Friday, 18 May 2012

Against Rising Water Prices and In Support of Parents' Struggle

Members of both ZSP and the Tenants' Defense Committee protested at the City Council on May 17. A group of parents were also present who successfully fought to overturn a huge increase in fees for nursery schools. The administrative court ruled against the City Council's decision... but then the City Council decided just to introduce a new rule about payment. This time, their idea was to charge parents an hourly rate for these schools and the effect is going to be just the same.


Not many parents came, as the Council rushed with this and the project to be voted on was only given to Councilpeople to read at the beginning of the session.

Since parents with young children came to discuss this point, some Councilpeople proposed that this point come at the beginning of the Session, but the neoliberal vampires put it at the end. Since nobody knows when these Sessions can end, this means that parents would have to wait until the evening - we have seen these types of votes take place even after midnight. This was of course a deliberate way to discourage people from staying. And the point only came up after 9PM. At that point... the ruling party declared that they would like to postpone the discussion. At least that will give people more time to prepare a protest.

The Council also decided to liquidate some schools and raise the price of water dramatically.