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On March 8, members of the ZSP and FAU Switzerland organized protests at the headquarters of both ABB and Adecco corporations. The pickets were to show support of the EULEN-ABB strikers and to bring this case to the main offices of these companies.
We handed out hundreds of leaflets. Many employees of ABB and Adecco took them. At ABB many stopped to ask about the strike. The reaction at Adecco was rather hostile though, with claims that they are just "providing services" and threats to call the police.
After some hours of picketing, we left to Basel for another action at Roche global headquarters.
On March 5, ZSP organized a picket in front of the headquarters of Roche Polska to demand the reinstatement of our comrade Jakub and to denounce the continued use of falsely self-employed and outsourced workers to deny workers employment contracts and various benefits.
At the offices we picketed, the majority of the people are IT workers, performing jobs for Roche worldwide and earning only a fraction of what IT workers would make in other countries. In addition, Roche uses various forms of external contracting to get workers whom they don't have to pay benefits to. They are not providet by temporary agencies (which, although offering precarious work are at least regulated by the law) but by private "firms" or fake businesses which just bill Roche so that these employees are not on their books. By doing this, Roche does not have to give them the same notice of termination or severance pay, does not offer paid holidays or sick leave, maternity or paternity payments and does not even pay their social security contributions.
On February 25, members of the ZSP went to a cultural event co-organized by the Spanish Embasy, the Ministry of Culture of Spain and the Cervantes Institute at the Staszica Palace in Warsaw. We chose to go to this event because of the presence of people from the Spanish government and lecturers from the Complutense University in Madrid, where our comrades are demanding better working conditions, employment contracts for teaching fellows, an end to anti-union repression, the reinstatement of fired comrades and an end to budget cuts in education.
On February 21, activists from ZSP and the Fabryka collective blocked the entrance to the ADECCO office in protest of their practices and in solidarity with the striking workers of EULEN-ABB in Cordoba who EUROCEN (part of ADECCO) replaced.
The office was blocked and people told about the struggle of the factory workers in Spain and about the problems of temporary work in general. Ironically, the ADECCO office is located next to the regional office of Solidarity union... which has sometimes taken very bad positions in relation to agency workers. So we also made sure to talk about how temp workers and other precarious parts of the workforce are ignored by the mainstream unions and how they had better organize themselves without professional unionists and bureaucrats.
Two comrades from ZSP went in to discuss the situation with the people in ADECCO, who naturally claimed that it is „not their fault” and they would inform the main office of the action. They demanded that we leave and called the police on us. About 20 minutes later two big police vans came, looked at us but then drove away without intervening. So we continued. Since ADECCO was in a good location, with a busy bus stop across the street, there were many people listening and reading leaflets about the situation. The mainstream media also interviewed us about the situation.
Opole is the Polish capital of temporary agencies, mostly sending workers abroad, and almost everybody knows of somebody who has had problems with temporary work, so the local people who are very effected by high unemployment and precarious working conditions were quite interested in the protest.
ZSP informed ADECCO that they should expect to see us again with unannounced visits in other cities and that our comrades would be doing the same around the world.
(See information about protest in Switzerland. )
(Videos from the action and information from the media are posted in the media section of the page in Polish, here and here )
On February 18 residents of Praga and other interested activists gathered to discuss a strategy of mobilization against the liquidation of schools. The government has plans to liquidate around 800 schools all over Poland.
Parents and grandparents expressed concern over the future quality of education and easy access to public education. They worried that they would have to travel with small children further from their homes and wondered what would happen to the existing school property. The general feeling was that private interests would profit from the closing of schools, since it is well known that public property is usually sold off for a fraction of its value. Many examples were given of this. Parents also complained that not enough new schools are being built and that some parents of young children are left without options because they don't have good access to public education, but also cannot afford to pay for private.
On February 17 the ZSP took part in the international day of action in solidarity with the striking workers of EULEN-ABB in Cordoba. A picket was held in Warsaw outside of an office of ADECCO, which is involved in the conflict as its firm EUROCEN has supplied replacements for the striking workers.
We pointed out that we critical not only of ADECCO's role in this conflict in Spain, but also its role, along with other temp agencies, in building precarious working conditions in Poland and around the world.
On February 15, the ZSP and Tenants' Action organized a protest on the main square in Wroclaw against the rise in prices of public transport. The members of ZSP reminded people of their protests in 2008 against the last price rise. Since that time, experts have noted that the quality of public transport declined, not improved. Lines are being eliminated and are running less frequently. So the people are wondering if the new price increases will just mean even worse service. The activists stressed that the politicians always claim that there is no money for public services, but they always find money for stadiums or fountains, like the ones recently built in Wroclaw, at extremely high costs.
The activists also asked why rich people who live in villas outside the city and ride in expensive cars should make such decisions and called for self-organization and direct control of public funds.
On February 2 members of the ZSP in Warsaw protested, together with students, teachers and parents, at the session of the City Council about the closure of schools. The meeting was interrupted at various times and as a result of the protests, the Council was forced to stay all night, eventually passing the vote only at 3AM.
It is clear that such protests will not change the votes in the Council since it has an absolute majority of neoliberals who make decisions in advance and will make decisions behind closed doors is necessary. Only a radicalization of the protests and more concrete action will have any impact so the ZSP is calling for this. More protests are scheduled for February 13 and 16. The Education Workers Union, which had been inactive for a while, has been reactivated and hopes to organize some public assembly on the issue.
On February 3-4, ZSP Warsaw is holding informational actions in solidarity with library workers struggling against budget cuts and other measures which negatively affect both their working conditions and the quality of the libraries.
Library workers in Spain, inspired by the Save our Libraries Day protests in Great Britain, decided this year to protest. The CNT union in the National Library of Spain asked for international solidarity. It has been in a conflict with the National Library because of its use of outsourced workers instead of permanent staff and because of repressions and firings made by the library against its activists.
ZSP strongly condemns the closure of public schools around Warsaw and calls for more protests against the city government and direct action! On January 31, it took part in two protests in Praga called by parents, teachers and pupils and we will try to mobilize public support for further action. One of the protests saw some of the students and teachers of a lyceum decide to march on to the local council. Once there we demanded to see the mayor, who just responded with bullshit. ZSP will protest at the City Council on Thursday and calls for public opposition to the plans. It also will discuss ideas for direct action with our neighbours and push for the idea of the occupation of the schools, keeping them open at night and turning them into public spaces of popular resistance.
Photos from today's actions: http://zspwawa.blogspot.com/2012/01/protest-against-liquidations-of-scho...
