Today's Topics:
1. freedom news: Russia: Anarchists illegally protest for
revolution centenary, World, Nov 9th (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. wsm.ie: Eviction of Disco Disco occupation - video from 2003
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Turkey, yeryuzu postasi: Action on Kadıköy for Nuriye and
Semih on the 247th day of the hunger strike (tr) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Dmitry Buchenkov, anarchist and last Bolotnaya square
defendant, flees Russia (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. Poland, WORKERS' INITIATIVE Section: Lodz: OZZ IP supports
employees and employees of Elbest Sp. z oo [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. Poland, WORKERS' INITIATIVE - Volkswagen Poznan with the
eyes of an employee [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
7. France, Alternative Libertaire AL Novembre - Right of reply:
About the Social Front Collective (fr, it, pt) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
8. Britain, brighton solfed: Brighton Solidarity Federation
Opens a Dispute with G4Lets (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
This year Leninists worldwide have been celebrating the victory of the Bolsheviks in the
October Revolution but in Russia the anarchists came out to remember the event from a
different perspective, that of an opportunity stolen and a promise yet to be. ----
Anarchists were once again roaming the streets of Moscow on November 6th, illegally
marching on the centenary of the revolution despite a heavy police presence in the
capital. They reported: ---- Near Chistye Prudy metro station, the anarchists unfurled a
banner that read: ‘Dictatorship, Poverty and Corruption, Only One Way Out - Revolution!',
and briskly marched through the dark streets yelling out slogans calling for class
struggle, solidarity, social revolution and the construction of a new, just world.
The action was not permitted - we do not consider it necessary to ask the authorities for
permission to march in the street. We can walk and breathe more freely without the
accompaniment of a police convoy. Also, in the current conditions of the dictatorship,
people are encouraged to participate in actions coordinated by the authorities, where all
participants will be recorded and monitored by the police - stupidity and provocation.
Remember, the real social revolution of liberation which the anarchists and
revolutionaries of the past dreamed of is not left in the past, but is waiting in the
future. Revolution is the only solution to solve all the contradictions and problems that
the capitalist system generates. The struggle against individual manifestations of
capitalism and the state such as poverty, corruption, police lawlessness and the
arbitrariness of the authorities have no prospects unless we take into account the true
source of social ills - the state and capitalism.
Otherwise, when trying to solve social contradictions by changing government without
destroying the state and creating a new democratic system, new thieves and dictators will
simply replace the old ones - which is proven by the experiences of the two revolutions of
1917. And of course this needs to be taken into account in the future.
https://freedomnews.org.uk/russia-anarchists-illegally-protest-for-revolution-centenary/
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Message: 2
Interesting bit of Dublin squatting history just went online, a video of the the 2003
attempt to squat the Disco Disco building at 41 Parnell square (West). The building had
been vacant for well over a decade at that stage (and may still be?) but shortly after the
squatters started securing the building a gang of heavies arrived down (10.55 in the
video) and attacked them. The cops arrived and pushed their way into the building after
the door had been partly opened to allow someone injured in the attack to seek medical
attention. ---- https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=rnWfxOiM-mo
The video was shot by some Dutch squatters visiting Dublin so a lot of the commentary is
in Dutch. ---- https://www.wsm.ie/c/eviction-disco-disco-dublin-video-2003
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Message: 3
Today, Kadıköy was held in action as it is every Friday for solidarity with the hunger
strikers Nuriye Gülmen and Semih Özakça who are on duty 247 days with KHK.
Nuriye and Semih for the action made by the Call for Solidarity Nuriye and Semih requested
the acceptance of requests. The activists who came together in front of Süreyya Opera,
opened the banner "We Want Our Work Back On Hunger Greve Day 247". ---- It was requested
that the lawyer Selçuk Kozağaçlı, the chairman of the Contemporary Lawyers Association
(ÇHD), who was taken into custody on 8 November, was released immediately. While the OHAL
Review Commission was still not working on the statement, it was requested that Gulmen be
released and that the demands of the insurgents be accepted on 17 November. ----
http://www.yeryuzupostasi.org/2017/11/10/aclik-grevinin-247-gununde-nuriye-ve-semih-icin-kadikoyde-eylem/
------------------------------
Message: 4
https://therussianreader.com/2017/11/09/dmitry-buchenkov-last-bolotnaya-square-defendant-flees-russia/
---- In an interview with Current Time TV, Bolotnaya Square defendant Dmitry Buchenkov
said he has left Russia for a European Union country. ---- He said he has applied for
political asylum in this country. Buchenkov failed to say exactly where he had gone. ----
“I’m calm about the fact I won’t be returning to the motherland soon. I won’t say leaving
was easy. Psychologically, of course, I didn’t want to leave,” he noted. “The regime and
the entire justice system forced me to take this step.” ---- He added he was currently not
in touch with relatives. ---- When asked how he managed to cross the Russian border, the
Bolotnaya Square defendant said he was “neither the first nor the last person to do it in
such circumstances.”
According to Buchenkov, the Bolotnaya Square Case was “political” from
the onset. He said that, after he was put under house arrest, “for six
months [he] observed how the case was unfolding personally for [him]”
and was convinced a guilty verdict lay in store. He said he was
transferred from a pretrial detention facility to house arrest during a
“brief thaw.” He was not outfitted with an electronic tracking bracelet,
because the Naro-Fominsky division of the Federal Penitentiary Service
had run out of them.
“I think the police investigators have long known they nabbed the wrong
guy. But it was too late for them to back out,” said Buchenkov.
On the morning of November 9, Buchenkov did not show up to the
Zamoskvorechye District Court for the latest hearing in his case, in
which he stood accused of involvement in rioting. The Federal
Penitentiary Service has accused him of fleeing, writes Current Time.
Federal Penitentiary Service spokeswoman Natalya Bakharina said the
defendant had “absconded,” since he was not to be found in his flat. She
noted another family had been living there since November 5, and they
were given keys to the flat in late October.
Buchenkov’s attorney Ilya Novikov wrote that he would refrain from
commenting for the time being. In turn, Buchenkov’s other attorney,
Svetlana Sidorkina, told RBC she did not know about her client’s
departure from Russia.
“I don’t know about it. I do know he did not come to today’s hearing,
during which the matter of whether to continue the forensic
investigation or not was to have been ajudicated,” said Sidorkina.
According to her, the court decided to postpone the hearing since
Buchenkov was not in attendance.
In April, at a hearing in the Zamoskvorechye District Court, Buchenkov
declared himself not guilty of involvement in rioting and fighting with
policemen. He was accused of violence against six Interiory Ministry
officers and causing damage in the amount of 73,800 rubles to a
commercial firm that set up porta-potties near Bolotnaya Square in Moscow.
Buchenkov, a 38-year-old anarchist and history teacher, was detained and
remanded to custody in December 2015, thus becoming the thirty-fourth
defendant in the Bolotnaya Square Case. Later, the Moscow City Court
released him from custody and put him under house arrest. Buchenkov’s
lawyers insisted the activist was not in Moscow during the events of May
6, 2012. The claim was corroborated by Buchenkov’s relatives in Nizhny
Novgorod.
According to the defense, the police investigators who, allegedly,
identified Buchenkov on video recordings of the May 6, 2012, protest
rally mixed him up with another person. The defense lawyers sought to
enter higher resolution photographs into evidence, but police
investigators refused to take them into account.
Translated by the Russian Reader
------------------------------
Message: 5
We support our colleagues from the Unified Workers' Unions in Elbest Ltd., who currently
hold a collective dispute with Elbest Security Ltd., whose main concern is to raise the
basic salary so that it is equal to at least one employee. minimum remuneration. At
present, the basic salary of a caretaker employed by this company and performing its
duties in the power plant owned by PGE GiEK SA in Belchatów may amount to only 1386 PLN
gross. This rate is based on the amount of overtime allowances and other benefits based on
the grade. They receive monthly payments equal their wages to the minimum wage. --- Elbest
Security sp. Z oo employees are divided because some of them apply the collective
agreement of employment when the company was still part of ELBEST Sp. z oo closely related
to the Polish Power Group. Despite the severe shortage of payroll conditions, the system
still provides basic salaries at a level not lower than the minimum wage for work.
Unfortunately, as a result of the division of ELBEST into several separate branches having
the status of a separate employer and then their partial consolidation in the form of
Elbest Security sp. Z oo it turned out that some of these employees - at least in their
bosses opinion - lost their application.
Regardless of the postulate of basic wage equalization to the level of minimum
remuneration for employees of the former branch "Rogowiec II", MZZP "Unianych" requires an
additional 300 zl increase for all employees in Elbest Security sp.
According to the members of the union, profits from the company's activity, which could
contribute to improving the conditions of the pay, are taken over by the Polish Energy Group.
The last mediation meeting in the dispute was held today - November 8, 2017.
If the postulates of the MZZP "United" are not fulfilled, the employees of the company do
not exclude the blockade of the access road to the power plant and lignite mine in Belchatów.
MZZP "Unianych" associates mainly employees of companies cooperating with the Polish
Energy Group. In addition to caretakers, porters and security guards who perform their
duties in power plants, they are also employees of hotel or kindergartens.
Together with our colleagues from Belchatów we are looking forward to the outcome of the
upcoming mediation. If they fail to do so, we will declare our support in the fight for
fair and equitable salaries for employees of the ELBEST Group.
http://ozzip.pl/teksty/informacje/lodzkie/item/2316-ozzip-wspiera-pracownikow-i-pracownice-elbest
------------------------------
Message: 6
I have been working in Poznan for over a dozen years. I write "already" because in this
factory time flies very fast. In order to be employed by VW, I had to work for the
Temporary Work Service agency for three years. I do not know an agency worker whose
forensics would not blackmail him, as if he would refuse to work in overtime, he would not
extend the contract. I had to sign a contract for a month. Therefore, every month the man
was exposed to huge stress. ---- Although VW is Solidarity, from my perspective, it mainly
focuses on recruiting workers from temporary employment agencies to VW and collecting from
their contributions. They ensure that when you join a union they will help you when
problems arise with the employer. Membership in the union is also intended to increase the
guarantee of employment for an indefinite period. People often join the union only because
there are a lot of loyalists who decide to extend the contract or to postpone a better
position. I signed up for Solidarity in the first year of employment when I was employed
by the agency. After the first blackmail on my part, I decided to tell the representatives
of Solidarity. I did not know that at the time, Most of the masters are members of
Solidarity and have a much stronger position in them than the agency workers. I was told
that the superintendent has the right to use his position to force me to perform
"voluntary" overtime. After three years of employment on a junk contract and signing a
contract with VW I did not renew the declaration of joining the union.
If workers felt they were being exploited, for example by extorting overtime work from
masters and department heads, or because they had been banned by the management, I told
them they were in Solidarity, so let them report it. Then there was silence. You can even
speak in your own way. Each of the serial employees knows that Solidarity and its
management hold most of the crew in check. These are specific arrangements, specific
money, specific stools and careers. This relationship is simply an integral part of the
concern. Without Solidarity, the management would have had more problems getting the
crew's permission for undue hikes or screwing up the standards. The association often
assists the board in silencing the crew.
There is also a system for assessing employees. A guaranteed raise may be received after
five years. However, there are those who have not had an increase for seven years, because
in that period they had fallen ill. Those who have completed their studies in VW's
patronage are also cheated. VW after graduation is guaranteed entry to grade 3 and work in
a profession. In the meantime, graduates are often employed at level 1 of the grade and
are forced to work on the assembly line, which is below their qualification.
For years, more and more people in the factory have been discouraged from Solidarity. In
2010, there was a time for wage negotiations that did not produce any results. Solidarity
announced a strike in which it was difficult to believe. Eventually, however, it turned
out to be just a theater. The strike was that the production was in full swing and that no
one was allowed to disturb it, and the union of some thirty people stood under the window
of the president inside the factory and made noise. Such a noise so that no one outside of
the factory would find out about it. Later it was only worse. Relation was all about:
anti-crisis packages, flexible work, where after long weeks of production stagnation had
to be done at the time of Saturday. We were not paid for parking, as is the case with
other factories. In 2011, We were forced to work on weekends and so it was. We were still
being told that there was a crisis. Production increased and Sunday supplement was reduced
by 50%. In 2014, an idea was developed among the crew to create a relationship that would
be independent of the board. Of course, Solidarity reacted to the idea by saying that
there could be only one link in the plant. What many employees believe. Further wage
negotiations took place in 2015 and linda. Again the theater and "rescue jobs", ie
deterioration of its conditions. People were increasingly frustrated. There is only one
compound in the plant. What many employees believe. Further wage negotiations took place
in 2015 and linda. Again the theater and "rescue jobs", ie deterioration of its
conditions. People were increasingly frustrated. There is only one compound in the plant.
What many employees believe. Further wage negotiations took place in 2015 and linda. Again
the theater and "rescue jobs", ie deterioration of its conditions. People were
increasingly frustrated.
This year, we were informed about the VW strike in Bratislava. When we felt that it was
our fight, the relationship was put on the side of the corporation. He said it was better
to sit quietly than to fight for his. People said enough and despite obstacles they
decided to set up an independent trade union. The employee, in fact, the hero who worked
for 18 years and persuaded others through social media to finally organize independently
from the board, was immediately released. Behind him was another two. After all, the crew
did not give up and the union was formed. Solidarity instead of defending the dismissed
ostentatiously in the media, she put on the side of the management, which freed our
colleagues. Soon after the founding of the Solidarity Workers' Committee, further wage
negotiations began. Since I was working in the factory, I first began to report their
course. So far, it has claimed that the trade union "mountain" during the negotiations can
not provide any details, but that "we will eventually be satisfied." This way the crew was
always confused. She did not know whether to support union negotiators or demand more than
they did.
In October it was time for a summary of the year by the board. He called the meeting for
the employees. It just heated up the atmosphere. At the meeting, Jolanta Musielak, a
member of the Human Resources Management Board, spoke to us, starting by telling us how
good it was. In her opinion we usually earn 6,000. zl. although in reality it is about 3
thousand. zl. on hand. Later classic in the form of tables, which show rise in wages in
recent years. Why do these calculations? The fact is that this year people have started
comparing PITs from previous years and have come out that their earnings, instead of
growing, are falling. At that moment something broke. People have not taken it. How much
can you cheat, lie to live? There were whistling, hum, shuffling. People felt confident.
The crew already knew that Solidarity had come in contact with the board and started the
show. When her chairman stated that she needed to take care of the company's financial
liquidity and protect the workplace, people incredulously laughed under their noses.
Solidarity's management and operations have been cooperating with it since last summer
under greater pressure from the crew, and the existence of a new union only exacerbates
this pressure.
This text was published in an anonymous form due to the high likelihood of its release by
the company after its first and last name was published.
http://ozzip.pl/teksty/publicystyka/item/2317-volkswagen-poznan-oczami-pracownika
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Message: 7
Laurent Degousée, activist South-Commerces, wanted to react to texts published in AL from
July-August and October on the Social Front, of which he is a member. ---- In a feature
published in your journal last month titled " What is the Social Front ? Your
organization expresses its differences with our collective. Even if, without going back to
the relationship between Proudhon and Marx summarized in the recent film devoted to him,
the right to criticism and controversy are fundamental in the labor movement, we say we
have to do here at a strange obsession when, in your issue of this summer, the articles
relating to the social re-entry and the last congress of Solidaires were already not very
friendly with regard to its action.
Can we describe as a media bubble, or even a small group, a movement that counts, less
than six months after its launch, about sixty local collectives and more than one hundred
and fifty organizations at the national level ? How to tax us to set up a new organization
when we are not only attached to our respective power plants but we want to regroup all
those who want to fight with Macron, where it is precisely the lack of coordination that
weighs in the power struggle ? Finally, if we talk less about the Social Front in recent
times, is not it because its orientation has since flourished through an early response to
the ordinances, just as our constant calls for unity that took shape with the meeting
called by Solidaires on October 4th ?
Finally, to finish by inviting us to do our work of unionists of struggle and of class
within our organizations rather than outside of them, it is to despise the trade union
work of comrades who decided, strong lessons of last year's mobilization against the Labor
law, to add a rope to their bow by building the Social Front, that they come from SUD
Commerce, whose contribution to the fight Deliveroo's deliverers is also highlighted in
the same newspaper, SUD Poste 92, majority in their department, or Info'Com CGT whose
communication is wrong to be more audible than that of their confederation.
Moreover, in your constitutive charter, it is a question of " the formation of a social
Front of the syndical and associative organizations of struggle, around a common program
of protest, in complete independence of the political parties and the State. " The
consistency with this objective should rather lead your organization to invest in the
existing Social Front, as was the case for the author of these lines is in the collective
Blocks All you initiated, rather than the to denigrate incessantly, in your publication as
in the unions where we campaign together.
Laurent Degousée (SOUTH Commerce, member of the Social Front)
Our answer:
In an answer to our newspaper, one of the leaders of the Social Front accuses us of " a
strange obsession " for his collective which would bring together nearly 150
organizations and 60 local collectives, justifying that one lends some interest in these
columns. These local collectives, which bring together a variety of realities and are
often an alliance of local goodwill to resist, are in no way the target of criticism that
we address to the " national animation " of this collective.
Likewise, it is a bad trial to blame ourselves for not supporting the orientation of the
FS. Unity, construction of the general strike: we do not disagree with that as we said in
the previous issue and have written it many times.
On the other hand, we have a problem with avant-garde practices and the hoax that consists
in making believe that by regrouping some very active political and union activists / ves
we can make believe " the regrouping of all those and those who want to resist Macron ".
To do and say that is to ignore the work that remains to be done: that of conviction.
First, to convince colleagues that government projects are bad for them and them, then it
is useful to mobilize by the strike to block them and try to convince the majority of
that. This is of course a thankless job of touring, discussions, hours of information etc.
But this ungrateful work, some comrades of the Social Front are already leading in their
business, for example at La Poste and are repressed by the box for that.
This is why we understand all the more badly that it is not that which is put forward as a
prospect instead of vain attacks against the " union directorates ". Today, we have
difficulties to mobilize. The inter-union strategy is a factor. But it is far from the
only one and it is not by masking the difficulties encountered by the revolutionary
activists in the workplace behind some slogans and big sentences that we will move towards
the construction of a real united front.
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Droit-de-reponse-Au-sujet-du-collectif-Front-social
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Message: 8
Brighton Solidarity Federation has started a dispute with the lettings agency G4Lets on
Hythe Road in Fiveways. Two sets of tenants have been organising with SolFed regarding a
number of issues with their tenancies. The first group of tenants had to live in
mice-infested, unsafe accommodation for a year, and then had £2000 illegitimately deducted
from their deposit. The second group of tenants have had £1080 deducted from their deposit
for similarly dubious reasons. ---- Along with the tenants, Brighton SolFed wrote to
G4Lets on Thursday 2nd November, explaining the issues and outlining options to resolve
them. G4Lets initially responded to say that they would not be discussing the matter with
SolFed. We replied and explained that the tenants were working in conjunction with the
Brighton SolFed Housing Union, and that the dispute would commence if a reasonable offer
to resolve the situation was not made by the one week deadline. G4Lets responded to say
that they would ‘like to resolve the issues raised', but no offer was forthcoming.
Consequently, along with the tenants, Brighton SolFed has started a public dispute with
G4Lets. This began with a well-attended picket outside the branch at 4pm on Thursday 9th
November. This first action was met warmly by members of the public, many of whom offered
their support and told us of their own issues losing money from their deposit because of
the unscrupulous tactics of landlords and lettings agencies.
With the support of Brighton SolFed, the tenants are demanding the return of the £2000 and
£1080 withheld from their deposits. The first group of tenants are also demanding
compensation for having to live in unsafe, mice-infested accommodation for a year, and the
second group of tenants are demanding the refund of their agency fees for the stress this
situation has caused. The first group of tenants are being charged for pest control and
fire safety measures - both of which are the obligation of the landlord - whilst they were
also troublingly left without a working fire alarm in the property after a fire safety
incident caused by an unsafe cooker. Incredibly, these tenants are also being charged for
the cleaning of a carpet which has been replaced, and which G4Lets and a contractor
admitted, in an email chain sent to the tenants on 25th November 2016, was ‘beyond
cleaning' and should have been replaced before the start of the tenancy.
Regarding the effect that these issues have had on them, one tenant commented that ‘the
mice in the house and the general state of the house affected my mental health really
badly throughout the time I was living there. I ended up with a really bad grade at the
end of last year - I pretty much hit rock bottom and it became clear very quickly that it
was us against the agency; they tried to pin the blame on us for anything and everything'.
One of the other tenants remarked: ‘I think I speak for everyone in the tenancy when I say
that we were treated pretty terribly throughout the time we were living in and after we
let the house. We never caused G4 any trouble whatsoever. I think we all became distressed
when we found out that we were losing a lot of our deposit, especially since some of our
parents - including one tenant's grandmother - came on their own accord to help clean. It
was pretty blatantly obvious that we had thoroughly cleaned the entire property as much as
we could. The bottom line is they stole from us and got away with it because they're a
company with a lot of money and contracts and we're just a group of poor students - even
poorer now because of the fact that we didn't get enough of a deposit back to put a
deposit down on another house in future. The extent to which they have gotten away with
this is both extraordinary and at the same time not surprising. They also blamed
everything on us, and by everything I mean problems with the house that either predated
our move in two years ago or were simply imaginary. It's clear that G4 don't take
responsibility for managing the wider and external factors that decrease a house's living
conditions that are out of our control, and are happy to lay the blame on their tenants.
This action has made us all feel frustrated and essentially helpless'.
The second group of tenants are being charged for decoration and wear and tear. This is in
spite of the fact that these tenants had the property professionally painted prior to
vacating it. The tenants and Brighton SolFed have also pointed out to G4Lets that
deductions for wear and tear are illegitimate. In this case, G4Lets also exceeded the
timeframe in which tenants should be informed about proposed deductions.
So far, G4Lets have refused to make an offer, insisting that they will not deal with
SolFed and that the tenants should pursue their grievance through alternative channels.
The problem for G4Lets is that these tenants are supporting one another to fight back
collectively with our solidarity. Moreover, SolFed does not hide disputes in
administrative or judicial procedures. Our intention is to bring every dispute onto the
streets. Not just because it is faster, cheaper and more effective, but also because it is
the only way we can understand that each of us has the same problems. Through solidarity
and direct action, ordinary people have the power to improve their lives. Three victories
in the past three months has shown this - one group of tenants received £3900 in
compensation from their landlord and letting agency after they lived in damp, infested
accommodation for a year, as well as the full return of their deposit, as demanded by the
campaign, meaning the total received was just over £6000. Another tenant won back the £510
that their landlord and letting agency deducted for cleaning and repairs, in spite of them
having it professionally cleaned prior to leaving and there being no repairs to do, after
a direct action campaign, and another tenant successfully organised with SolFed to force
his landlord to replace his cooker after leaving him for a year and a half without one.
There's power in a union!
http://www.brightonsolfed.org.uk/brighton/brighton-solidarity-federation-opens-a-dispute-with-g4lets
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