Today's Topics:
1. Britain, anarchist communist group ACG: Not Lovin' It -
McDonalds Workers On Strike (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. wsm.ie Announcement: 8 reasons we are voting Yes to Repeal
the hated 8th (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Britain, anarchist communist group ACG - New Pamphlet: The
Wilhelmshaven Revolt (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. zabalaza: Resist-Occupy-Produce: What can Anarchists and
Syndicalists Learn from Factory Take-Overs and Worker
Cooperatives in Argentina? (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. Britain, Brighton Solidarity Federation extends its campaign
against Youngs to Halls Estate Agency (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #283 - Nantes: The
convergence of struggles is being built ! (fr, it, pt) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
7. Poland, Workers Initiative: Garbage trucks are threatening
with an air crash - an interview with LOT employees on the eve of
the strike [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
8. Greece, SOLIDARITY WITH IMMIGRANTS NO FACE WAITING
WILL NOT
BE LOVED By APO (gr) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
"Workers across the country came together to decide to ballot for industrial action. We
want a better deal. We are the McStrikers, and we will not be silent, we will not be
scared. We will do whatever it takes to win a better life for all McDonald's workers."
Crayford striker. ---- Workers at six McDonald's stores went on strike on May 1st. These
included Cambridge, Crayford in South London, a central London branch, Manchester and two
stores in Watford. A previous strike in September involved four stores, so the number of
workers on strike has increased. ---- Workers demanded a minimum wage of £10 an hour, the
same hourly rate regardless of age (young workers are being discriminated against) and the
right to choose flexible shifts. ---- Workers from TGI Fridays, who have been balloted for
strike action, joined the pickets in solidarity in Watford. In Cambridge the number of
strike supporters, including university students, forced the management to close the drive
through service.
In response McDonald's suspended two workers in Manchester.
The strike action is part of the #McStrike campaign, an international effort to organise
fast food workers.
McDonald's made a profit of $20 billion last year.
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2018/05/10/not-lovin-it-mcdonalds-workers-on-strike/
------------------------------
Message: 2
On May 25th we finally get to vote to Repeal the hated 8th amendment. Here we present the
8 reasons we are voting Yes to Repeal along with many of the articles we have published on
the issue in recent months. ---- WSM members are Voting YES to Repeal because; ---- 1. The
decision on whether to continue a pregnancy is one for the pregnant person to make. It is
not a decision of the gang of busybodies that were & are against marriage equality,
contraception, sex education, divorce and access to secular education. ---- 2. There are
people for whom travel to access abortion in Britain isn't an option or hasn't been in the
past because of migration status, abusive relationships and poverty. ---- 3. Pregnant
people have to illegally take abortion pills in Ireland. In doing so they face the fear
that the pills will be intercepted in the post, alongside the fear of prosecution which
could result in a 14 year jail sentence.
4. The referendum is also about what sort of Ireland we want. The No campaign wants to
return us to an Ireland of the past where a woman's place was the home providing
reproductive labour. Nothing was to interfere with this hence the bans on divorce,
contraception, working while married etc.
5. No one should have to suffer while they are waiting for their child to die inside them,
not knowing if he or she is in pain or if that movement was normal or the last throes of
death. (Testimony from a FFA parent who travelled).
6. Few of us were old enough to vote in 1983. Now we finally get to vote to get rid of
something that has made life so much harder for so many of the women in our lives,
including delaying or denying medical care to pregnant people.
7. They anti-choice groups are a gang of bullies who associate with the far right. They
came after us with injunctions in the 1980s for distributing information and hurleys in
1992 for speaking out for choice. We've watched them threaten, lie and assault people
across four decades.
8. The so-called moral position for ‘pro-lifers' is hypocrisy. They are using this
struggle to force women to remain pregnant, regardless of their circumstances. These
people have no interest in life. They don't support the people in crisis pregnancy. They
only offer judgement, shame and oppression.
Turn out and change Ireland with us on May 25th with your Yes vote.
Our activity for Repeal
Repeal has been our major activity since March with every member of WSM involved at some
level. We took the decision to direct almost all of this involvement through Together for
Yes (T4Y) so you won't have seen WSM printed material eg posters and we are not doing our
own public meetings etc. All that sort of work and help with organising tasks is instead
being done as volunteers with Together for Yes. It's not to late to get involved, in the
Marriage Equality campaign that largest canvasses were in the closing days, volunteer to
canvass with T4Y now and those already doing so will be delighted by fresh faces.
The exception to this is our online media. This is because we have built up a huge reach
with 100,000 followers across our various social media platforms. We have been using our
considerable online reach to amplify T4Y messaging. It also allows us to say the things
that T4Y as a broad campaign might have difficulty expressing, for example explaining that
the referendum comes from an anti-establishment revolt that forced the politicans into
calling it.
Our online campaign started on the 7th of March, the eve of International Womens' Day and
between then and May 9th our own tweets appeared 1.7 million times on peoples feeds. We
probably added at least twice that, through retweeting, to T4Y reach as well as other
campaign groups including Termination For Medical Reasons, Amnesty, MERJ etc.
Our top Tweet was sent on March 20th, reaching 60,000, it warned about the dark ad
campaigns that were coming and provided examples later used by journalists from The Times,
C4 News and other publications in their coverage leading to the decision by Facebook &
Google to ban online referendum advertising.
The 2nd most popular Tweet was from March 11th where we proved that only 9,000 people had
taken part in the 'Rally 4 Life' and not the 100,000 claimed by organisers. This reached
51,000 and was important in establishing early on that claims from the No camp needed to
be investigated rather than reported as fact, as much of the media were doing.
Both our facebook pages have been busy posting unique content written by our members about
the referendum, some of which is now archived here on our website. Solidarity Times had
46,000 engagements last month alone, reaching 72,000 people in Ireland. Our Workers
Solidarity Movement page had 65,000 engagements over the last month. An engagment is a
like, share or comment. We've also been providing photography and video coverage, with
video we have shot appearing in several Yes campaign related videos including this great
version of Phil Och's When I'm Gone by Shift Work.
You can read a selection of those articles below. We are not running paid ads so we are
entirely reliant on people engaging with our articles to reach people. So if you like one
be sure to Like, Share, Retweet or comment to get it out to more people, we estimate each
time you do that has a similar extra reach to us spending 1-10 euro on paid ads.
How we got a referendum
Finally a Referendum to Repeal the 8th - Organising Made this Happen
How the government were forced to call a referendum to repeal the 8th
Poll analysis
Repeal vote still too close to call when likely Don't Know to No switch taken into account
Repealing the 8th - what the opinion polls are telling us
Three polls show Yes to Repeal has a large majority and No has failed to gain ground
Questions of the referendum campaign
Distrust politicians? - Vote for Repeal because we forced them to call the referendum, we
are the rebellion
Finance, SIPO & the repeal referendum
Maser's Repeal the 8th mural covered up again but who regulates the regulator?
Well that makes no sense - on the anti-choice 1916 beermats
Looking at the No campaigns
Comments as #repealthe8th referendum becomes a reality
Fascist Party Openly Campaigns as 'Abortion Never' to Keep 8th Amendment
Extremists on 'both sides'? Not really
A trip into the anti-choice mind
Dark ads & other dirty tricks
Anti-choice groups freak out as google bans referendum ads - what had they planned?
Repeal and the online battle - when become a billionaire isn't an option
Health minister targeted with graphic posters as No to Repeal campaign turns nastier
Disgusting smear attempt by anti-choice FB page
ICBR get the SPUC off treatment after they target LGBTQ spaces during Repeal referendum
Lessons from elsewhere
What Happened When Portugal Decriminalised Abortion?
The pro-choice & feminist movement in Greece with relevance to Ireland
Lessons for Ireland from the Pro-Choice movement in Italy
Some activity reports from our members
Together for Yes launched to campaign for Yes vote in Repeal of 8th referendum
Kildare turns out for Repeal
Kilkenny referendum campaign is on!
Belfast rallies in solidarity with demand to Repeal the 8th
1000s march in Dublin International Women's Day 2018 as referendum to Repeal the 8th is
finally confirmed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anycCujgxaM
https://wsm.ie/c/8-reasons-vote-yes-to-repeal
------------------------------
Message: 3
ACG Classic Revolutionary Reprint ---- The Wilhelmshaven Revolt: a Chapter of the
Revolutionary Movement in the German Navy, 1918-1919 by ‘Ikarus' (Ernst Schneider) ---- In
this, the centenary year of the ending of World War 1, the ACG looks at a lesser known
moment in revolutionary working class history which took place at that time. The events in
Germany during 1918-1919 were arguably an example of our class at its most revolutionary.
---- Written from the viewpoint of someone involved in those revolutionary events, The
Wilhelmshaven Revolt is an inspiring read, particularly in this current period of low
class-consciousness and low working class activity. It not only shows us what is possible
but what to avoid, namely, trust in reformist politicians and those who seek to act in the
name of the working class with statist and Leninist "solutions".
Illustrated, 43 pages, with a foreword by the ACG, an introduction by Nick Heath and
appendices by Joe Thomas, Dave Graham and Mat Kavanagh.
Available from the ACG for £3.75 (post included)
If overseas, drop us a line to ask about any extra postage costs.
Order your copy via PayPal to
communistanarchism@gmail.com
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2018/05/10/new-pamphlet-the-wilhelmshaven-revolt/
------------------------------
Message: 4
The remarkable "recovered factories" movement (seen in films like "The Take") shows
hundreds of closed factories reopened by workers, run democratically, creating jobs and
helping communities. It shows there is only so much protesting can accomplish - you have
to create something new. But it also shows that such alternative sites of production must
be embedded in other popular class movements, and that unions and social movements must
systematically develop alternatives to capitalist- and state- run social services and
media. It is, however, simply impossible to escape capitalism by creating cooperatives -
it is essential to build a mass revolutionary front aiming at complete socialisation of
the economy and of decision-making through a revolutionary rupture.
Resist-Occupy-Produce: What can Anarchists and Syndicalists Learn from Factory Take-Overs
and Worker Cooperatives in Argentina?
By Leroy Maisiri and Lucien van der Walt
Documentaries like "The Take" - a movie that has been widely seen in South African labour
and left circles - have drawn global attention to a remarkable challenge to
neo-liberalism. In Argentina, in South America, economic crisis saw a collapse in working
class conditions. High unemployment, low wages, attacks on social services: we are
familiar with such things in South Africa. But something happened, which is very
different. In Argentina, from the 1990s, something new started.
Resist-Occupy-Produce
The "recovered factories" (fábricas recuperadas) movement saw hundreds of closed factories
and facilities reopened by the workers, run democratically, creating jobs and helping
working class and poor communities. For example, the former Zanon tile factory was
reopened under workers' control (it is now called FaSinPat). It was able to create jobs,
restore dignity and helped build a community clinic; it also makes donations to hospitals
and feeding schemes. Many of these worker-run sites are still running. They have been
linked together through two networks: the Movimiento Nacional de Empresas Recuperadas and
the Movimiento Nacional de Fabricas Recuperadas.
What this remarkable experience shows is that there is only so much protesting can
accomplish - at some point you have to discuss alternatives. You have to move beyond
saying what you do not want, and beyond making limited demands, to creating something new.
The workers in Argentina have helped to show an alternative from below. They have
rewritten the textbook of economics. The experience - and similar ones before it, and
alongside it, such as in the Spanish Revolution in the past and the Rojava Revolution
today - show the immense role and creativity of the productive classes. It shows that it
is possible produce for need rather than profit. It shows something totally different to
the two false choices we are given today: top-down exploitative wage labour under private
companies (and privatisation) and rule by state companies (and nationalisation).
Self-activity not elections
It represents a profound challenge to the system that leaves factories closed, while
people need the good and jobs and services they can produce, that closes brickyards while
people are homeless, and hotels while people are homeless. It shows how democratic
discussion and assemblies, choices based on meeting needs rather than making profits, can
work - and work better than the mess we have under current system. In the current system,
we have massive waste, corruption and exclusion for the majority. Arms deals and blood
diamonds while people starve on the streets.
Being embedded
But what the "recovered factory movement," and the "The Take," also shows is that it is
essential that such alternative sites of production form alliances with movements of the
working class, poor and peasantry, including unions, community movements, unemployed
movements (in Argentina, called "piqueteros"), and in popular struggles. They must be
embedded in the movements of the popular classes, as a means of being protected from
eviction by the state, and as a means of building struggles. Zanon, for example, has been
protected from the police by massive protests, by strikes by unions, and has also
participated in a range of struggles. Zanon workers are part of the union in the ceramics
sector, the Sindicato de Obreros y Empleados Ceramistas de Neuquén. In 2003,
community-based protests plus a mass strike by the Central de Trabajadores Argentinos
(CTA) union federation prevented Zanon being evicted. In 2007, the Zanon workers joined
mass protests after police killed a teacher, Carlos Fuentealba, at a demonstration.
Being embedded in this way, alternative sites of production can also be protected to an
extent from the logics of capitalism, which, through both competition and monopolies,
forces wages down, and imposes authoritarian management systems as the price of survival.
It is important to remember here that the "recovered factories" still exist within
capitalism. They face ongoing pressures: for example, the government refuses to provide
contracts, and bans block loans; cheaper tiles can be sourced from other plants. Unless
they have support from movements, and pressure to operate differently to capitalist state
firms, and some space to do so, they can easily degenerate into worker-run capitalist firms.
Unless they have support from movements, they can easily be captured by states, which will
impose upon them business plans and other schemes, which will force them to operate as
capitalist firms.
Soldarity pricing
Such embeddedness enables a situation where customers - especially larger organisations,
like unions - can pay solidarity prices. This provides essential protection from the
capitalist market and the state regulations that impose upon workplaces the pressure to
cut wages, fire workers and impose authoritarian management.
Locating the alternative production models within mass movements, helps avoid the
situation, seen in some European countries, where valuable alternative spaces -like social
centres, squats and radical bookshops -achieve a great deal but can become contained
within isolated radical scenes and youth subcultures separate from the masses of working
class and poor people. They also avoid the other situation, where their survival rests
upon support from wealthy strata, who can afford to pay higher prices and do so as a
matter of conscience - while the masses, who cannot pay such premiums, rather choose much
cheaper products made in capitalist sweatshops. In such a situation, alternative
production becomes dependent upon class inequalities to survive - on ethical "middle
class" consumerism - rather than on class struggle.
African examples
We have wonderful examples of such solidarity in the 1980s in South Africa, although it is
not often found today. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) set up cooperatives among
retrenched workers, while the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) did
the same among workers who were fired in the course of a major strike at BTR-Sarmcol
rubber factory. These cooperatives were then given contracts from NUM (and NUMSA) to
supply union t-shirts and similar goods. The Food and Canning Workers Union (FCWU) ran its
own medical aid in the 1980s, using this to set up a Ray Alexander Workers Clinic in
Paarl. Union aid kept them afloat and allowed workers to also see an alternative.
Today, sadly, unions tend to simply use the cheapest capitalist company, and the cheapest
shirts, including from union-bashing, worker-repressing sweatshops; and to sell members,
for a commission, contracts with private sector medical aids that are invested in
capitalist firms.
It is possible to develop alternatives - as a means of showing something different is
possible, and as a means of reducing dependence on the corporations and the states. Union
investment monies, for example, should prioritise spending on worker-run clinics, worker
cooperatives, a working class media, popular education on a large scale, and mass
organising - including of the unemployed - rather than invest in profit-making - a recipe
for a prfpfound corruption of unions and a loss of vision.
The best example of this worst-case scenario is the South African Clothing and Textile
Workers' Union (SACTWU) Investment Company, HCI, which has shares in casinos, capitalist
TV stations (e.tv) and bus companies - and helped a certain former SACTWU leader become a
billionaire. Once a radical union in the "workerist" tradition, in 2017 SACTWU's HCI
refused to close its bus services - in theory controlled by the union and its workers - in
solidarity with a general strike organised by SACTWU and its federation, the Souh African
Congress of Trade Unions (COSATU).
Prefigure everywhere
But what is essential is to prefigure a better future everywhere, not just in "recovered
factories," social services, centres and media, but in mass formations, like unions, and
local protest movements, like those in communities, as well. This means radically
democratic organising, solidarity and mass education against the ideas and attitudes and
behaviours of the existing order.
It is not enough
It is important to be clear here that it is not possible to escape capitalism by creating
a few sites of alternative production, by creating cooperatives, social centres or even
"recovered factories," or by "buying worker." It is not possible to build a "solidarity
economy" that can defeat the existing system. The bulk of means of production remains in
the hands of private corporations and states, controlled by the ruling class; the ruling
class is backed by armies, police and massive bureaucracies.
To think we can exit from capitalism, or that capitalism will crumble, if we build an
increasing number of local alternatives is wrong. These will always be on the margins, and
the ruling class will crush - peacefully and violently - any significant threat. The
notion that we can "crack capitalism" (John Holloway) by exiting the system, ignoring the
state, refusing wage labour and building alternative systems is not realistic.
Capitalism and the state will never be suffocated by a proliferation of alternatives: as
seen in the Spanish Revolution, it is not enough to have even a massive amount of
collectives and land occupations; while the capital and the state have the commanding
heights of finance, coercion and administration, the system will recover and crush the
alternatives. After the disaster in Spain, the notion that the system will quietly die,
"asphyxiate," when faced with large-scale economic disruption and collectivisation - as if
its power resides solely in local workplaces - must be rejected.
The need for rupture
The aim is not to choose between capitalists: "Buy South Africa," "Buy Black," or
"people's capitalism" (volkskapitalisme as it was once called by a certain strand of
unions here).
It is to link alternatives to capitalism together, coordinate them, and embed them in a
larger mass revolutionary front of unions, social movements, and bottom-up social
services, and people's media and people's education, which is based on struggle and that
aims at the complete socialisation of the economy and of administration, a new system
based on federations of community and workers councils, based on assemblies, and a
serious, co-ordinated defence of the new.
Without this change - a radical rupture, final showdown, the abolition of the state and
capitalism - the ongoing pressures of the state and capitalism - and the ruling classes
they represent will corrupt or kill off alternatives that do not follow its rules; without
this change, the repressive forces of the state will always remained poised to crush what
is different, better, democratic.
No exit: ride through
The solution is not to "exit" through refusal, but to confront, through building a
massive, unified counter-power based on radically democratic structures and direct action,
resting on a revolutionary counter-culture, based on the widespread acceptance of a
revolutionary worldview - and alternative sites of production and social services and
media and education can play an important role, in this struggle.
As part of a larger movement, such alternatives are shielded, assume enormous symbolic
power, and can help inspire a fundamental change. But there is no possibility that the
current system will slowly and quietly disintegrate because of a few cooperatives,
"recovered factories" and worker-clinics. An alternative must mean something new: it is no
change if we keep relying on the leaders of the system, its institutions like elections,
its stress on what divides us like colour and language and country, and the aims of the
system: power and profit for a few. And it must mean something new, from the roots to the
branches, a new society that replaces the old.
As the anarchist luminary Mikhail Bakunin argued long ago:
"The various forms of co-operation are incontestably one of the most equitable and
rational ways of organizing the future system of production. But before it can realize its
aim of emancipating the labouring masses so that they will receive the full product of
their labour, the land and all forms of capital must he converted into collective
property. As long as this is not accomplished, the co-operatives will be overwhelmed by
the all-powerful competition of monopoly capital and vast landed property; ... and even in
the unlikely event that a small group of co-operatives should somehow surmount the
competition, their success would only beget a new class of prosperous co-operators in the
midst of a poverty-stricken mass of proletarians" (in Sam Dolgoff, 2002 edition, Bakunin
on Anarchism).
MORE INFORMATION:
"The History of Zanon," http://endefensadezanon.com/en/historia-de-zanon/
https://zabalaza.net/2018/05/10/resist-occupy-produce-what-can-anarchists-and-syndicalists-learn-from-factory-take-overs-and-worker-cooperatives-in-argentina/#more-5543
------------------------------
Message: 5
Brighton Solidarity Federation has escalated its campaign against Youngs estate agency,
after a landlord they represent refused to enter into negotiations regarding a revenge
eviction of a tenant, Patrick, who requested repair works to his seriously dilapidated
flat. ---- The campaign began in December 2017, when Brighton SolFed supported Patrick to
write to Youngs to request that outstanding repair works on his flat were completed. In
January 2018, Patrick received an eviction notice from the landlord. Following lively
public opposition to this, Patrick and Brighton SolFed then attempted to open negotiations
with the landlord and Youngs regarding both the eviction and the disrepair issues, though
neither party has engaged productively in these. Consequently, we have escalated our
campaign to include the landlord of Youngs' office, which is another estate agency in the
city called Halls. We are demanding that Halls evict Youngs - who have attempted to incite
public harassment of Patrick - from their office in Kemptown, and if they won't, we are
demanding that they ensure that Youngs pay the £5,500 that Patrick is owed in compensation
for uninhabitable accommodation and remuneration for work undertaken.
Following the refusal of Youngs and the landlord, Stephen Mitchell, to enter into
negotiations regarding these problems, we wrote to Halls on 16th April, outlining the
issues Patrick has faced. These include living without a bedroom for nine months because
of damp and mould, three ceilings in his flat collapsing, renovating his bedroom at his
own expense, ongoing compromised functionality in his kitchen and bathroom, and ongoing
structural damp and dry rot. We presented evidence of the issues to both agencies,
including pictures of the neglect, emails demonstrating that Patrick reported the issues
two years ago, emails from Youngs acknowledging the existence of these issues, and emails
from Youngs agreeing to pay Patrick for work he undertakes on the flat, which has not
happened. Both agencies have chosen to ignore this significant evidence.
Since the start of Brighton SolFed's campaign in support of Patrick, the owner of Youngs,
David Pay, has placed the phone number of both Patrick and his partner in the window of
the agency and invited the public to make contact with them, in what amounts to a serious
breach of the Data Protection Act and an incitement to harassment. However, tenants in
Brighton and beyond are fighting back and won't be bullied. Instead, we're using
solidarity, self-organisation, and direct action to support one another, to guard against
attacks by agencies and landlords, and to improve our conditions. Our Housing Union has
been campaigning against deposit theft and poor living conditions for the past ten months,
recording numerous victories against agencies across the city that had deducted hundreds
or thousands of pounds from tenants' deposits, as well as helping those tenants to gain
compensation. Just as important as the money, though, is that tenants and those in other
types of insecure housing have supported one another to do this, using the weapon of
solidarity to fight the powerlessness imposed upon us by a housing system designed to make
profit, rather than to give shelter.
Evict the evicters! An injury to one is an injury to all!
http://www.brightonsolfed.org.uk/brighton/brighton-solidarity-federation-extends-its-campaign-against-youngs-to-halls-estate-agency
------------------------------
Message: 6
The social situation in Nantes is marked by a dynamic of convergence of struggles.
Multiform, it combines different components of the social movement - CGT and Solidarity
Departmental Unions, Farmers' Confederation, Housing Rights or Gasprom, Zad inhabitants,
autonomous - who manage to discuss together and often coordinate their actions. ---- The
premises took place within the Nantes collective " On Block All " [1], in which
people from the Zad participated. The latter then made other steps by going to support
pickets, in front of the Nantes Atlantique airport or at the Donges refinery. This
solidarity takes today more organized forms, with the creation of a " supply network of
struggles " that brings meals to companies in strikes.
In response, a trade union collective was formed against the airport project at
Notre-Dame-des-Landes [2], associating CGT trade unionists - with the union of the
airport site [3]and the Vinci unions - Solidaires and the CNT. This group has since its
birth affirmed its solidarity with the inhabitants of the Zad and its refusal of all
expulsions.
Common and symbolic gestures
On 1 st May 2017 in Nantes, the labor collective called to participate in the event.
Behind her banner, a thousand people marched out of the six thousand that counted the
demonstration. A joyous, dynamic and colorful procession, which surprised the Departmental
Union CGT who feared to see his demonstration ending in clashes with the police. Since
then, the UD CGT officially participates, with Solidaires, in the Action Committee of
Nantes (CAN), an informal discussion place that brings together trade unionists,
associations, residents of the Zad and Autonomous, and allows some and others to talk to
each other.
During the movement against the Labor XXL law, the demonstrations did not degenerate into
minority clashes, but ended with common and symbolic " gestures ": walling up the
permanence of François de Rugy, building the prefecture's square a house of the people...
Construction of the hut of the house of the people. (c) Valk
On March 31, 2018, another expression of this convergence of struggles resulted in a
demonstration against all expulsions, in which 2,000 people participated, including a good
number of migrants, and the Zad, on the theme " No to all evictions ".
On April 14, 2018, two events were likely to telescope. The first around student and union
demands, the other in support of the Zad. The discussions in the CAN have made it possible
to articulate these two initiatives in an acceptable way for all. Also, even if the
situation is far from perfect, the emergence of places where the different components of
the social movement can be spoken, opens perspectives for the development of the struggles
on Nantes.
Jacques Dubart (AL Nantes)
[1] Created during the struggle against the Labor law, initiated in Nantes by the
Anti-Capitalist Front, in which Alternative libertaire participated.
[2] " Unionism: Unity Against the Airport ", Alternative Libertaire No. 268, January 2017.
[3] Vinci wants to make the airport service a labor law laboratory ", Alternative
Libertaire No. 268, January 2017.
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Nantes-La-convergence-des-luttes-se-construit
------------------------------
Message: 7
Interview with LOT employees: Monika Zelazik, chairperson of ZZPPiL, chairman of the
Inter-Association Strike Committee and captain Adam Rzeszot, chairman of the
Communications Pilots Union of LOT Polish Airlines, was conducted the day before the
strike. ---- Who is responsible for the Trade Union of the Board and Air Personnel? ----
Monika Zelazik, chairperson of ZZPPiL, chairwoman of the Inter-union Strike Committee: We
associate flight attendants and pilots. In the ZZPPiL statute we have written that we can
not take anyone "from the land", but the statute can always be changed, this can be done
by the general meeting of ZZPPiL members. People call us, they want to sign in, especially
after recent disappointments with unions of employees on the ground. A dozen or so of our
members are pilots and stewardesses under so-called B2B, or "Business-to-Business" - it is
simply self-employment, or a junk agreement. In general, among stewardesses and pilots we
have a big problem with this form of employment. Soon we will reach the point where half
of the employees will be on junk contracts.
In other plants, B2B contracts allow you to affect working hours, hourly rates and other
working conditions. With us nothing at all: you get a contract and basically you have to
apply to it, there are no paid holidays. You just have 10 days in a row that you have to
take on a certain date. For the first two years, when they introduced B2B, it was so that
the staff flying on these contracts, had no rights under the Labor Code, even if the days
were free, people did not rest. Basically, the situation changed after several
high-profile incidents reported in the press, when employees employed under such
conditions (bodyguard and anesthesiologist) died while performing their official duties.
The President of LOT Rafal Milczarski applied the same pathology to those working in the
cockpit and on board. The multi-shift work system also means that you work on weekends and
all holidays, no one asks for our rights to a free Sunday. The provisions of the Labor
Code clearly indicate that it is enough to have one free Sunday a month.
Pilots on garbage? Is this not a threat to the entire crew and passengers?
Captain Adam Rzeszot, chairman of the Communications Pilots Union PLL LOT: As pilots all
the time we must be in great shape. Once a year, we are subjected to very detailed medical
research. Theoretically, we can not be in health dispensation. By employing junk, pilots
and stewardesses are forced to come in psychological or health incapacity to work. This
means that - and I am talking here with full responsibility - we are entering the area of
aviation safety.
Absolutely, this can not be the case. Even an ordinary cold, which is not very bothersome
here on the ground, in an airplane at high altitude, when the pressure drops, results in
the fact that such a person may have perforation of the middle ear and simply loses
hearing. You can not afford anything like that. There are severe headaches during
elevation and descent, for example, with normal sinusitis, the pain is so strong that the
pilot can not take control of the plane. Such cases occur very often, in our profession
are chronic diseases, ear infections on-board workers have an average of once every
quarter. Currently, the amount of such dangerous cases is very high. When pilots are
employed in garbage, passenger safety is at stake.
Monika Zelazik: In addition to junk contracts, the president, as a proponent of
professionalism, delegates command to inexperienced people. These problems overlap. The
pilots had their own code, a set of pilots' rules, which prepared them at every stage of
their professional career to pilot an increasingly difficult type of aircraft. You had to
fly a lot of hours on one type and only after a few years, along with the growing
experience, went to a larger plane, which was considered in the hierarchy for a better
position. In the last month, two people were accepted from outside the company as the
first Boeing 787 aircraft officer.
This is a scandal and a threat not only to us but also to the safety of passengers. No
major line in the world, does not allow yourself such extravagance, it can be great
pilots, but never fly with this type of aircraft. Their training will be just as costly as
any other experienced pilot who has been working at LOT for several or several years. This
is just management through lack of imagination.
We already have managerial positions without a contract of employment, with 4 years of
experience, which, despite all sympathy, are unable to lead a team that is 20 years old!
Situations on the plane are always surprising and these people have no experience in
saving human life, they do not know how to behave in an emergency situation. This can not
be learned from books, you have to survive. We need very young employees, but imagine a
non-standard situation in which an employee is supposed to lead, who first has no
employment contract, and secondly, he lacks certain reflexes. Many times we provide
medical help, we give oxygen, we save human life. We have many cases when we use a
defibrillator, we restore the heart's action, this self-control results from experience.
The first time a man dies on your hands, and you are not a doctor, you are an ordinary
stewardess, unprepared for such an event. The management was to be a good change for all
of us, and it turns out that it is the worst because of lack of imagination and experience
in aviation. No school in the world, no paper is comparable with experience.
Do you want to introduce a payroll and collective agreement?
Monika Zelazik: This is something incomprehensible, paralyzing for someone who is 20 years
old in a closed tinned food, is constantly available to the employer, works on Sundays and
all holidays, gets up at any time of day or night (sleep deficit is the most noticeable in
this profession) got 3-3,500 gross.
In aircraft accidents, flying personnel are killed, not the company's management, we are
subjected to accidents at work, we are constantly exposed to diseases, passengers with
cough, runny nose, children with a virus and you are lying for a week, nobody will give
you money for it. They cancel the flight - you lose your raid and money, but only the
staff, not the board. The Management pays its four members with bonuses in the amount of
PLN 2.5 million.
We work 45 hours a month, which we have to fly, but it's 45 hours spent in the air, not on
the plane on the apron, which, for example, because of a storm waiting a few hours to
start. You can have, for example, 117 hours of work, but only 45 hours of flight. And for
that you get those 2.5 thousand. PLN 3,500 PLN 4,500 PLN gross - this is the basic amount.
People often spend 120 or 130 hours at work - it depends on your fixed work plan, for
which you have no influence. If you are sitting on the plane for 10 hours, for whatever
reason, sometimes you carry out all preparatory activities and after 10 hours this plane
will not break away from the ground, you will not receive anything - no remuneration. And
the president says that this is in your basic salary.
Same as "passenger" flights. Due to the increase in the number of connections and,
unfortunately, shoreline planning, we fly a lot as a passenger - this is the time for
which we do not pay, they think that we are at home then, not at work.
For example, they pay us for a one-way flight, we return for a passenger for free, or, for
example, we have 5 national episodes and one episode we perform as the crew is deified,
this flight is free. If, for example, we were earning 6,000 gross, no additives, then if
you are sick, you just do not come to work. And people really fly ill to earn this extra
paid time working in the air. Work on a chord, like a tape, no matter what state, you have
to be, because there will be nothing but basic pay.
Adam Rzeszot: I often encounter such a situation: when one of the pilots is ill, the
captain is obliged to prevent such a pilot from flying. And now this happens: there is no
roster, and they used to be. You have to pay for the duty, the company withdrew from it,
so the on-call time is telephonic. This situation usually occurs very shortly before the
flight begins, while we are in the briefing room and you have to quickly download someone
on this flight. It means that there will definitely be a delay. Secondly, we expose this
person to risky fast arrivals, often against the operating instructions, not to mention
the road code, because you have to hurry up. It is not me who should make such decisions,
there should be regulations. It used to be that the pilot did not have to take sick leave,
it was enough that he informed about his indisposition and then he was not able to perform
the flight in accordance with the law. It was the result of aviation medicine, which is
supposed to be, but somewhere next to us, because business simply eliminated it.
What has the conflict with the management of LOT started from now?
Monika Zelazik: Until 2013, the company's collective labor agreement functioned in the
company, it was spoken in 2013 by the president of Mikosz. Despite the fact that Mikosz
introduced framework savings guidelines, he received one and a half million zlotys from
the company. The framework guidelines have cut pay in the aviation division by over 30%.
Several brave people sued the company.
The conflict worsened when in April 2016 the current president of Milczarski began to
report to his employees to the Border Guard. They were given a telephone command to
carefully check the crews while passing through customs control at the airport, checked
their luggage, and inquired in detail about the procedure or stolen something from the
plane. The great roundup was supposed to win a big lap in April 2017 two days before
Easter. It turned out to be a great flop and discredit of the board, but despite the lack
of evidence, demonstration maneuvers took place, first an attempt to disciplinary
dismissal against two people, threats, insults, humiliation, image tarnish. As a result,
the police got some documents faked by the lawyer, delivery slip not from that day, this
man still works and represents the board, despite the case in the ethics committee and
many legal errors that are allowed in every letter addressed to trade unions. In this
company, social relations look tragic. The ethics committee is people who were held
accountable just before the ethics committee!
Why today (May 1) did not strike?
Monika Zelazik: The company's management is trying to divide us. I regret that this strike
did not take place, that's the decision made by the employees, and I respect the will of
the union members. Only yesterday people may have felt that all the possibilities for
agreement had not been used, the cowardly attitude of the tiny and unrepresentative
relationship between Solidarity and the other two unions, contributed to this decision.
The president was working hard on it, calling them, bribing, calling the chairman of the
work confederation, but this girl has eggs, she is a stewardess. There are no real trade
union activists on the ground. The leader of Solidarity 80 felt embarrassed about this
situation and could not believe what had happened, we had his support.
Earlier, several dozen employees "from the ground" came to us to vote in the strike
referendum, we were wondering how to do it. The observer of the board of the company was
stuck near the urn, like a thorn, intimidating people with telephone calls. The next day,
resigned employees phoned and apologized, said they had already been called to them, that
they could not take part in the strike referendum, because they were preparing to give
them notice.
You have done the referendum, meanwhile, the president is haunting the media that the
court has ruled that the strike today would be illegal.
Monika Zelazik: Nonsense, no court verdict, it is an ordinary unlawful ruling that has not
even been granted to us or any of the unions. The court has not contacted us since April
6. The second issue, from 6 to 21 April, was a strike referendum (we did not think that as
many as 885 people will take part, it was a positive surprise for us). On April 25, we had
a general meeting and the results were announced. Announce the decision to strike (this is
the decision of employees) can one union. The president has poor advisors, and they have a
poor knowledge of the labor code and the law on trade unions.
http://ozzip.pl/teksty/informacje/ogolnopolskie/item/2371-smieciowki-groza-katastrofa-lotnicza-wywiad-z-pracownikami-lotu-w-przeddzien-strajku
------------------------------
Message: 8
Microphone Solidarity to Immigrants - Against the Fascist Pogrom of 22 April in Mytilene
---- Friday 11/5 // 18.00 // outside Libertatia ---- OTHER MAGAZINE WITH IMMIGRANTS ----
NO FACE WAITING WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE ---- The events of April 22 have a name, and by
extension story: pogrom. It means a racist feast of violence with the backs of the state.
It reminds of the glorious page of Hellenism, the arson of the Campbell district in
Thessaloniki during the interwar period. ---- The people who carried out the attack came
from a close concentration to flag the flag. There they "resented" and, after singing the
national anthem, they attacked hundreds of people of all ages with stones, cadrons and
flares. The crime of the refugees was that they dared to appear in the public space
protesting about the delays in the asylum application procedures and their hostage to Moria.
The state has again reaffirmed its physical position as a breeder of fascism. The MTTs who
were there supported the offensive with their attitude. On the same evening, he proceeded
to mass arrests of refugees and two soldiers with misdemeanors (on 9/5 the trial) and no
arrest on the part of the fascists.
The mantle of indignant citizens offers much to the cooperation of state-fascism. On the
one hand, it overlooks the question of political responsibility, since these actions are
presented as initiative and individual. Subjects appear to be otherwise reputable citizens
(and not racist conscious) who have, however, reached the limits of their tolerance. On
the other hand, it attributes these attacks to the whole of society, constructing the
image that the perpetrators are the expressers of the prevailing view of all citizens. In
order to overcome the social scourge that is being attempted by the state, we must give
priority to solidarity and anti-fascism, both in terms of speech and action. To support
the above, let us ask ourselves how the state is reacting to indignant anti-fascists.
Fascist violence recipients are people who are trapped in their will on the island and are
held in inhumane conditions. While this state is maintained by the state and the system it
serves, it itself, by means of its abstinence, aims and pursues those who torment. This
places refugees in the vicious circle of the reproduction of racism. And unfortunately the
phenomenon swells when they stop shining the Nobel and diminishing the margin of profiteering.
SOLIDARITY WITH IMMIGRANTS
NO FACE WAITING WILL NOT BE LOVED
http://apo.squathost.com/3029-2/
------------------------------
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten