We're part of a small political collective
who chose to move to a working class neighbourhood
on the fringes of West London.
It's not much of a cultural hotspot. But here's what we do have:
Lots of migrants,
Lots of low paid jobs in logistics, warehouses and factories.
This area has global transport links.
It connects London to the rest of the country through the roads
and we've got Heathrow Airport which connects the country to the rest of the world.
As a political group, we think these kinds of areas
are important places to base our political activity.
If we want to think about a revolutionary transformation,
of the way that we work and live,
then we have to get rooted in places like this one.
Here, tens of thousands of
largely migrant workers on minimum wages
process, package, distribute 60% of the food that is consumed in Europe's biggest city.
Brexit and the'hostile environment' hangs over peoples' heads.
If you want to discuss and build real working class power
you have to get rooted here.
So now we're here, what do we do?
What do we mean by, "getting rooted?"
We've got four main ideas that work in tandem with each other.
We got jobs in the bigger workplaces,
got to know people,
found out how the capitalist machine works on the shop floor and beyond,
what issues are important for people.
We encouraged our co-workers
to fight back against the bosses and temp agencies.
We’ve organised slowdowns at Sainsbury’s.
We’ve agitated with our workmates to not put up with management bullshit.
We’ve had workers’ meetings
to encourage workers’ self-organised actions.
We tried to push a radical line within our unions
and involve workers in their own struggles.
We set up a solidarity network
to support each other
at work, at the job centre, problems with landlords.
We propose to support each other without any legal experts
or middle-men.
This builds links to different groups of workers and different workplaces.
The words spreads, and we become bigger and capable of doing more stuff.
We publish a newspaper, WorkersWildWest,
and distribute it in 10-20 local workplaces
and areas where workers congregate.
In it, we talk about our experiences at work
and in the solidarity network to share with local workers.
We need to learn from each other and give each other hope,
that people are doing stuff to fight back against the system
and some practical ideas of what works, what didn't and why.
The system is global so we have to be organised internationally.
We want to share the experiences we made here with comrades in other countries,
and we want to take a responsibility to bring information from other places to workers here.
For article and texts, just check out our website.
We've been getting rooted for the last six years
with some successes and some failures.
We have written all of our experiences down in a book,
that will be published in April 2020.
We'll be touring the UK with the book
to have discussions with you about our strategic proposals
to build a real, grassroots movement.
If you're an individual or an existing organisation,
if you're finding your feet in an area, or if you want to get a base and get rooted,
if you see the limits of the election circus and want to stir up some shit -
then come and see the AngryWorkers.