unemployment

The Food Stamps Explosion

Timothy Reynolds' 1980 book-length masters thesis exploring the food stamps (now known as SNAP) program from the perspective of class composition and class struggle. The thesis was completed under Harry Cleaver and is a powerful addition to the history of claimant struggles in the States in the 1970s. Reynolds' work also provides a methodological example of applying autonomist concepts to concrete struggles and drawing important lessons from that lens.

Useful Work and Useless Toil

An exchange on the refusal of work from Subversion #23

Three strikes and you're out - building claimants' counter power

News and analysis from comrades in Edinburgh, detailing the 3 Strikes and You're Out policy, since adopted by many Anti-JSA Groups.

(Subversion article from 1996 on resistance to bullying benefit office officials.)

Communities of resistance unite! The Edinburgh Unemployed Workers Centre (1980-1994)

Submitted by bambule on Feb 6 2021 17:37

This paper looks into the history of the Edinburgh Unemployed Workers Centre (EUWC) and the struggles of anti-authoritarian revolutionary groups in Edinburgh during the 1980s and early 1990s. Grassroots and direct action oriented groups started to organise together in the early 1980s against the various attacks on the working class. They were often based in the EUWC and developed highly sophisticated forms of community resistance which culminated in their crucial role in the Poll Tax rebellion.

The social factory / falling wall review #5 - Cleveland Modern Times Group

Falling Wall Review #5, UK, 1976. Rare pamphlet from Falling Wall Press, publisher of Marxist feminists such as Selma James and Silvia Federici. Issue includes The Social Factory statement from Cleveland Modern Times Group and writing from Silvia Federici among others.

Between a job and a hard place: A non-workers inquiry

An article on the experience of unemployment, first published by Plan C in 2017 and then republished by Notes from Below along with an obituary for the author.

Liverpool Anarchist #8

Articles on Universal Credit, the 1968 Rent Strike and Social Revolution.

Crowbar #47 1986

Issue 47 of Crowbar from Summer 1986.

Cropped version of a scan by the comrades at the Spirit of Revolt archive, Glasgow.

Contents include: Squatter imprisoned after Brixton riots goes on hunger strike, "Squatters' creche" updates, Brighton Arms Conference, people being charged money for places to squat, Stonehenge 1986 account, Pullens Estate resists squat evictions, DIY FM radio transmitter plans, graphics from New York squat scene, Free Pete Mastin, Smash McDonalds Day, Brixton police drug operation in July, Greece - five on hunger strike, adopt a prisoner, Animal Liberation Front, international actions round up (in tiny font), letters, news snippets.

Crowbar #32 1984

Issue 32 of Crowbar from early 1984.

Cropped and compressed from a scan by the comrades at the Spirit of Revolt archive, Glasgow.

Contents include: Eviction of Wyers squat in Amsterdam, "Save Effra Parade" protest report (20 houses scheduled for demolition), Roseberry Avenue Peace Centre, Stop The City, Islington Bingo Hall squat + UK squatted social centre round up, Amsterdam "Day of Unrest", account of somoene arrested for deliving a sermon from the pulpit in St Paul's Cathderal during Stop The City 1983, Our Radio (south London anarchist pirate radio station busted), letter from Republican prisoners in Long Kesh, "We Kill Rapists" poster.