Home | Friday 10th December 2004 | Issue 477

WAKE UP! IT'S YER BOLETIN SIN PATRONES...

SchNEWS
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Story Links:
ZanON and ON and ON! | Piquetero and Choose... | Crap Arrest of the Week | BANGERS AND SchMASH-UP | NOT FAIR-FORD | Shamewood Forest | D’OH! Chemicals | Inside SchNEWS | SchNEWS in Brief | Positive SchNEWS | FRANK SPENCERS | Sick in the EDO | ...and finally...

ZanON and ON and ON!

“The fights live on in Zanon, workers control lives on. The factory is the peoples’ factory, Zanon will not be defeated.” - Protesters’ Song at solidarity demo for Zanon workers.

Argentine workers have stuck two fingers up at the bosses and are running their factory for themselves at the Zanon plant after the owner closed it down claiming it wasn’t making enough profit. But since the occupation the cooperative has taken on 50% more workers and production levels have increased threefold.

The occupied factory is a success story in a country where the US-driven neoliberalist project has dramatically crashed and burned, much like the rest of South America. And just like in other South American countries the government is bowing to external pressure from the IMF, the World Bank, and all the other US-dominated institutions that have ravaged the continent to crush all evidence that there is another way to run a factory, a country, or a planet besides predatory corporate capitalism.

There are plenty of statistics that illustrate the failure of neoliberalism in Argentina. During the 2001 economic crisis 20,000 Argentineans slid below the poverty line every day. $130 billion left the country for Western banks. Unemployment skyrocketed. Five presidents were ousted in two weeks. Even the multinational Citibank lost some $2bn. But soon things started to get back to normal, with mass arrests and protesters being shot dead. Yet another ‘Peronist’ president took power in 2003, the same year that Citibank saw its profits rise by a third.

During the crisis, Que se vayan todos! (Out with them all!) became the common call of protesters. The Piquetero (flying picket) movement of thousands of unemployed workers who use direct action have fought pitched battles with the authorities. In Argentina’s second biggest city, Cordoba, civil servants set fire to the city hall. And you know things are hotting up when middle class people start smashing up banks!

Yet only a year and a half after the crisis nearly two thirds of the electorate voted for politicians from traditional ‘Peronist’ (right wing) parties. The winner, President Néstor Kirchner, once expressed sympathy with the unemployed, touting anti IMF rhetroic. Before Kirchner came to power five presidents had passed through the revolving doors of the presidential office in just two weeks, determined to stay in power he played it slow with his real agenda. Now the gloves are off and he is clamping down on anti-capitalist demonstrations and organisation, with the closure of worker controlled factories.

Kirchner fans reckon he’s done some great stuff, such as forcing into retirement loads of generals and police chiefs from the “dirty war” years of the late 70’s and early 80’s when people were ‘disappeared’ on a daily basis. More than 30,000 Argentineans were murdered by the CIA-backed regime. To his credit Kirchner repealed the amnesty granted by previous presidents to the generals involved, and even told Congress to take fewer bribes! But his self-proclaimed vision of a “normal capitalism” has failed to tackle the most serious obstacles to sustainable, fair economic development. Government policy is still all about foreign debt payments, privatisations and corporate-friendly laws.

Piquetero and Choose...

One in five people in Argentina are unemployed and many felt that they had had enough and could do a better job of running things than the bosses. There has been a wave of worker takeovers. Cleaning staff have been running four-star hotels, a supermarket was taken over by its clerks and even pilots and cabin crew talked of turning a regional airline into a cooperative! There are now more than 15,000 workers occupying 200 workplaces. Occupied businesses are usually run on a one worker, one vote basis and many factories pay all their workers the same salary. The Zanon workers’ co-operative is one of those occupied businesses. Called FaSinPat, short for Fabricas Sin Patrones, (Factories Without Bosses), it has occupied a ceramics factory since October 2001.

And there are many reasons why the local community is so supportive of the co-op. For the past twenty years the poverty stricken community of Nueva Espaqa has been asking the government, without success, to build them a health clinic. Taking on the challenge, Zanon workers voted to build a community health centre and finished the job in just three months.

The factories offer an alternative to corrupt bosses and the politicians they have bought. Running scared of successful community-supported workers co-ops; government agencies have been ignoring the cooperative’s attempts to become a legal entity. Instead judges and politicians have been planning offensive actions against the movement. Workers are being told to toe the line. In an attempt to split the co-operative the government has offered 250 jobs to 400 workers in a new factory making prefabricated buildings. If they refuse they face violent eviction, harassment and a long time on the dole with a marked card. Zanon’s ex-executives have even organised groups of several dozen “barrabravas” (paid hooligans) from the football club Cipolletti to hassle Zanon workers.

Threats against Zanon are part of a wider clamp down. In August more than one hundred workers of the occupied factory Gatic (which makes Adidas clothes), were evicted with tear gas, clubs and rubber bullets. Kirchner has also refused to cancel the political trials of 4,000 activists arrested during the previous regime. The Minister of the Interior promises to enforce a court ruling from April 2004 criminalizing piquetero street blockages.

But the measures have united the piquetero movement, and has led to massive protests. Right now, Argentina’s phone network is on the verge of collapse following strikes by more than 20,000 workers who are demanding fairer wages. In Buenos Aires, the action has intensified with workers storming and holding buildings belonging to the country’s phone companies.

The Supreme Court has just instructed Zanon’s local authorities to immediately carry out the local court’s eviction order. Five attempts to evict the factory have been resisted by the workers, but the latest eviction order looks like it might be carried through. With enough international support the Zanon workers reckon they can resist another eviction attempt.

* Help them stop the evictions by signing the petition now! www.petitiononline.com/zanon/petition.html

* Check out the excellent ‘The Take’ a film about the occupied factory co-operatives: www.nfb.ca/thetake

CRAP ARREST OF THE WEEK

For babysitting!

Two anarchists in France were arrested by anti terrorist police for looking after the three year old child of two alleged members of Basque separatist group ETA. SchNEWS reckons, just to be safe, remember to ask exactly what your mates are doing before you agree to baby-sit for them!

NOT FAIR-FORD

The Court of Appeal ruled this week that police violated the Human Rights Act when they illegally detained 120 protestors en route to a demonstration at RAF Fairford, Gloucestershire, before they even got out of their coaches. The coaches were searched and when police found they were tooled up with two pairs of scissors and some pamphlets they were driven back to London under police guard. Police claimed the protestors were ‘well armed’.

It turns out that the police had our best interests at heart, though. They claim they were in fact protecting the protestors right to life and ‘had a member of the public penetrated the defences and been killed or injured by one of the armed personnel guarding the B52 aircraft…the public reaction and political consequences would have been extremely damaging to the coalition partners’. Yeah right.

However, the judges also ruled that although detention on the coaches was unlawful, it was not unlawful for the police to turn the passengers away from the demonstration. This means that any group of people could be turned away from a demonstration without evidence and based solely on the opinion of a senior police officer. Amnesty International has described the ruling as having a “chilling effect on the rights to freedom of assembly, peaceful protest and expression”. www.fairfordcoachaction.org.uk

Shamewood Forest

On Monday 50 bailiffs and 100 police (including road-blocks around the district) evicted anti-road protesters at Sherwood Forest, Nottingham. This was a surprise move as the Under-Sheriff of Nottingham told the protesters only last week that there would not be an eviction while legal cases were still outstanding. www.indymedia.org.uk

...and to prevent a similar occurrence in Birmingham, get down to The Nursery Social Centre TODAY. They need people to help defend the centre on Bournbrook Road, Selly Oak (opposite Uni. gates on Bristol Road). www.stuffit.org/nursery 07910 53804

D’OH! Chemicals

The BBC recently had to admit that an interview they broadcast about the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster with a ‘spokesman’ from Dow Chemical Co. was, er, total bollocks.

Dow chemical ‘spokesman’, Jude Finisterra, accepted full responsibility for the disaster on behalf of the company. Anyone interested in the story would have known that the slimy toxic bastards from Dow Chemical Co. have been denying any responsibility and wriggling out of paying compensation to the tens of thousands of victims for the last 20 years.

The BBC claimed they had been the victims of an “elaborate deception”, which seems about as subtle and elaborate to us as a massive explosion of poisonous chemicals. Still, Dow weren’t laughing as millions were wiped off their stock market price. www.theyesmen.org

Inside SchNEWS

Why not write to a prisoner this Christmas? There are details of loads of political prisoners on the Brighton ABC website. Remember the 10th of December is the last day for posting stuff the US and Eastern Europe.
www.brightonabc.org.uk

* Don’t forget to send a Christmas card to James Borek LL6803, HMP Blundeston, D-108, Lowestoft, Suffolk, NR32 5BG. James was sent to prison in January 2004 for four and a half years for injuring a cop during the June 18th 1999 “Carnival against Capital” in London’s financial district.

SchNEWS in brief

• Celebrate Human Rights Day at Brighton Peace Centre, Kurdish singing, poetry readings, Thai and Indian speakers on Barclays Bank backed projects, speakers from the Baku-Ceyhan Campaign, The Refugee Project and The Cornerhouse. This Sat (11) 5pm, 39 Surrey Street, Brighton 01273 766610
• Talk by Narmada Valley and Thai activists about UK opposition to Barclay’s involvement in The Narmada Dam projects and the Trans Thai-Malaysia gas pipeline. This Sat (11) Oxford Town Hall 2-4pm, jo@risingtide.org.uk or 01865 241 097
• Bass not Bombs, fundraiser for Bristol Dissent against the G8, Colombia Solidarity Campaign and Bristol Stop the War Coalition this Sat (11). Black Swan, Stapleton Road, Easton, Bristol 9pm-5am.
• Bailiff firm Constant & Co have long been the company that executes the most vicious evictions of Gypsy and Traveler sites - demonstration next Mon (13), Noon, Bedford Station. Planning meeting for further action and other traveler solidarity, this Sat (11) 7pm @ London Action Resource Centre www.travellersupport.org.uk
• New anti-authoritarian society at the University of London. Meeting this Monday (13) at ULU bar 6pm uluantiauthoritarians@yahoo.co.uk
• Benefit for Bristle (anarchist magazine) next Fri (17) at the Porter Butt Pub, London Rd, Bath. 9pm–1am, £3
• The Corporate Europe Observatory’s ‘Lobby Planet’ Guide to Brussels guidebook describes the increasingly harmful impacts of corporate lobbying and spin on EU decision-making. www.corporateeurope.org
• Anti-Capitalism reaches Uckfield! In the sleepy Sussex town of Uckfield - glue was used to disable locks and cash machines as part of Buy Nothing Day. Targets included Lloyds, Woolworths, Tesco and NatWest. Somerfield said the damage cost them £1000. And SchNEWS thought nothing ever happened in Uckfield.

Positive SchNEWS

RampART is a squatted social centre in East London that has been open for six months and is celebrating with a couple of parties next weekend (17-18) The two day event includes an open day on the Saturday afternoon, as well as alternative fashion shows, workshops and music.

*RampART centre, 15-17 Rampart Street, London E1 2LA http://rampart.omxtra.net

FRANK SPENCERS

Protestors have been targeting Marks and Spencer’s for ages because of their support for the repressive Israeli state and for flogging products made on stolen Palestinian land. Last Saturday, 10 people were arrested at the regular protest outside Marks and Spencer’s in central Manchester.

The Chief Constable of Manchester had imposed a ban on pickets of the store over the Christmas and New Year period on the grounds that there are more punters around who might be distracted from the important business of shopping. He wanted the demo to be held half a mile away, limited to 20 people, and only from 12 to 3 pm.

The cops imposed bail conditions on some of those nicked although none of them were charged with any offence. Some can’t come into the City Centre on Saturdays till mid-January, while others are forbidden from entering the City Centre at any time! No prezzies for their mates, then.

The ongoing squeezing out of the right to protest needs to be resisted. Come along to show your support.

* Demo this Saturday to protest against the ban 12-3pm, Peace Gardens, Manchester www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/manchester/

* An interim injunction to limit demonstrations outside Newchurch guinea pig farm was granted last week. Protesters can still protest once a week on a Sunday from 12 till 3pm with no more than 25 people but without megaphones. Save Newchurch Guinea Pigs: 01902 564734 www.liberation-now.org

Sick in the EDO

EDO/MBM is Brighton’s friendly local arms dealer, located on the Home Farm Industrial Estate, Moulsecoomb, Brighton. EDO, an American multinational, makes bomb release mechanisms for F16s, Hawk Hurricanes and Tornadoes, tank diagnostic systems and the controversial Paveway IV precision guidance system. All their charming ‘products’ have been used in the recent invasion of Iraq. Indeed their managing director, David Jones, has openly stated that his company is proud to support the invasion and ongoing occupation of Iraq. The factory also sells to Lockheed Martin in the USA who equips human rights abusers like Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Israel and Turkey. Not to mention the US military and UK forces, who they have signed huge contracts with. EDO are proud sponsors of war and oppression all over the place. They might argue, as others have, that if they don’t do it someone else will. This logic has yet to save a heroin dealer from being convicted.

In May six activists erected metal fencing on the road to the factory and chained themselves to it while a further five occupied the roof. The factory was paralysed for the day as only a few of their 250 workers made it past the blockade. They estimate this cost them £20,000.

The six activists involved in the demo are charged with Obstructing the Highway and are on trial 14th-17th December and are asking for people from around the country to demonstrate outside Brighton Magistrates Court and at EDO. Accommodation will be provided in Brighton. Demonstration and support march organised by Sussex Action for Peace on 16th December outside Brighton Magistrates Court, Edward Street. Interested people should telephone 07900 698550.

Other actions against EDO have included roof occupations, paintbombs have been splattered on the walls, the delivery entrance was blocked up with fast-drying cement, a steaming pile of horse manure has been dumped in the front yard, and regular noise demos on Home Farm Road outside the factory have attracted up to 40 people.

* In an attempt to show how effective the protests have been Special Branch visited a Brighton anti-war activist yesterday morning in a dawn raid. He was arrested for harassing company directors of EDO/MBM and his flat was searched.

For more details about the campaign see www.smashedo.bpec.org

...and finally...

SchNEWS has a tip for those of you looking for on-line porn but worried about your right on reputation… Fuck for Forest is a Norwegian organization dedicated to having sex in public to save the environment. They raise awareness of environmental issues and raise money by selling eco-porn online…

The organization is run by a couple in Norway who were in court recently after they stripped off their clothes and had sex on stage during a rock concert by Kristopher Schau and his band The Cumshots (we’re not making this up, honest). Tommy Hol Ellingsen, and his girlfriend Leona Johansson, said they did it to help save the environment. Tommy ‘accidentally’ lost his trousers during court proceedings in what he described as, “a short moment of love between him and the Norwegian media”. Police fined the couple nearly $2,500 each, but they are refusing to pay and will appeal the decision.

Oh yeah, Fuck for Forest are looking for volunteers! Their website says: “Angry? Horny? You can be a model for fuck for forest. Amateurs and professionals alike – anybody is welcome to contact us. We are mainly looking for girls and couples. Get fucked for forest! Don’t be depressive. Take control.” www.fuckforforest.com

Disclaimer
SchNEWS warns all readers not to ask any awkward questions, it-Zanon of your business!

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