Below are some links to some texts we thought might be useful, related to just some of the areas of our lives the upcoming onslaught is targetting. Past Tense's focus had traditionally been linking the struggles of the past with our own, so these are mostly historical in general, some are personal accounts, some from our own times, but we hope people will find them useful, or inspiring... Obviously these are just what we could unearth at reasonably short notice, and because we're London-based, there's a distinct London bias. this is only a start; possibly we could build up a real resource of material discussing resistance to cuts both historically and in the future...? Any further suggestions for texts to link to are very welcome.
pasttense@alphabetthreat.co.uk
love on the dole?
It looks like we're facing the most comprehensive shake-up of benefits for decades. Read about some previous collective resistance to attacks on the unwaged...
1920s-30: Some articles on the The National Unemployed Workers Movement are being worked on. patience...
1980s: A history of Islington Action group of the unwaged
more on the claimants movement in the 80s
1990s: Resistance to the imposition of the Job Seekers Allowance:
End of the Social Wage? Radical responses to the Welfare Reform Bill:
Three Strikes and You're Out! - interview with Edinburgh Claimants about the effects of their campaign to challenge job centre workers about over-zealous implementation of JSA rules, from Organise!#48.
Running to Stand Still - Globalisation, Blagging and the Dole - from the many-paged annual eco-activist publication Do or Die, that is no longer with us (Do or Die, #9, 2001). Nice photos and cartoons.
Oxford Unemployed Workers and Claimants Union: An Oral History - Video about this excellent old campaigning/advice group. (requires flash)
http://www.afed.org.uk/nottingham/claimants/
also has loads of great links to unwaged groups, advice, ideas and articles, history and guides to benefits...
my head is only my house until it rains (sorry captain!)
The capping of Housing Benefit, threats to limit council tenancies or to kick people out if they get a job... The end of social housing as any kind of meaningful option? A return to mass homelessness sixteenth century style? Time for rent strikes!
Some stuff on rent strikes:
Leeds 1914
Leeds 1934
Glasgow 1915:
http://www.radicalglasgow.me.uk/
strugglepedia/index.php?title=The_Rent_Strike. or
http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/subjects/rentstrikes.html
Barcelona, 1931
East End 1938: A PDF of Sarah Glynn's take on East End rent strikes of the late '30s
www.sarahglynn.net has alot more interesting stuff too...
Housing Finance Act, 1950s:
St Pancras Rent Strike, 1960.
Material on squatting is very numerous.
As a start: www.squatter.org.uk/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=18has chapters from "squatting the Real Story', a 1979 history of squatting in the UK (some folk have just started working on a new updated history... watch this space...)
as long as you've got your...
The lie on the airwaves is that the NHS is safe from the knife... But jobs are going, there are huge re-organisations in responsibility for health at a local level, health centres are being closed...
In the 1970s, 80s and 90s, successive recessions and health 'reforms' collided in the closure of various hospitals - health workers and users fought back by occupying them/attempting to keep them running. Some experiences:
The South London Womens Hospital Occupation (which includes discussion of the work-in at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital and others).
libcom.org/.../occupational-therapy-university-college-hospital-strikes- occupations-1992 -
Occupy and Win: A pamphlet produced in 1984 by London Health Emergency which is a guide for hospital workers on how - and why - to occupy hospitals to prevent their closure.
Educating Ri(o)ta
Too big a subject, really. While rioting students is always a welcome winter sight, the occupations of university and college buildings is spreading around the country. The more the merrier! But why should college occupations by restricted to students? Occupied colleges could help build a stronger movement against cuts generally if they become a base for non-students, and new forms of education for all might even arise, not subject to the control of academia...
The Hornsey Art College Occupation 1968.
Occupations of colleges: 1968-9 were big years, even in England. Some random gossip from the LSE/ULU occupations of '69.
Interesting blog with a slant on a more recent Uni occupation: nastybrutalistandshort.blogspot.com/2010/.../suburban-occupation
One lovely sign is the increasing numbers of sixth formers joining the student protests, and starting to occupy in schools too. Reminds us of 2003 when thousands stormed out of schools to riot against the start of the Iraq war... If teachers lock the gates, why not set their cars on fire?
libcom.org/history/march-2003-schoolkids-against-iraqi-war
... and some general stuff on school, resistance and that...
libcom.org/library/education-stupefication-commodification
The lock stock and barrel of it is...
Council cuts
Local council services are probably going to be the hardest hit; in housing, stopping non-essential repairs, closing housing offices, closing the already half shut gates; slashing services for the vulnerable, knackering schools and nursery provision; libraries are also in the firing line.
For years local services have been gradually whittled away. (We're scanning an preparaing some texts on library occupations, anti-closure campaigns etc...)
Ratecapping: In the 1980s some local councils controlled by the leftwing of the Labour party (slightly to the left of today's Labour) tried to oppose Tory central government's imposing of drastic budget cuts by refusing to co-operate... But in the end they all pretty much bottled it, or got personally hammered and made liable. the process of central government trying to restrict council spending by limiting the amount they could raise in 'rates' (the council tax of the time for you young 'uns) was know as rate-capping. A factual account can be found at http://wapedia.mobi/en/Rate-capping_rebellion
The Rate-capping saga does provide a salutary warning: attempts to instigate 'Socialism in one Borough' inevitably fail, or the brave lefty leaders get cold feet, or end up sacking workers and making cuts in the end ('with a heavy heart'). During the rate-capping struggles many people invested much support and hope in their elected representatives; disillusion was bound to follow. Now it is very unlikely that any councillors controlling local authorities today, however left sounding, will risk the martyrdom that Lambeth councillors brought on themselves, and councillors' room to manouevre on budgets and raising money is even more tightly controlled. But similar attempts to deflect local rebellion by councils 'allying' themselves with cuts rebels should be answered with the proper politeness: occupy, strike and lets run the area ourselves.
Critical detailed texts on the rate-capping struggle would be welcome if anyone has any... as we think similar developments may arise...
Ratecapping in some ways echoed 'Poplarism': in 1921 30 leftwing Labour Councillors in the East london Borough of Poplar, Labour-controlled, with a high unemployment rate, were jailed, after refusing to hand over the Borough's contribution to the London County Council. They argued that poorer boroughs paid more for unemployed relief (benefits), due to higher numbers of unemployed & lower rates, & that the burden should be shared equally by richer boroughs. Poplar led the way in handing out relatively generous unemployment relief, at a time of mass unemployment nationally. The councillors spent 3 months inside; Parliament as a result of this struggle passed a law spreading the cost of relief across London as a whole.
But 'Poplarism' had its limits: two years later many of the same left labour and Communist Party councillors refused to raise rates of relief, restore the coal allowance to the unemployed, saying the rates had to be kept down. They then called the cops on 200 angry claimants who occupied the Town Hall. 100 people were hurt. As Sylvia Pankhurst pointed out, representatives of the working class who get into power, have to enforce the rules of capitalism.
Read a radical historian's review of a book on Poplarism.
More on council cuts:
Egg chips and strikes, a personal account of resisting council cuts in the South London Borough of Lambeth in the late 1980s.
and finally...
Austerity measures generally are set to cause redundancies in both the public and private sectors. A good account of the 1978-79 Winter of Discontent, the last real sustained successful period of workers' struggles, has some interesting history and useful perspective on how things have changed.
..........
we haven't even mentioned legal aid cuts... which will hamstring anyone trying to challenge many of the proposed cuts legally eg defend themselves against eviction. Law centres, where you can get a semblance of legal advice and representation, are basically going to go to the wall. We're working on chasing useful texts on this and other matters, watch this space or email us to suggest writings that should go up here...