#Worldwide #Information #Blogger #LucSchrijvers: #Part2 #Update : #anarchist #information from all over the #world - 23.02.2020

Today's Topics:

   
1.  Poland, ozzip: Let's stop the dismissal in the civil service
      immediately! [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  anarchist communist group ACG: Greek health workers
      demonstrate (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  anarchist communist group ACG: Workers respond to the
      coronavirus pandemic (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1


The OZZ Factory Commission Employee Initiative at the Regional Directorate for Environmental Protection in Lublin protests against cuts in
the civil service planned by the government. It is shifting responsibility for the crisis to administrative employees who, even in a
pandemic, carry out their tasks one hundred percent. ---- The government's "anti-crisis shield" was supposed to help in the fight against
the impending crisis, and shifted its burden to the shoulders of government administration - say members of the OZZ works committee
"Inicjatywa Pracownicza" at RDOS in Lublin. The new law allows for mass dismissal of officials. It leaves an open gate to fire everyone,
including employees with specialist knowledge, thorough preparation and many years of experience. In this way, people who have been serving
society for years can lose their jobs in a moment. As a trade union, we cannot allow this!

An efficient state during a pandemic

In the act included in the "shield", the government admits that the principle of social justice requires that the entire society be involved
in the costs of a crisis situation. "We do not understand why, in the context of this justice, job cuts are to concern only civil servants.
The more so that the administration even in a pandemic performs its tasks one hundred percent. " - argue the committee members at RDOS.

The civil service corps employs nearly 120,000 people. The civil service is to be the guarantor of an efficiently functioning, modern state.
Despite this, salaries in offices are very low. The average salary in over 60 percent of civil service offices does not exceed 5,000. PLN
gross. In 2019, for the first time in 10 years, officials have seen an increase in the base amount. The government announced further
increases. The crisis makes these promises fall into oblivion.

Directorates for Environmental Protection are under threat

Are exposed to dismissal include employees of Regional Directorates for Environmental Protection. These are officials who specialize in
nature conservation management, e.g. Natura 2000 sites. They also include investment process control. No construction of a road, railway
line, waste incineration plant, gas port, sewage treatment plant, CHP plant, landfill site, renewable energy investment, etc. will take
place without an environmental permit. An outbreak of coronavirus will not mean that environmental regulations will cease to exist. Job cuts
will lead to a lack of proper nature protection in our country. They will also cause that Poland will stop fulfilling its international
obligations regarding nature protection.

Regional Directorates cannot afford to reduce employment. Willing to work, mainly due to low wages, are already lacking. Staff turnover
(leave) rate in RDOS is 13 percent. No wonder: the gross salary in regional directorates is (data for 2019) at PLN 3,622 gross (basic, i.e.
base) and PLN 5,590 gross (total, i.e. salary with bonuses, allowances, etc.).

Where to get the money

There is one way to increase the funding of offices. The state budget could be supported by financial penalties imposed on enterprises that
create disastrous environmental documentation. Such situations are common. Officials must explain to employees of companies and corporations
how they can correct documentation errors because of their gross unpreparedness. In this way, business shifts responsibility to offices. As
a result, RDOS employees have even more work, which is beyond their obligations. Penalties imposed on unreliable companies would curtail
these practices and feed the state budget in a better way than the announced redundancies.

We urge the government to withdraw from the idea of reducing employment in the civil service. Only in this way will we ensure the smooth
functioning of your device - so needed during a pandemic.

http://ozzip.pl/informacje/inne-miasta/item/2632-natychmiast-zatrzymajmy-zwolnienia-w-sluzbie-cywilnej

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Message: 2



Hundreds of Greek health workers demonstrated outside 28 hospitals on Tuesday April 7th over the need to hire thousands more permanent
staff, poor working conditions and lack of equipment. The demonstrations coincided with World Health Day. ---- The health service in Greece
is in a dire situation after years of cuts by successive governments, the social democratic Pasok, the right wing New Democracy and the
radical leftist Syriza. ---- Workers at Evangelismos hospital in Athens held up signs, demanding that more staff be taken on, that virus
testing should start, and that PPE equipment should be provided. The police tried to enter the courtyard to end the demonstration but were
forced back by the demonstrators. Another demonstration took place at the main hospital in Larissa in central Greece.

Demands also went out among the demonstrators for the requisitioning of intensive care units in private hospitals. The New Democracy
government is now panicking and is offering 30 million euros to hire 2,000 doctors and 2,000 nurses on short term contracts when at least
30,000 permanent staff are needed. Other demands were for direct and free access to health care for all, the ending of subsidies to private
health, no redundancies, and the right of health workers to take sick leave if necessary. At the same time New Democracy is increasing its
funding of private hospitals, hiring beds from them at a daily rate of 1600 euros. It is also funding virus tests by private health to the
sum of 30 million euros.

The 2010 to 2018 financial crisis in Greece had severe effects on the health service there with the International Monetary Fund and the
European Union demanding austerity measures. Deaths sustained as the results of these cuts are the responsibility of the EU and IMF, and
they and Pasok, New Democracy and Syriza, are the guilty parties!

Syriza, once the Great White Hope of leftists in Greece and internationally, has swung in behind the New Democracy government in the name of
"national unity" just as the Starmer-led Labour Party is doing here. Meanwhile the government is preparing repressive measures for an
anticipated wave of unrest when the pandemic crisis abates.

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2020/04/19/greek-health-workers-demonstrate/

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Message: 3



France ---- The coronavirus plague has aggravated the situation of many people in Marseille. There, unemployment is particularly high,
running at 25% compared to the national average of 8.5%. 39% of the Marseille population live below the poverty line. ---- Now, the pandemic
has pushed many of them over the edge, with many fired or laid off because of the effects of the pandemic. Food is running out among many
families and single people. In part, mutual aid groups have responded to the appalling situation with food distributions. ---- McDonalds
workers in neighbourhood of Saint-Barthélemy, supported by some of the mutual aid groups, took over the restaurant and began to use it as a
food storage and distribution centre. This is all carried out with the strictest sanitary conditions being adhered to. They were supported
by local residents and shopkeepers.

The management of McDonalds have responded by condemning the action of the workers. In fact, they are anxious to claw back profits by
announcing that they were re-opening their drive-through ordering and deliveries, endangering workers' lives. They care nothing for the
well-being of their workers or that of the general population. For them, profit comes before health.

Italy

Workers at the Amazon centre in Torrazza Piemonte, near Turin, went on unofficial strike after 4 cases of coronavirus had been confirmed at
the centre, which employs 1200 workers. It is the second strike there against lack of safety at the centre.

Mexico

Dozens of workers demonstrated at the Honeywell assembly plant in Ciudad Juarez. They called for its closure after a worker there died of
COVID-19. The plant makes smoke alarms, which the workers consider an unessential service. Elsewhere along the border with the USA, protests
erupted at factories at Mexicali, Matamoros, Reynosa and Tijuana after the Mexican government on March 30 ordered non-essential industries
to suspend operations. They demanded that their workplaces be closed during the crisis, and that they be kept on full pay.

In Tijuana workers at the Poly technology company demonstrated after the death there of two fellow workers from coronavirus.

On April 9th, health workers at La Perla hospital in Nezahualcóyotl, in Mexico State, went out on strike over lack of PPE equipment and the
death from COVID-19 of the director of the emergency room. The workers had demonstrated 15 days before in front of the LA Perla hospital
about lack of PPE equipment but had received no reply. Meanwhile management had been provided with the correct equipment.

Argentina

Workers at the Penta meat refrigeration factory in Quilmes demonstrated at the factory gate after 240 workers were fired and wages and
benefits remained unpaid. The police arrived and began to attack the workers with truncheons and rubber bullets, hospitalising at least
twenty of them, one of them in a critical condition. The cops - certainly an unessential service - are at the beck and call of Ricardo
Bruzzese, the boss of Penta.

Brazil

In Sao Luis, the capital of the State of Maranhao, health workers at the Djalma Marques municipal hospital threatened an unofficial strike
after the death of two fellow workers.

Health workers, including nurses, technicians and admin staff at the Minas Gerais State Hospital in the south eastern State of the same
name, went out on wildcat strike on April 15th. The strike was sparked by a lack of PPE equipment and by the denial of a temporary bonus
awarded to doctors only. That evening, far to the north, at Belem do Para, nurses marched out of the emergency room at the hospital and
blocked the road, protesting against the unsafe conditions of themselves and their patients. The following day, health workers at the
Sacramenta Emergency Care Unit in Belem, walked out and demonstrated.

The President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, a friend and ally of Trump, is, like him, calling for a return to work, and is putting pressure on
State governors to end lockdowns, further aggravating the situation in Brazil.

Colombia

Workers have reacted with anger to the cancellation of their contracts as a result of the pandemic. Hundreds massed at the transit station
in the capital, Bogota. Many have little or no food. In the Bosa neighbourhood, 50 workers blocked the streets and demonstrated against the
ending of their contracts. In Alto de la Virgen, in Medellin province, local residents protested about lack of food due to the crisis, with
many facing starvation.

Ninety one student interns at the Industrial University of Santander went out on strike on April 9th over lack of PPE equipment.

USA

Food processing workers in Illinois at Raymundo's Food Group at Bedford Park went on strike on April 3rd after a fellow worker caught
COVID-19. They said that the bosses had not imposed safe social distancing. Since then, they have gone into self-quarantine. They are
demanding a $20 an hour hazard payment and a deep clean of the factory. The bosses, in a despicable move, replied that they would not
provide a hazard payment and would replace workers.

At Amazon, some workers are calling for an online strike on April 24th.This is to protest the firing of warehouse workers who have blown the
whistle on the lack of safety at warehouses. Two members of the group, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, have already been sacked by the
company. Meanwhile, workers at Whole Foods, also owned by the Amazon boss, Jeff "Nosferatu" Bezos, are organising a nationwide "sick-out",
phoning in sick, on May 1st. This is over concerns about safety conditions, and management obstruction in gaining sick leave.

This week, on April 13th, workers at One World Beef factory in Brawley, California, refused to come to work after at least one worker tested
positive for the corona virus. Hundreds of workers at Tyson Fresh Meats factory in Waterloo, Iowa, organised a sick-out, phoning in sick, to
protest over safety conditions and their knowledge that management are letting sick workers carry on working .Forty workers at General
Dynamics naval shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia, went out on strike on April 14th and 15th over safety concerns, after a fellow worker died
from COVID-19.

Workers at five buildings for the rich went on strike for a day on April 16th over safety conditions. On the same day, doormen at two
apartment buildings for the rich also went out on strike.

Ten nurses at a medical centre in Santa Monica, California were suspended after demonstrating over failure by management to provide masks.
Nurses at another medical centre in Merced, also in California, demonstrated on April 15th about lack of PPE equipment.

Canada

In Toronto, at an adult disability care home, practically all the workers went out on strike over lack of PPE equipment after 10 residents
and 2 workers tested positive for coronavirus. Management grudgingly responded by offering to double the minimum wage of the workers.

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https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2020/04/19/workers-respond-to-the-coronavirus-pandemic/

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