CALL TO ACTION: Halloween Picket at Hackney Council Meeting to demand

housing rights!

WEDNESDAY 31 OCTOBER

6 - 7:30 PM

Hackney Town Hall
, Mare Street E8 [http://www.tiny.cc/vdevt]

Porto Marghera – the last firebrands
Screening and presentation/discussion
Friday, 9th of November, 7.30pm, Pullens Estate community centre [see end of page for details]

A film about petrochemical workers who took matters into their own hands in the giant industrial zone engulfing Venice.  The mass refusal of literally toxic work forced hours on the job down at the same time as driving wages up.  The labour hierarchy that sets white collar against blue, permanent against casual, was attacked by workers insisting on the maximum for everyone.  The battle in the factory was linked to working-class life outside through direct appropriation of basic social needs (electricity, housing, food).  
    More clearly than any before them, the Porto Marghera workers identified the factory as the trigger of fatal diseases and destroyer of life.  They remained on the offensive against the concerted hostility of unions, multinational employers and state from the late 1960s until well into the '70s.  As part of an international wave of struggle, their actions contributed to a global accumulation crisis, provoking the capitalist counter-attack which has never ceased since then.

A day of action calling into question the promotion of the London 2012 Olympics as a vehicle of regeneration

Allotment Demolition Day March & Rally

Sunday 23 Sept.
Assemble Hackney Town Hall, Mare St, E8 2pm

Whatever the overruns on time and cost, one thing the London 2012 Olympics is certain to deliver is a huge public debt. The enormous bill for two weeks of telematic sport is legitimated by promises of urban regeneration but in reality the games are a corporate landgrab facilitating the looting of nature and labour as prices go up and people are pushed out, argues Mark Saunders