Pracujesz na umowie śmieciowej? Możemy pomóc!
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.
On April 19, Roche corporation held an international meeting in Warsaw to announce „restructuring plans” which will mean mass firings and outsourcing of about 200 IT jobs in Warsaw and Madrid.
Representatives of the corporation from different countries came to the Hilton Hotel conference center. One member of ZSP went into the conference hall with leaflets denouncing these actions and calling on workers to take mass action against the company. Some IT workers who would be affected were also present. Outside was a picket in a place right below the windows of the conference and, with excellent acustics, this was heard very well.
ZSP is advising the workers about to be fired about how to claim benefits that they were denied when they were falsely employed as „entrepeneurs”.
We thank the comrades of KRAS who on April 17 made a picket in Moscow at Roche. They report that there was a lot of interest and many workers took their leaflets.
On April 13, Alchemia company, which last week fired striking workers from Huta Batory ironworks in Chorzow, held an extraordinary shareholders meeting at its headquarters in Warsaw. ZSP went to protest the firing of the workers, the use of temp agencies to replace permanent jobs in the ironworks and Alchemia's plans to do this in other workplaces and to protest Alchemia's plans to liquidate the ironworks.
The workers in Huta Batory started a wildcat strike on April 2, which the owners of the ironworks, Alchemia, tried to violently repress. This attempt to break the strike did not work thanks to the solidarity of many local people. The company then decided to fire about 120 workers, lockout the rest and announce that they would liquidate the ironworks.
On Monday, April 2, about 350-400 ironworkers from the Huta Batory ironworks in Chorzow started a wildcat strike. The reason for this was that the company had started firing people. At the same time, they were employing people through temp agencies. These ironworkers were earning about 1400 net, (350 euros), about half of what the permanent workers were making. The management of the ironworks announced that the company had decided to replace staff with temporary agency workers and that the goal would be to have 80% agency workers. Last week alone the company dismissed 50 people.
ZSP organized several protests during the IWA Action Days, March 29-31. Due to the fact that the Parliament was holding discussions about raising the retirement age and protests were quickly organized for March 29 and 30, we reorganized our plans a little and participated in these protests.
On March 29, we protested at the Parliament with a banner saying "the strike is our best weapon", handing out leaflets and talking to the rank and file members of mainstream unions about radicalizing protests and the strike in Spain. Many sent their greetings to our comrades in struggle that day.
On March 31, we marched in Warsaw against various anti-social nightmares created by the capitalist disease. Despite the mixture of rain, hail and snow throughout the day, and despite rumours in the papers that we'd start a riot and occupy key government offices, which scared away some of the people, a few hundred people marched through the city, stopping at various locations to talk about problems such as eviction, reprivatization of buildings, militarism, the high cost of education, poor working conditions, anti-union repression, corruption in the government and the role of the police, etc. etc. etc.
Members of ZSP and some Spanish students protested in solidarity with the general strike in Spain. The ZSP called on local people also to make a general strike, including a worldwide general strike against capitalism. Chants were made in Polish and Spanish and drew a lot of attention from passersby.
Earlier in the day, the ZSP had also visited a protest against raising pension reforms. We raised the banner about a general strike and many rank and file workers came to talk and take photos with us. Even though these people are in a union which does not like the idea of general strikes (Solidarity), many of the rank and file members think differently than the union bosses and were quite interested also in learning about the strike in Spain. They send their solidarity to the strikers. Oddly enough, when visiting the Spanish embassy, we also received support from a couple of the embassy workers.
Unfortunately we were a little sabotaged by rain, but never mind. When we see the strike action that our comrades are making, our moods were very sunny.
