Having someone to meet you and help you out after you’ve been arrested can make a massive difference to how traumatic the whole experience is, and all you need is a friendly face, a pad of paper and your phone. Other potentially useful things could be a book, a hot flask, a friend, your mp3 player, warm clothing, crosswords and other boredom busters.

On November 9th lots (but not quite 100%) of people who called Green and Black Cross got met at the station – thanks to lots of heroic volunteers!

Ideally you would be up for a late night, but even if you can’t do the whole night it would still be great to hear from you.

We don’t know if anyone will be arrested, so volunteering doesn’t necessarily mean you will end up doing the time at the station – but having reserves of people is really great so that we know we can support people if needed.

If you can help out please email: gbclegal@riseup.net
with your phone number, and what time you can help.
Also if you have a car and are able to help out – please include that in your reply.

Thanks everyone!

http://greenandblackcross.org/legal

Statement of Anarchist Federation (London) on N30

Perhaps as many as three million workers will be striking on November 30th in the biggest round of industrial action since 1926, with members of 24 unions represented. Alongside this will be various actions including occupations and demonstrations.

We think it is vital that the pickets be reinforced in the morning as soon as they start. This means not just those striking going down to the pickets but also pensioners, the unemployed and unwaged workers, students from schools, further education and universities. If you are a private sector worker then why not take the day off by phoning in sick and joining the actions? It is vital that the strike action is generalised, that is that as many people as possible are involved and support it. In addition unity has to be created with the electricians taking action on the same day and with the Occupy movement.

The TUC and the union leaderships are using N30 as a safety valve to head off the growing anger of workers. As such, N30 should be seen as merely a start with the need for further united and determined action. This means workplace assemblies and meetings uniting workers from different unions and from none to consider joint action. It means increasing coordination between workers in both the public and private sectors. It means wildcat strikes outside the control of the union leaderships. It means increasing coordination between those in work, the unemployed, pensioners and unwaged workers and school students, FE and sixth form students and university students. It means the setting up of co-ordinations of all these groups, linking action in the workplace with action in the neighbourhood and on the estates and at the job centres.

The government and its friends in the media will intensify their campaign to destroy this struggle through mockery, disinformation and downright lies, the threat of violence and finally the use of violence through the police. The student mobilisation on November 9thwas an example of this. First of all threatening letters issued by the police to participants in previous actions and for which they had not even been prosecuted let alone sentenced, the threat by the police to use rubber bullets, the plainclothes snatch squads operating within the demonstration, the police kettling of the electrician, stopping them uniting their march with that of the students, and finally the demonstration as one huge moving kettle with a massive show of police force.

Increasing mass actions on a decentralised basis and increasing unity can thwart these threats. Remember, on N9 taxi drivers were able to blockade central London causing a traffic grid-lock. We must remember our own power. As workers we can stop the trains, the buses, the tube, the workplaces. We can block the streets and squares. We can halt their shows of police force, we can halt their plans to cut services, wages and pensions. We have the power to finish with this corrupt society and create another based on equality, solidarity and human dignity. Let’s step lively in that direction!

Anarchist Federation (London)
http://aflondon.wordpress.com/

Wednesday 30th November 2011
PCS picket – HMRC
Euston Tower
286 Euston Road
London, NW1 3UQ
» MAP

We will be standing in solidarity with all striking workers on the day, and in particular public sector workers who know only too well what the result of this government’s savage welfare policies will be.

Join us at Euston Tower, where speeches will begin at 9am. At some point we will also no doubt be paying a short visit to notorious poverty pimps Atos Origin just round the corner, the IT company responsible for carrying out the disastrous Work Capability Assessments which have driven sick and disabled claimants to suicide.

• Many of us then will make our way to the Trade Union march and Striker’s Assembly, both being held in central London. For full details of all events, pickets and actions taking place in London on the day please visit: http://www.n30strike.org/

• Then on the 1st December we’ll be kicking off the National Month of Action Against Atos and the Benefit Cuts by paying a visit to a lecture being given by Iain Duncan Smith at the LSE. More details at: http://benefitclaimantsfightback.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/protest-at-iain-duncan-smiths-lse-talk-december-1st/

• For details of the month of action visit: http://benefitclaimantsfightback.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/a-month-of-festive-action-against-atos-and-the-benefit-cuts/

-
Original: http://benefitclaimantsfightback.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/benefit-claimants-in-solidarity-with-the-pcs-2/
-

We will be distributing all manner of political material to the striking workers.  If you have propaganda you want distributed or put on display either bring it down to Freedom bookshop tomorrow (leave it in a prominent place in the shop preferably with a big sign saying ‘N30 prop for the stall’ on it!), or come down early on the day and leave it on the stall.

Hopefully will make it down for the rally at Victoria Embankment. Look for the red and black flags and pick up the brand new December issue of Freedom newspaper.

Freedom stall
Wednesday November 30th • Midday
Assembly for TUC march
Lincoln’s Inn Fields
Holborn
London WC2A 3PE
» MAP

-
Original: http://www.freedompress.org.uk/news/2011/11/29/freedom-stall-on-n30-demo-london/
-

Anarchist organisation Workers Solidarity Movement (WSM) has welcomed Wednesday’s public sector strike and called for this to be “the start of a sustained campaign of opposition to the government’s attacks on workers and the unemployed.”

“All of those who have built for and are going to take part in this action deserve huge congratulations,” said Sean Matthews, a WSM member based in Belfast. “Public sector workers are relied on every day to run the hospitals, schools, fire service, and all other public services that society depends on to function. Wednesday’s strike will show that when we withdraw our labour and stand together in defence of our rights we have real strength.”

“We know of course that the government is not going to back down after one day’s strike action,” said Mr. Matthews. “That’s why workers need to get organised and build for further strike action.”

“We also know that the leadership of the trade union movement cannot be relied on to organise the necessary action. That’s why we need to build a mass militant campaign which is opposed to all cuts and attacks on services, and which is controlled by rank and file workers.”

“Building such a campaign will not be easy. To do so we need to begin to organise workers and the unemployed in a real and meaningful way – organising and motivating public and private sector workers, as well as those currently out of work, to become involved in discussing, agreeing on and organising the tactics necessary to build resistance.”

“Wednesday’s strike is of crucial importance for all of us.” Mr. Matthews concluded. “A victory on the pensions for public sector workers will build confidence and help us all to build towards the fight needed to win a victory for all workers against government attacks on our living standards.”

- Statement Ends -

Note to Editor:-Workers Solidarity Movement (WSM) is an Irish anarchist organisation with members in Northern Irelandand the Republic. WSM members are actively involved in many community and trade union campaigns, and have been involved at local and workplace level, North and South, in building opposition to the government attempts to make workers and the unemployed pay for the financial crisis.

-
Original: http://www.wsm.ie/c/press-release-anarchist-public-sector-strike
-

AF’s downloadable PDF flyer for the N30 strike.

• Download here

Text of flyer:

SYMBOLIC PROTEST OR FIGHT TO WIN?

30th November 2011 is undoubtedly the most widespread strike action for years. With 24 public sector unions all striking on the same day, it is very welcome to see unions finally taking concerted action in this way.

However, it’s also worth remembering that it will require much more than one day strikes to be sure of a real victory and today’s action will definitely need to be built on. But whether the trade unions are capable of doing this, especially given the weak, legalistic tactics unions are so entrenched in, is doubtful.

But aren’t the unions’ tactics already having an effect?
True, there has been some movement from the government and employers in response to positive strike ballots but this is just conciliatory noises, a ploy to make the unions look inflexible while obscuring the fact that the government and employers are actually offering us nothing. The trade unions long ago surrendered to anti-union legislation and other oppressive employment laws and have got so used to doing everything ‘through the proper legal channels’ that they are now incapable of properly fighting to win.

But it makes no sense to do everything to the letter of the law because these laws were enacted specifically to hamstring effective industrial action.

If we want to be sure of a real victory, then we’ll need to:

• Intensify strike action in spite of the anti-trade union laws and the reluctance of union high-ups to engage in action beyond anything purely symbolic
• Spread the dispute – it’s essential that we take our struggle beyond the single issue of pensions. The way the unions have mobilised makes it seem as though it is indeed our pensions that are the central concern. This is far from the truth. The point is to show that workers reject the idea that we all have to make ‘sacrifices’ and to do so in solidarity with the whole working class, including unwaged people and service users. We cannot unite with the rest of the working class on the basis of a one-day strike over public sector pensions.
• Unite with other workers – that means broadening our aims to include private sector workers over a range of issues other than pensions.
• Go wildcat - in recent years, a number of disputes have by-passed trade union bureaucrats and we have seen a rise in forms of direct action that defy the unions’ reluctance to defy the law. From wildcat strikes to*workplace occupations, from blockades to technically unlawful secondary action, we have seen workers’ refusal to submit being expressed in ways that the state and the employers have not been able to stifle.
• Establish local strike committees between workers from different unions and workplaces – controlled from below rather than by union bureaucrats above.
• Link up with activists in the UnCut and Occupy movements. It is 12 years since the famous N30 demonstration against the G-20 in Seattle. Since then, the global ‘anti-capitalist’ movement has pushed for fundamental social change. Such newer, international forms of protest should increasingly embrace workers’ interests explicitly too.

What we in the Anarchist Federation are talking about is not only winning this particular dispute but also building an effective, militant and autonomous workers’ movement that will set us up for future battles and future victories.

Meanwhile, the best way to guarantee any degree of success over pensions, privatisation, attacks on services, attacks on any section of the working class, is to make this strike as strong and effective as we can, to widen the issues and spread the dispute to other sectors.

So let’s get to it and fight to win!

—

THE ANARCHIST FEDERATION

-
Original: http://www.afed.org.uk/blog/workplace/273-af-flyer-for-n30-symbolic-protest-or-fight-to-win.html
-

Support striking workers in Hereford – rally in High Town at 12 noon, Wednesday 30th November.

Wednesday 30th November is to see the largest strike action by British workers in decades. An estimated 3 million public sector workers including teachers, NHS workers and local council employees, will strike in opposition to the Coalition Government’s planned changes to public sector pensions, which will mean workers paying more into pension schemes and working for longer.

The TUC coordinated action will include picket lines and rallies across the country, with members of over 20 unions taking part. Students are supporting the strikes, along with anti-cuts activists, UK Uncut, anarchist groups and many others. Unsurprisingly, the government and other mainstream parties have attacked and condemned the striking workers, and the media have been very hostile towards them.

It is essential that we stand together with public sector workers, against the planned changes to pensions and against other attacks on working class people. It is only through sustained and coordinated action like this, with workers standing together and acting in solidarity with one another, that the destructive government spending cuts can be defeated. An injury to one is an injury to all – support striking workers!

Rallies in support of the strike are also happening at the following places in the region:

• Gloucester- March startes at 1pm outside Shire Hall. Rally at 2pm at Gloucester Park 
• Worcester- March starts at 11.30am on Mealcheapen Street. Rally takes place between 12.30-2.30pm at St Andrews Methodist Church.

-
Original: http://herefordheckler.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/all-out-on-november-30th/
-

The anarchists of Glasgow have organised an all singing all cycling event visiting various picket lines early in the morning before joining up with the student feeder march for the main union march through the city. Join them.

7.30 am • Western Infirmary (Main Gate)
Dumbarton Road
G11 6NT
» MAP
8am • Hillhead High School
22-44 Oakfield Avenue
G12 8LJ
» MAP
9am • Glasgow University (Main Gate)
University Avenue
G12 8QQ
» MAP

Join Glasgow University Feeder March to student rally meet by the Royal Concert Hall steps at the top of Buchanan Street at 11.30am
» MAP
Main STUC March assembling 12.00pm Shuttle Street (off Albion Street)
Rally at Barrowlands Ballroom 1.15pm

-
Original: http://glasgowanarchists.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/n30-strike-glasgow-anarchist-cycling-picketing-and-singing/
Facebook Event Page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=127924743985580
-

Derry Anarchists support this call and will be attending the rally.  In a leaflet distributed through out the city by the DTUC it stated:

Support the Public Sector Strikes for Pensions!
Support the Derry Trades Union Council Rally!

Wednesday November 30th Guildhall Square @ 1pm
» MAP

This one-day strike will be the biggest single work stoppage in the north, EVER! The primary aim is to defend public sector pensions, but the austerity measures we are facing go far wider. Every working class family in Derry as elsewhere, will be hit hard!

Public sector unions and working class communities are in this together.

We have to fight back if we are to win!

People unite! Resist cuts to Pensions, Jobs and Benefits!

This is your fight too!

Make this a show of working class strength & defiance!!

-
Original: http://derryanarchists.blogspot.com/2011/11/all-out-on-november-30th.html
-

Education feeder march • Assemble 12pm
University of London Union – ULU
Malet Street
London WC1E 7HY
» MAP

Trade unions have announced they will be uniting to march in London – join the education feeder march assembling 12.00 at ULU. This will be an visible bloc for students and education workers on the main march.

There will also be rallies and marches around the country, so please do organise education related feeder march in your city too!

PCS March Details
London – noon, assemble at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, WC2A 3PE. March to the Victoria Embankment, WC2N 6NU, for a rally at 2pm.

London • 6.30am
Wed 30th November
Balfour Beatty construction project
Blackfriars Station
Queen Victoria St
London EC4V 4DY
» Directions

So there are 3 big dates coming up:

• November 28 when the BBES strike ballot closes and then get the result. 
• November 30 when 2 million public sector workers will be on strike to defend their pensions. We should join them, in a sparks ‘day of protest’ with protests and stoppages at as many sites as we can.
• December 7 the big one, when it should be the first strike day for all sparks at BBES. Rank and file sparks across the country at BBES or not should be having meetings to decide on solidarity action.

Unite members at Balfour Beatty BBES should have been getting their ballot papers and they must be returned by next Monday November 28, With a ‘YES’ for strike action.

If you would like to meet up with us on the day in your city, email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com. That afternoon we are also having a public meeting in Sheffield on the communist alternative view of public services and the ‘welfare state’ – see here.

There is an alternative!

On November 30th the UK will see the biggest day of strike action yet of public sector workers as part of a fight against the government’s austerity plans.

Over twenty unions representing 3 million public sector workers will strike over government attempts to significantly increase employee contributions while reducing employer contributions to pension schemes, raise the retirement age, and drastically reduce pension pay outs to workers. Workers in both the public and private sectors are facing similar job cuts.

This strike, as well as the square occupations and the recent electricians’ strike over pay cuts are part of a broader struggle against austerity sweeping across the world. This austerity is a symptom of the economic crisis gripping capitalism, a crisis in which both business and the government seek to resolve by protecting capitalism at the expense of workers and the most vulnerable in society, the old, the sick, and the young. Youth unemployment among 16 to 24 year-olds currently stands at over a million and like general unemployment is rising dramatically.

It is important that everyone supports the strike. The stakes are high. Failure to stop the government from imposing its cuts will worsen conditions for all of us. However, a one-day strike will not be sufficient to stop these attacks on our living standards and jobs. We have to build a movement which is prepared to go beyond limited strike action or the aim of trade union officialdom to merely put pressure on the government; our aim should be to go beyond capitalism.

Capitalism is in a deep structural crisis. We are heading for even more economic downturn.  Even the economics editor of the Financial Times is predicting that the current depression will be longer and deeper than the great depression of the 1920s and ‘30s.  Our situation is going to become a lot worse unless we put a stop to capitalism and look for alternatives which take power from the banks, multinational corporations and the state and puts it firmly in the hands of the working class, through democratic communism – the self-management of workplaces and communities, and the abolition of wage-slavery.

We need to build the alternative now in our actions, through building rank and file control of strikes, horizontal decision making structures, peoples assemblies, and where delegates are needed they must be elected, accountable and recallable. Linking all in struggle from workers to unemployed to social and environmental campaigns, the list goes on in a mass movement that respects self-organisation but marches and strikes together.

-
Original: http://thecommune.co.uk/2011/11/26/commune-leaflet-for-30th-november/
-

Solidarity to the strikers

Thatcher and successive governments have tried to destroy the trade union movement in this country and break the backs of organised workers. The November 30^th strikes represent a fightback, a realisation that we the workers, have the power to make a difference, to punish those who try to steal our money, our time, our life and to take that power back.

It has been a tumultuous year, and one that has given us much hope. From the student demonstrations of last winter through to half a million trade unionists marching through London on March 26, the June 30th strikes and the summer riots, working class people are rising up from their knees and saying loud and clear, enough is enough. By doing so we are creating a culture of resistance and demonstrating that we will not accept this anymore. The strike on November 30th is just the beginning…

Solidarity to the strikers and to all of those struggling in defence of working class people.

Keep on striking until we win.

-
Original: http://www.soundthealarm.org.uk/all-out-on-november-30th/
-