As the cost of living continues to rise and decent jobs are replaced with casualised, agency work more and more local people are finding themselves unable to cope with the demands of grasping banks, landlords and loan sharks.

What is needed is a collective response to improve our living standards and take on such parasites. History has shown that the ruling class and their bailiffs and debt collectors can be defeated, as they were when they tried to impose the poll tax. The tactics used against them then could still work today if we organise ourselves and stick together.

Until then here are a few web links which may be useful for anyone suffering from persecution by bailiffs or belligerent landlords. Feel free to contact our group if you would like any additional support – we’ll be enthusiastic to help, but don’t expect any miracles!

A guide to beating the bailiffs – http://libcom.org/organise/beating-the-bailiffs-guide

A guide to dealing with credit card debt – http://libcom.org/organise/dealing-with-credit-card-debt-guide

Northampton Citizens Advice Bureau – http://www.northamptoncab.org.uk/

The recent pay deal offered to workers was either a £600 lump sum or a 2.5% raise. Since inflation is currently 4.8% this would in actuality be a pay cut, but Royal Mail bosses are described by a local union representative as attaching ‘more strings than Pinocchio’ to any acceptance of even this paltry deal in an attempt to implement a business plan that would cut £350 million with a devastating effect on quality of service and the loss of around 40,000 jobs nationally.

Northampton postal workers’ mass meeting during 2005 wildcat strike

Strike action is nothing new for Northamptonshire postal workers, whose most recent victory followed an unofficial five-day wildcat strike in the summer of 2005 which saw local bosses retreat with their tails between their legs from attempts to implement a range of measures designed to cut costs and reduce earnings.

We wish our local postal workers well in any upcoming dispute.