English

On June 10 the Federal Labour Court in Erfurt reinstated a cashier who was fired on disciplinary from a Kaiser's store in Berlin at the beginning of 2008. "Emmely", as the media has named the woman, had worked in Kaisers for 31 years. On Jan. 12, 2008, two bottle deposit slips worth 48 euro cents and 82 euro cents were found in the store and turned in. The store accused Emmely of having pocketed the slips before cashing them in while making purchases a few weeks later and fired her.

Kaiser's offered no real proof that Emmely was guilty; she was apparently turned in by a co-worker. Emmely suspects she was fired because of her union activity. She participated in strikes in 2007. "The strikes were the reason why they wanted to get rid of me," she said, in the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

On June 7 there was an appeal case of two activists arrested on May 16, 2005 after the demonstration against the Council of Europe Summit in Warsaw. The activists were falsely accused of violating the physical integrity of police officers, impeding the police and using "bad language" against them. 11 people were arrested. On Dec. 3, 2008, 7 people were found guilty and given various sentences, ranging from fines to 3-5 years probation. People who had never been sentenced for anything before received fines while the others got more serious sentences.

The appeal court overturned this decision on the appeal of two of the convicted and sent the case back down to the lower court to be heard again.

The FAU has won the process about union freedom

The Berlin Higher Regional Court has lifted the injunction banning the FAU Berlin from calling itself a union.

The judge Neuhaus emphasized the importance of free speech as a fundamental right. He called into question the claim of the Babylon Cinema that it suffered damages, during the time the FAU was active as a Union. The question of being able to negotiate contracts was irrelevant.

In December, 2009 the management acquired an injunction banning the FAU Berlin from calling itself a union or grassroots union. The FAU being the union with the most members among the workforce had presented a labour contract to the management.

Lars Röhm (Secretary of the FAU Berlin) said: “We are happy that it was not possible to proscribe the strongest and most active union from the cinema. The court decision enables militant unions to be active. In addition it has shown that injunctions can not be sufficient as a means to settle a labour dispute”.

The Freie ArbeiterInnen Union - FAU (Free Workers Union) is an anarcho-syndicalist grassroots union that stands for militant labour struggle from the bottom-up.

Today in Berlin was the appeal process against the verdict given Dec. 11, 2009 which forbid FAU Berlin from calling itself a union. The appeal court overturned the decision and the bosses of Kino Babylon Mitte cannot appeal this. The judges argued that calling oneself a union falls under the rights of free speech.

It is still unknown what will happen about the fines which were levied o the union after the ban. For example, thez were fined for having references to themselves as a union in the statutes which were published on the internet.

After the announcement of the decision, there was a picket in front of the court and then people headed to Kino Babylon for another to celebrate the victory over the boss.

On June, the anarchists of Lithuania organized a non legalized picket in front of German Embassy. The participants protested against repression of anarcho-syndicalist union FAU and they gave to representatives of Embassy a petition demanding from German government to guarantee to citizens the right for free trade union association and to don`t hinder independent trade union activity.

The action was co-organized by SAMPRO trade union of temporary workers which has sections in supermarkets, book stores etc.

Photos and video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDUzV5qlTF4

www.anarchija.lt

The Portuguese daily „Diario de Noticias”, writes that „Al Kaida and anarchists are on the list of threats against the NATO Summit which will be take place in Lisbon this November". It is already know that they will use an AWACS radar plane to patrol the summit, looking for enemies.

The paper refers to a report by Europol from 2010 which states that „the activity of anarchist and left extremist groups has increased by 43% from the last yaer in Mediterranean countries. According to Europol, they are organizing "training camps where they are learning the martical arts, urban guerrilla tactics and ways to react against police action".

On May 19 there was a student demo in Ljubljana which ended in a fight with the police in front of the parliament building, which was damaged. The protests were related to the government plans to cut social spending which would limit the students' right to work, lower their stipends and limited state funding of meals for students.

The government wants to introduce these changes in relation to financial requirements imposed on countries belonging to the Eurozone.
Photos .

On 31 May our friend Kostya Lunkin died in the city of Ryazan. 23 May, when he celebrated his 25th birthday, he was brutally attacked by nazis near his place. His head was fractured with a stone... Since then he stayed in coma.

Supposed killers were detained the same day. The neighbour of Kostya identified the murders, because she saw the attack. But now this people are in the freedom, because their parents testified their children «were at home at that moment».

The police didn't show any sort of activity in trying to solve the crime. Quite the reverse, the policemen of the central E (Center of the struggle against extremism), said to our comrades from Ryazan that they will close the file, if the antifascists disagree to be informers.

Unfortunately, that day other attack was realized by nazis, but this time, in Moscow. 28-year old Dmitri Kashitsin received more than 15 knife wounds and died. His father died some days later because of cardiac arrest.

Kostya's friends have opened an account in Yandex-money to help to his family. The number of the account is 41001601710911

On May 27 there was a picket in front of the Russian Embassy in Kiev in solidarity with the miners of Mezhdurechensk. There were different slogans such as "Today Kuzbas - tomorrow Donbas", "Freedom, Equality and Global Solidarity" and "Kremlin elite to work in the mines".

On May 9 there was an explosion in the "Raspadskaya" mine in Mezhdurecehensk in which almost 100 miners were killed. There is evidence that the catastrophe was caused by negligence. Mass protests broke out in the city and special forces were sent to the city to pacify the workers and citizens. Many solidarity demonstrations were held around Russia, Ukraine and in other countries.

More about the case (in English)

https://cia.media.pl/the_call_for_international_solidarity_with_the_miner...

More about solidarity actions can be read here (in Russian):

http://www.aitrus.info/node/892

Civil servants and workers in general are treated as if they are guilty of the crisis and must pay for it. It is logical that the people, workers and, above all, public employees shall bear the cost of the hypothetical economic crisis because all data show that we are guilty and therefore we should pay. Here are some examples of our active participation in causing the crisis:

* Strauss-Kahn, director of the IMF, encouraging "labor reform that eliminates
rigidness" earns € 420,000 net annually, equivalent to 25 years' wages for a
mail carrier. Advocates raising the retirement age and cutting pensions - although he will get € 210,000 annually after only two years of contributions.

* Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, who is in favor of raising wages less the inflation rate. His salary rose by 2.5% in 2009 while the inflation rate was only 0.9%.

* Fernandez Ordonez, President of the Bank of Spain, a supporter of raising the
retirement age, labor reform and reduction of public expenditure who will not disclose his earnings.And receives a separate pension all with public money!

On May 29 there was a march against criminal sanctions for marijuana use. This march is organized every year and draws thousands of people. Usually there are problems with police. This year, the police even made problems for people handing out leaflets for the march the day before.

During the march, 15 people were arrested, so afterwards, a few hundred people marched to the infamous police station on Wilcza St. to demand their release. The police reaction can be seen on the film below. At least 20 people (probably a bit more than that) were arrested during the solidarity action.

Many arrested or stopped by police had photos deleted from their cameras by police.

UNITED AGAINST RACISM! NO ONE IS ILLEGAL!

We condemn the murder which took place in Warsaw at the Stadion on the 23rd of May. According to witnesses, a brutal murder was committed on a father of three children, who was killed during the arrest of another person. The person who was killed, a 36-year old Nigerian, tried to ask why his friend was being treated brutally by the police. For this, he was shot in the stomach, even though he was not a threat to the policeman. He died on the spot.

Like so many other badly paid workers, he was working on the weekends at the Stadion, in order to support his family. He didn't have many other opportunities to find work. Everyone knows how hard it is to find work in Poland for a foreigner. In addition, traders at the Stadion are often victims of police actions and are repressed by the city authorities, the Border Police and other organs of the state.

On May 30, a few hundred people marched from the Stadium, where 36-year old Maxwell Itoya was killed last Sunday, to police headquarters. This was one of the first times that immigrants took part in a demonstration here in large numbers. The demonstration was a response to the racist police killing of Max last week and the subsequent arrests of Africans at the immigrant marketplace. 25 are charged with assaulting a police officer, despite the fact that the situation was started by unjustified police agression.

The march was organized by friends of Max, ZSP and a solidarity network; it was joined in by anarchists and antiracists with a few people from left groups taking part.

Solidarity group: www.solidarnizmaksem.bzzz.net

Photos below. Click "czytaj dalej".

Videos from mainstream TV:
http://www.tvn24.pl/-1,1658506,0,1,rasizmowi-stop-ukarac-zabojce-nigeryj...

Mainstream news plus video:
http://warszawa.gazeta.pl/warszawa/1,95190,7952281,Tancza_i_spiewaja_dla...

* This text appears in the June-July 2010 issue #59 of El Libertario, describing the position this voice of the Venezuelan anarchist movement takes regarding the close links between the governments of these two countries.

To those of us who identify as anarchists, brotherhood/sisterhood among activists who struggle for a radical transformation of society towards freedom and equality must be a cardinal principle in theory and practice. Likewise, for anarchists the links between States can only create suspicion, since we’re talking about links between structures of oppression, inequality and injustice which anarchism has always denounced and fought against, as we have also fought against capitalism. Therefore, the general political line of anarchists has been –with a few polemical exceptions that confirm the rule – to promote and practice international solidarity among the exploited and oppressed, which demands the repudiation and opposition to those instruments of oppression and exploitation that are the States, both against their repressive expression domestically in each country as well as against their association, as this usually yields unfavorable results for the populations under their control.

An interview with Lars Röhm about the fine against the FAU Berlin

In April, the FAU Berlin was charged 200 Euros for referring to itself as a union in its statutes. In December 2009, an injunction had been issued forcing them to remove the word union from all their publications. However the banned word remained in the statutes until mid-March as a change there would have taken several months. The management of the Babylon Mitte Cinema filed for the charges in February 2010. The injunction was also filed for by the same cinema's management during a labor dispute with its employees, which the FAU Berlin was supporting. This is the first time that a workers' association has been banned from calling itself a union in Germany. Lars Röhm has been the secretary of the FAU Berlin since 2009.

Will the fine affect or change the way you work?

Lars Röhm: The amount of the fine was pretty small and was much less than what the Babylon management had asked for. It is, thus, not all that serious and can even be seen as evidence that the court is unsure of itself.

All in all, though, the injunction will of course affect our work considerably as long as it remains in effect. A union has certain rights in Germany--unobstructed access to the workplace, participation in works meetings and the right to inform workers on a blackboard--that are actually meant to safeguard the work of workers' associations. Members aren't recruited by simply distributing membership form but by showing presence at their place of work. That's why we see this verdict as an unconstitutional encroachment on the freedom of association, which is a basic right. The verdict didn't cause an international uproar for nothing.