No Borders Nottingham
No Borders is an activist network that supports Freedom of Movement and the Right to Remain for all. The network links No Borders groups across the UK and there are transnational ties to groups on the continent of Europe and across its borders. The No Borders group in Nottingham includes many local activists who are involved with supporting and working alongside asylum seekers who live in the area, detainees wherever they are, migrants in the squats and on the streets in Calais and supporting solidarity between domestic and migrant workers.
[Click ‘Read more’ for the rest of the text. For details of Mayday 2010 read our older blog article below.]
Continue reading No Borders Nottingham : text for Mayday 2010 →
Meet No Borders activists and find literature on our stall at the annual Mayday celebrations in Nottingham on 1st May 2010, this year moved to Victoria Park, Bath Street – near the Victoria Leisure Centre (which the City Council has just closed) and near Sneinton Market. Assemble at 11 am. There will be a march leaving Victoria Park at 12 for Speaker’s Corner (Clough statue), returning to Victoria Park for music, stalls, speakers and more. Look out for the No Borders Nottingham banner on the march. More details:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2010/04/448550.html
The Nottingham Mayday committee includes activists on asylum and refugee issues. Don’t let migrant workers take any blame for the UK’s economic woes. The government, opposition parties and racist right-wingers know how to use ‘divide and rule’ all too well!
More news is emerging of just how dehumanising and brutal have been the effects of the immigration raids at SOAS organised by external contractor ISS shortly after the cleaners won union recognition and pay rises to the level of the London living wage.
One of the UNISON members picked up, who was traumatised by the clandestine nature of the raid and the appearance of around 40 officers in full body armour, arrived back in Bogota, 48 hours after the raid, wearing the same clothes she was arrested in and with 75pence in her pocket. Others were deported or are detained at Yarl’s Wood.
Full story: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/07/433893.html
International workers’ day event for 2009 will take place, Saturday May 2nd, Brewhouse Yard by Nottingham Castle. 12 noon till 4 pm, Gates open for setting up at 10 am. There will be a march around Nottingham City Centre starting in the yard plus Stalls, Speakers & Music. Bring Placards, Flags & Union Banners. As usual migrant and asylum seeker issues will be integral to Mayday because the working class has no country.
To mark the New Year, please view and circulate this short video story of the inspiring ongoing struggle of the 5 Colombian cleaners sacked by Amey PLC at the National Physical Laboratory (Teddington, London) for having distributed a leaflet criticising the company. The video can be watched on YouTube: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ho7W4-RBhKc and more information can be found on the Campaign against Immigration Controls website: http://caic.org.uk/amey
This is a perfect example of the practice of companies like Amey and organisations like NPL who bring them in to cut costs. These companies are responsible for attempting to lower wages through casualisation. More solidarity action is needed to support workers who are brave enough to stand up to these attacks and so help protect the wages of all.
Continue reading Colombian cleaners fight continues after sacking by Amey, contractor at National Physical Laboratory →
Chairman of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission Trevor Phillips’ speech at the Confederation of British Industry yesterday has resulted in a lot of media attention about the disproportionate effect of economic crisis on the white working class who are after all a majority in UK. And it’s quite right that the right-wing may use simple statistics to scapegoat migrants workers as poverty and employment strikes.
Less well reported (but actually to be found in the Telegraph today) is the prediction that up to one million immigrant workers might leave UK. So Britain is effectively “exporting unemployment” that would otherwise be 3 million instead of 2 million.
Not only do we find that 100,000’s of EU nationals in the UK have already left due to losing jobs or deciding it’s not worth staying anymore, but even though many are eligible to claim benefits including Job Seekers’ Allowance, government figures show there have been only 4,647 successful JSA applications from eastern Europeans since 2004. So any idea of migrants scrounging of the state is nonsense. If any finger is to be pointed, it’s at the capitalist system that cares little about working people whereever they are from, as long as we work and don’t cause trouble.
See also: “Migrants come here for an easy ride? – don?t make us laugh!
Continue reading Britain has ‘exported unemployment’ →
At last, some recognition of the crazy way the British state treats asylum seekers, whilst allowing the populist press and racist troublemakers to call them scroungers. Even though he’d had to obtain fake documents to work and earn a living, Nottingham Evening Post reported that, Judge Dudley Bennett described a Zimbawean man Weldone Javangwe as a “perfectly respectable man” who has contributed to the Nottingham community. “You have been paying your taxes and you have not been a drain on our society in any way.” […] The decision was welcomed by Regis Manyanya, chairman of the Nottingham Zimbabwean Community Network, which campaigns for Zimbabweans refused asylum to be given the right to work. He said: “There are a lot of people in the same situation. Because they are living in destitution some of them feel they have no option but to work illegally. Some are being pushed into prostitution. “They are hard-working and want to make a living, but because of the system they are forced into committing these types of crime.”
Until the day when people are able to escape war and torture freely without borders, all asylum seekers should be able to work so they can try and avoid destitution while they concentrate on their cases and appeals, without this unnecessary additional hassle from vehicle licensing snoopers, immigration officials, police and the so-called justice system.
Continue reading Judge describes Nottingham ‘illegal’ worker “a perfectly respectable man who fled from Zimbabwe.” →
In an outrageous act of media manipulation, Greater Manchester Police announced a couple of weeks ago that “A major operation to police the 2008 Labour Party Annual Conference has resulted in the arrest of three more people on suspicion of immigration offences.”
http://www.citylocal.co.uk/cities/Manchest…/article/24583/
The news follows removal of one Manchester resident with expired work permit that has already resulted from GMP’s proudly proclaimed ‘Operation Protector’. This major (and presumably expensive) security operation to protect the Labour Party against the most dangerous kind of terrorist mastermind in Manchester, that is, someone working their butt off in a hotel or other city centre venue (allegedly) without 100% correct visa/passport, seems to be geared for maximum publicity effect. Time and time again, migrant workers get criminalised just for surviving, in a world of uncertainty and war created by the same nation states with their armies and police forces. That these authorities can go round making out that harassing a few immigrants, most likely a result of stop & searching anyone with a dark skin, will keep warmongering politicians safe from terrorist threats inside their cosy conference centres, is a slur on all of the hardworking and exploited people that modern capitalist economies depend on.
Read earlier article or go to http://www.nobordersmanchester.blogspot.com/ to read about about No Borders action at the Labour Party Conference (from 19th Sept).
Click on ‘Read more’ for a report about police repression outside Republican National Convention in USA on Labor Day earlier this week.
Continue reading ‘Operation Protector’ harasses foreign workers prior to Labour Party conference (plus repression of ‘Poor People’s March’ in USA) →
For freedom of movement, Against nationhood and prevention of migration by nation states, Welcoming asylum seekers and migrant workers, Against capitalist exploitation
