Brighton Solidarity Federation has started a dispute with the lettings agency Spencer & Leigh in Patcham. A tenant has been organising with SolFed after £510 was withheld from her deposit in order to change a lock and to have the property professionally cleaned. The tenant left the property secure at the end of her tenancy, and she also had it professionally cleaned prior to vacating it.
Brighton lettings agency MTM is facing a growing campaign by a group of tenants organising with Brighton SolFed for compensation after they paid £34,320 in rent to live in damp (pictured) and infested accommodation for a year. Recently, the landlady made a series of threats against the tenants. These include informing their places of study about the dispute, and attempting to get them blacklisted by agencies in the city and “all landlord associations in the country”. Regarding the former threat, we have informed the landlady that the tenants' places of study are already aware of the issues these tenants faced and have been sympathetic toward the situation.
Solfed locals have taken solidarity action to express our support of Uber drivers in Jakarta taking strike action today 11.9.2017. Similar actions have been taken by anarcho-syndicalists on 4 continents as a result of a call by the IWA-AIT. Solfed members in London held a picket outside Uber's UK headquarters in Aldgate. Brighton Solfed had previously expressed their solidarity while members in Liverpool and Manchester have been spreading the word about the struggle of Uber workers in Indonesia in a flyposting campaign. Uber drivers, organising with the anarcho-syndicalist PPAS, are taking strike action, demanding higher pay and an end to highly casualised working conditions. These are the same problems faced by Uber drivers across the world - our solidarity is as international as their capital!
Brighton Solidarity Federation has started a dispute with MTM lettings on the Lewes road. A group of tenants have been organising with SolFed after they were rented a house with serious damp and mould problems, infestations, and poor furniture that the landlady had promised to replace.
The tenants were introduced to the landlady by a different letting agency in the city, which was intermittently involved in the tenancy for the first six months. Administration was then transferred to MTM. The first letting agency refunded the tenants their agency fees, totalling £1200, on Thursday 24th August, after a brief picket protesting against the agency for introducing the tenants to this poor-quality accommodation.
On 31st July, members of Brighton Solidarity Federation, along with Bobby Carver and members of his campaign, met with Brighton & Hove City Council’s Executive Director for Neighbourhoods, Communities & Housing, Larissa Reed. You can read more about how this meeting came about here.
Prior to the meeting, ourselves and the Bobby Carver Campaign had issued three clear public demands to the council, which were based on Bobby’s – and others' – experience of the council’s housing department. The demands were as follows:
1. An end to at-a-distance housing suitability assessments
2. That third-party groups are allowed to attend these assessments
3. That any assessments that had exceeded the 8-week deadline were carried out within two weeks of the meeting
UPDATE: since the publication of this article on the afternoon of Monday 10th July 2017, Larissa Reed, Executive Director for Neighbourhoods, Communities & Housing at Brighton council has been in touch to arrange a meeting with Brighton SolFed and the Bobby Carver campaign within the next two weeks. We look forward to hearing how the issues raised below are going to be addressed, and about the changes the council is going to put in place to ensure 'the safest homes possible' for everyone...
A prospective tenant contacted Brighton SolFed after she was poorly treated by an agency. The list of grievances will be sadly familiar to anyone who has or does rent in Brighton. For example, after the agency had received the £840 fee for the four tenants moving into the house, they: changed the length of the agreement from twelve to eleven months; gave the tenants misleading information about insurance and tried to pressure them into more expensive agreements; made absurd requests for the paperwork required by their guarantor; added additional fees for this paperwork; forced expensive insurance schemes on international tenants; went back on a promise to fix up the bathroom; were generally unresponsive and misleading when they could be contacted, and moved the moving in date back whilst still expecting the tenants to pay rent from the first date.
Our dispute with Ephesus has come to an end with a victory; the worker has been paid all that was owed.
Solidarity from many people has been the key to attaining this result.
From the outset the worker, who is also involved in the Spanish Marea Granate movement, wanted to find a way to collectivise the dispute and try to improve the conditions for their fellow workmates even though they were leaving. As the notice period finished, the worker asked for all their holiday pay and if they were going to receive the money owed for minimum wage. All they were offered was a measly £150. Management hoped this would keep the worker quiet.
We delivered the demand letter as a group, including the worker. We were received with smiles and “yes yes yes.” We left and awaited their response; we gave them a week before the deadline was up.
Our NHS is in crisis: doctors' surgeries in Brighton are closing down, A&E waiting times are getting longer, hospitals are shutting up shop - and the sick and old are being left to die on hospital trollies.
The care system is in an even worse state: poor wages and criminal working condition mean there just aren't enough carers.
Here in Brighton most council contracts are privatised, and carers are often employed illegally: paid below the minimum wage, denied paid holidays, being forced to work long and unpredictable hours on zero-hours contracts and left to work without adequate training or supervision.
Of course the price of this isn't just being paid by the health and social care workers at the sharp end, it means health and care services are getting worse for all of us.
This year's mayday was celebrated in Brighton with the coming together of different local unions and groups organising against casualised working conditions and the housing crisis. The demo soon headed for a local restaurant that has been underpaying one of our members, and demanding they be paid. The protest marks the start of a dispute, continuing our efforts over the past few years of trying to bring International Workers Day back to its roots in worker militancy and anarchist labour organising.
For the past three months, Brighton Solidarity Federation has been organising with a tenant whose flat is in a serious state of disrepair, in order to try and get these repair works done. What follows is an account of the council's systematic failure to fulfil their duties toward this tenant.
We've been holding Mayday events for the past few years, trying to bring International Workers Day back to its roots in worker militancy and anarchist organising. This year, we're joining in the call from a coalition of local grassroots initiatives organising against casualised working conditions and the housing crisis. Meet 7pm Jubilee Square - A critical mass bike block will lead the (walking) demonstration - if you want to take part in that block, just bring a bike. The only way we’ll make our lives better is by fighting together!
Come down on the 23rd of April for an anarchoflavoured vegan Mexican lunch!
We will be fundraising for the Cowley Office Collective (SolFed, Brighton Anti-Facists, Brighton ABC)
It will be at the Cowley Club, 12 London Road Brighton, and we'll be serving from 12pm. Make sure to come along!
Talk about the Zapatista struggle in Chiapas, by a former Solfed member who recently visited Mexico.
Wednesday 29. March, 7pm at the Cowley Club (12 London Road).
Introduction to the Zapatista Revolution, organization and recent events.
ConCiencias por la Humanidad:
How can science help the indigenous communities and the fight against the capitalist hydra.
Human Rights and indigenous communities in Chiapas:
Solidarity through the Human Rights Observer Brigades
A dinner lady came to Brighton SolFed when there was nowhere left to go. They were facing a disciplinary hearing after being unfairly blamed for an incident, and they additionally were refused mainstream union representation. Brighton Hospitality Workers helped the worker prepare for the disciplinary and accompanied them to this stressful encounter. Solidarity means supporting your fellow workers, solidarity is what makes us strong.
We are an anarcho-syndicalist union based in Brighton. We have ongoing campaigns in Hospitality and in Health & social care, but we aim to organise with workers of all industries and none. We also have a very active housing union.
07576744111
