Solidarity Federation wins unpaid wages in Newcastle

Great stuff!

Well done, comrades!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1urq4Vb0XM

It is good that you won and shared this information.
However I do not like the way the text is written and miss some information.
In which sector is this company situated?
What kind of empty threats did the boss use against you?

I do not find this part very good:

Newcastle Local would have preferred Jenkinson Glaziers to have promptly paid the money owed - a four figured sum - without having to resort to direct action, thus keeping the name of the company out of the public domain. However due to The bosses slippery attempts at delay his public shaming was unavoidable.

From my point of view it is good that you were pushed to make direct action and go with the company name online - this way you might encourage more workers who have been abused by the same (or other) company as well.

I also do not get the "funny way" it is written but maybe I just do not understand this kind of jokes... I do not think that bosses will start to pay immediately after some A-S union will contact them even after this (and more) quick victory.

What are you on about?

Khawaga, I am not sure what your sentence means, but Daniel would like to hear more info about this victory (I second him) but at the same time is critical about the way the idea about "public direct action vs. pay immediately when we demand it" is approached in the article. So if you have anything to say about it, say it clearly, not in sentences that might be hard to understand for people whose native language is not English...

How on earth I am supposed to know that the person behind a nick has English as his/her second language?

Anyway, I wasn't sure what the post wanted. Some questions are answered in the post, some aren't. But, in any case what do you expect from what appears to be a press release (seemingly written in a hurry so that it can be good news on Mayday)? And the wording appears reflects the language adopted by solidarity networks..

And with regards to this:

From my point of view it is good that you were pushed to make direct action and go with the company name online - this way you might encourage more workers who have been abused by the same (or other) company as well.

I disagree. While I think that we should always push for direction action, sadly most workers would most likely be discouraged from contacting SolFed if you went directly to direct action (and again, that direct action was the "last" thing to be tried is tied to, I assume, a strategy of escalation of tactics).

Khawaga

From my point of view it is good that you were pushed to make direct action and go with the company name online - this way you might encourage more workers who have been abused by the same (or other) company as well.

I disagree. While I think that we should always push for direction action, sadly most workers would most likely be discouraged from contacting SolFed if you went directly to direct action (and again, that direct action was the "last" thing to be tried is tied to, I assume, a strategy of escalation of tactics).

Our understanding of the word 'direct action' is that it is action capable of achieving our aims directly, i.e. without intermediaries such as bureaucrats, courts, politicians etc. That can mean things like pickets or communications blockades, but it can also mean just writing a letter, which often puts enough pressure to get results. So direct action isn't necessarily massively militant.

Well done Newcastle SolFed!

Thanks for answers plasmatelly and no1 .
Khawaga sorry for being unclear, it is because of my English.

Anyway the reason I wanted to know more backround is that I want to translate this text into English - it is exactly about the topic I think is important to share - how to solve issues with employers with A-S organization.

I understand your press release a bit better now. To make sure you also understand my position - sure I am also for contacting with letters etc. and slowly escalated conflict. I did not say, we should go with banners and do pickets etc. every time.

Maybe I just misunderstood at the beginning - it seemed to me, that you were kind of sad, that you "have to" go on public - because company lost credit - but who cares if they behaved badly?

to Khawaga:
My argument is, that if you go public and name the company - this could encourage workers - and I am talking from the experiencies with OTTO agency for example (Vrije Bond, ZSP, Priama akcia). Ok, it is a little bit different while it is not one-time issue but campaign. But this is my experience and I can see some parallels.

No1: makes sense. I guess I operate with a more narrow definition, though I like yours.

Daniel: I can see your point as well. But from where I live, shaming a company public could lead to workers not wanting to contact a solnet, though that's likely because the city I live in is very conservative and militancy in general is more or less non existent.

no1

Khawaga

From my point of view it is good that you were pushed to make direct action and go with the company name online - this way you might encourage more workers who have been abused by the same (or other) company as well.

I disagree. While I think that we should always push for direction action, sadly most workers would most likely be discouraged from contacting SolFed if you went directly to direct action (and again, that direct action was the "last" thing to be tried is tied to, I assume, a strategy of escalation of tactics).

Our understanding of the word 'direct action' is that it is action capable of achieving our aims directly, i.e. without intermediaries such as bureaucrats, courts, politicians etc. That can mean things like pickets or communications blockades, but it can also mean just writing a letter, which often puts enough pressure to get results. So direct action isn't necessarily massively militant.

Even if a letter does get results, though, I'm not sure it's really very direct; the letter writers are still appealing to the recipient, to their morality or rationality. I think this is very qualitatively different than striking because you don't want to work under whatever existing conditions (or work in general) or engaging in a slow down because you don't want to work at any faster a pace. Or outside the workplace action, like stealing food because you're hungry and who cares how many pieces of paper or metal tokens you have. Maybe this is just semantics.

daniel dreveny

From my point of view it is good that you were pushed to make direct action and go with the company name online - this way you might encourage more workers who have been abused by the same (or other) company as well.

I could not disagree more strongly with this: surely the important thing is to get the worker paid, and then, as a secondary aim, promote DA as the most effective tactic? I think the sort of thinking where we should pray for obstinacy from the bosses is immiserationist (wanting things to get worse in the hope that people will 'do something'). Moreover, we advocate DA cos we think it's the most effective method of getting workers what they want: if it proves to be difficult or impossible, then we should consider changing our methods surely? To think otherwise is to lose contact with reality.

Having said that, there have been a significant number of similar cases where there has not been a 'quick' victory and we haven't escalated to the full potential, usually cos the boss makes an insincere promise as a delaying tactic and by the time it's clear it won't materialise, the worker is demoralised and has moved on. I think SF would do well to use the IWA as a tool of international solidarity. That's the point of it after all.

EDIT: and of course, props to Noo'as'ell.

Caiman del Barrio, I think I have explained already what was meant with the sentence you have quoted... It is not the meaning you interpretated it.

I wrote:

Maybe I just misunderstood at the beginning - it seemed to me, that you were kind of sad, that you "have to" go on public - because company lost credit - but who cares if they behaved badly?

and also gave example when it has been very positive to go online with company name:

My argument is, that if you go public and name the company - this could encourage workers - and I am talking from the experiencies with OTTO agency for example (Vrije Bond, ZSP, Priama akcia). Ok, it is a little bit different while it is not one-time issue but campaign. But this is my experience and I can see some parallels.

I also explained that I do not think we should do picket as some "rule" - I mention this again now, because your comment seems like you think that I have kind of rigid thinking...

To make sure you also understand my position - sure I am also for contacting with letters etc. and slowly escalated conflict. I did not say, we should go with banners and do pickets etc. every time.

Sorry, I have no idea what means this slang:

Caiman del Barrio
EDIT: and of course, props to Noo'as'ell.

Regarding what you wrote:

I think SF would do well to use the IWA as a tool of international solidarity. That's the point of it after all.

I would not call IWA as a tool - because there are people behind IWA - and I do not like to feel as a tool ;-)
--) I am pretty sure we need more discussion within IWA, because there have been very good solidarity appeals but also very weak. Therefore I think it is better to not "use" IWA but with respect to other sections to ORGANISE together with other IWA sections international solidarity. That means to inform about the backround, current status, plans etc. - whatever is needed for Sections to feel that we are part of fight, not just some tool.

This action by the SolFed, like some other politically inspired groups using the SeaSol methodology, seems to be a perfectly sensible way of going about resolving a limited individual workers/tenants etc problem in the absence of more self-generated collective action (and could in fact be just what a bunch of friends do for their mates), but it does more or less amount to using some very limited direct action tactics to simply enforce capitalism's own regulations against the more wayward 'criminal' employers and landlords for which other remedies are at least sometimes available and in itself doesn't therefore necessarily contribute to any ideological challenge to the normal functioning of the system. Seems OK perhaps as one very small element amongst others contributing to the building of what, for instance the AF refers to as, a 'community of resistance' but hardly any substitute for self-generated class wide resistance to capitalist crisis.

sub editing note: title changed, tags added, external image removed and added to the article itself