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ZSP maintains that strikes are a powerful weapon of the working class. We call on workers around the world to organize themselves from below and, using this weapon, make attacks on the capitalist and ruling classes. Now is a critical time to fight against the growing erosion of workers' rights and economic position.

This fight, in order to succeed, must be international. Poland, in this respect, plays an important role in the development of the class struggle in Europe as it is one of a few countries both receiving outsourced and delocalized work and sending cheaper labour abroad. Both of these facts, caused by great income disparities across borders and our dire economic situation, make our role important in the global perspective as either we are also fighting to maintain rights and improve conditions, or we are the strike breakers of Europe, condemning ourselves to a worsening situation.

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Members of ZSP Education union in Warsaw have started a campaign to agitate for strike action in the educational sector. Posters were hung in and around some institutions and schools and leaflets distributed promoting the idea. The action is in response to the tragic situation in the educational sector, at all levels.

Besides the increasing problems of the commercialization of education and worsening work conditions, including the precarization of some jobs or categories of workers, we are faced with the mass liquidation of primary and secondary schools: the government has announced now that the recent wave of hundreds of closures is just the beginning. Up to 4700 schools may be closed between now and 2014.

On September 20, members of ZSP visited the City Council in Warsaw to protest with teachers.about the scandalous behaviour of politicians towards their pay, concretely regarding the issue of "motivational bonuses". The reason for this is that in July, without notice and in the summer when most teachers are on vacation, the city decided to recalculate the way motivational bonuses are paid, setting an average amount per teacher in the budget. Unfortunately, the unions agreed to this, meaning that the money allocated would be 25% less than the average had been in 2011.

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As part of a series of interviews with comrades from the education sector, ZSP Education Workers Union from Warsaw interviews a comrade from the CNT-AIT in Spain about a strike in the Madrid and attitudes towards the mainstream unions.

Hi. We understand that in Madrid, from the 17th of September, there is an indefinite strike in education. Tell us, what percentage of the teachers are taking part in the strike?

There is not much participation since the large unions are trying to avoid the mobilization of the workers to protect the social peace at all costs. In fact, they always boycott the assembly or self-organized meetings of the workers, if they do anything without them.

And are other workers in the schools participating?

The strike includes all public education workers in Madrid from infant education (0-3 years old) up to the university.

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Members of ZSP Education union in Warsaw interviewed a comrade from Priama akcia in Slovakia about a recent one-day strike in education. This is the first in a series of planned interviews about the experiences of comrades in this field and is published in the framework of a campaign publicizing strikes and direct actions organized by education workers.

Hi. We have a few questions about the teachers' strike. What are the main demands?

Officially there are three demands and they are all related to money. The money spent on education in the 2013-2015 state budgets expressed that the percentage of the GDP spent on education should be comparable with other EU member states; all employees in the education sector should get higher real wages; teachers and specially trained education workers (school psychologists, speech therapists etc.) should get 1.2 to 2 times the average wage in the national economy

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September 15 was an international day of action with Dominos pizza drivers from GTWA in Australia (affiliated to the AnarchoSyndicalist Federation). The drivers' had their salaries slashed by 19% and decided to fight back, demanding, among other things, reinstatement of their wages.

Although all the reports are not in, we know that various types of actions occurred in about 35 cities across the globe. The actions ranged from informational pickets to stickers, posters and banners being put on the restaurants.

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Ewa is now in the hospital. Her left leg was amputated, she is left homeless and without any means of survival. We are gathering money to:

- make sure she has a wheelchair in the months before she gets a prosthesis
- help her get a good prosthesis
- help her get a place to live and cover expenses for a while

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The ZSP expresses its support of Sergio Monte and other workers in Bar Unico in Buenos Aires. Bar Unico does not pay its staff well and hires people to work semi-legally, making them dependent on extra payments and the whims of the boss. Those who are not indifferent to the problems of their fellow workers or stay quiet risk losing their jobs like comrade Monte.

Our sister union, FORA from Argentina organized a campaign for the reinstatement of the comrade and better working conditions for the staff. As a result, the comrade is charged with coercion and making insults against the boss.

This is just another example of the attempted criminalization of worker protest, an attempt by the powerful to intimidate workers who think of organizing and taking action to improve their situation.

We completely support the demand for the immediate reinstatement of comrade Sergio Monte and the labour stability of the workers of the bar. We wish strength to the comrade in this time and to the comrades of FORA and the Gastronomic Workers Group.

ZSP-IWA

Below we reprint the statement of FORA-AIT.

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The exploiter airline RyanAir is starting flights from (near) Warsaw next week. They are busy making promotions. Activists from ZSP learned that representatives of the company would be in the center of the city on July 11 and decided to quickly get there and hand out leaflets about working conditions in the company.

This action is partly a continuation of the informational campaign related to RyanAir Don't Care. However we have updated our leaflets to include new information about how RyanAir took over SpanAir's routes in Spain and wanted to hire pilots and other staff on much worse conditions. Our comrades in the CNT are suing RyanAir over this.

See also: Action in the Warsaw airport and leaflet

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ZSP and the Tenants Defense Committee will protest in Warsaw during the opening of the EURO 2012. The main protest on June 8 will take place on Rondo de Gaulle at 5PM. Other events are also planned including an anti-gentrification tour and tenants protests. We will also be present at some other workers protests planned during this time. The city can also expect a few surprises from us.

We mainly will be protesting against the spending of huge amounts of money on the games while making cuts in many other areas. This protest will also be a continuation of protests against cutting money for education, liquidating schools, privatizing school cafeterias, not funding museums and underfunding public housing.

Visitors to Warsaw can contact us for protest and tour dates.

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On May 19, during the annual Museum Night event in Warsaw, members of ZSP held an informational action about budget cuts in cultural institutions, loss of jobs and repression of one worker who was involved in action to save his work place.

A few cultural institutions in Warsaw will probably be liquidated because of budget cuts, including the Technical Museum, the Warsaw Chamber Opera and the Praha Cinema. We are in solidarity with the workers of these institutions, who are fighting against their closure.

In the case of the Praha Cinema, a publically controlled institution located near the offices of ZSP, there has been a good mobilization in its defense, with lots of support from local residents. This has saved it from closure, but the future of the cinema is not clear. Additionally, one worker from the cinema was fired because of his role in the protests. All those involved condemn the actions of the management and support the worker and are ready to make new protests.