Squat raided, comrades arrested

Nine people, including a few members of ZSP were arrested March 1 when the police raided a squat. The property was one of many city-owned buildings which are left to rot by the city administrators who are helping the gentrifiers. During the winter, irreparable damage often occurs in uninhabited buildings, which are sometimes deliberately left with water so the pipes can freeze and burst, or which have the windows removed, so that damage is caused by the snow. The 9 people, who had nowhere to live, cannot afford the rents in this city and have no hope of receiving munucipal housing (since the city doesn't give much of it, there are huge lines of people who need it, but the city is busy destroying what they have or privatizing it). So they took matters into their own hands and squatted.

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Jola was Murdered one Year Ago

Housing activist Jolanta Brzeska was murdered one year ago, burned alive in the Kabacki Forest. She had been fighting against the landlords, notorious slumlords Mossakowski and Massalski and was the only old tenant left in the building. She was abducted from her apartment and murdered violently. The police have still got "no suspects" and the landlords were never even questioned.

We protested to say that we will not forget this and remind the public that the city is also responsible for providing no solution or help for people in this situation.

To make matters worse, the slumlords had put huge rent on Jola's flat,which she was also fighting against. Now this debt was passed onto her daughter, who is also fighting in court against these bloodsuckers. These people, with no scruples or human decency, apparently do not give a fuck that one member of the family is already dead and that the other cannot possibly pay this debt, the result of these people's insatiable greed and desire to squeeze everything out of people with their real estate speculation.

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Protest of Polfa workers against Privatization

On March 1, about 500 workers of Polfa decided to protest and block the streets near the headquarters of Polfa. The protest related to the privatization of the pharmaceutical company. The 1200 workers of Polfa were promised a guaranteed social packet but it is clear that the State Treasury and Polfa are not interested in obliging the buyer. The workers say that if they are not given guarantees, they do not agree to the privatization.

We visited the protest with leaflets and hope that the workers will not cave in or agree to crap deals made by their representatives or the state.

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Protest against Repression and Eviction

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On March 1 we held a protest in front of the court connected to the harrassment of our friends from the Tenants Defense Committee by the local authorities. Following many protests by the tenants, the authorities decided to condemn the flat of some of the most active people - not the whole building, but just the flat. After some manipulations with proposed replacement housing, the city decided to start eviction proceedings against the family of 4 - despite the fact that they never were late in paying their rent and invested a lot of money to repair the flat and make it liveable, while the city totally neglected their responsibilities as landlords. It is clear that this attempted eviction is intentional, all the more so since one of the politicians made threats against our friend.

To make matters worse, the city's lawyer asked the judge to hold the case in secret, not allowing any witnesses from the public. We decided that we would protest and not tolerate this type of abuse. Then, one hour before the case was to begin, at 9AM, there was a phone call from the court that the case was postponed. So we see what they are trying to do. Since we were informed to late to notify most people, we went anyway and held the protest in front of the court. We found that most employees of the court knew about this case and when we started the protest, all the windows opened and people stopped working to listen. Other people who were coming to the court offered their support and best wishes that we won't let the bastards wear us down. And we won't!

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Unions Stage Farce Protest against Pension Reforms

In general, we do not support the way the mainstream unions are organized or how they negotiate away workers' rights to the government. Recently, unions announced that "they would fight" against government plans to raise the retirement age to 67.

Here we have somewhat of a common cause, so we went to the protest at the Parliament while the government was discussing it and an alternative proposal, a "civil draft bill" submitted by one of the mainstream unions which would allow people to retire after 35 or 40 years of work.

Quite unfortunately, we found that the mainstream unions are still in their usual modus operandi. Instead of holding strikes or mass protests of rank and file workers, the 3 main union centrals in Poland - with a combined membership of well over 2 million people - mobilized their professional trade union reps and functionaries for a 300 person demo. This means that the strongest union organizations in the country put fewer people in the street than we will on March 31 and May 1, against one of the most important changes for workers. We can only guess the reasons for this, but one thing is clear: this is not a real fight.

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Against Labor Reform in Spain

On March 1, together with some Spanish students and expats, we protested against the labor reforms in Spain at the Spanish Embassy.

Below is a press release we sent about the action and the protest letter sent by the Spanish to the Ambassador.We also referred to a similar action held in Wroclaw the day before, but focusing on the police violence against students in Valencia.

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General Strike against the Labor Reform!

The ZSP-IWA supports the struggle agains the labor reform and condemns police brutality

On February 29 and March 1 there will be two actions in Poland related to the situation in Spain. On February 29 we will protest in Wroclaw against police brutality towards student protests in Valencia, against the cuts in education and the attack against workers in Spain. On March 1, we are protesting together with students and other Spanish people against the labor reform in front of the Spanish Embassy.

The ZSP considers the labor reforms in Spain to be part of a global attack against the rights and material conditions of the working class and that only a determined, international struggle can stop the bloodsuckers who are exploiting us. Some symbolic protests are not enough. We have to organize ourselves in militant unions, with no interest in maintaining the system, without compromise.

We support the stance of our comrades from the CNT-AIT who are mobilizing around Spain against the labor reform, towards an indefinite general strike.

Not one step back!

Solidarity with those who are fighting!

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Solidarity with Repressed Unionist at Hotel Sobieski (Radisson)

On February 28 we went to a picket at the Hotel Sobieski in Warsaw (part of the Radisson chain) in defense of a repressed unionist. Malgorzata, who had worked for 19 years in the hotel, was dismissed last year on a bullshit pretext after being harrassed by anti-union hotel management. First, she found herself demoted: the management liquidated her job and offered her a job as a dishwasher. To be reassigned this job, she needed a health certificate, but when she didn't get it, she was summarily dismissed for disciplinary reasons.

Malgorzata was the union rep in the hotel. The new management had just before that started a campaign of harrassing unionists. The new management had a hostile attitude towards the union. Also, they wanted to avoid some provisions of the collective agreement which would have given workers like Malgorzata, who had worked for the hotel since it opened, a bonus upon completing 20 years of service.

More pickets are planned at the hotel and possibly internationally.

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Demonstration Against School Closures

On Monday we demonstrated again against the closure of schools. The demonstration went from the City Hall to the Presidential Palace with a few hundred people - mostly parents and teachers. The ZSP has been supporting and trying to coordinate protests around this topic. Some people from the ZNP - one of the teachers' unions, also took part, as did the Education Agreement, which is a coalition of students, teachers and parents from a couple of the effected schools.

People called for an end to the closures and the defense of free public education.

A similar demonstration was held at the same time in Gdansk.

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We are all Greeks

On February 26 we took part in a solidarity action called "We are all Greeks". It was called by local Greeks and a society of friendship and was meant to be a show of solidarity. People commented that they were fighting against stereotypes and the main line of thinking in the Polish press that claims that Greece is in trouble because it doesn't accept hardline austerity measures (like in Poland). We handed out leaflets about the crisis in Greece, more or less the same as this one and marched to the Greek embassy. We were not so comfortable with the fact that most of the Polish people thought that the best way to demonstrate solidarity was to bring Greek flags, but speaking to people we found that they were all angry about what was going on in Greece. We stressed that there is a deeper problem which is capitalism and invited those interested to other events which we will organize in the upcoming months.

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Artists Kill Brzeska a Second Time - Activists Fights Back!

On February 25 was the premiere of a play, "Who Killed Alona Iwanowna?", which was advertised as being based on Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment" and primarily an allusion to the murder of our colleague, housing activist Jolanta Brzeska. We were invited to a special pre-premiere showing for a small select audience on the 24th.

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Open Assembly against Liquidation of Schools and other Budget Cuts

On February 18 residents of Praga and other interested activists gathered to discuss a strategy of mobilization against the liquidation of schools. The government has plans to liquidate around 800 schools all over Poland. In Warsaw the city first announced plans to close 18 schools, but we see that, without enough resistance, they are expanding these plans and that as many as 30-40 schools may be closed. The discussion involved what people could do to organize themselves against these and other anti-social policies.

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How One School Avoided Closure.. for now (the struggle continues)

We have already written about how some schools which were being closed in North and South Praga districts organized some protests. We went together with pupils, parents and teachers to confront the mayor of the neighbourhood and later we also were at the session of the local council.

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The Farse of "Social Consultations"; Comrade Tells off PM during Pseudo-Debate

Once again, the government tries to undermine social protests by pretending to "consult" with people after the fact. After signing agreements on ACTA, protests are still being organized throughout Poland. The Prime Minister, sensing that his popularity might fall, decided to organize some bullshit discussions and invited some organizations to a "debate" on it, after giving some misleading information to the press that Poland might not ratify it after all.

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Solidarity with Library Workers! For the Reinstatement of Dismissed CNT Activists to the National Library in Madrid!

On February 3-4, ZSP Warsaw is holding informational actions in solidarity with library workers struggling against budget cuts and other measures which negatively affect both their working conditions and the quality of the libraries.

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City Council Liquidates Schools Despite Protests

When people found out that the city council was going to try and push through a vote on the liquidation of 18 public schools in Warsaw, protests were quickly organized in Warsaw, despite the -20 degree temperatures. On January 31, five protests were held in different parts of Warsaw and extraordinary sessions of two local councils were held. There, politicians from the ruling party tried using Orwellian language to get rid of the parents, teachers, pupils and neighbours protesting. ZSP and DZS (the Democratic Student Association) called on people to disturb and protest at the City Council.
(Photos below)

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