Pracujesz na umowie śmieciowej? Możemy pomóc!
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
On May 13, ZSP picketed at another Empik bookstore in Warsaw, kicking off a national campaign against the chain. Contact with Empik workers started a couple of years ago when we received many denounciations against the firm from people around Poland during the "Worst Employer of the Year" contest. Every year, more and more employees wrote with the same complaints: unpaid overtime work, being forced to work while ill, having trash contracts, being forced to do heavy or dangerous work, lack of proper health and safety measures and mobbing. Now a few employees around Poland want to fight back and one is even suing the chain for unpaid overtime. And we offer our support to them and all workers who would like to organize.
In November 2011, Karol M., suffered at accident at work on a construction site in Warsaw. He was employed illegally and did not have proper safety equipment, not even a helmet. He was also not insured. He fell into a coma. The owner of the temporary work agency Jerzy Madziarowicz-MIX denied that Karol worked for him. The family decided to fight, so that other workers would not be harmed by Madziarowicz and to get compensation for Karol.
On May 10, representatives of the Roche headquarters in Basel organized a meeting with Roche Polska workers in Warsaw. Since over 100 people attended, the meeting was held in a cinema in the shopping mall next to the Warsaw office. We were informed of the event so we organized an informational action.
First, leaflets were left in the cinema and posted around the shopping mall. Security was tight and it was difficult to stay in one place. Information about Roche practices were handed out also to people in the shopping mall and then posted in the neighbouring area between the mall and Roche offices.
We condemned the practices of the pharmaceutical giant and corporate greed in general, calling for decent working conditions and stable employment in that company.
On April 21, ZSP held a picket at an Empik store in Warsaw against working conditions in the chain and in support of workers who are organizing and beginning to take some actions. Empik is a huge chain of bookshops and for the last three years we have been in contact with workers from around the country. The initial contact was made through the Worst Employer of the Year contest. Every year we get dozens of complaints about them and last year they received 3rd place, for which they threatened to sue us. But that just caused more workers to send us evidence, with which we helped them to organize complaints and now some legal cases. Furthermore, we have heard that some employees have started to engage in various acts of sabotage as some sort of revenge.
Well, it is better to get organized!
This year, we gave Empik the first place, because of the sheer amount of complaints against them. Among the most common were unpaid overtime without work evidence, workers being forced to do other, additional jobs like moving heavy stacks of books, not having sick days and being threatened with dismissal if ill, mobbing, lack of fire safety measures and liquidation of employee social funds. We also know some cases of improper dismissals and there were workers who claim that they had to attest that they were not members of unions. We will follow with a series of informational actions and continue supporting the workers who want to take action, encouraging them to organize.