Meet my mates, the bastards
Submitted by plasmatelly on Nov 5 2013 23:22
Fancy a challenge? Try keeping your politics intact whilst working with ordinary, apolitical workmates to build an unofficial union. Apolitical workplace organisers have it easy! If, like me, you hold dear a set of political beliefs that can only be fully realised once state and capital are no more, organising with your workmates may prove the most frustrating way of spending your precious time.
I've been here often before; working outside and around established unions, without unions and in the face of unions. I'm an anarcho-syndicalist, though this can all go out the window sometimes when faced with occasional bouts of nearly overwhelming mean spiritedness from my workmates.
The common struggle: the firefighters show the way!
Submitted by plasmatelly on Oct 3 2013 15:49
Following the first fire brigade strike of 2013 over proposed pension changes, a short look at how injury and incapacity unites all manual workers.
Who's watching whose back?
Solidarity for workers' power #2.12
Issue of Solidarity for workers' power containing a Building Stewards Committee of London statement in favour of higher wages, commentry on the 1963 Public Order Act and more.
A look at training, apprenticeships and de-skilling in the construction and engineering industries
Submitted by plasmatelly on Sep 15 2013 18:39
As the scramble for work inside the engineering and construction industries continues, finding experienced, skilled workers is proving a problem for employers.
The past 10 years has seen an explosion in the growth of training centres offering shortcut paths to re-skilling in the engineering and building industries. Industry bodies representing their commercial membership have colluded in lowering the previous expectation of having served an apprenticeship; the result seeing a dramatic lowering of standards and an increase in available labour.
Kier staff ballot for strike action
Submitted by plasmatelly on Aug 9 2013 10:10
Kier building maintenance workers are balloting for strike following the construction giant's plan to delay paying its workforce.
The massive takeover of May Gurney - an acquisition of another 6,000 workers - is rumoured to have the normally cash rich company scratching about for pound coins down the back of the sofa.
Building workers pay deal - Solidarity
Submitted by Steven. on Aug 5 2013 23:26
Pamphlet #2 published by Solidarity (north west) written by the editorial board of "Rank and File", a militant construction workers' paper. Published in 1970 it analysed and attacked the pay deal between the unions and employers.
Green bans: worker control and the urban environment - Mark A Haskell
Submitted by Steven. on Jul 29 2013 20:15
Paper by Mark A Haskell on the boycotts by Australian construction workers of environmentally destructive projects in the 1970s.
Self-help in urban renewal - Colin Ward
Colin Ward on urban renewal and gentrification.
In his introductory essay to the modern editions of Ebenezer Howard's book Garden Cities of Tomorrow - the book and the author responsible for the founding of the Town and Country Planning Association at the end of the last century - Lewis Mumford remarks that 'with his gift for sweet reasonableness Howard hoped to win Tory and Anarchist, single-taxer and socialist, individualist and collectivist,
Joe building: The Stalin memorial lecture - Jonathan Meades
A sequel of sorts to Jerry Building this time examining Stalin and the Soviet Union.
First broadcast in 2006 this documentary examines the influence and importance of Soviet architecture during the Stalin years and its role in codifying the regimes ideology.
Download link http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?5ftjokgtrohyqd8
Rank and file or broad left? A short history of the Building Worker Group
Pamphlet about the UK rank-and-file Building Worker Group within the UCATT union, published as issue 8 of the series Revolutions Per Minute.
Issue 8 is dedicated to the 3,000 building workers who have lost their lives in so-called ‘site accidents’ since the advent of the Health and Safety at Work Act in 1974. In the year 2000/1 there were 120 deaths on site.
Murder, in fact, would be a better word.
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