At the beginning of the meeting, the "Working Group against Work" (dissentagainstwork
yahoo.co.uk; http://lists.activix.org/mailman/listinfo/resistg8-wgaw ) and their action planned on 4th of July (Monday) was presented. The group emerged out of talks around precarious conditions of work and life and resistance to them and want to bring this discussion into the protest against the G8. On the 4th of July, they propose a mobile party in central Edinburgh that will "visit" places like job centres, bailiffs, agencies involved in the New Deal and the benefit regime, companies exploiting casual and migrant labour and end up in a shopping area. They also plan actions in Brighton and Bristol to mark the employment ministers' summit.
There are also other actions the group though about during the Anti-G8 protests which were discussed in the Working Group like piquetero-style roadblocks and blockades, free shops, occupations and activities of mass self-reduction. Some of these actions have never been tried before in the UK and the Working group was sceptical whether the days around the G8 were the right time to do them for the first time because the atmosphere will probably be very tense.
The same problem would probably occur with other forms of actions we discussed like YoMango-Dinners ("organised food" which is distributed in form of a big dinner for everyone) or "for-free"-actions as done in Germany - demanding and actively seeking free entrance to museums, swimming pools and public transport.
We were also discussing that any action around this theme of precarity should try to involve the people who are most concerned like people working in call centres or migrants. We came to the conclusion that although it is difficult it should be tried to do actions like the ones described above with an outreach-attitude to people working and living under precarious conditions- whose numbers grow every day! It's very important to include the idea of resistance against those conditions with mass actions that are fun and colourful because this is where one of the outcomes of G8 politics becomes visible in everyday life.