Using SHAC tactics in workplace stragies?
May 6 2006 23:06
Hi peops,
Just wondering if anyone else has every thought of the applicability of SHAC style tactics to workplace strategies? Dunno if this should be in theory or organise. They aren't exactly new tactics, but they all come together quite nicely. They have really caused HLS a lot of economic damage. Which is of course, what we want to do effectively. Obviously more thought needs to go into relation with workers etc.
Here is the Do Or Die SHAC tactics guide.
http://www.eco-action.org/dod/no10/shac.htm
Here is an article discussing SHAC tactics and other groups picking them up.
http://shiftshapers.gnn.tv/blogs/13780/SHAC_Convictions_The_Martyrdom_Effect
May 7 2006 00:12
#2
I read of solidarity actions done by CNT in Spain to get a sacked worker re-instated with back pay using stuff like that - not looked at the links but things like faxing black faxes (they also won back the cash in sending them + phoning!), I believe damage to boss's property, etc.
I imagine it could work well on small businesses. Though it would be pretty weird, going back to work under those kind of circumstances... I think here you'd be more likely to get done legally - blackmail/intimidation, etc.
It's very important that whatever is done is not done by outside militants, but that all activity is controlled by the workers involved themselves. This spanish coffee-house strike some anarchists, non-CNT, when and trashed the place without the workers' say-so and it helped lose the strike.
May 10 2006 20:59
#3
I think i need to get some weird masked anarcho-nutjob to kidnap my bosses grandmas remains and ask for a 10% raise. That'll work. 
Fucking looney tunes!
May 10 2006 21:01
#4
Yeah, the five who have been charged up on the grave robbing thing..well there is no evidence for the prosecution of them doing any grave robbing.
May 10 2006 22:47
#5
cantdocartwheels wrote:
I think i need to get some weird masked anarcho-nutjob to kidnap my bosses grandmas remains and ask for a 10% raise. That'll work.
Er, cantdo you can't neglect the power that intimdatory campaigns can have.
Doing some stuff like AR people do (the grave example is stupid) is part and parcel of workers struggle in some places
A working class group that just used "terrorism" - but to a very large extent - was the Molly Maguires in the US:
May 11 2006 06:57
#6
Quote:
Hmm but was there a new law passed specificaly because of all this shit?
Yeah ther'es a load of people going through the courts on it now. The whole economic terrorim thing was a direct offshoot, as is the distance-based injunction system EDO were trying to enforce I think.
May 11 2006 07:35
#7
the main difference is that SHAC doesn't have to escalate the struggle to a mass one, they can have a core of couple hundred people who are not easily scared by the militancy of the tactics.
But at a workplace you have to sacrifice the militancy in the tactics for maximum participation - and only in exeptional situations would people be prepared to go as far as SHAC tactics.
Dont forget though that many SHAC tactics are actually learned from things like miners struggle (there are some who were involved in that in the 80's), and the miners did stuff which was much more heavy shit than what SHAC has done so far.
one big difference though: times have changed and SHAC has tried to learn about how corporations work, and are mainly using secondary targeting. HLS can't operate without someone doing plumbing, deliveries, catering etc, so they target them. Dont know if this tactic was used during thye miners struggle, but it seems to be effective. After all, that multi billion company was only saved by escaping to US stockmarket and government bailout.
May 12 2006 14:00
#8
Somebody at the g8 in stirling was shiting on about how we could shut down the g8 using the shac-model.
I thought as anarchists we respect workers and accept that capitalism is a social relationship which is unavoidable in our current society, as such tactics like targetting suppliers, workers and so on would be completely counter productive.
Shac are able to put a dent in the profits of companies but aren't really capable of building mass support. Look at the demo held recently in oxford where because of an idiotic threat made against everyone with ties to the college a pro-vivesection demo was bigger than the anti.
animal rights? where's the humanity?
May 12 2006 14:08
#9
Well yeah but I'd say that's due to the lifestyloist connotations than the tactics used per se.
Incidentally, three people involved in the abduction of the pensioner's corpse just got 12 years, another got 4 in the last couple of days.
May 12 2006 14:10
#10
was there any suggestion they themselves were involved? The papers I've seen tried to hint at that, but basically in the small print said they were convicted due to the campaign about the farm, and during that campaign some freaks dug up the woman.
May 12 2006 14:19
#11
John. wrote:
was there any suggestion they themselves were involved? The papers I've seen tried to hint at that, but basically in the small print said they were convicted due to the campaign about the farm, and during that campaign some freaks dug up the woman.
I thought one of them led the police to the body?
May 12 2006 14:54
#12
nah they're bang to rights.
anyway, shac tactics outside of AR?
For single issue stuff i can't see them being particularly damaging at all. Arms trade, big pharmaceuticals (sp?), far right, particularly nasty businesses...
In workplace struggles it would have to have be quite rare situation, but of course would happen when things get heavier.
The point about shac tctics is not the tactics alone though, its the relentless nature of their campaign. The campaign against the Halls (guinea pig farners) was fucking 7 days a week for several years.
It wasn't 'oh shit my neighbours have been told i'm a paedophile, i'll pack it in' or 'oh shit my cleaner has had their car burned out' or 'oh shit theres a nutter with a megaphone outside my house' it was 'oh shit i can't live my life to any deree of normality any more!'
May 12 2006 15:52
#13
Jack wrote:
I thought one of them led the police to the body?
One of them, namely John Smith, did indeed lead the Police to the location of the body of Gladys Hammond, but it was reported on Channel 4 7pm news on 11/05/06 that John Smith has consistently insisted that somebody else, excluding the three other defendants, had told him where the body was and that he himself had no part in the removal of the body.
May 12 2006 15:56
#14
We will also see what the dispatches documentary on monday night claims about this.
If Smith did help the police, it did not do him much good - he got 12 years just the two other male defendants.....
May 12 2006 19:20
#15
PaulMarsh wrote:
We will also see what the dispatches documentary on monday night claims about this.If Smith did help the police, it did not do him much good - he got 12 years just the two other male defendants.....
I believe the maximum possible sentence was 14 years, which would imply a reduction of 2 years (or 1 year, after having already been on remand for about a year). If I am wrong about the maximum possible sentence being 14 years and it is 12 years, then it is seems likely that the CPS have reneged on their deal for reduced sentences.
As for the Channel 4 documentary, I would not expect it to be fair or unbiased... the trailer appear to be mocking the AR movement from its title 'Mad About Animals' and the ridiculous music accompanying it. The media rarely paints the AR movement in a positive light unfortunately.
[edited for typo]
May 12 2006 19:27
#16
Veganarkissed wrote:
The media rarely paints the AR movement in a positive light unfortunately.
1) rarely? Have they ever painted the AR movement in positive light?*
2) why would they?
3) does anyone in the AR movement expect them to?
Just a few questions
all the best
tax
*painted in light, a beautiful mixed metaphor.
May 12 2006 19:56
#17
Tacks wrote:
1) rarely? Have they ever painted the AR movement in positive light?*2) why would they?
3) does anyone in the AR movement expect them to?
Well... 
...mainstream media certainly never paints a positive light, obviously... Indymedia fares better, Biteback and Arkangel are much more positive, but are hardly unbiased! And no, I do not think that anyone within the AR movement expects ANY positive media coverage at all.
May 12 2006 20:28
#18
i see. Thanks for answering
Hmm but was there a new law passed specificaly because of all this shit?
Which now means people doing it can get seriously fucked up for doing home demos etc?