" An occupation is a break in capitalist reality that occurs when people directly take control of a space, suspending its normal functions and animating it as a site of struggle and a weapon for autonomous power. "

Occupy the Crisis: The Emerging Student-Worker Direct Action Movement in California- Oct 25 2009 11:09

ttp://libcom.org/news/occupy-crisis-emerging-student-worker-direct-action-movement-california-25102009 UCSC occupation #1

(a summary commissioned by the antioch rebel newspaper from a participant in the ucsc actions) On Sept. 24, thousands of students, faculty, and staff walked out of University of California campuses across the state. The walk-outs and one-day strike were called by a wide coalition of UC unions and activist groups as a largely symbolic protest against the budget cuts, fee hikes and firings associated with the state budget crisis. At two campuses, however, in Santa Cruz and Berkeley, some people then walked back in and began to initiate occupations.

Public building occupations in solidarity with the Nikaia 3 spread across the country Wednesday, October 21, 2009

On October 17, an anarchist demonstration against the police assassination of Mohammad Atif Kamran in the Athens suburb of Nikaia was attacked by the cops. As it was reported at the time, eight demonstrators were arrested and charged – five were facing charges under the “anti-hoodie law” introduced after December’s revolt. The response of the solidarity movement was instant. On the very same night of the demonstration, the local Town Hall of Nikaia was occupied, with the occupiers demanding all the demonstrators’ immediate release.

In the days that followed the occupiers left the Town Hall to take over the Propylea building of Athens University instead (that being more centrally located and easier for them to spread their message). Yesterday, the administration building of the Chania Prefecture was occupied in Crete.

Ford Visteon Enfield Workers Occupation - Alan Woodward In this report workers and supporters are referred to by initial or first name on the “no names , no pack drill” basis unless they have specifically given permission to be named in full. The complete story of the occupation would be a long book, which will have to be written up later, as it would include, much more on the background , all the documents and the actual details of my diary kept from minute one, and the ongoing future for the car industry...That said the document is obviously based on factual information from the factory.

http://wewanteverything.wordpress.com/

We are occupying this building at the University of California, Santa Cruz, because the current situation has become untenable. Across the state, people are losing their jobs and getting evicted, while social services are slashed. California’s leaders from state officials to university presidents have demonstrated how they will deal with this crisis..... We seek to push the university struggle to its limits. Though we denounce the privatization of the university and its authoritarian system of governance, we do not seek structural reforms. We demand not a free university but a free society. A free university in the midst of a capitalist society is like a reading room in a prison; it serves only as a distraction from the misery of daily life. http://wewanteverything.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/communique-from-an-absent-future/

Strikes and occupations spread across Ireland By Jordan Shilton 7 September 2009 Ireland has seen a number of strikes and workplace occupations in recent months. Strikes have involved dockers at Dublin ports, medical workers in County Tipperary, employees of the state-run Health Services Executive (HSE) and workers at drinks company Coca Cola.

At the same time, workers at a DIY store near Cork have launched an occupation of the premises in defence of their jobs, as have workers from travel agent Thomas Cook in Dublin, who occupied the firm’s Grafton Street location in protest at its closure. The moves follow on from the occupation of Waterford Wedgwood by its employees earlier this year as the transnational implemented plans to close its Irish facilities at the cost of several hundred jobs.

A brief history of the Italian Biennio Rosso (two red years) and the mass factory occupations of 1920 where half a million workers ran their workplaces for themselves. http://libcom.org/history/italian-factory-occupations-biennio-rosso

SIT DOWN & WATCH YOUR PAY GO UP The 1936-'37 Flint Sit-Down Strike changed the United Automobile Workers from a collection of isolated locals on the fringes of the industry into a major union and led to the unionization of the United States automobile industry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_Sit-Down_Strike

The Great Sit-Down Strike, made by the British Broadcasting Corporation, and the Academy Award-nominated documentary, With Babies and Banners: The Story of the Women's Emergency Brigade. http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/dollflint.html

The workers who are occupying Visteon/Ford sites & soon others could under workers control be discussing making electric vehicles, electrified cars, motorbikes, trucks etc but what battery, debate continues about just how limited electric vehicle / battery technology really is. The fact that if we keep sucking up resources from the earth at the rate we are / plan to, in order to sate our insatiable appetite for energy, there will simply be nothing left!

President 'Neglect' Obama is interested in South America. Look out, as we saw from his predecessor with Iraq, for the escalating demonization of some horrible dictator in either Chile, Argentina or Bolivia, a sure sign that the great hero americans wish to 'secure the worlds lithium energy deposits' on our behalf. Just what would we do without them? " The price of zinc has dropped to just over $1000 per metric ton at the end of 2008 [2]." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc-air_battery

http://www.metalprices.com/FreeSite/metals/zn/zn.asp

As heads of state met in London this week to argue about how much money they should give to the bankers who caused the current economic depression, workers took direct action, pointing towards a different way out of the crisis. Sacked auto workers at the Visteon car-parts factory in Enfield continue to occupy their factory despite the arrival of bailiffs at the site early this afternoon. The workers occupied their workplace on Wednesday morning after they were fired without wages due and redundancy pay.

Statement from occupied factory workers http://london.indymedia.org.uk/search/by_tag/visteon

Ford Visteon workers have occupied the Ponders End factory since Wednesday 1st April. The previous day in a meeting lasting just 6 minutes we were told that the European company, with plants in Belfast, Basildon and Ponders End, Enfield, was going into administration and that we were to leave - without our wages being paid. Personal possessions could be collected the next day, but at 10 o'clock the factory was locked closed.

During the global financial crisis Bosses lie that sacrifice now will result in job security and better wages later. This has has been disproved once more at Visteon: "Workers had been put on 1, 2, or 3 day shifts since November - led to believe such a sacrifice would help pull the company thru hard times - a now familiar story we shall hear more frequently as more workplaces move towards closure." http://libcom.org/forums/news/workers-occupy-visteon-factory-31032009

“Don’t wait for politicians and people high up in the unions- just do it yourself”, Unite shop steward John McGuire.

Strikes and occupations across Egypt

Struggle continues developing across Egypt with strikes and sit-ins taking place in six different provinces around the countries. Many provinces this week witnessed strikes and sit-ins.

In Menoufia, more than 3000 workers of Andrama Textiles staged a sit-in inside their factory in protest against not paying them their annual bonuses amounting to 228 working days, and failure to pay them the Prophet Mohammad's Anniversary bonus. They called on President Mubarak to intervene and solve their problem, contending that the Indian owner is destroying the spinning and weaving industry in Egypt by selling the machines of the factory as scrap.