Fun fact: in the 80′s the Dutch Unemployed Union held ‘fridge raids’ to protest against poverty.
They’d find out when a politician of big boss who upheld poverty and starvation wages was speaking at some public even, then they’d carefully break into his house with a LOT of people and they would eat EVERY piece of food in his house and leave the empty dished behind without taking anything else.
Direct action at its finest.
i’m not familiar enough with the dutch unemployment union – did they get their demands met? did the politicians cave?
The Unemployment Union was a really cool group in the 80s!
One of their main tools besides protesting was ‘payment strikes’: refusing to pay for things that the government should be providing to every human being and taking those things by force if necessary. So if the unemployed did not get enough money to buy food, they’d get 400 people together, enter a city hall and demand all the food for The People. If they were fined, they’d collectively refuse to pay that, etc.
They were hard tough fights but they were fights for the right to exist with dignity.
Not all actions had direct effect but they had some major successes. The ‘doorsharing rule’ (a rule that said the government could cut your benefits if you lived in the same building as someone else on benefits) was struck after actions by the Unemploment Union and others. They also succesfully resisted assigned work without pay for the unemployed.
However, the Union no longer exists and both rules have resurfaced after the 2009 crisis and are now a reality in the Netherlands. 😦
For those of you that read Dutch and wanna learn more, this page lists several Unemployment Unions that existed in the 70s and 80s: http://www.bijstandsbond.org/geschiedenis/boekwbva/kortegesch.htm
I don’t know how good the content is but I recognize a lot of names in there so that’ll give you stuff to google and to put in Delpher.nl. Unitas did several eating actions if I remember correctly though most were not reported in the media and they did a lot of other cool shit.
If you search for Werklozenbond or ‘proletarisch winkelen’ in Delpher you’re sure to find stuff.
QueerAnarchism 