English

A group of 21 Chinese construction workers have ended up camped outside the Chinese Embassy in Warsaw. They have no money to return home and are waiting for help.

The workers were hired by a company called Turret Development. Turret Development is owned by American businessman Michael Alter, president of the Alter Group, one of the ten largest commercial real estate developers in the United States. Alter has been investing in real estate in Poland and using cheap Asian labour for this work.

Currently we are investigating the situation with these workers. One thing is clear: they were hired by Turret Development to work on the Wola Tower construction site. After that, they were sent by Turret to work in Lodz and in Olawa.

It is totally unclear how Turret sent these people to work in these cities where it has no construction projects. But as it turns out, Michael Alter is the president of no fewer than 15(!) companies registered in Poland. It also appears that most of these companies are special purpose vehicles, not real businesses. Members of ZSP now will be investigating this situation and trying to determine who were actually heading the construction projects these people were working on.

Turret Development at one point decided that they no longer desired the services of the workers and let them go. Since they didn't want to return to China, the local director of Turret decided to inform the Border Police and asked them to deport the workers. The local director's story contradicts the Chinese workers': he claims that the workers found other jobs and just didn't show up for work.

After the people lost their jobs at Turret, some of them went on to work in other places. This group of workers went to work in a meat factory in Poznan. But the border police made problems for them so the owner fired them. They are left without money for the plane ticket home. This is also partially because of the fact that much of the money they did earn in Poland went to pay off a Chinese agent who took an enormous amount of money for them to arrange these jobs in Poland.

Members of the ZSP Warsaw and Tenants Defense Committee have been supporting a colleague in his battle with corrupt local politicians and judges. When he previously tried to make some symbolic protest, he was arrested and treated appallingly. Later on, he managed to tape record one of the corrupt politicians. A political scandal broke out and his immediate dismissal was demanded. There was also a lot of noise about his arrest.

He decided on Monday to go to the Ministry of (In)Justice and chain himself to the fence and stay there. We went along to help and since then, more tents have been popping up as other victims have decided to join him. We are now calling on other victims to bring their tents, tell their stories and escalate this action. We also are asking members of the public to stay there so that the police doesn't brutalize people. Today after work, many people showed up to offer their support.

Today the Belgrade High Court acquitted a group of six anarchists from accusations that they caused general danger by allegedly throwing molotov cocktails at the Greek Embassy of Greece. The prosecution was not able to prove its charges. "The basis for acquittal is legal, not political. It is not proven that the accused committed the crime," said the judge Dragomir Gerasimović. The Belgrade Six are free and innocent, the judge decided. Ratibor Trivunac, from the Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative, said after the verdict that the state has failed to break the anarchist movement.

The judge said in a brief explanation of the verdict that there is no evidence that Ratibor Trivunac, Tadej Kurepa, Nikola Mitrović, Ivan Savić, Sanja Dojkić and Ivan Vulović caused general danger at the Greek Embassy last August.

"My personal belief is that this is a consequence of the fact that this process would be lost in a higher court, whether in Strasbourg or somewhere else. In any case, the authorities did not want to allow themselves to make even bigger damage with the compensation which they would have to pay. They would have now surely to pay to all of us for the months we were sitting in custody without any basis", said Ratibor Trivunac.

On 06.06.2010 in Sofia masked persons with iron pipes,boxes and knifes brutally assaulted in the tram No.20 four young men, which were going to peaceful protest against the illegal imprisonment of foreigners in the concentration center for immigrants and refugees "Special home for temporary suspending of foreigners" in Busmanci(neighbourhood in Sofia).The four young men are in age between 17 and 25 years old and with serious injuries.One of them,17 years old suffered a serious operation on his head and left arm.

The way that the police, minister Cvetanov and most of the media are trying to describe the case is an attempt to show the violence as an unimportant act and this is dangerous!

We are hardly opposing to this attempt this case to be presented to the society as an fight between two radical youth gangs.

Six anarchists from Belgrade arrested in Sept. 2009 have been aquitted of all the charges against them. The people had originally been accused of the outrageous charge of "international terrorism" for alleging vandalizing the Greek Embassy in Belgrade. They spent 6 months in prison for this "crime" they were later aquitted of. The court decided that there was not enough evidence against them.

Croatian „Maggie“ and Labor Law reform

Croatian Premier Jadranka Kosor and her Cabinet proposed a new amendment to the Labor Law which would do away with the miniumum wage. The amendment states that one of the important factors in the crisis of capitalism in Croatia, contributing to a great number of closed workplaces is the “fact” that employers are obliged to pay a minimum wage their workers! (Just for your information, the minimum salary in Croatia is around 2.814 Croatian kunas BRUTTO, which is something like 390€ a month.)

The real agenda of this ammendment is to cancel all collective agreements, let bosses judge what should be the minimum salary of his/her workers etc. The government even dared to write that the “fact” that employers were obliged to pay salaries is the cause of crisis - which means that government thinks that workers shouldn’t get paid for their work. It’s obvious that this amendment works in the bosses' interests and no one is surprised that the Croatian Employers Association is making rhapsodies in the name of Jadranka Kosor. Mrs. Kosor explained this amendment in her usual way: “everyone should bear their part of crisis”.

Today a group of Chechens protested against the deportation of Aslan Aldamow, who was this separated from his pregnant wife and two children. He was stopped by police on the street a few days ago and they found that there had been a deportation order issued for him. It was issued by the Office for Foreigners after they twice rejected his appeals for asylum or another form of legal stay in Poland.

Aslan appealed this decision, so according to the law, he cannot be deported during this appeal process. However, he was deported to Belarus.

This is not the only illegal deportation made in Poland recently. For example, one Chechen man was called into the Office for Foreigners and asked to bring some documents - and then was arrested and deported.

To Noam Chomsky: Why We Boycott Elections

On June 9, Bogusław Ziętek, the Polish Labour Party's (PPP) candidate for President, published on his election website a list of famous leftist supporters, headed by Noam Chomsky. The information was press released and republished in various media in Poland (spread by the official Polish Press Agency (PAP) under the title "Ken Loach and Noam Chomsky Support Me". (An example in the main Polish newspaper can be seen here: http://wyborcza.pl/1,75478,7994946,Nawet_Chomsky_i_Loach_popieraja_Bogus...) It also appeared in different languages on the websites of international left groups where we also can learn that Chomsky supposedly supports the electoral campaign of the "Anticapitalist Left". (See: http://www.anticapitalistas.org/node/3933).

Later, when somebody wrote to Chomsky to complain, an email was received stating: "... I have no record of this support or who initiated it, so can't try to pursue the matter. Do you have a record of some petition that I might have signed?" (Text of that email to Chomsky is below.)

The ZSP immediately thought to send a letter to Chomsky on the candidate Zietek but it is now questionable whether or not Chomsky actually signed his name to a list of supporters. Nevertheless, given Chomsky's occasional lapses into support of the authoritarian left, we thought he still deserved an open letter, not only on the topic of the candidate, but also on why we boycott elections in general.

Our political vision does not include reform from above or the rule of the revolutionary avant-garde over society. The creation of a libertarian society can only be created from below, by a mass movement of the working class and the control of production, distribution and social services in the hands of both the workplaces involved and the society. We do not need to participate in electoral farces but to put all our attention and energy into building militant grassroots organzations which are capable not only of overthrowing the state and capitalism, but also of practicing direct democracy. We see the committed building of such movements as the primary task of all tendencies of the social anarchist tradition.

The following is a letter sent from an underground group of workers in Fiat Poland in Tychy.

It was written on June 13, on the eve of a referendum in Pomigliano d’Arco near Naples. The workers there are being asked to decide about their work conditions. Fiat agreed to invest money in this plant for production of the Panda, which is currently produced in Tychy, Poland. But the bosses would like people to agree to work on Saturday, to increase the number of daily shifts from 2 to 3 and cut down on breaks. Three of the four trade unions in Fiat's Pomigliano d'Arco plant have agreed to these conditions. Those three unions have agreed to let their members vote in a referendum which will ask whether the veto of the fourth trade union should be rejected or not.

LETTER FROM FIAT WORKERS

Fiat is playing games with the workers. First, it moves production to Poland and tells its employees that they must work hard, be flexible and exceed all production norms to keep their jobs. All is done very well in Tychy - there can be no complaint of the management (... except when unions ask for raises or bonuses for their very productive workers or question work on the weekend.) Tychy plant is Fiat's biggest and most efficient in Europe.

On June 10 there was a protest against the police in Kiev. The protest was held because of the murder of Igor Indilo in the Shevchenko district police station in Kiev in the middle of May. The police claim that the student "fell three times". A protest was held at the police station on June 1 with a promise to return.

Many women, including Poles, who work seasonly picking strawberries in the south of Spain, become the victims of sexual misconduct on the part of their bosses. Until now, no complaints have ended in conviction.

THe women working near Huelva are mostly Poles, Romanians and Morrocans. Every year they collect over 250,000 tons of strawberries - known as "red gold" there. 80% of these strawberries are for export and they earn 320 million euro a year.

Last year, 65,000 women, including 50,000 from Eastern Europe - mostly from Poland and Romania, were hired. Morrocans are hired for a five month period, after which they must return to their country. The bosses prefer to hire women then men since they "listen better and have more resistance to pain" after many hours of work bent over in greenhouses. In the case of Morrocans, they prefer women with children since they return back to them after their contracts are over. The women live in barracks on an open field, many kilometers from the nearest village.

A strike referendum was held in connection with the dispute between the Confederation of Railway Trade Unions and three firms being part of the Polish National Railways group: PKP PLK, PKP CARGO, and PKP Regional Carriers. 90% of the workers taking part voted for a strike.

There is also another dispute going on with PKP Intercity.

* National and international campaign of epistolary solidarity with trade unionist Rubén González *

On 7 May, a court in the industrial city of Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela, denied the possibility to the Union Secretary-General of Ferrominera (state-owned mining iron company), Rubén González, to be judge out of jail. Since the mid-year 2009, the union leader is in prison for supporting a workers strike to demand improvements in their working conditions. In August 26th 2009, Radwan Sabbagh- president of Ferrominera Orinoco- agreed with Gonzalez and made public the end of the strike as well as the reactivation of the employment records of a group of workers; also agreed not to retaliate against those who follow the cessation of activities, evaluate the payment of wages of those who did not work during the 16 days demonstration and the fulfilment of their claims. However, days later, Gonzalez was arrested for his support to the workers actions and charged with the crimes of “illegal assembly”, “incitement to crime” and “violation of the security zone”. From that day he has been deprived of liberty, and if the court rule found him guilty he can be sentenced to stay between 5 and 10 years behind bars. González is a social fighter with a well known record in the region and is also a member of the ruling party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).

The case of Rubén González is a dangerous precedent in the growing process of protest criminalization in Venezuela. Figures compiled by the Human rights NGOs estimated that there are more than 2,400 persons under schemes of presentation in court for their participation in mobilizations for social demands. These law procedures can take years, where other rights (freedom of expression, assembly, demonstration) are forbidden for those accused and prosecuted.

On June 6 there was a demonstration for immigrant workers' rights in the Czech Republic. The demo was called to protest increasing police repression against foreigners and bad working conditions for them. There was also a petition handed in to the Ministry of Labour protesting the practice of denying immigrants work permits.

There were speeches made by immigrant workers who described their experiences living in the Czech Republic. There were also some street theatre performances which depicted the experiences of the workers.

About 50 people gathered in the biggest hall of Berlin's Higher Court on the morning of June 10th. They were waiting for the decision on the FAU Berlin's appeal on whether they could call themselves a union. Only 15 minutes into the trial, the judge delivered the verdict. The injunction is overturned; the ban is repealed; the crowd goes wild.

The court emphasized how weak the plaintiff's arguments were. The Babylon Mitte cinema management, where the employees and the FAU have been waging an effective labor struggle since last year, insisted on their point of view: The FAU Berlin is only aloud to call itself a union, if it has proven it has the capacity to conclude collective agreements. This refers to Berlin's Labor Court decision to grant an injunction to Babylon's management banning a boycott call made by the FAU Berlin. That judge justified his decision by saying the FAU Berlin isn't what case law traditionally considers a union with the capacity to conclude collective agreements. Only such union are legally allowed to take job action, i.e. call for boycotts.