2021. Credit: HK01 via AP
    From left, retired archbishop of Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen, barrister Margaret Ng, professor Hui Po-keung and singer Denise Ho attend a press conference to announce the closure of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, in Hong Kong, Aug.18, 2021. Credit: HK01 via AP

    The London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch said the arrests were a “new low” in an ongoing crackdown on dissent under the national security law, which was imposed on the city by Beijing in the wake of the 2019 protests.

    “Today’s arrests mark a new low in the deterioration of Hong Kong’s rights and freedoms,” the group’s research and policy advisor Anouk Wear said in a statement. 

    “It was already an overly broad and political interpretation of the law, including the National Security Law, to arrest and fine the trustees and secretary of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund last year,” Wear said.

    In May 2022, police arrested five former trustees of the fund – retired Catholic bishop and Cardinal Joseph Zen, ex-lawmakers Margaret Ng and Cyd Ho, Cantopop singer Denise Ho and cultural studies scholar Hui Po-keung – on suspicion of “conspiring to collude with foreign forces.”

    While they were never charged with the offense, the five were later found guilty of failing to register the fund – which offered financial, legal and psychological help to people arrested during the 2019 protest movement – and were each fined H.K.$4,000.

    “The arrest of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund’s staff for alleged collusion and rioting is an absurd criminalization of providing legal and humanitarian aid,” Wear said.

    “This is an attempt by the Hong Kong government to rewrite history and frame all association with the protest movement as criminal, which is deeply damaging to rule of law and civil society.”

    Zen, whose passport had been confiscated following his arrest as a condition of his bail, was allowed to retrieve it to attend the funeral of Pope Benedict XVI in January, handing it back again on his return.

    Zen was among six Hong Kongers nominated for the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize in February.

    Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie.

    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Simon Lee for RFA Cantonese.

  • Staff at a homelessness charity are holding a ‘mega rally’ against their toxic bosses

    Staff at St Mungo’s homelessness charity have been in a protracted dispute with their bosses for months. It’s over pay and working conditions. Now, their trade union, Unite, is taking further action – organising a mass rally on Thursday 10 August.

    St Mungo’s: treating staff like shit for years

    St Mungo’s and its bosses have been causing problems for their staff for years. For example, in 2014 staff took industrial action at one hostel after St Mungo’s pulled out of managing it. More recently, in 2020 – as the Canary previously reported – staff voted for industrial action over threats to jobs, working conditions, and homeless peoples’ services.

    Regarding the most recent round of industrial action, Unite Housing Workers wrote on its website:

    Staff have been doing very badly – the average amount the charity spends on each employee fell in cash terms by 2% in 2022, and by more than 10% after allowing for inflation.

    Meanwhile the CEO’s pay increased in 2022 to £189k, a 5% increase on the previous year, and almost five times the pay of the average worker at the charity!

    This 2022 increase comes on top of other rewards for the highest paid staff. In 2020-21 the pay of the 9 highest paid members of staff increased by an estimated 16%, costing an additional £150,000!

    That is to say that bosses at an alleged ‘charity’ have been raking it in, while staff and service users suffer. So, Unite members have been striking.

    Latest trade union action

    As Socialist Worker reported, by Thursday 3 August:

    St Mungo’s workers [were] on their tenth week of strikes – and sixth of indefinite action. Some 500 Unite members walked out for four weeks on Tuesday 30 May to demand a 10 percent pay increase. Now union membership is up to around 800, and the strikers have escalated to indefinite action until management caves.

    This indefinite action began on 27 June after a paltry pay rise offer of 3.7%. Meanwhile, bosses have been using scab agencies to cover for striking staff. So, Unite members up and down the country have carried out consistent action:

    Unite boss Sharon Graham has been supporting them:

    Meanwhile, former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn also joined the picket line:

    Now, Unite are taking things up a gear.

    The union and its members are holding a mass rally on 10 August:

    Guardian columnist Owen Jones will be speaking:

    St Mungo’s bosses: profiting off misery and homelessness?

    However, the problems with St Mungo’s run far deeper than just its shitty treatment of its workers. As the Canary reported in 2017:

    A new report shows homelessness charities are working with the Home Office to deport non-UK rough sleepers.

    The investigation by Corporate Watch found that outreach teams from the charities St Mungo’s, Thames Reach, and Change, Grow, Live (CGL) have all been working with Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) officers on patrols that target rough sleepers in London.

    Charity outreach teams should help rough sleepers to access support. Instead, by teaming up with the Home Office, they expose vulnerable people to detention and deportation.

    Moreover, the homelessness charity sector itself is hardly a beacon of righteous egalitarianism. At the end of last year, bosses at Shelter left workers with no choice but to strike after their dire pay offer:

    The Shelter workers’ battle may give hope to their St Mungo’s colleagues, though – as bosses there backed down in the end, tabling a half-decent pay offer, which staff accepted.

    The St Mungo’s branch of Unite tweeted how you can support the striking workers:

    Join a union, charity workers

    The behaviour of so-called charities is sadly often akin to the corporate sector – St Mungo’s and Shelter being two examples. This clearly shows the need for workers in this sector to organise themselves. As one St Mungo’s staff member told the website Angry Workers:

    I guess just really to remind people that without coming together and unionising we wouldn’t be at the point where we’re at now, and we just have to continue to do this. Because even if we get something, just looking back at the past we know we could be at risk of losing it at any time. It’s only if we stand strong and we know what our rights are and what the history is, and what’s been stripped away, that we’ll be able to fight it.

    St Mungo’s staff are fighting not just for themselves but also for the homeless people they provide essential services for. So, if you’re in London on 10 August, support their protest for better pay and conditions in any way you can.

    Featured image via Andy Watson – screengrab

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • ‘Should we cheer?’: support for asylum seekers arriving at Dorset port

    Local campaigners deliver welcome packs for people transferred to Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland

    After weeks of local strife and national buildup, the sparsely filled coaches entering the Dorset port where the Bibby Stockholm is moored were a boost to pro-refugee demonstrators.

    “Should we cheer just in case?” asked Heather, a local campaigner and member of Stand Up to Racism Dorset as a fifth, seemingly empty, coach drove into the port.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Brighton University’s summer of discontent: from greylisting to graduations.

    Graduation season at Brighton University, and in higher education overall, is usually a time for celebration. It’s the perfect way to round off the academic year: universities coming together to congratulate the graduating class on their hard work and successes.

    Unfortunately for the graduating students in the class of 2023, this jovial mood is tainted. They started their degrees in the midst of a global pandemic and transitioning to online teaching. Then, intermittent strikes from the University and College Union (UCU) followed – and now they’re in the midst of a national marking and assessment boycott (MAB). So, the class of 2023 has been extremely unlucky.

    However, at Brighton University, the sentiment among staff and students is one of outrage.

    Brighton University redundancies: effectively sacking respected staff

    As the Canary has been documenting, Brighton University management has been intent on forcing through redundancies. Around 80 of these have been voluntary. However, bosses are forcing out 25 professors. 

    On a personal note, discovering who has been selected by management for compulsory redundancy has been heartbreaking.

    Those due to be sacked include Dr Tom Bunyard and Dr Cathy Bergin, with whom I have had the privilege of working with in lectures and seminars. Tom and Cathy’s expertise (philosophy and critical theory, and cultural histories of anti-racism and anti-colonialism, respectively) are integral to Brighton’s celebrated and longstanding humanities department. Both academics are well respected among their colleagues.

    After years of hard work and dedication to their students, how senior management is treating them is simply abhorrent. It is also the height of hypocrisy that an institution which prides itself on its equality, diversity and inclusion policies wants to sack an anti-racism scholar. However, we are keeping the momentum going on our campaign. We are committed to defending the jobs of our colleagues and the quality of education for our students.  

    No accountability or support from management

    For post-graduate researchers (PGRs), this has been an incredibly difficult time. Those who have lost their supervisors have been forced into the over-bureaucratic process of finding a replacement. The ‘support package’ that management promised PGRs will only apply to those who have lost supervisors.

    PGRs have informed me about supervisors having to take extended sick leave due to chronic stress. However, under the support package guidelines the university will not agree to an extension. We still have no idea when the new academic year will start because of the indefinite strike. Even when it does begin, we are faced with the prospect of our supervisors being overworked with unsustainable workloads. We are stuck in limbo.

    The university management team fails to acknowledge how the redundancy process has hindered all PhD researchers. Its lack of accountability has only made the stress and uncertainty of the situation worse. We have dealt with consistent stonewalling and silence for the last few months. PhD researcher Maia Brons told the Canary:

    The way senior management team (SMT) have communicated through this all has been incredibly disappointing, and at times terrifying.

    Disappointing in the sense that vice chancellor (VC) Debra Humphris has not addressed us a single time since all this started, and time for questions or concerns with other SMT has been limited to two online sessions, which left us feeling deflated and more concerned than ever.

    Terrifying how all our concerns have been either ignored or met with “Out of Office” automatic replies.

    It is clear as day that many forms of education, not to mention staff morale and educational quality, will be wrecked after the summer, and it is frankly heartbreaking that SMT continues to deny this. It is frightening to have to think how far management will go along this path of managed decline.

    I personally feel that a lot of time and the quality of my PhD have already been robbed since all this started, and thus far, there has been no accountability from the university to make up for this.

    Brighton and solidarity: two words that go well together

    In the last couple of weeks, there has been no shortage of action from the Brighton UCU branch, and the campaigns UoB Solidarity and PGR’s Brighton. Branch secretary of Brighton UCU Dr Ryan Burns told the Canary:

    In the last week, UCU pickets in Brighton have been visited by Caroline Lucas MP, Lloyd- Russell Moyle MP and Jo Grady, UCU general secretary. They all expressed their shock at the punitive actions of the University of Brighton management and support for our strike action. With UCU recently declaring Brighton’s redundancy situation “a dispute of national significance”, our fight has the backing of the whole union. The announcement of a global academic boycott of the University of Brighton will add further pressure to management.

    The VC is clearly feeling the heat. She failed to attend most of this year’s graduation ceremonies and instead instructed some of her deputies to face the public. She will presumably be relieved that she stayed away: the scenes at graduations this week, including students spontaneously chanting ‘pay your workers‘ and ‘no cuts’, made it obvious to everyone that our students support our fight. Students blame the university management for the fact that hundreds of graduates received only fake ‘pending’ degree certificates due to work not being marked under the national MAB.  

    Graduation Protests

    Dr Jenna Allsopp graduated with a PhD in Humanities. She protested during her graduation ceremony by holding up a sign that read ‘Solidarity with the Brighton 25’. Allsopp told the Canary:

    I wanted to attend my graduation to enjoy my achievement with my friends, peers and colleagues, but I know the ceremony couldn’t go ahead as if nothing happened at Brighton University over the last months. I protested the horror show that was the redundancies process and the knock-on effect this has had on students’ education. I originally wanted to personally attack Debra Humphris on my banner but instead settled on a simple message of solidarity for the 25 tutors who are to lose their jobs and have bore the brunt of this brutal and distressing attack on education. A lecturer came up to me afterwards to say thank you. So, I’m glad I went through with it, though I was really nervous.

    Scenes such as the ones described at graduation ceremonies are not unique to Brighton.

    The University of Edinburgh students ripped the apology letters the university gave them instead of finalised degrees. Students at Sussex University handed out fake money with their vice chancellors face edited on. Manchester and Sheffield University are trying to appease students by dishing out £500 in compensation to those who are graduating without finding out their actual degree grades. But students have called this ‘laughable’ and ‘not worth it’. 

    It is evident that students are not buying the narrative that management teams are doing all they can to resolve the dispute and get their grades finalised. If bosses want to ensure students get their grades, they must pay their staff properly, improve working conditions, and call on the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) to negotiate with UCU. It is that simple. 

    Boycott Brighton University

    The biggest development recently is general secretary of the UCU Jo Grady confirming its Higher Education Committee has decided to grey list Brighton University until further notice. This is not a decision that is taken lightly, as what makes Brighton University brilliant is the network that the staff have developed with national and international institutions. But, during such unprecedented times we are asking all UCU members (as well as members of other unions), national and international scholars to do the following things; or rather, do not:

    • Apply for jobs advertised at Brighton University.
    • Speak or take part in academic conferences or other conferences organised at Brighton outside of your contract.
    • Accept new invitations to give lectures at Brighton.
    • Take positions as visiting professors or researchers at Brighton.
    • Accept invitations outside of your contract to produce research articles with Brighton or any new contracts for external examiners.
    • Collaborate on any new contracts with projects at Brighton.  

    As staff are still facing punitive deductions of 100% from their pay slips for taking part in the MAB, we are still fundraising for staff and campaign materials. If you can afford it, you can donate to our solidarity fund here. 

    Featured image via Brighton UCU

    By Kathryn Zacharek

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Hong Kong court rejects civil ban on protest anthem ‘Glory to Hong Kong’

    A court in Hong Kong on Friday rejected the government’s bid to impose an injunction on performances of and references to “Glory to Hong Kong,” the banned anthem of the 2019 protest movement, citing a “chilling effect” on freedom of expression. 

    The government had wanted the court to grant the ban on broadcasting or distributing the song or its lyrics, which the government says advocate “independence” for the city, and which has been mistakenly played at international sporting events instead of the Chinese anthem, “March of the Volunteers.”

    But High Court Judge Anthony Chan said he couldn’t see how an injunction, which the government wanted to include online platforms, would help.

    “I am unable to see a solid basis for believing that the invocation of the civil jurisdiction can assist in the enforcement of the law in question,” Chan said in the ruling.

    The anthem was regularly sung by crowds of unarmed protesters during the 2019 protest movement, which ranged from peaceful demonstrations for full democracy to intermittent, pitched battles between “front-line” protesters and armed riot police, and was banned in 2020 as Beijing imposed a draconian national security law on the city.

    When the government announced last month it was seeking an injunction, downloads of the song spiked on international streaming platforms before it was removed from several platforms.

    The song calls for freedom and democracy rather than independence, but was nonetheless deemed in breach of the law due to its “separatist” intent, officials and police officers said at the start of an ongoing citywide crackdown on public dissent and peaceful political activism.

    The song is still frequently sung by pro-democracy activists outside of Hong Kong.

    ‘Chilling effect’

    In a decision seen as a partial reprieve for dwindling freedom of expression in the city, the court also took into account the potential “chilling effect” an injunction would have on freedom of expression and its effect on “innocent third parties.”

    The judgment went on to say that contempt proceedings for breach of an injunction would involve proving the relevant criminal offense and would therefore not be easy to enforce. There was also a risk of “double jeopardy,” in which a person could potentially be prosecuted for overlapping offenses under the National Security Law and for breach of the injunction, it said.

    Dozens of people sing “Glory to Hong Kong” outside the main railway station in Taipei, Taiwan, on June 6, 2023, to mark the fourth anniversary of the start of the 2019 mass protest movement. Credit: Zhong Guangzheng
    Dozens of people sing “Glory to Hong Kong” outside the main railway station in Taipei, Taiwan, on June 6, 2023, to mark the fourth anniversary of the start of the 2019 mass protest movement. Credit: Zhong Guangzheng

    The government had argued that the injunction was necessary to prevent people disseminating the song anonymously, and to prevent its use at public events “which can arouse certain emotions and incite people to secession, endangering national security.”

    Hong Kong’s leader John Lee said his administration would be “studying the matter and following up.”

    “The Special Administrative Region government has a duty to effectively prevent, stop and punish actions and activities that endanger national security,” Lee told journalists in Kuala Lumpur on Friday. “I have asked the Department of Justice to study the verdict actively and follow up as soon as possible.”

    He said anyone who calls the song “the true national anthem of Hong Kong” is breaking the National Anthem Law banning insults to China’s national anthem.

    “The threat of endangering national security can come suddenly, so we must take effective measures to prevent it,” he said.

    Law bans insults to PRC anthem

    Hong Kong passed a national anthem law in June 2020 banning ‘insults’ to the Chinese national anthem after Hong Kong soccer fans repeatedly booed, yelled Cantonese obscenities or turned their backs when it was played at matches.

    In November, Hong Kong police announced a criminal investigation into the playing of “Glory to Hong Kong” at a rugby match in South Korea.

    "I welcome this ruling, which is very reasonable," Ronson Chan, chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, told media outside the High Court in Hong Kong on Friday, July 28, 2023. Credit: Isaac Lawrence/AFP
    “I welcome this ruling, which is very reasonable,” Ronson Chan, chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, told media outside the High Court in Hong Kong on Friday, July 28, 2023. Credit: Isaac Lawrence/AFP

    Hong Kong Journalists’ Association president Ronson Chan welcomed the court’s ruling.

    “I welcome this ruling, which is very reasonable,” Chan said. “I agree that the relevant matters are already covered by criminal law, so there is no need for an injunction.”

    “I’d like to thank the judge for pointing out … the potential for a chilling effect in the exercise of such powers,” he said.

    “If we want to tell good stories about Hong Kong, I don’t think further restrictions are a good idea,” Chan said.

    The government has repeatedly said that it respects freedoms protected by the city’s constitution, “but freedom of speech is not absolute.”

    “The application pursues the legitimate aim of safeguarding national security and is necessary, reasonable, legitimate, and consistent with the Bill of Rights,” it said in a statement about the injunction application last month.

    Press freedom groups have warned that the government has “gutted” freedom of expression in the city, amid an ongoing cull of “politically sensitive” books from the shelves of public libraries.


    Translated by Luisetta Mudie.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Ng Ting Hong and Gigi Lee for RFA Cantonese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Justice for Bristol Protesters is demanding a public inquiry over police violence

    Campaign group Justice for Bristol Protesters (JBP) has launched an online petition calling for a public inquiry over police brutality in Bristol.

    JBP includes the families of some of those injured and imprisoned after the Kill the Bill protests in March 2021. They want an investigation into police violence against people during these protests.

    Over 100 injured

    JBP points out that police injured over 100 people during the demonstration against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (now an Act) on 21 March 2021.

    Police attacked protesters with batons and used their riot shields as offensive weapons, bringing them down on people’s heads. Officers also deployed pepper spray, horses and dogs against the crowd.

    People fought back, smashing the windows of Bridewell police station and torching several police vehicles.

    JBP calls for a public inquiry into violence

    In total, Bristol Crown Court has sentenced the rebels of Bridewell to over 110 years in prison. But JBP says that no proper inquiry has taken place into the police’s actions. 

    According to a press statement from JBP:

    The police injured more than 100 protesters during the demonstration after indiscriminately attacking the crowd, with some people so severely hurt that they required hospital treatment. In contrast, the police claims that their officers sustained injuries during the protest were later found to be false. The police claim, widely reported on the night, that two officers suffered broken bones and one a punctured lung was later retracted by Avon and Somerset police.

    Heidi Gedge is the mother of Mariella Gedge-Rogers, who was jailed in 2022 for her part in the protests. She said:

    The protesters, who were standing up for everyone’s right to freedom of speech, were brutally attacked by police. Then many were subjected to harsh prison sentences when they tried to defend themselves. 

    Heidi described how police brutally pinned her daughter to the ground:

    This included my daughter, who in an unprovoked attack, was pinned to the ground by 3 police officers, her hand was stamped on and she feared for her life. She is currently serving 5.5 years in prison for riot yet not a single officer has been exposed, questioned or called to account for their outrageous behaviour.

    The Canary interviewed Mariella before her sentencing, you can read her account here, and view JBP’s petition for a public inquiry here.

    Featured image via Shoal Collective

    By Tom Anderson

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The UCU has staged a day of protest – but will it change bosses’ minds over pay and conditions?

    The University and College Union (UCU) has held a nationwide day of protests at universities. It’s over the ongoing dispute with bosses over pay and conditions, which has seen a nationwide marking boycott. The protests saw support from staff and students alike – and the UCU’s general secretary warned that if bosses don’t move, the union’s action would continue into the next academic year.

    UCU: a protracted dispute with university bosses

    As the Canary as been documenting, the UCU has been on dispute mode for well over a year. At first, it was over pay, conditions, and pensions – resulting in nationwide strikes. The union and the organisation responsible for pensions came to an agreement in April. However, members voted to reject the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) pay offer of derisory and imposed increases of between 5-8%.

    So, UCU members began a marking boycott in April, known as action short of a strike. It’s been going on ever since. The union said on its website:

    we are asking all UCU members in higher education institutions which are part of the pay and working conditions dispute to cease undertaking all summative marking and associated assessment activities/duties. The boycott also covers assessment-related work such as exam invigilation and the processing of marks.

    Strikes, however, have been off the cards. UCU negotiations with the UCEA have proven unfruitful. As the union said:

    UCU previously met with UCEA last week in an attempt to end the UK-wide university marking boycott and resolve the ongoing pay and working conditions dispute. Unfortunately, UCEA refused to table an improved pay offer or provide any redress for members who have been hit with punitive pay deductions.

    So, the UCU called an emergency nationwide demo on Wednesday 26 July, to show the strength of feeling across the workforce as well as from students:

    By all accounts, the protests were a success.

    Demos across the UK

    Across the UK, universities saw demos. Oxford was packed:

    Brighton University has been at the centre of a separate, ongoing dispute over bosses’ plans for redundancies. You can read the Canary‘s coverage of that here. So, staff and students were out in force there, too:

    Keele University also saw protests:

    There was a big turnout at Nottingham:

    And York saw a demo too:

    Crucially, though, and students also supported the UCU’s action. The National Union of Students (NUS) officially backed the protests – while branches came out at individual universities, like University College London (UCL):

    Some students had previously even used their graduation speeches to send support to the UCU – despite them not actually getting their grades. One student said:

    It would not be right to stand here and not acknowledge the hard work of staff, who have been fighting for no more than the bare minimum, fair treatment, and fair pay.

    Back to the table – but to what end?

    The day of action came before the UCU re-entered negotiations with the UCEA. The union’s general secretary Jo Grady said:

    We cannot and will not allow employers to filibuster talks to a point where students miss out on their degrees and punitive pay deductions plunge staff further into debt.

    UCEA now has a choice, listen to the modest demands of staff and students, and work with us to end the marking boycott, or lay the ground for even more disruption in the coming months and into the next academic year.

    The challenge for the UCU is two-fold.

    Firstly, and while a marking boycott is effective, to university bosses it represents nowhere near the same level of disruption as strikes. Do they really care if students have to wait for their final grades? Probably not.

    Then there’s the issue of pay. The government’s acceptance of pay rises of between 5-7% for public sector workers doesn’t help the UCU – given the UCEA was offering between 5-8%. So it remains to be seen how far bosses will move. Therefore, the UCU is likely to have some difficult decisions to make – accept a lower pay offer, or continue the dispute. What it does next will shape the next academic year across higher education in the UK.

    Featured image via Brighton UCU

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • CPJ urges swift probe into Polish police over forcible removal of journalist from protest

    Berlin, July 21, 2023 — Polish authorities should investigate the forcible removal by police of freelance photojournalist Maciej Piasecki from a recent climate protest, and allow journalists to work without interference, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.

    During a climate protest in Warsaw on Friday, July 14, as police attempted to subdue and detain a protester, a group of six or seven officers forcibly removed from the scene freelance photojournalist Maciej Piasecki, who was on assignment for privately owned news website OKO.press, preventing him from documenting events, according Piasecki, who spoke with CPJ via messaging app, his employer, and other media reports.

    The incident, at around 2 p.m., was captured in a video published by OKO.press and corroborated by Piasecki and those reports, which said it occurred during a demonstration in which activists glued their hands to the pavement outside the Ministry of Climate and Environment.  

    Police removed protesters from the scene by violently apprehending them, according to Piasecki and OKO.press. As Piasecki covered these events live on his TikTok channel, officers shouted to each other instructions to remove him from the scene as well, as seen in video reviewed by CPJ.

    Piasecki can be heard saying that he wants to continue covering the events, according to an OKO.press transcript. Police then pushed him aside, and the video shows the police officer grabbing his neck from behind and dragging him toward the ground. Piasecki told CPJ and local media that he did not resist and was not injured, but the officer broke his own leg as they fell to the ground.

    A group of seven or eight police then pressed Piasecki to the ground, allegedly twisting his hands, before handcuffing him, confiscating his camera, and taking him to a police station where he was detained for six hours, searched, and questioned in the presence of his lawyer, according to Piasecki and those reports.

    “Polish authorities should conduct a swift and transparent investigation into the detention and forcible removal of freelance photojournalist Maciej Piasecki from a recent climate protest and ensure that members of the press can report on events of public interest without police interference,” said Attila Mong, CPJ’s Europe representative. “Journalists deserve police officers’ protection during protests. Unless authorities have something to hide, they must ensure that reporters can cover issues of public interest without fear of police interference.”

    The police threatened to press charges against Piasecki for allegedly ignoring their orders and violating the bodily integrity of police officers, but released him without charge, according to OKO.press and Piasecki.  He told CPJ and local media that police returned his camera on July 17, and when he collected his equipment, police confirmed to him that no charges would be brought against him.

    “The police obstructed my work since the beginning of the protest, despite… the fact that I was wearing my press ID visibly on a lanyard on my neck,” Piasecki told CPJ.

    The protesters were rallying against the forced removal the previous day of fellow demonstrators who had maintained a blockade against intensive logging in Poland’s Carpathian Mountains. 

    “When police earlier asked me to show my credentials, I showed them my card,” Piasecki said, adding that some officers attempted to block his camera’s field of vision as the protesters were met with force. He insists that other than stating his intention to carry on working, he did not resist the officers in any way.

    In an email to CPJ, Warsaw Metropolitan Police spokesperson Sylvester Marczak said that authorities would conduct an investigation into the reporter’s detention “to clarify all circumstances.” 


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Bibby Stockholm may have left Cornwall, but people will continue to resist

    The now-notorious Bibby Stockholm – a barge intended to detain 500 refugees – is moored at its final destination in Dorset. There, it has seen protests from people opposed to its presence (for right-wing reasons), but also those opposed to the racism and persecution it represents. However, before it landed in Portland Port on Tuesday 18 July, it was in Cornwall – where protests were continuous. Now, the group behind many of the demos has reflected on the significance of its actions.

    Cornwall: resisting the Bibby Stockholm

    Cornwall Resists is a network of grassroots anti-fascist groups in the county. As the Canary has documented, it has been prominent in resisting both the far-right’s and the state’s racist abuse of refugees in Cornwall. More recently, it countered the far-right when racists targeted a hotel housing refugees in Newquay.

    But the group was also central to resisting the Bibby Stockholm, and the racist Tory policies it represents, while it was docked in Falmouth for a refit.

    As the Canary previously reported, the Home Office is planning to forcibly detain around 500 male refugees on the Bibby Stockholm. This is despite Dutch authorities’ alleged human rights abuses aboard the vessel when its government used it to detain refugees in the 2000s. The UK government’s plans have also prompted outrage from groups like Amnesty International.

    So, Cornwall Resists carried out numerous actions. These included:

    Overall, the multiple actions against the barge and the Tories’ policies involved around 20 groups. Actions included public meetings, mass leafleting all around Falmouth, and outreach exercises to get the wider public on board.

    Sadly, it wasn’t enough to delay, or prevent, the Bibby Stockholm’s departure on Monday 17 July.

    ‘This is not the end of our fight’

    Cornwall Resists said in a statement:

    We are are gutted the Bibby Stockholm left Falmouth without opposition. We are devastated that it is now in Portland where it’ll imprison over 500 asylum seekers in accommodation the size of parking spaces. Our hearts break for every single person who has made traumatic journeys to seek sanctuary on our shores only to be met with this government’s hostile environment policies.

    However, our hearts are full of rage at everyone who is complicit in racist border violence, from companies such as A&P who refitted the Bibby, to the arms companies that profit from weapons that devastate people’s homelands, causing so much death and destruction and forcing people to flee.

    The Bibby may be gone, but our rage will not subside.

    It may be gone, but this is not the end of our fight.

    The Bibby may be gone – but we will continue our resistance.

    Cornwall Resists also noted the Tories’ purchase of yet more barges to detain refugees on. It said:

    If this government thinks it can bring another prison ship to be refitted in Falmouth, we will make them regret that decision. We stand ready to support anti-fascists in Portland, taking a stand against the Bibby and against the far-right. There is no unity, as some groups suggest, with racists who oppose the barge.

    The Bibby is just one manifestation of the hostile environment. We stand against racists. We stand with refugees. And we stand with our anti-fascist comrades.

    Cornwall: vive la révolution!

    The group may not have stopped the Bibby Stockholm; however, as it noted:

    Cornwall Resists is about so much more than one prison ship. We will always do whatever it takes to oppose fascists and border violence, but we also want to work in and with our community to create change. We want to build an autonomous anti-capitalist Kernow; a Kernow that is run for us, the people who live here, not second home owners and rich tourists.

    We are sick of not being able to afford to live in our communities and we are sick of only being offered precarious seasonal work servicing the needs of those who treat Cornwall as a playground for the rich. And we are sick of wealthy developers profiting from our lands and devastating our beautiful landscape.

    What we’re seeing in Cornwall is a flourishing, anti-fascist and anti-capitalist movement – as well as one of growing self-determination. Cornwall Resists should be proud of its actions. It will be interesting, and encouraging, to see what the group does next.

    Featured image via Cornwall Resists

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • People’s Assembly blames ‘profiteering’ supermarkets for worsening child poverty crisis

    With the school holidays set to begin in the UK, the issue of child poverty has once again come to the forefront. Children who receive free school meals during term time may go without over the holidays. This leaves parents “faced with the grim choice of going hungry, getting behind on essential bill payments or taking on debt to cover” the cost. So, the People’s Assembly has announced a national day of action to take place on 22 July 2023. In the runup, it’s targeting supermarkets and the government over “gross profiteering”.

    A growing problem

    At the beginning of the 2022 summer holidays, Katie Schmuecker of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said:

    In the midst of a year of financial fear for families on low incomes, parents of school-age children are now facing the summer holidays and all the extra meals and childcare that comes with them. Too many families lack the income to cover the essentials and are already regularly going without them, including food.

    She added:

    Now, more than ever, they [families] will be faced with the grim choice of going hungry, getting behind on essential bill payments or taking on debt to cover it.

    The People’s Assembly suggests little has changed since then, with the reality being that the situation may actually have worsened.

    Child poverty: taking action

    According to government figures, 23.8% of pupils received free school meals – a figure which “represents over 2 million pupils”. The figure is also up from 22.5% in 2022. And according to the Big Issue, the problem of child poverty likely runs deeper than those figures suggest:

    Around 14.4 million people are living in poverty in the UK in 2021/2022, according to the government’s official statistics. That is around one in five people. Around 4.2 million children are affected.

    These harrowing figures were captured before the cost of living crisis took its toll on the country, driving hundreds of thousands more people into poverty.

    So the People’s Assembly has spoken out against what it calls “obscene profiteering” from supermarkets. It says they “are shamelessly cashing in on the cost of living crisis”. The group’s day of action over child poverty will take place on the first day of the school holidays. It corresponds with a list of demands, including:

    • Immediate supermarket price reduction – profits must be used for lower food prices and higher wages for supermarket workers.
    • Government price controls on food to make it affordable for everyone.
    • A raise in wages, benefits and pensions to create hunger free communities!
    • Free school meals for all children.

    According to the group itself, People’s Assembly “formed a decade ago to campaign against the Conservative Government’s austerity program”. It recently “put on waves of demonstrations around the UK in response to energy price hikes back in February 2022″.

    ‘Devastating’ effects

    Economist and long-standing supporter of the People’s Assembly Michael Burke said:

    These demonstrations are vital and we hope that thousands will turn out across the country. Everyone should have a basic right to food & no child should be left hungry this summer. As millions of us struggle to pay our basic food bills, the government and their profiteering backers blame inflation on wage growth. However, the real crisis is food price inflation as wage growth is just a third of the 19% inflation rate of food this year.

    The effects are devastating – in 2010 there were 50 Trussell Trust foodbanks. Now the number of foodbanks has reached 2600. NHS England reports a quadrupling of poverty diseases such as scurvy and rickets over the last 15 years as well as malnutrition. All this while in recent weeks Tesco’s, Iceland and Sainsbury’s have all reported surging underlying profits.

    The People’s Assembly said it “has local groups across the UK” and “they expect thousands to turn out at the protests which will target supermarket profiteering and what the groups describe as ‘deliberate inaction’ from the Tory government”. Organisers added:

    We’ve already been faced with 13 years of Tory austerity, services have been cut to the bone and families are struggling to survive, The Cost of Living Crisis could be brought under control by the Government, yet they are allowing gross profiteering from Supermarkets and energy companies. At the end of the day this is just the latest form of austerity as it serves exactly the same purpose – the transference of wealth from ordinary working class families to the super rich.

    People’s Assembly National Secretary and former Labour MP Laura Pidcock said:

    With 4.2 million children in poverty, the situation families are facing is grim. Summer holidays are always a particularly difficult financial time for parents and carers. Extreme wealth inequality and grotesque levels of poverty are becoming endemic in the UK and people are absolutely sick of platitudes about “hard decisions” from both sides of the Westminster political establishment.

    The People’s Assembly website includes more details about the day of action as well as local actions around the UK.

    Featured image via Francisco Osorio (Flickr) – image cropped to 770 x 403

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Activists won’t budge until Keir Starmer stops ‘backsliding’ on the environment

    Activists from the group Green New Deal Rising have staged more sit-outs targeting Labour Party MPs. The group has vowed to protest outside their offices every week until the party takes “bold action” on the climate crisis.

    It follows several instances of what the group describes as Labour “backsliding” on its environment promises – as well as people from the campaign disrupting a speech by Keir Starmer:

    So, the group sat outside Starmer’s constituency office on Friday 14 July:

    ‘There is an appetite… for Labour to be bolder’

    One of the latest climate-related actions also took place outside the office of Scottish Labour MP Ian Murray. According to the group:

    Similar protests were also staged in London, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Brighton, Cardiff and across the Midlands, targeting other members of the Shadow Cabinet.

    Green New Deal Rising said of the Murray protest:

    Beginning at 11am on Friday, young climate activists in Edinburgh gathered outside of Ian Murray’s constituency office, urging them to commit to doing more in the face of the Climate and Ecological Emergency. The group criticised the Labour Party’s failure to adequately respond to repeated calls from young people for rapid decarbonisation, a just transition to a low emissions economy and investment in green jobs. Ian Murray is the Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland in Keir Starmer’s Shadow Cabinet.

    The group says it wrote to Murray’s office in advance of the protest – to which a member of staff replied. However, the group also asked if Murray still supported a Green New Deal. So far, neither he nor his office have responded. The group said of 14 July’s action that protestors:

    stayed outside for the morning holding placards and engaging with Murray’s constituents, and were met with great support from passers by in cars and on foot. “Clearly, there is an appetite in his constituency for Labour to be bolder on their climate policies”, Calum from the group said after speaking with many passers by. “In a number of conversations, we were asked how people can get involved or whether we had a petition to sign”.

    ‘Do more’

    The Murray protest formed, according to the group:

    part of a national campaign by Green New Deal Rising pressuring the Labour Party to ‘Be Bold’ in their manifesto pledges ahead of the next UK General Election, which must be held before December 2024.

    Green New Deal Rising is demanding that the Labour Party commit to passing legislation in the first 100 days after the election which:

    • Expands public ownership.
    • Taxes wealth.
    • Delivers a green jobs guarantee and a living income.
    • Enacts a National Nature Service.
    • Makes polluters pay globally.

    Calum Hodgson, a member of the group from Edinburgh said:

    We are protesting because as Scotland’s only Labour MP, we need to see Ian Murray do more for young people in Scotland. He has previously written in support of a Green New Deal, so if he’s serious about tackling the climate crisis we need him to stand up and speak out against the Labour Leadership’s current backsliding. The sit-out was a brilliant celebration of young people’s commitment to climate justice.

    Green New Deal: Labour “failing voters”

    The group has drawn attention to the fact that:

    Keir Starmer announced Labour’s ‘Green Industrial Strategy’ earlier this year, but has already U-turned on a number of issues in response to fossil fuel lobbying, by reneging on his commitment to prevent new North Sea oil fields from opening and delaying the timing of green investment. Polls consistently show that the electorate are in favour of more action on environmental issues as well as public ownership.

    Molly Shelton, a member of the national campaign group, said:

    With broad support across the UK for a Green New Deal, Labour is failing voters and refusing to show leadership on climate. We need to rapidly reduce emissions, tax polluters and create millions of good, unioned, green jobs. With the election on the horizon, there’s never been a better time for Labour to prove itself by taking bold action and implementing our well-researched and entirely reasonable demands.

    Green New Deal Rising says it will return to Labour MPs’ offices again next Friday.

    Featured image via Green New Deal Rising

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Budapest Pride March Draws Thousands In Protest Against Government’s Anti-LGBT Moves

    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

  • Macron marks Bastille Day by signing arms deal with India’s Modi

    Bastille Day marks the storming of the notorious Parisian fortress and political prison in 1789. The day is meant to embody the liberal and egalitarian values of the French Republic. On 14 July that year, locals rose up against monarchy and totalitarianism. The French stormed the fortress, killed its governor, and freed prisoners from their cells. With this in mind you’d think the French ruling class might be a little more reflective. But not so, at least as far as president Emmanuel Macron is concerned.

    This year the holiday comes after weeks of riots against the Macron government following the police killing of a Muslim and immigrant teenager. Macron himself chose to mark the day in a less traditional fashion: signing an arms deal with a repulsive xenophobe, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi.

    Riots in Paris

    On 17 June, French police shot dead a 17-year-old know as Nahel M. Protests started in Toulouse, Dijon, and Lyon before spreading to Paris. Thousands of riot police were deployed onto the streets.

    Macron’s response to the killing and the protests was typical of his flip-flopping centrism. As the Canary’s Maryam Jameela wrote:

    Macron has said that the protests are “unjustifiable.” Earlier, however, he also said that Nahel’s death was “inexplicable and inexcusable”. So, which is it?

    Macron’s response is typical from those who, thanks to footage of killings, are forced to acknowledge the horror, without allowing for criticism of a system that equips murder at traffic stops.

    Macron’s death-dealing

    This is the climate in which Macron has chosen to sign an arms deal with Modi, himself no stranger to authoritarian, xenophobic violence, Modi, who is also close to Rishi Sunak, allegedly had a BBC office in India raided recently.

    It followed the airing of a documentary on a 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom by supporters of his Hindu nationalist party. This was in Gujarat when Modi was provincial governor. As the Canary reported at the time:

    In fact, the BBC documentary on Modi cited a British foreign ministry report claiming that Modi met senior police officers and “ordered them not to intervene” in anti-Muslim violence.

    Around 45,000 police have been deployed nationwide in France ahead of a ceremony for Modi. Firework sales are banned by the government following protests around the police killing. The Indian leader will be awarded the Legion of Honour after a military parade.

    Complex colonialities

    But, beneath the ridiculous pomp, the profit motive drives proceedings. The Indian defence ministry on Thursday announced its intention to procure another 26 French-made Rafale fighter jets as well as three more Scorpene-class submarines. The deal is expected to be worth billions of euros.

    Bastille Day has long since been militarised and stripped of its radical origins. The fact that an event meant, at least in spirit, to mark the fraternity of humanity is reduced to an arms deal sweetener says it all.

    Modi’s presence doubly complicates the issue, given that his party’s sectarian supremacism grew out of the legacies of British colonialism. And beyond that, the shadow of a police killing of a young boy from a migrant background cannot be forgotten. France has many things going for it, but ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité’ are increasingly out of fashion. 

    Additional reporting by Agence-France Presse. 

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Chris McNabb, cropped to 1910 x 1000.

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • UN rights council approves dispute resolution after Qur’an burning

    Western countries had strongly opposed resolution, arguing it conflicted with laws on free speech

    A deeply divided UN human rights council has approved a controversial resolution that urges countries to “address, prevent and prosecute acts and advocacy of religious hatred”, after incidents of Qur’an-burning in Sweden.

    The resolution was strongly opposed by the US, EU and other western countries, which argued that it conflicted with laws on free speech. On Wednesday, the resolution was passed, with 28 countries voting in favour, 12 voting against and seven abstaining.

    Continue reading…

  • Police turned up to a coal mine operating without a licence – to arrest protesters

    On 5 July, Extinction Rebellion (XR) blocked access to Ffos-y-Fran coal mine in Wales. The mine is infamous for continuing to operate despite the council not renewing its planning permission last September. When police arrived on 6 July, however, it was to arrest XR members – and not the mine’s operators.

    10 months of unlicensed activity

    Merthyr (South Wales) Limited started operating Ffos-y-Fran, located about 25 miles north of Cardiff, in 2007. It is the UK’s largest opencast coal mine. However, after 15 years of opposition from local residents and ecological campaigners, Merthyr was supposed to stop mining on 6 September 2022. When the day arrived, though, the company simply applied for an extension and continued taking coal from the ground, causing despair for residents and campaigners.

    Then, on 26 April, Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council unanimously rejected the extension. This should have stopped Merthyr completely. However, the company simply continued operating the mine, leading the council to issue an enforcement notice that took effect on 27 June and gave Merthyr another 28 days to comply. By then, though, Coal Action Network said Merthyr was likely operating Ffos-y-Fran “unlawfully”.

    As a result, members of XR decided to stop it themselves.

    ‘Aggravated trespass’ at Ffos-y-Fran coal mine

    The environmental group took its pink boat to Ffos-y-Fran coal mine’s access road and, along with at least a dozen protesters, blocked the entrance. This included “half a dozen” protesters that locked on to the boat, according to XR:

    The protest lasted for just over 24 hours before South Wales Police arrived to remove them:

    Police ultimately arrested four Ffos-y-Fran coal mine protesters on suspicion of aggravated trespass. However, as one resident living near the coal mine said in an XR press release before the action:

    The law of aggravated trespass is quite clear in that it must be obstruction of a lawful activity and it is quite clear that this mine is operating illegally. So, the decision will have to be made by the authorities about “Who are the criminals here?”

    On 10 July, following the blockade and arrests, XR Cardiff held its long-planned March on the Mine event:

    State interests

    It’s incredible that, as the climate crisis accelerates, the state is still defending fossil capital – not just in South Wales, but also in its recent approval of a new coal mine in Cumbria. The story of Ffos-y-Fran coal mine lays this bare.

    Two parties appear to have broken the law at Ffos-y-Fran, although only one of them is doing so out of compassion for life. However, one has had little more than sternly worded letters 10 months after they were supposed to have stopped, while police arrested the other after just a day.

    It’s clear where the state’s interests lie, and it’s not in fostering a better world.

    Featured image via Extinction Rebellion

    By Glen Black

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Brighton university staff go on indefinite strike as one VC ‘flaunts his champagne lifestyle’ in their faces

    Striking staff at Brighton University took their campaign to an international conference on Tuesday 4 July. It was over a senior manager’s keynote speech, given on the same day he announced the names of 25 professors he and his bosses are forcing redundancy upon. So, staff made a point of raising the issue outside of campus walls – and got support from some well-known academics in the process. Plus, all this comes as some staff have also just started an indefinite strike.

    Brighton University: what a mess management has made

    As the Canary has been documenting, bosses at Brighton University are making over 100 staff redundant. PhD researcher at Brighton University Kathryn Zacharek has been writing from the frontline of the dispute for us – and she’s laid out how the institution is now a mess. For example, bosses are closing parts of it while spending massive amounts of money elsewhere. Most concerningly, Zacharek previously noted that the university:

    intends to make 110 academics and 30 professional staff redundant, all in a bid to save almost £18m

    And, in recent developments:

    the university has announced it will close the Brighton Centre for Contemporary Arts (BCCA) due to alleged financial pressures.

    Bosses say these pressures include the government freezing regulated tuition fees, and inflation. However, people are finding it difficult to believe this, given that the university has spaffed £17m on buying out the Virgin Active lease of sports facilities on one of the campuses.

    Since the Canary last reported on the situation at Brighton University, its branch of the University and College Union (UCU) has told us that 80 academic staff have agreed to voluntary redundancy. In spite of this, staff and students alike have been fighting back against the bosses’ plans.

    From protests to occupations, via someone dressed as Mickey Mouse – people are not having it. Now, some staff have taken their grievances elsewhere.

    Taking the fight to an international conference

    Brighton University UCU told the Canary that, on 4 July, staff protested against the redundancies at the European Congress of Psychology, which was taking place at the Brighton Centre. The reason for the demonstration was the presence of the university’s pro-vice chancellor for research, professor Rusi Jaspal. He was delivering a keynote speech at the conference.

    However, this came on the same day as Jaspal helped decide which professors are to be included in the 25 compulsory redundancies bosses are making:

    So, staff held a demo outside the conference centre to make their feelings clear:

    Brighton University protest

    Brighton University protest

    Jaspal is a member of the senior team of vice chancellor Debra Humphris. Staff members’ list of grievances against her is long, including closing the Hastings and Eastbourne Campus while getting a CBE from the state – for what, you’d rightly ask. Moreover, 94% of staff and students recently voted that they have no confidence in Humphris:

    Brighton University protest

    Interestingly for Brighton University staff (and unfortunately for Jaspal), other academics speaking at the conference voiced their support for the people protesting. These included professor Kate Pickett (co-author of The Spirit Level and The Inner Level) and Serdar Değirmencioğlu (co-author of Social and Psychological Dimensions of Personal Debt and the Debt Industry). Brighton UCU told the Canary that both academics “directly called out the treatment of staff by management”:

    Chair of Brighton University UCU Dr Mark Abel said in a statement:

    Professor Jaspal has been taunting staff threatened with redundancy with comments on Twitter about ‘resilience during crises’. He flaunts his champagne lifestyle while Brighton lecturers suffer 100% deductions in their pay for participating in the union’s national marking boycott. It’s a disgrace that he is given a platform to talk about his own research when he is responsible for slashing the research funding for the rest of the staff at Brighton University.

    The university has accepted 80 applications for voluntary redundancy from academic staff. This level of shrinkage will produce huge financial savings. Sacking a further 25 lecturers and professors is completely unnecessary. Not only does it steal the livelihoods of the staff affected, it will undermine the breadth and quality of the education the university offers to students.

    Brighton University protest

    But the protest at the conference was just another part of staff and student’s fightback.

    Brighton University is closed

    Brighton University UCU members began an indefinite strike against the proposed redundancies on Monday 3 July. They said in a statement that unless management drop the compulsory redundancies:

    no preparation for the new academic year will take place and the autumn term will not start.

    So far, bosses are refusing to budge. With Brighton University potentially closed for the new academic year due to the strike, you’d think they’d have to change tack soon.

    However, the current carnage in higher education – thanks to years of government malpractice and university bosses’ profiteering – may mean this impasse between staff, students, and bosses won’t be resolved anytime soon.

    And why should it be? When young peoples’ education – and workers’ livelihoods – are on the line, resistance is the only option. Management needs to change course immediately – or face the consequences.

    Featured image via Brighton UCU, and additional images via Bee Dabrowska

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The Bibby Stockholm has once again been the target of activists in Cornwall

    The now-infamous Bibby Stockholm barge is currently moored in Falmouth, Cornwall. The Tory government plans on using it to detain hundreds of refugees. However, since it arrived on the south west coast, activists have made it clear the barge is not welcome in Cornwall – and they’ve continued to protest its presence despite cops “harassing” them.

    Meanwhile, 40 organisations – including the Refugee Council – have signed an open letter to the Bibby Stockholm’s owner. It highlights the company’s links to the slave trade – and also calls out its current association with “quasi-detention”.

    Cornwall: currently home to the Bibby Stockholm

    As the Canary previously reported, the Home Office is planning to forcibly detain around 500 male refugees on the Bibby Stockholm. This is despite Dutch authorities’ alleged human rights abuses aboard the vessel when its government used it to detain refugees in the 2000s. The UK government’s plans have also prompted outrage from groups like Amnesty International.

    However, while a company refits the Bibby Stockholm in Cornwall, local people and campaign groups have not let its presence go by quietly. They have repeatedly protested it being there, and what it represents. This included a week of resistance, and ‘redecorating’ the premises of A&P, the company refitting the barge:

    Cornwall Resists is a network of grassroots anti-fascist groups in the county. As the Canary has documented, it has been prominent in resisting both the far-right and the state’s racist abuse of refugees in Cornwall. The group has also been at the forefront of the resistance to the Bibby Stockholm. So, on 30 June, it and other campaigners once again made some noise.

    Direct action, and cops siding with corporations

    The group said in a press release:

    Cornwall Resists delivered a loud and clear message to A&P workers currently refitting the Bibby Stockholm refugee prison ship: lay down your tools! The noise demo was part of a protest that marched through Falmouth making it clear that Cornwall will not be complicit in border violence.

    The protest was originally called as an emergency demo as the Bibby was listed as leaving on shipping websites. However, campaigners decided to continue with their plans to protest once it was clear this was not happening, and to take their message of resistance straight to A&P.

    As Cornwall Live reported, activists marched through Falmouth before going to A&P’s premises. However, cops were on hand to “protect” the company:

    Cornwall Resists said in a press release:

    Campaigners have also accused the police of harassment after several incidents that included contacting one campaigner on their personal number and turning up to a public meeting. Despite police claims that they want to facilitate protest, their actions at the protest on Friday made it clear that they are only interested in protecting A&P.

    The police were not present during the protests in town, but only attended at A&P, and only cared about whether protesters crossed an invisible line on the road where it becomes A&P property.

    When Pendennis workers, who were not connected to A&P, came to speak to protesters to ask them to let them leave, the police attempted to physically stop campaigners from talking to them. Despite this aggression, Cornwall Resists were able to talk to the workers, and immediately moved to allow them to leave.

    Of course, cops in Cornwall siding with the racist state and its proponents like A&P is nothing new. They had already targeted Cornwall Resists’ meeting about its Bibby Stockholm action:

    Moreover, when far-right Patriotic Alternative organised a protest against refugees staying in a Newquay hotel, cops sided with them while targeting anti-fascists who’d come out to oppose the demo. This is symptomatic of the police’s wider role in enforcing the UK’s racist state.

    Taking a stand in Falmouth and beyond

    The Bibby Stockholm remains moored in Falmouth. Campaigners are unclear when it will be leaving for its final destination in Dorset. A spokesperson for Cornwall Resists said:

    The resistance to the Bibby Stockholm and refugee prison ships is growing. Most people do not agree with this government’s hostile environment policy – they want to see refugees and asylum seekers treated with empathy and respect, not locked up on boats or in camps.

    Those seeking sanctuary have made incredibly traumatic journeys to get here, often fleeing from wars the UK has perpetrated or from devastation caused by bombs manufactured by UK companies. Many of those who’ll be imprisoned on the Bibby will already have suffered immense sea-related trauma, and it is utterly obscene and heartbreaking to think they’ll then face being imprisoned on a boat.

    Meanwhile, 40 organisations including the Refugee Council have published their open letter to Bibby Marine, the barge’s owner. You can read it in full here. It said:

    We… believe that your company’s alleged historical association with the slave trade makes it all the more important that you reflect deeply on whether a contract which leads to the effective detention of people fleeing war and persecution is where your company wishes to position itself in 2023.

    Links between your parent company Bibby Line Group (BLG) and the slave trade have repeatedly been made. If true, we appeal to you to consider what actions you might take in recompense.

    Cornwall’s and the broader resistance to the Bibby Stockholm cannot be viewed in isolation. It may seem bizarre that an inanimate floating vessel can be the subject of such anger. However – like slave trader statues, banks, or parliament itself – it is what the Bibby Stockholm represents that makes it a target.

    Cornwall Resists’ actions serve to highlight the colonialist, racist, and classist government policies that allow it to be in Falmouth in the first place.

    Featured image via Cornwall Resists 

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Protests Erupt in Florida After Anti-Immigrant Law Goes Into Effect

    Protests against Florida bill SB 1718 have erupted across the state after the bill went into effect on Saturday. Under the law, Florida no longer recognizes driver’s licenses issued to undocumented immigrants from other states, and criminalizes the transportation of undocumented workers. Since Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed the bill into law in May, Latinx activists have organized labor strikes…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Upcoming national day of action demands housing for ‘need not greed’

    In March 2023, we reported on a new activist group called Housing Rebellion. Now, it will be making itself known to even more people on Saturday 8 July when it takes part in a national Day of Action. The event seeks to draw attention to the housing crisis and the many issues around it.

    Action

    The Canary wrote of Housing Rebellion in March:

    Housing Rebellion is a new offshoot of Extinction Rebellion (XR). The group exists to highlight the fact that many of the anti-tenant policies that landlords get away with are also having an enormous impact on the environment.

    Now, and in a press release for the upcoming action, it states:

    On Saturday July 8th 2023, residents and housing campaigners across the UK are organising a day of local actions and protests, to highlight the links between the climate crisis and the UK’s broken housing system.

    Groups as far apart as Glasgow, Cornwall, and Birmingham will be demanding an end to the injustice, environmental destruction and greed that together fuel our housing crisis.

    There are currently over 250,000 long-term empty homes in the UK which the group says “could be used to provide secure” accommodation.

    Housing: linked to environmental justice

    Besides solving the issue of homelessness, it’s argued that this would be the best option for the environment. Backing this point up, Housing Rebellion highlights a quote from Carl Elefante (former president of the American Institute of Architects):

    The greenest building is the one that already exists.

    An article expanding on Elefante’s point noted:

    A report by the US National Trust for Historic Preservation in 2016 found, through a series of case studies, that ‘it takes between 10 and 80 years for a new building that is 30 per cent more efficient than an average-performing existing building to overcome, through efficient operations, the negative climate change impacts related to the construction process’.
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    The report concluded that ‘reusing an existing building and upgrading it to be as efficient as possible is almost always the best choice regardless of building type and climate’.

    Housing Rebellion has further highlighted what it refers to as the “root causes of housing and environmental injustice”:

    The Day of Action will be drawing attention to the social and environmental impact of profit-driven development, and campaigners are demanding that everyone have access to secure, affordable, warm, dry homes that are energy efficient.

    Protests and actions will be focusing on the root causes of housing and environmental injustice in the UK, including :

    • High housing costs – mortgages, rents, service charges and energy bills – across all sectors.
    • A private rental market stacked in favour of landlords, with no requirement to insulate or reduce energy bills without also increasing people’s rents.
    • Over-development, including destruction of green spaces, to build unaffordable new private housing, while social housing numbers are diminished.
    • Council housing – our most affordable form of social housing – needlessly being destroyed in catastrophic social cleansing/demolition schemes.
    • Disrepair, damp, and mould plaguing all sectors of UK housing, with no funding provided by government, or required from landlords, to raise standards on energy efficiency or fire safety. Meanwhile, the UK has some of the most poorly insulated housing in Europe.
    • Perverse tax incentives diverting much needed housing to be Air B&Bs or holiday homes.

    Cross-campaign support

    Other groups involved in organising the Day of Action include:

    London

    Housing Rebellion describes London as “a key battleground, with residents fighting to save their communities, battling against councils, housing associations and developers, all trying to capitalise on land values”. It adds that unnecessary “demolition is causing untold damage to the climate, as well as shrinking the supply of social housing”. The group notes:

    Why is London blighted with such high levels of homelessness, alongside so much unnecessary demolition, with so many thousands of homes sitting empty?

    Crisis estimates there will be 300,000 homeless people in the UK every night this year. Millions more are struggling to keep up with the rising cost of housing whether that’s rents, mortgages or energy bills.

    Meanwhile, there are over 250,000 long-term empty homes in the UK which could be used to provide secure housing.

    Action will take place in several areas. These include Bexley, Islington, Haringey, Kensington, Lambeth, Wandsworth, Merton, and Southwark. Housing Rebellion provides examples of the problems faced by these areas, including Lambeth:

    Lambeth Council are pressing on with controversial demolition projects as part of their failed ‘Homes for Lambeth’ scheme, in spite of Sir Bob Kerslake’s damning 2022 report into the chronic levels of mismanagement and waste involved. Demolition and rebuilding here will lead to a loss of social housing.

    On Central Hill Estate 80-100 properties are sitting empty.

    Lambeth are spending at least £14 million on demolishing and rebuilding one block, which was supposed to be the first of many. According to Central Hill resident Sabine: “The council could have used that £14 million to refurbish and retrofit 80 of the empty properties here – that’s £175,000 per property – a huge amount. Then they’d have 80 council flats forever, which could house families in need and generate income for the council. What they’re doing now makes no sense whatsoever.”

    Nationwide action

    Housing Rebellion has “produced an action pack about the link between housing and environmental issues and the types of actions people can take”.

    Planned actions for 8 July include:

    • Glasgow (Wyndford Estate green area, Glasgow G20 8EZ from 12pm until late).
    • Lambeth (2.30pm – 5pm Broadstone House, South Lambeth Estate, SW8 1AD).
    • Bexley (1pm to 3pm Church of the Cross, Lensbury Way, London SE2 9UE).
    • Southwark (Assembling 11am outside E&C leisure centre, St Mary’s Churchyard, Newington Butts, SE1 6SQ).
    • Islington (11.30am Wellington Mews, Roman Way N7 5SQ).
    • St. Ives, Cornwall (St Ives Harbour from 1pm).
    • Harlow (protest at 2pm, Obelisk, Broadwalk, Harlow town centre).
    • Folkestone (Campaigners in Folkestone are supporting a new play called Fleecehold at The Green Room, The Grand, The Leas, Folkestone, Kent from 7pm followed by a Q&A about leasehold with the NLC founders. Fleecehold is a dark political comedy exploring the unfair and exploitative power imbalance affecting 10 million leaseholders including those trapped by the cladding scandal).

    Featured image via Unsplash

    By The Canary

  • London’s Mayor, Sadiq Khan discusses Just Stop Oil’s London Pride Protest | Sky News | 1 July 2023

    This content originally appeared on Just Stop Oil and was authored by Just Stop Oil.

  • Villagers traveling to Phnom Penh for land-dispute protest arrested at roadblock

    A group of villagers involved in a long-running land dispute with a Chinese-backed company and a ruling party senator were arrested this week at a roadblock on the way to Phnom Penh, where they had planned to petition a government minister.

    Police arrested 11 villagers in southwestern Koh Kong province on Thursday and charged them with criminal incitement, according to the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, or Licadho. 

    Eb Teng, one of the villagers, told Radio Free Asia that authorities later threatened to make more arrests after about 20 villagers gathered outside the provincial office where the 11 were being detained.

    Around 100 villagers had planned to travel to the capital Thursday to urge Minister of Justice Koeut Rith to intervene on previously filed charges against 30 Koh Kong land activists. 

    Police initially stopped four vans from driving from the province toward Phnom Penh, but a fifth van began the journey and was later stopped at a police roadblock about 80 miles (140 km) away, Licadho said in a statement.

    The villagers were forced into a police truck and brought back to the provincial capital, Eb Teng said. Police didn’t give a reason behind the arrest and didn’t show any warrants, she said.

    Police were also sent to an area between two villages where many of the protesters live, according to Licadho.

    No-bid land lease

    The villagers have accused Ly Yong Phat, a senator from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party and casino tycoon with business interests in Koh Kong, and the Chinese-backed Union Development Group, UDG, of encroaching on their land.

    UDG is building the US$3.8 billion Dara Sakor project including a seaport, resorts and casinos in Koh Kong.

    The company was sanctioned in 2020 by the U.S. Treasury Department under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act for alleged land grabs, rights abuses, and corruption.

    The Dara Sakor project has been mired in controversy ever since UDG’s parent company, Tianjin Wanlong Group, was granted a 99-year lease to 90,000 acres along 20 percent of Cambodia’s coastline in May 2008.

    The lease was handed to Tianjin Wanlong without an open bidding process and has provided the company with more than triple the size of any concession allowed under Cambodia’s land law.

    UDG has cleared large swathes of forest from Botum Sakor National Park, which was included as part of the land lease, forcing hundreds of families to relocate.

    Authorities have turned the land dispute case into a political dispute against the villagers, Eb Teng said.

    “I have been protesting over the land dispute but authorities accused me of being involved with politics,” she said. “We don’t have a party? What is my party?”

    RFA was unable to reach a provincial court official or Provincial Police Chief Kong Mono for comment about the arrests on Friday.

    Licadho’s coordinator in Koh Kong, Huor Ing, urged the court to release the villagers, saying they were only exercising their right to request assistance from government officials. They didn’t provoke any social disorder, he said.

    “Authorities should consider releasing them out of the jail because villagers just tried to petition the government to intervene,” he said.

    Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Khmer.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Just Stop Oil issues ultimatum for London’s Pride

    On the evening of 29 June, protest group Just Stop Oil posted on its Twitter account stating that it had been “in negotiations with the organisers of Pride in London”. The climate activist group is demanding that Pride “return to its protest roots”, and align itself with the demand to halt oil production:

    Around an hour later, Just Stop Oil posted a list of their three demands:

    A 30 June press release from the group stated that:

    We are a group of LGBTQ+ supporters of Just Stop Oil. We have been taking action against the licensing of new oil, gas and coal in the UK, repeatedly putting our bodies and our liberty on the line, in resistance to a government which has been bought by corporations and fossil fuel capital. We take action because the government is continuing to develop new fossil fuel projects in 2023, even though the world’s climate scientists agree that this threatens the collapse of our food systems and the breakdown of ordered society.

    Pride is a protest

    Now, first things first, Pride is – or at least should be – a protest. This is at the core of its history. Pride originated as the Christopher Street Liberation Day March. In turn, the march marked the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall riot.

    In the riot, queer patrons of the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighbourhood of Manhattan rose up in response to aggressive and repeated police raids. The first Pride was, very literally, about throwing rocks at cops.

    Some modern Prides – and especially London’s – have drifted away from that spirit of protest into one of celebration. Now, with rising homophobic hate crimes and a government-led crackdown on trans lives, we could surely do with a return to “protest roots” – just as Just Stop Oil is asking.

    Seeking clarity

    Likewise, the first point on Just Stop Oil’s list of demands seems laudable. The group stated that it requires:

    Clarity on where Pride sources its money from, what floats are included and what ethical considerations are taken when deciding where to accept money from

    Pride in London is somewhat notorious for its poor attitude to social justice issues more broadly. Just Stop Oil offered “some context” of the event’s deplorable sponsorship deals. In particular, the Green London Assembly criticised Pride’s choice of headline sponsor – United Airlines.

    Beyond that, London’s Pride has a history of both racism and being overly cosy with police. Despite the Met’s well-documented homophobia, it was only last year that uniformed officers were only told not to march.

    So, I’m all for transparency on the parade’s funding and ethical considerations. Great so far.

    Climate is an LGBT+ issue

    Then, onto Just Stop Oil’s second demand:

    Pride makes a statement to demand an end to new oil and gas.

    Again, all good! Any new oil and gas extraction scuppers our planet’s chances of remaining within the tolerable limits of the 1.5C warming set by the Paris Climate Agreements, or even its 2C upper bounds.

    The climate, without an attempt at hyperbole, is a queer issue. In the Global North, poor people are disproportionately impacted by climate change – and LGBT+ individuals are disproportionately likely to be poor. Furthermore, in the Global South, climate change drives forced migration – and LGBT+ people are more likely to be mistreated by border security forces.

    This being the case, Pride – and queer movements more broadly – have a moral duty to stand in solidarity with climate defenders. However, this is where the problem with Just Stop Oil’s threat creeps in. To me, what they’re doing doesn’t look much like solidarity.

    Just Stop Oil: Solidarity – or else

    That brings us to Just Stop Oil’s third and final demand:

    Pride to set a public meeting for it’s volunteers about joining in civil resistance against new oil and gas, and why the climate crisis is the biggest threat to LGBT+ rights, due to societal collapse.

    Along with the list, they set an ultimatum:

    We will wait 24 hours, as of 4pm today (28/06), for Pride to respond to our demands and the actions Pride will take. Beyond this time or not meeting these demands will mean we may or may not take action at this weekend’s events.

    The ultimatum’s time limit has now elapsed. However, at the time of writing, neither Pride nor Just Stop Oil had confirmed whether any response had been issued. It’s this last demand – and accompanying threat – where I feel the climate group has overstepped its mark.

    Is this your solidarity?

    Now, solidarity between progressive movements is hugely important. Chances are, at any given Pride in the UK, you’ll see a handful of people wearing “Pits and Perverts” t-shirts. These refer to a slogan used by Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM):

    a political activist group of gay women and men that formed in a spirt of solidarity with the striking miners in 1984. Mark Ashton, one of the founders, saw the struggle of the miners as the same faced by gay people fighting for their rights against a government that would not listen.

    LGSM supported the Neath Dulais and Swansea Valley Miners mining communities during the 1984 strikes. Its fundraisers generated £20,000 for direct aid. This is what queer solidarity looks like at its best.

    What Just Stop Oil are demanding is nothing like this. It’s not a hand across a divide. To put it bluntly, they’ve issued a vague threat in an attempt to co-opt what should be a queer protest space.

    ‘Help us make your activists into our activists… or else’ is not a way to foster community – which isn’t even to mention the greater threat to queer people that accompanies being arrested as part of a climate protest or elsewhere.

    Learn it, and come back

    Let me be completely clear. I want Pride to be a real protest again, and especially London’s corporate, pinkwashed parody. Fuck knows we need it now. Oil money has no goddamn place within 100 miles of a queer march. Hell, I don’t particularly think any corporations belong in Pride – half of them scarper as soon as the winds of public opinion change.

    That said, Just Stop Oil can – for now – sling its hook right along with United Airlines. Go away and learn what solidarity and community building actually look like. I know you can manage it.

    Hell, I’ll even take a statement of support for any of the numerous actual queer protests in the UK. If Just Stop Oil has ever made one, I couldn’t bloody find it.

    Happy Pride.

    Just Stop Oil had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

    Featured image via Unsplash/Raphael Renter

    By Alex/Rose Cocker

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Azerbaijan police detain, beat journalists covering environmental protest

    Stockholm, June 30, 2023—Azerbaijan authorities must ensure journalists can cover protests without obstruction and should investigate reports of police violence against members of the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.

    Since June 22, Azerbaijani police have detained, beaten, threatened, or otherwise obstructed the work of at least six journalists reporting on environmental protests in the western village of Soyudlu, according to news reports and the six journalists, who spoke to CPJ. None of the journalists remain in detention. 

    After protests against a local goldmine erupted on June 20, police blocked access to Soyudlu beginning on June 22, allowing only residents and pro-government media outlets, news reports said.

    “Azerbaijani authorities’ attempts to stifle coverage of ongoing environmental protests and the police brutality in enforcing this censorship are abhorrent and must end immediately,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in Amsterdam. “Authorities should allow all journalists to report on newsworthy events and must transparently investigate all allegations of police violence and threats against members of the press.”

    On June 22, police at a checkpoint into Soyudlu denied entry to Nargiz Absalamova, a reporter with independent news website Abzas Media; Nigar Mubariz, a freelance reporter with U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Voice of America’s Azeri service; and Elsever Muradzade, a reporter who covers sports and social issues on his Facebook and TikTok accounts where he has about 10,000 total followers, according to those reports and the journalists, who communicated with CPJ by messaging app.

    The journalists entered the village by another route and were reporting when two uniformed police officers and seven or eight people in plainclothes detained them and took their phones, the journalists said. 

    When Mubariz repeatedly demanded her phone back, one of the men dressed in plain clothes covered her mouth with his hand, and a police officer twisted Absalamova’s arm and pushed her against a wall. Police then forced the journalists into an unmarked car and drove them to a nearby town, where they returned their phones and released them.

    Separately on June 22, State Service for Mobilization and Conscription officers summoned Elmaddin Shamilzade, an independent journalist who publishes on Tiktok and Facebook where he has a combined 7,500 followers, after he published a video showing the faces of police officers in Soyudlu the previous day, according to news reports and the journalist, who communicated with CPJ by messaging app.

    The officers demanded evidence of his exemption from military service, which Shamilzade is awaiting as he requested the evidence from his university. He said he filed his documentation for four years of study in 2022, leading him to believe the sudden request is retaliation for his reporting, and he fears being drafted.

    The following day, police in the Yasamal district of the capital city of Baku detained Shamilzade and demanded that he delete the video. When the journalist refused, three police officers punched him, struck him with a truncheon, pulled his hair, kicked him in the stomach, and threatened to rape him.

    Shamilzade said he lost consciousness for around five minutes and, when he awoke, he deleted the video from Facebook. Police then took him to the Baku City Police Department, where a police official threatened to jail him if he spoke publicly about the attack. Shamilzade had bruising and scrapes on his neck, face, and body from the attack, according to photos reviewed by CPJ.

    On June 23, police in the Binagadi district of Baku summoned Ulvi Hasanli, chief editor of Abzas Media, after he posted pictures of two police officers who detained Absalamova, Mubariz, and Muradzade on Facebook, according to those reports and Hasanli, who communicated with CPJ by messaging app. Police demanded he delete the post, but he refused and was released after four hours.

    That evening, security staff at the U.S. Embassy in Baku removed Hasanli from the premises, and police detained him after he livestreamed three Azerbaijani activists protesting at the embassy over events in Soyudlu, according to news reports, Hasanli, and footage of his arrest posted by the journalist on Facebook. Hasanli told CPJ that police took him to the No. 21 Police Station in the Nasimi district of Baku, ordered him to delete photos and videos of the event from his phone—which he did not have—and released him after an hour.

    On June 25, Farid Ismayilov, a reporter with independent outlet Toplum TV, was interviewing residents in the village of Chovdar, which neighbors Soyudlu, when two people in plainclothes who identified themselves as police approached him and tried to take his camera, saying that local officials had forbidden reporting from the village, according to Ismayilov, who spoke to CPJ by messaging app, and a Facebook post by the journalist.

    Ismayilov fled in his car but was followed out of the region by two vehicles, he told CPJ, adding that local officials threatened to have his relatives fired from their jobs if he published his video reports.

    CPJ’s emails to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan, the Baku City police department, and the Yasamal, Binagadi, and Nasimi district police stations did not receive any replies.

    A spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Baku replied to CPJ’s emailed inquiry about Hasanli’s removal from the premises by saying, “Only portions of the official program [of the June 23 event] were open to media and on the record” and “The U.S. Embassy supports fundamental freedoms including the right to protest and freedom of speech.”


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • At Brighton University and beyond, higher education is in turmoil

    Academic institutions across the UK are in turmoil. Strikes, pickets, marking and assessment boycotts (MABs), and large-scale protests are recurring features on campuses up and down the country. Yet, the Universities and Colleges Employers’ Association (UCEA) and senior management teams still refuse to negotiate with the University and College Union (UCU).

    UCEA states that until the UCU calls off the MAB which is currently underway at 145 universities, no negotiations will take place. However, when you look at what’s going on in higher education, it’s of little surprise workers and students are fighting back – not least at Brighton University.

    Don’t blame the UCU – blame university management

    This is nothing short of a national scandal. Thousands of students are set to either ‘graduate’ without degree classifications, or be unable to graduate at all. We have already witnessed students at the University of Glasgow ‘graduating’ without knowing their final grade. Students at the University of Cambridge will not graduate until their final exams are marked. This will impact nearly half of final-year undergraduates and 90% of post graduates on taught courses at Cambridge.

    At Brighton, the university told the Argus that UCU had “deliberately timed” the MAB to cause “maximum disruption”. However, undergraduate student Alexei Fisk disagrees. They told the Canary:

    After years of intermittent strikes without resolution, with rapidly worsening working conditions and a huge real terms pay cut over the past decade, I fully believe the MAB is really the only card the UCU staff had left to play.

    However, the truly draconian punitive measures have been put in place by universities in response – to deduct up to 100% of pay from the staff who are boycotting, despite the fact that they have continued to fulfil their teaching and supervisory roles throughout the period – are utterly shocking.

    This complete disregard for ethics is an obvious attempt to force staff back to work through starvation and the threat of homelessness. It reveals the callous inhumanity at work in senior management teams within the higher education sector, and should be condemned.

    Fisk continued:

    The MAB is being sold to students as, essentially, unnecessary troublemaking – and actually, maybe they are partly right. But it is unnecessary because all the UCEA needs to do is get around the table and agree on a fair deal for all staff.

    It is not unnecessary for lecturers to demand decent working conditions and a salary that reflects their passion, dedication, and expertise. I stand in full solidarity with our teaching staff, now and always.

    Brighton Students Union misses the point completely

    On 22 June, Brighton Students Union (BSU) posted a video to their Instagram page in response to the MAB. In it, the union’s president Sufia Begum states that students’ academic progression should not be a “political football”. She also said BSU is distressed to see students bearing the brunt of this standoff between workers and management.

    The problem with this statement is that BSU fails to even acknowledge the root cause of this problem. It is management’s refusal to negotiate with staff. We are in a situation where the livelihoods of over a hundred people at Brighton University are under threat. Yet BSU demeans industrial action as simply a way for staff to “voice concerns”. A postgraduate researcher who wishes to remain anonymous told the Canary:

    The SU’s response seems to suggest that management and the UCU are both equally making our lives as students difficult by calling for both to ‘prioritise students’ wellbeing’. We as students have been consistently prioritised by our lecturers and supervisors even when they are being overloaded with work by management.

    When will the SU realise that the working conditions of our lecturers affect our education? By using this neutral language, the SU is failing to use its power to pressure the university management, the only people responsible for the stress we are going through.

    Mismanagement at Brighton University gets you a CBE

    Staff and students at Brighton University are still fighting against mass redundancies. Now, on top of the MAB, staff have announced an indefinite strike. This means that the new academic year will not start until – and unless – management call off the mass redundancies.

    Brighton University is effectively closed until further notice. So, it came as a complete shock to everyone that our vice chancellor Debra Humphris has been awarded a CBE. This is for services to nursing and education. A lecturer who wishes to remain anonymous told me:

    It feels like the vice chancellor is waging war on her staff, with 100% pay deductions in a cost of living crisis, including for those colleagues she is trying to make redundant. So I think there is widespread anger and disbelief at the news of a CBE. There’s a 94% no confidence vote against her after all!

    Rewarding Humphris’s services to education seems little more than a joke in bad taste.

    During her time at Brighton her ‘achievements’ include:

    Diminishing the quality of higher education

    The key concern for staff and students alike is that attempts to circumvent the MAB, steamrolling through mass redundancies, and taking punitive measures against staff will only diminish the quality of education that students receive. Leeds University UCU shared on Twitter that they were hearing from multiple faculties that “dissertations/final year projects are being marked by non-experts & not 2nd marked” so that they can be classified by July.

    At UWE Bristol (in a since-deleted posting) zero hour contracts at a double pay rate were advertised to mitigate the MAB’s impact. It’s no surprise that managers are trying to undermine the MAB. However, they are doing so at the expense of the marks themselves. If experts are not grading the final projects, students will not get appropriate feedback or recognition of their hard work and knowledge.

    This is a profound insult to students. It leaves many of their grades in a position to be contested. This will be a process which is stressful for students, and wasteful to already overstretched university assessment procedures.

    At Brighton University, what began as students experiencing minimal impact has resulted in annual progression reviews (APRs) and vivas being cancelled for PhD researchers. There is constantly shifting and unreliable information about when and how assessment will resume.

    We were initially told that no APRs will go ahead without two assessors present. However, an email sent out by the doctoral college on 27 June then informed us that APRs can go ahead with only one assessor. This goes to show that, when managers come under pressure, they’re willing to let academic standards slip rather than negotiate with their own employees.

    Defending Brighton University

    In Brighton UCU’s latest actions, staff, students, and someone dressed as Mickey Mouse have demonstrated at prospective student open days:

    A protest with Mickey Mouse at Brighton University

    A protest at Brighton University UCU

    Prospective applicants and their parents were eager to hear about how the university is treating staff members. The combination of public demonstrations and social media campaigns has kept the pressure up. However, we know that there is still a long way to go. If management thinks that we are going to give up, they are sorely mistaken. Students and staff deserve much more than this current lot.

    The future of education at Brighton University is at stake. We owe it not only to ourselves but future students to hold management to account. At the end of the day, we’re fighting for a world where the powerful aren’t allowed to make everyone else pay for their mistakes; where everyone can go to work without fear of managers’ whims tearing the rug from beneath them, and where workers and students have real control over their working and learning conditions.

    If you wish to support us at Brighton University, we are currently fundraising for staff who are facing pay cuts, and for campaign materials. If you can afford it, you can donate here.

    Kathryn Zackarek is a PhD researcher currently working on the biopolitics of right-wing populism at Brighton University.

    Featured image and additional images via Brighton UCU

    By Kathryn Zacharek

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Climate protesters target TotalEnergies’ UK headquarters

    Climate change campaigners targeted the UK headquarters of oil giant TotalEnergies with paint on 27 June. They were protesting the French firm’s alleged human rights violations in the construction of its oil pipeline in Uganda.

    Supporters of Just Stop Oil sprayed black paint in the interior lobby of the company’s headquarters in London’s Canary Wharf district. Others daubed orange paint on its exterior, according to the protest group.

    London’s Metropolitan police said officers had arrested 27 people:

    for a combination of suspicion of criminal damage and aggravated trespass.

    EACOP

    Dozens of students from Students Against EACOP also massed outside the building during the stunt to show support. The pressure group is opposed to the building of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP)

    TotalEnergies is the largest shareholder in the climatologically disastrous East African venture. The project is set to carry crude oil to the Tanzanian coast through several Ugandan protected nature reserves.

    Communities in the region claim the energy firm and other EACOP backers have caused serious harm to their rights to land and food in building the 930-mile pipeline.

    Critics have called the project a “carbon bomb” which would release over 379 million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere.

    An end to oil and gas exploration

    Related action took place on the same day in mainland Europe. On 27 June, in France, a group of Ugandan citizens and aid groups, joined by French aid organisations, filed a lawsuit in a Paris court against TotalEnergies for damages over the alleged human rights violations.

    Campaign group Oil Change International has calculated that TotalEnergies’ planned expansions would:

    lead to over 1,600 million tonnes (Mt) of carbon-dioxide (CO2) pollution over their lifetimes, if the projects’ oil and gas reserves are fully extracted and burned.

    Just Stop Oil wants the UK and other governments to end all new oil and gas exploration. The campaign has promised not to let up in its high-profile protests until it does so. The action on 27 June is just the latest in Just Stop Oil’s campaign of direct action, which shows absolutely no signs of stopping soon.

    Featured image via Screenshot

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Calls for solidarity, as Turkish drones assassinate members of the Kurdish women’s movement

    The Turkish military assassinated Yusra Darwish, the co-chair of Qamişlo canton council in Northeast Syria, on 20th June. Missiles fired from a Turkish drone killed Yusra, who was also a prominent member of the Kurdish women’s movement.

    A revolution has been underway in Rojava, Northeast Syria since 2012, based on the ideas of women’s freedom, grassroots democracy, and an ecological society. The Turkish state is opposed to this revolution, and has been trying to destroy it since it began.

    The drone strike also killed Leyman Shiweish, Yusra’s deputy co-chair, and the driver of the car, Farat Touma. Thousands of people attended their funeral in Qamişlo.

    Rojava’s Democratic Union Party (PYD) said that Leyman was one of the first women to join the Kurdistan revolution, and that she spent 38 years fighting as a guerilla in the Kurdish mountains. They concluded:

    The enemy should know that the struggle started by comrade Rihan [Leyman] will continue at any cost.

    ‘Our answer will be the women’s revolution’

    This is by no means the first time the Turkish state has used assassination attacks against the Kurdish women’s movement. Zehra Berkel, Hebûn Mele Xelîl, and Emina Weysi were members of the Kongreya Star women’s federation. The Turkish military murdered them in another drone attack in 2020. Last year Nagîhan Akarsel, co-editor of Jineoloji magazine, was assassinated in an attack on her house in Suleimaniye in Iraqi Kurdistan. Jineoloji carries out decolonial dissemination of knowledge in the social sciences of, by, and for women. It is associated with the ideas of the Kurdish women’s movement. Kongreya Star wrote at the time:

    the Turkish state has persistently tried to weaken the struggle. But the persistence, will and strength of the freedom-loving women will not be weakened or broken. Our answer will be the victory of the women’s revolution all over the world.

    The Turkish state’s attacks on the revolutionary women of the Kurdish Freedom Movement are systematic and long-established. To read Kongra Star’s dossier on the assassinations of their comrades click here.

    UK group condemns the killings

    Kurdistan Solidarity Network (KSN) is a UK group which supports the revolutionary politics of the Kurdish Freedom Movement and the Rojava revolution. KSN Jin, the autonomous women’s structure of the KSN, made the following statement:

    Kurdistan Solidarity Network – Jin condemn these and all other attacks the Turkish state is carrying out in its attempt to destroy, piece by piece, the work of building a democratic, ecological and peaceful future for North and East Syria. We stand with our sisters in Kurdistan and beyond and raise our voices in solidarity, defiance and shared pain. 

    Yusra Darwish joined the Rojava Revolution in 2012 and worked for many years as a teacher, school principal and active member in the field of education. She was elected co-chair of the Amudê Education Committee  before becoming co-chair of the Qamishlo-Canton Council in November 2022.

    KSN Jin went on to speak about Leyman Shiweish:

    Leyman Shiwish

    Leyman Shiweish, who is also known as Reiyhan Amude, has been working for peace, democracy and women’s liberation for years and has played an important role in the women’s revolution in Rojava since it began.

    The statement continued:

    Both women worked tirelessly for social change and the organization of social, community and political activities in the canton since the beginning of the revolution.

    The killings of Yusra, Leyman and Farat are part of a Turkish military campaign of drone strikes and shelling. Turkish drones have killed at least 21 people over the past weeks.

    The European Kurdish Democratic Societies Congress (KCDK-E) have called for international solidarity against Turkish aggression. They said that the Turkish state wants to occupy and ethnically cleanse more of Northeast Syria:

    It is necessary to see that the invading Turkish army has a very serious and clear goal of occupying and dekurdifying the region. It also replaces the Kurdish population by people from other places in the region.

    KCDK-E called for people around the world to stand up against the Turkish attacks. People in Suleimaniye, Brussels, and Bern have already held demonstrations against the attacks. You can follow Kurdistan Solidarity Network to find out about solidarity events in the UK.

    Featured image via Kongra Star

    By Tom Anderson

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • ACORN has been winning more victories for tenants across the UK

    Tenants from the ACORN renters union have been winning victories across the UK over the last few weeks. Union branches in Bristol and Brighton have reported successes. What’s more, campaigns are also underway in Cardiff and Birmingham.

    ACORN organiser Nick Ballard tweeted:

    Stop the bidding

    In Bristol, ACORN picketed several branches of lettings agency CJ Hole. ACORN Bristol has been demanding that lettings agencies stop promoting ‘bidding wars’. Agencies have been encouraging prospective tenants to bid against each other, offering over the asking price to rent properties in the city. The branch has gathered 22 pledges from Bristol agencies not to engage in the practice.

    Campaigners reported that CJ Hole, Bristol’s biggest lettings agency, agreed to the union’s demands after ACORN members held demonstrations and stuck ‘wanted posters’ for CJ Hole founder Chris Hill on the windows of its agencies.

    The Canary contacted CJ Hole for comment, but we didn’t receive a reply.

    ACORN Bristol tweeted:

    Forcing landlords to sort out disrepair

    In Brighton, ACORN members occupied the town hall. They were calling on a local landlord to sort out the disrepair of a member’s home. As a result of the protest, the council reportedly issued the landlord with a fine. And this also led to the landlord finally setting a date for the much-needed repairs.

    Campaigning for Public transport

    In Birmingham, ACORN has been campaigning for better transport. The union is campaigning for more public control of buses in Birmingham. According to their online petition:

    Profits are being put before people, and it’s high time that public transportation was run for the public good once again. We live in a region that runs on its buses, they are the lifeblood of the West Midlands and the vast numbers of our residents who rely on them. 30% of households have no access to a car and we deserve better!

    Our members and communities across the West Midlands believe that through bus franchising we can achieve the best possible service through a publicly controlled network, run for the benefit of residents, not simply to maximise profits and dividends.

    ACORN is calling on councillors and the mayor to join its campaign.

    Not standing for theft of deposits

    Meanwhile, in Cardiff, a campaign is underway to get back a union member’s deposit. ACORN Cardiff says that CPS Homes has stolen a deposit from Acorn member Becca.

    The Canary contacted CPS Homes for a comment. A spokesperson for the agency said that Becca’s deposit had been handled by the government-authorised Deposit Protection Scheme (DPS), and DPS had handed them the deposit money.

    However, ACORN Cardiff says that CPS Homes has a history of taking tenants’ deposits. The group has been leafleting outside CPS Homes branches, informing the public of the company’s practices.

    Housing campaigner Penny Dinh, who attended a demo against CPS Homes, tweeted:

    One thing’s for sure: tenants’ unions like ACORN are sorely needed right now. Landlords would walk all over us given half the chance, but when we organise collectively, we have real power.

    Click here to learn more about ACORN and how to join the union. Take a look at Living Rent and London Renters Union websites too, to find out what’s going on in your area.

    Featured image via Unsplash

    By Tom Anderson

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Groups are coming together to resist this year’s Armed Forces Day in Cornwall

    This year’s Armed Forces Day is on Saturday 24 June. The main “public show” (perhaps the most grotesque uses of the phrase imaginable) will be in Cornwall. However, local and national campaigners are not taking this display of militarism lying down. In fact, they’re planning a counter-event to show the public’s resistance.

    Armed Forces Day: state-sanctioned propaganda

    Armed Forces Day is a state-sanctioned event. As the Soldiers’ Charity noted, it was the brainchild of Tony Blair’s Labour Party:

    Plans for the event were announced in February 2006 by Gordon Brown, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the aim of ensuring that the contribution of our Armed Forces was never forgotten. First known as Veterans’ Day, the first event was held on Saturday 27th June 2006. The date was chosen as it came the day after the anniversary of the first investiture of the Victoria Cross in Hyde Park, London, in 1857.

    The event became Armed Forces Day in 2009, and is now held annually on the last Saturday in June.

    Naturally, the day is less about the public showing support for vets, and more about the state pushing creeping militarism. As the Canary previously wrote, campaign group ForcesWatch published a report in 2019. It detailed how the state uses Armed Forces Day to push the idea that war is normal to the public – and that we should support both it and continued militarisation:

    Warrior Nation: War, militarisation and British democracy, published by ForcesWatch, details a “militarisation offensive” launched against the British public by the military, political and media establishments. Warrior Nation argues that events like Armed Forces Day are part and parcel of a creeping militarism and militarisation of British society, designed to suppress dissent and ensure long-term support for war.

    The report finds that engineering widespread support for military action among the British public has not been very successful. But militarism has nonetheless had an incredibly corrosive effect upon social norms and liberties. Attempting to create a society that accepts a state of permanent war, the establishment has sought to suppress multiculturalism, freedom of speech, and the right to dissent.

    Of course, the current authoritarian Tory government is making all this worse. However, people are resisting across the UK. And specifically, for Armed Forces Day’s national event in Falmouth, groups are coming together to push back.

    Cornwall will resist

    The official Armed Forces Day website states that Falmouth:

    will play proud host to a packed programme of events and activities including a military parade, marching bands, military displays, live music, flying displays and fireworks.

    If you think that sounds insidious and nauseating, then you can join in a counter-event. Campaign Against The Arms Trade (CAAT) said in a press release that:

    Local and national organisations are uniting to show their opposition to Armed Forces Day, due to be held in Falmouth on 24th June. Groups involved include Campaign Against Arms Trade, the Peace Pledge Union, ForcesWatch, Demilitarise Education, Cornwall Resists and local and national Quaker organisations. All groups say that we should be giving peace a chance rather than glorifying the military. Events planned include talks, stalls, street theatre, banners, protests and more.

    CAAT has various concerns about Armed Forces Day. For example, it said in a press release that:

    Armed Forces Day has cost Cornwall Council at least £300,000 during a cost of living crisis. Local groups are appalled that this money has been spent promoting militarism when local services have been cut to the bone.

    It also added that:

    The day is also taking place at the same time the Bibby Stockholm refugee prison ship is likely to still be in Falmouth. It is currently in the dry docks to double its capacity to house 500 refugees and asylum seekers in accommodation the size of parking spaces. This ship is a wider manifestation of the border violence that is enacted on people seeking sanctuary, many of whom are fleeing conflicts either caused by the British military, or the devastation caused by bombs made by British arms companies such as BAE.

    Furthermore, one of its major concerns is over what the day’s objectives are.

    The UK state: recruiting kids to kill

    As the Canary reported in 2019, the state actively encourages kids to participate in events. This includes even pushing Armed Forces Day onto toddlers:

    a British soldier encouraged children to wear military gear in a nursery school in Lincolnshire. The nursery celebrated the event on Facebook and published 18 photos of very young children wearing body armour and helmets.

    At the time:

    The Peace Pledge Union (PPU) released a statement blasting the “shocking” example of “everyday militarism”. It also pointed out that other Armed Forces Day events “have seen primary school aged children invited to handle real weapons”. In 2018 The Canary also published an article about Armed Forces Day targeting children by letting them handle weapons.

    So, as CAAT said in a press release:

    The UK is one of only 17 countries, and the only one in Europe, which allows for the military recruitment of children [under 18 years]. The United Nations Child Rights Committee recently called on the UK government to raise the age of recruitment to 18 and prohibit the targeting of children in military advertising. Since 2008, there has been a concerted push by the armed forces to engage with school children, especially those in deprived areas, with visits to 10,000 schools a year.

    Pushing back against capitalist militarism

    On top of all of this, weapons manufacturer BAE Systems is sponsoring some of this year’s events. Of course, it suits the company to promote things like this. The more the public support the state’s militarism, the more government contracts companies like BAE Systems will get. However, as the Canary‘s Joe Glenton previously wrote:

    The ultimate winners when it comes to defence spending are not the public, in whose name these vast sums are lavished on war. It’s the arms firms and defence firms who making a killing. In the case of the UK, our vast spending comes amid a cost of living crisis.

    So, Cornwall will resist on 24 June. ForcesWatch coordinator Luke Starr said in a press release:

    While presented as a celebration of veterans and service personnel, Armed Forces Day is also a huge opportunity to normalise military action and run recruitment activities.

    A spokesperson for Quakers in Britain said:

    Quakers believe that all life is precious. We have always tried to ‘live in that life and power which takes away the occasion of all wars.’

    Instead of pretending that Armed Forces Day is a family-friendly celebration of their peace-keeping work, the British government should stop recruiting children into the military and stop recruiting the wider society to be war ready. We should be investing in education for peace, not war.

    With the Labour Party under Keir Starmer renewing their engagement with Armed Forces Day, it’s down to campaign groups like CAAT to resist. The perpetual militarisation of societies across the planet is one of the mainstays of corporate capitalism – where people’s lives are treated as profit margins, and wholly expendable.

    Armed Forces Day is a sick reflection of this, dressed up as a patriotic celebration. However, theres nothing patriotic about celebrating death, maiming, and the destruction of people’s lives and the planet.

    Feature image via Cornwall Council – YouTube

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • UoM students are not having it – despite cowardly bosses running to their lawyers

    Students at the University of Manchester (UoM) have vowed to continue their rent strike into at least the next academic year. This comes after bosses inflamed the situation by getting lawyers involved – and amid growing student disquiet nationally about the state of universities and higher education.

    UoM: striking over rent

    As the Canary documented, around 650 students have been withholding their rent from the UoM. This is because uni bosses increased rents on halls by up to £450 for the 2022 academic year. Plus, it’s unsurprising that students are rent striking when you see the state of the accommodation:

    mould in a building

    Back in February, students occupied areas of the university in protest. They were part of the group UoM Rent Strike. Bailiffs eventually removed them. Meanwhile, university bosses have dug their heels in. As the Canary previously wrote:

    bosses are taking disciplinary action against 11 students over the peaceful occupation.

    This includes potential fines and even expulsions. Moreover:

    uni bosses took the students to court in March. It issued a 12-month ban on occupations – with UoM Rent Strike saying the legal and associated costs to the university around their occupation were around £100k. This included £40k on bailiffs alone – who forcibly removed students [from the occupation]

    Demands of bosses

    Now, some students have started receiving legal letters. UoM Rent Strike said in a press release:

    Many rent strikers have received a new letter from Branchers LLP, a law firm instructed to collected the debt on behalf of the University. The letter, dated 9th June, says, ‘We anticipate our client will issue a formal pre action letter. Which may result in the issue of legal proceedings

    UoM Rent Strike has the support of the majority of students. The UoM Student Body backed the actions by a 97% majority. All this is despite UoM making £119m a year. Moreover, the University and College Union (UCU) has found that the university has a surplus of £98m. So, UoM Rent Strike has continued to put pressure on uni bosses. It has made three demands of them:

    • A 30% rent rebate for the year, followed by the freezing of rents at that level for the next 3 years
    • A guarantee that 40% of accommodation will be affordable (less than 50% of maximum student loan) within the next 3 years
    • No punishment or victimisation for rent strikers, occupiers or other protesters related to the campaign

    The concern over affordability was underscored by UoM bosses’ plans for student accommodation redevelopment. The uni will be demolishing and redeveloping three halls on the Fallowfield Campus. While the plans state that the aim is to provide “more high-quality, modern student accommodation” that “enriches the student experience”, students are wary. UoM Rent Strike is concerned that bosses have not mentioned affordability anywhere in the proposals.

    So now, the group has said that the protest and rent strike will continue “indefinitely”:

    Universities: hollowed-out but not yet rotten

    A spokesperson for UoM Rent Strike said that:

    It is clear that our University has the money to take legal action against peaceful protestors, yet refuses to provide affordable accommodation at the expected standard of liveability to its students.

    A press release from the group added that:

    Students plan to continue striking until the University finally decides to listen to them. The unprecedented disciplinary action against 11 peaceful protestors, and resorting to expensive legal fees to silence the voices of their own students, has set a worrying tone in the suppression of free speech on campus going into the future.

    The group will also be:

    mobilising the next year’s first years to build their own rent strike for a second year running

    Student disquiet is a running theme across several universities – including Brighton’s protests over redundancies. These situations are reflective of the wider situation in higher education. Successive governments’ privatisation and marketisation of universities, coupled with greedy uni bosses, have led to the hollowing-out of the student experience. At the UoM, though, students won’t be beaten, and this situation is likely to be seen at more and more universities in the future.

    Featured image and additional images via UoM Rent Strike

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • IWW union wins back Plymouth hospitality worker’s unpaid wages

    Members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) carried out a picket at a Plymouth restaurant last week, calling on bosses to pay the workers properly.

    The radical trade union accused the bosses of the Kickin’ Caribou of withholding wages.

    Bristol IWW tweeted:

    The picket was attended by IWW members from Bristol, Devon, Cornwall and Plymouth.

    The union decided to take action after the managers of the Kickin’ Caribou didn’t respond to a grievance letter.

    Workers lined up outside the restaurant, waved union flags, and chanted:

    Caribou, shame on you! Pay your workers what they’re due!

    The picket went on for nearly an hour, receiving a good deal of attention from customers and passers-by. IWW representatives negotiated with the manager while the picket was underway.

    By the end of the protest, the union had been able to secure almost £400 of unpaid wages.

    ‘Solidarity gets the goods’

    The Canary contacted the owner of the Kickin’ Caribou for a comment. They said that a deduction had been made from the worker’s wages because of the worker quitting mid-shift. However, when faced with a noisy picket, the Kickin’ Caribou quickly agreed to pay back nearly the full reduction in wages.

    Sab, who was acting as a union rep for the IWW, said in a statement:

    At first the managers weren’t even there but when they found out what was happening we called them to come and meet with us, we would wait. By turning up outside the restaurant we showed that we were serious and that we wouldn’t leave with our member empty handed. We would walk the manager to a nearby cashpoint if needed.

    Grey, the worker who had brought the grievance against the Kickin’ Caribou, made the following statement:

    My union rep spoke with the owner on my behalf and we were able to settle on a pretty good agreement.

    We settled on splitting the deductions in half so rather than the £414 owed it would be £370! Hopefully it showed the other staff that if you come together you can overcome!

    I’m so grateful for today, felt very empowering and it was an incredible show of solidarity!

    Grey told the Canary that the experience had impressed on them how important it was to be in a union. They said:

    This experience has really taught me how important it is to be a part of a union. I didn’t think I would ever achieve something so empowering. I was supported the whole time and inspired by how many people showed up to support.
    That part of my life is finally over thanks to the IWW I have a lot more peace of mind and security.

    ‘Hospitality employers think they can take the piss’

    Max, the secretary of Bristol IWW, was also pleased with how the day went. They said:

    It felt really great to come out to support our fellow worker in their dispute and to share a sense of togetherness with the other wobblies [IWW members]. So many hospitality employers think they can take the piss with their employees, but today really showed that solidarity is strength and that we can fight back.

    The IWW concluded their statement by calling on other workers not to tolerate similar behaviour from their bosses:

    Never tolerate wage theft in any form, no matter where you work. Solidarity gets the goods!

    You can read more about IWW here, or click here to find out how to join the union.

    Featured image courtesy of IWW

    By Tom Anderson

    This post was originally published on Canary.