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Zabka is a chain of convenience stores with over 9000 shops in Poland and shops in the Czech Republic, making it one of the largest convenience store chains in Europe and a major employer in Poland. Unfortunately, it seems like many Zabka franchisees have absolutely no regard for workers' rights and are wage thieves. ZSP has already held numerous successful actions against these stores throughout Poland.

The situation at the Zabka shop on Pulawska St. 116 was particularly heinous for us. The action concerned two workers who were owed over 30,000 zloties (about 7400 euros) from the thieving boss but after the protest, another former worker contacted us and wants to join. The boss did not legally employ them, providing no contract and circumventing all statutory requirements. They had to work too many overtime hours including illegally on Sunday. The workers are underage teenagers who were in a desperate life situation and didn't know what to do. To make matters even worse, before leaving work, when one of the workers confronted the boss, he beat him.

We sent a demand letter and organized a picket. Just before the protest started, the owner ran away. We entered the shop to demand to talk to the owner, but he was not to be found there. The protest lasted over one hour and drew a lot of sympathetic responses from neighbors. Since the owner does not want to face us, we will be returning twice next week and we will keep going until everything is paid.

In the meantime, we note the non-reaction of the Zabka company to the numerous incidents that happen in their franchises. Although the franchise agreements specify numerous things that franchisees must do, ranging from the look of the shops to the way things are put on the shelves, apparently respecting workers is not one of them.

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The ZSP Warsaw delivered a demand letter to the cafe at SWPS University. The cafe was often in arrears paying workers and had other abusive practices. Finally there was a conflict and the worker was left without pay. We union has seen many cases where the rights of students who are working are abused and we advise people to get organized and fight back!

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This year, the annual IWA Week of Action against Unpaid Wages will be held from October 16-22. ZSP will be participating in a number of ways, including a direct action, an informational campaign and open advisories.

(Information on some past actions of the union in English can be found here: https://zsp.net.pl/zsp-continues-take-action-against-unpaid-wages or https://zsp.net.pl/zsp-fighting-back-international-week-action-against-u...)

Since these articles have been published, we have held numerous successful actions against unpaid wages. The most notable concern the largest chain of convenience stores in Poland, Zabka. (See, for example, here: https://zsp.net.pl/more-pickets-zabka-convenience-stores-highlight-syste...). With the Zabka chain we see very widespread incidents of abuse, perhaps on an unprecented scale in this country. The chain currently has approximately 9000 stores in Poland and while some of them offer normal work contracts, many do not even give workers any contracts at all. In the situation with Zabka, every worker that has taken action to receive their wages instead of giving up has been able to receive them. This is already more than a dozen in the past 2-3 years. However, we know this is only the tip of the iceberg because, despite logic, there are many out there that are robbed but don't do anything about it.

Another wage theft situation which we recently won was with Granos bookseller. The affected worker received a quite significant sum of money. This was our second victory against this wage thief and we know that there were other victims. This situation seriously affected his business to the point where he needs to shut it down. Good riddance to thieving bosses!

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This year, the annual IWA Week of Action against Unpaid Wages will be held from October 16-22. ZSP will be participating in a number of ways, including a direct action, an informational campaign and open advisories.

(Information on some past actions of the union in English can be found here: https://zsp.net.pl/zsp-continues-take-action-against-unpaid-wages or https://zsp.net.pl/zsp-fighting-back-international-week-action-against-u...)

Since these articles have been published, we have held numerous successful actions against unpaid wages. The most notable concern the largest chain of convenience stores in Poland, Zabka. (See, for example, here: https://zsp.net.pl/more-pickets-zabka-convenience-stores-highlight-syste...). With the Zabka chain we see very widespread incidents of abuse, perhaps on an unprecented scale in this country. The chain currently has approximately 9000 stores in Poland and while some of them offer normal work contracts, many do not even give workers any contracts at all. In the situation with Zabka, every worker that has taken action to receive their wages instead of giving up has been able to receive them. This is already more than a dozen in the past 2-3 years. However, we know this is only the tip of the iceberg because, despite logic, there are many out there that are robbed but don't do anything about it.

Another wage theft situation which we recently won was with Granos bookseller. The affected worker received a quite significant sum of money. This was our second victory against this wage thief and we know that there were other victims. This situation seriously affected his business to the point where he needs to shut it down. Good riddance to thieving bosses!

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zabka_motycka_sm.jpg

This year, the annual IWA Week of Action against Unpaid Wages will be held from October 16-22. ZSP will be participating in a number of ways, including a direct action, an informational campaign and open advisories.

(Information on some past actions of the union in English can be found here: https://zsp.net.pl/zsp-continues-take-action-against-unpaid-wages or https://zsp.net.pl/zsp-fighting-back-international-week-action-against-u...)

Since these articles have been published, we have held numerous successful actions against unpaid wages. The most notable concern the largest chain of convenience stores in Poland, Zabka. (See, for example, here: https://zsp.net.pl/more-pickets-zabka-convenience-stores-highlight-syste...). With the Zabka chain we see very widespread incidents of abuse, perhaps on an unprecented scale in this country. The chain currently has approximately 9000 stores in Poland and while some of them offer normal work contracts, many do not even give workers any contracts at all. In the situation with Zabka, every worker that has taken action to receive their wages instead of giving up has been able to receive them. This is already more than a dozen in the past 2-3 years. However, we know this is only the tip of the iceberg because, despite logic, there are many out there that are robbed but don't do anything about it.

Another wage theft situation which we recently won was with Granos bookseller. The affected worker received a quite significant sum of money. This was our second victory against this wage thief and we know that there were other victims. This situation seriously affected his business to the point where he needs to shut it down. Good riddance to thieving bosses!

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On July 17, ZSP Warsaw union formed part of an anti-capitalist bloc at this year's Equality (Pride) Parade, together with the Warsaw Anarchist Formation, the Collective of Relentless Help and a group of radical sex workers. The bloc eventually numbered around 200 people and was probably the most political one; uniquely in the parade, it discussed class elements and the problems of the working class, especially of LGBTQIA+ workers and sex workers. ZSP's main slogans were “there is no equality in capitalism” and “queer in the workers' struggle” while the sex workers also had several slogans concerning their situation as workers.

Over the last two decades, the parade has transformed from a small parade of hardcore activists, usually attacked by nazis and the extreme right to a large mainstream event. While this certainly attests to some progress in mainstreaming LGBTQIA+ status and rights, which is something positive, on the other hand, now the majority of the trucks going in the parade are organized by corporations, (predominantly horrible banks like Citibank, etc.) and mostly the march is filled with pop music. Politics, if present at all, is in the background, drowned out by the corporate-sponsored discos.

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On May 28, ZSP held a picket at another Zabka convenience store, this time at Motycka St. 23 in Warsaw. In this store, they had people working without a contract, for less than the minimum wage. One worker kept asking about a contract and finally quit, but then found out that the owner didn't even want to pay her anything. We wrote a letter to them demanding the salary owed at the legal minimum wage. Of course we don't want to ever hear again of this kind of exploitation at this shop.

Within a couple of days, the owner paid some money to the worker, but not the full amount. We went to the shop to find the owner not the least bit concerned about the crimes he committed or making sure that people who work there are legally employed. We are sending another demand letter and picket and are hoping the full amount be paid. In the meanwhile, we informed local residents about the situation in this shop and encourage them to avoid shopping there as long as this kind of practice exists.

We will keep reporting cases of abuse in this convenience store chain and taking action against wage thieves.

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When we think of the goals of anarcho-syndicalism, we know that it is the establishment of control of the working class over the means of production, the establishment of libertarian communism and of course, the elimination of the capitalist class. The capitalist class is the one that has property rights over the means of production, despite the fact that workers are the ones who create all the wealth. In capitalist society, working people are exploited in many ways due to their lack of access to capital; besides working to create the wealth that give business owners both profit and property rights, many of us pay rent, therefore we work so that another person can profit off ownership or attain ownership (as some of us rent to pay off a mortgage for another person). We give in all the money but another person owns the place we live and may try to claim possession of it, evicting us from our homes.

Although there exist various strands of anarchism – some of which most anarchists would even deny, like libertarian capitalism – the anarcho-syndicalist tradition has been fairly clear in terms of its views on private property. One of our main purposes, besides organizing in workplaces to further the class struggle, is to promote our finalist views, the idea of how the future society could be organized without capitalism.

When we talk about private property, we prefer collectivization and socialization. The very idea of property should be replaced by the idea that those that work a place or a piece of land have control over it (also with the participation of the society which is affected by this production). In terms of use of land, houses and so on, again, instead of private property, we favor the idea that no person should possess more than they actually use. Instead, those who actually use and maintain a place should be in possession of it.

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On Sunday April 16, the ZSP Multi-branch Union picketed at two Zabka convenience stores in Warsaw. The first one was at Hemara St. where we went for the first time and the second one at Skrzynieckiego St., where we returned.

During the picket at Skrzynieckiego St., one worker was paid but unfortunately, the second worker was not able to come and did not. After the picket at Hemara St., we learned that a second worker was not paid there. This is very common; if an employer doesn't pay one worker, he or she probably has also cheated somebody else. In this situation, the worker, who explained she is a single mother and cannot pay her bills because of this situation, received a lot of support from the local residents. The Zabka agent (franchisee) paid both of the workers.

This just shows again that it pays to take action. Unfortunately, there are a lot more people out there that are cheated but who we don't have contact with.

On May Day, we will be conducting an informational event in Warsaw where we will try to inform precarious workers of their rights and encourage them to organize. We will be stopping at multiple Zabka stores. Many people in the area of our office have worked in Zabka or other convenience stores at one time or another and some of the stores are using workers illegally, without contracts or proper payment and benefits. We will continue to fight this exploitation on May Day and after!

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On March 19, ZSP Warsaw union held two pickets at two different Zabka stores. Zabka is the largest chain in Poland with almost 9000 shops run by franchise. It is also present in the Czech Republic and Slovakia and is owned by CVC Capital Partners private equity firm. As the company does not care about the working conditions in its shops, many of the shops employ people without giving them contracts, pay them under the table and routinely steal their wages.

The first picket was a shop on ul. Skrzynieckiego. There, two workers were robbed of their wages. One was employed on a contract, the other was never given a contract at all. The workers calculated what they were owed and we sent this information by email. When we delivered a demand letter in person, the agent tore it up. We understand that she believes that she can get away with wage theft, however her actions just make us more determined to inform people about the situation there and keep fighting for the money owed.

The second picket was in Minsk Mazowiecki, near Warsaw. In this situation, the woman who originally wanted to fight actually received her money the day after we announced the picket. One success. However, a woman we know then contacted us that she had also worked there and had her wages stolen. This is a common situation that the thieving bosses usually have more than 1 victim. We went and demanded the money but instead of paying, the agent locked the store. Later she made a false alarm call to the police saying that we were “attacking her”. As we know, the police can protect such thieves but we think this time they were not fooled about what had happened. This is because already many people in Poland know that there are many horrible Zabka agents who rob people's salary.

While this situation continues we will continue to inform the public about what is happening and ask for support of the workers by not patronizing the thieving shops. ZSP has already successfully held numerous actions in and around Warsaw and succeeded in helping more than a dozen people get the money they were owed.

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