Pracujesz na umowie śmieciowej? Możemy pomóc!
On Aug. 1, the anniversary of the start of the Warsaw Uprising, members of the ZSP left flowers and a message in front of the House of Professors by the plaque to the war-time ZSP. During the nazi occupation and war, the ZSP created the 104 Company of Syndicalists, involved in several important actions and maintained a key position in the old town of Warsaw, headquartered in the House of Professors. It was comprised mainly of syndicalist activists from the movement which existed before the war but was crushed by the nazis and the Stalinists. However there were also some people who escaped from the Warsaw ghetto at the House of Professors, as well as a group of Greeks. The 104 Company of Syndicalists also had a womens´ army. The Company started out with around 50 people but soon grew to about 1000, making it one of the largest forces in the Uprising.
For the past month, members of the ZSP have been making protests on public transport against increases in ticket prices. People go almost every day, handing out leaflets, calling on people to try to overturn the City Council's decision by means of referendum and to organize and take direct action. This means not paying the new fares, which go into effect Aug. 16 or, if people do buy a ticket, giving them away to other people. On July 30, ZSP organized an event called "Night of the Free Riders" where people were supposed to go for free on public transport in an open manner, like we have been doing for the past month. Using the tactics of flash mobs, people could organize small groups throughout the city using SMS to designate the starting points.
The action has got a lot of attention and was called a "resistance movement" in the mainstream press. Thousands of Varsovians have spoken out against the price increases although, unfortunately, far fewer participate in direct actions. However, it is likely that enough signatures will be gathered to force a referendum, unless the neo-liberals find some way to block it. At last count, about 130,000 of the 140,000 signatures needed for a referendum have already been gathered.
On July 30, the ZSP held a solidarity picket in front of a Starbucks cafe in Warsaw. The action was meant to express solidarity with Starbucks workers organizing for better working conditions and to draw attention to both the strike of Starbucks workers in Chile and the continued anti-union practices of Starbucks in the US, where a member of the IWW, Tiffany White-Thomas, was dismissed the day after revealing her union affiliation.
Following our question to OTTO Workforce about the situation of other workers in Wago-Elwag factory, OTTO said that it would pay them all the difference between what they were paid and what was in the contract. The workers were guaranteed a regular wage per hour, based on a standard work week but instead were paid for production.
Realizing this problem, OTTO would like to change the workers contracts... so that they are for production. In other words, after signing up to work under one set of conditions, the company would like to change them for less favourable ones.
Workers do not have to agree to this, but since this is a temp agency, they can simply get rid of you with a few days notice, or refuse to extend your contract for no reason. But such things are not acceptable. The only way to fight it is through organization. So now the workers have to decide - do they accept this type of treatment, or do they do something to fight for their better working conditions?
Today the lawsuit against the Tenants' Defense Committee started. A couple of members of ZSP who are also in the Committee are being sued for making a film where tenants describe their problems with their landlady.
A small picket was held outside the court. The corridors were filled with tenants and journalists who filmed the people, who were all telling stories of their difficult and even desperate living situations. There was no place at all in the courtroom and the judge was a little consternated when a group of elderly women just decided to sit on the floor of the courtroom. The landlady was not present, but was represented by her lawyer, who had been involved in a very famous case related to slander on TV in the past. The TV stations were denied permission to film and some people wanted to speak out to the judge. After some minutes, things calmed down and the Committee, which was defending itself, submitted its arguments to the court, as well as evidence. The documents submitted were mostly related to what was said in the film. Among other things, the landlady claims that the tenant is not telling the truth, but most of what was said can be confirmed in one way or another.
The lawyer for the other side asked the judge to order us to remove the material from the internet immediately, but our comrade argued that, since the result of such an action would be the same as one of the goals of the lawsuit, such an order would result in the Claimant receiving what she wanted before the case was even heard. This argument was accepted by the judge and all material will remain in place. Due to the interest in the case, many people viewed the film over the last few days, at times crashing the site due to too many visitors.
On July 9, ZSP members started to make actions in Warsaw´s public transport against the raising of fares. Leaflets are being handed out calling for action, information is stuck in the transport. ZSP supports free and collectivized transportation as a goal but, besides from propagating such ideas, it would like to encourage people to mobilize against the fare increases in an active way. This includes protests and different types of direct actions such as not paying, mutual insurance schemes against ticket controls and, for those who do have a ticket, the passing of tickets to other passengers. We have noticed that people have actually started to practice the last one a little more recently.
We do not agree with the fare increase which hits the working poor the most and will make Warsaw´s public transport more expensive than in many cities in Europe. Besides this, we will continue to point out the various labour problems which exist, especially for bus drivers who are often forced to work too much for miserable pay, impacting on their health and safety and the safety of the passengers as well.
A couple of women employed to work in the Wago Elwag factory in Wroclaw did not receive their proper payment for all the hours worked when they received their first salary. They quit the job and decided to do something about the situation. At first OTTO gave them the run around. Later we spoke to a manager at OTTO during our protest in Wroclaw. She claimed that workers in the factory were doing piece work and only were paid for what they produced - however we pointed out that the contracts were just for 40 hours a week at a certain wage per hour. They workers received their payment a few days later and ZSP is trying to make sure there are not other workers in the factory with similar problems. We also encourage both OTTO workers in general, as well as the people in the factory, to organize themselves to avoid similar incidents of abuse.
At the end of May, during the visit of US President Barak Obama to Poland, we organized some protests, including one on Plac Trzech Krzyży in Warsaw. Besides the usual tactics they tried, including keeping about 100 people away from the protest, they brought along an LRAD. Those few of us who knew what the strange device was were very surprised: not only did nobody know that the police had this weapon, but we were fairly sure that its use is illegal. And we were right.
We later contacted the media and made a scandal about the police having this weapon, demanding to know how they spent public money on something that isn't even legal. The main newspaper in Poland wrote about this, asking the same question. Later, Amnesty International and the Helsinki Foundation joined in and this newspaper printed another article with the criticisms.
Some members of the ZSP from Warsaw are being sued for a film they made and put on the internet. Other members of the Tenants' Defense Committee are also being sued because the film was on their website. The video documents the problems of two families who have been having problems with their landlady, who wants to evict them, for years.
The video was intended to give tenants a voice in a system which is extremely one-sided, ignoring their rights and not even ensuring they are protected by the rights they have under the law.
ZSP has been running daily pickets at OTTO offices in Poland since the middle of June. Thousands of leaflets have been printed and distributed already. The picketing will continue for some time more on a daily basis during this busy hiring season.
We are also reaching out to the workers sent to Wago/Elwag factory in Wroclaw. The firm is a producer of electronic components. Two workers decided to fight back against OTTO when they did not receive the total amount of money for the hours they work. At Saturday's protest, a representative of OTTO claimed that this is because work in the factory is piecework, although the workers' contracts state they are paid by the hour. We are warning people who might be sent to work there about this possible cheating and demanding that OTTO pay what is promised in the contracts.
