Another Victory for Tenants

Following the occupation of City Hall, bureaucrats met with us and tenants, this time in much more serious fashion, sending all the main people in the adminstration. They were shaken by promises that we would be visiting them too.

One concession the city finally gave was to decide to finally publish a list of houses which have reprivatization claims started in court - this is about 10,000 buildings in Warsaw. This decision came after one of the lists - which the city claimed didn't exist - made its way out of City Hall and into our hands. Members of ZSP delivered this information to all the buildings on the list and have been busy handling people's questions since then. We suppose the city finally realized that its better to publish this themselves - despite the fact that they really don't want to - than to have their documents taken and delivered with a message from us that this is what the city is not telling you. Read more!

City Hall Occupation of President's Office

Today we decided to visit the President of Warsaw in City Hall. People announced they were there to see her and took over the meeting room. A ZSP banner was hung on the balcony of the office overlooking the square and as soon as we decided to speak from the bullhorn from the office, Vice President Jakubiak showed up. As we have much outstanding business with him and matters to discuss, we sat down to a meeting. The Tenants' Defense Committee presented 20 postulates which they would like to be implemented and demanded that he answer each one. The meeting was filmed and went out on the radio. 

Read more!

Tenants Protest, Strike Actions Continue

Today tenants blocked rush hour traffic and demonstrated against city housing policy, calling for the dismissal of the entire adminstration and condemning the role of all authorities in supporting the system of exploitation and speculation. 

With slogans such as "evict the administrators before they evict you", "trust the authorities and you will wind up homeless" or "communal housing in the hands of the tenants", the demonstration made its way around the center of the Praga district, which is highly effected by reprivatization, rent increases and gentrification. Some undercover cops made their way into the demonstration and tried to arrest one member of ZSP but people blocked the police car and he was unarrested. Then they tried to arrest another, but again unsucessfully. The demo lasted a couple of hours, speeches were made and people invited to join the struggle. Hundreds of leaflets and copies of our newspaper, Zaplata, were handed out.

Read more!

Warsaw / Kiev: Pickets for abolition for so-called "illegal" immigrants

On Oct. 22 there will be a picket in front of the Sejm in Warsaw organized by immigrants concerning abolition for people in Poland without legal status. On the same day, our comrades from Priama Dija will organize a picket at the Polish Embassy in Kiev.

Statement of ZSP on abolition for immigrants without regulated status in Poland 

ZSP demands immediate abolition for all people called "illegal" on the territory of the so-called "Republic of Poland" without the permission of the state.

Read more!

Thousands of Buildings Now Public Housing May be Privatized

From Oct. 15-17, members of ZSP Warsaw delivered notices to over 1000 buildings in Warsaw informing the tenants that their buildings, now public housing, may be privatized. Currently there are claims for close to 10,000 buildings in the city - tens of thousands of people living in public housing may be effected and soon face drastic rent increases or eviction.

The information on which buildings in the center of Warsaw already have cases in court concerning their reprivatization came from a classified document which we received. See the press release below.
Read more!

Tenants Open Assemblies

In connection with the Warsaw rent strike and in response to the city's fake social consultations, ZSP, together with the Tenants' Defense Committee. has been holding open assemblies of tenants. The aim of the assemblies is to build the protest movement and encourage activity and self-organization in the various neighbourhoods of Warsaw. At the first meeting the idea for some protests were  generated which will take place this week. In the meanwhile, people are trying to gather more support in the neighbourhoods to organize themselves and take action. Read more!

Demonstration and Action Against So-Called "Consultation"

 

Today tenant activists protested in front of a court in Warsaw against the legal farce that many people encounter there. Many tenants wind up in court fighting for the right to live in their homes after unfairly losing legal title or fighting against eviction. In the most dramatic of cases, they sometimes even have to fight for the right to their children because the state can take them away if their housing is substandard.

After some time, the crowd went to the so-called "social consultation" that the city tried to organize to avoid speaking to tenant organizations. The city organized the meeting on the same day the protest was called, quietly announced it and required people to register, giving them only two days to do so. Activists delivered a couple of hundred registration forms, dashing the hopes of the bureaucrats to hold this "consultation" without the activists.

Read more!

Demonstration: Public Housing in the Hands of the People!

ZSP held the first of a series of demonstrations since the calling for a rent strike in Warsaw. It was a local demonstration around the Praga neighbourhood which stopped in front of different buildings which experienced problems and where tenants organized and are fighting back. Among the problems are reprivatization, dangerous physical state of the building and problems with landlords. Some people from those buildings spoke out to the demonstration and people on the street. We also stopped in front of abandoned buildings, condemned buildings and buildings for sale.

Read more!

ZSP to Start Series of Direct Actions

Hundreds of people packed into the City Council today to participate in the extraordinary session forced by tenants. There was not enough room in the main hall so people packed into two halls outside and watched the session on big screens. People were hoping that a resolution proposed by the tenants would be passed, even though it was clear from the beginning that the ruling party was strongly against.

There was a presentation on the effects of certain aspects of the city's housing policy which was quite shocking and caused great debate. Vice-President Jakubiak, whose office was occupied and tenants tried to recall last year, responded to the presentation and was treated with intense heckling and shouting from the audience. The session lasted until 22:30, when councilpeople, trying to cut the whole thing short, got to the voting. It was clear from the beginning of the session that the politicians would not vote on the resolution since the city sent their lawyer to give a negative legal opinion on it. In the end, the council voted that the President of the City should call a group of "experts" to consult with her on the housing issue.

Read more!

Critical of Warsaw Union Farce

ZSP took part in the labour demonstration held by the mainstream unions in Warsaw on September 29. In the last days, it published critical statements of the farce and gave an interview on TV criticizing the mainstream unions. It called on some small unions and independent workers to attend and form a radical blok.

Unfortunately, people expected called that they would not attend at the last minute. For some it was due to bad weather but we also heard that in at least one case, local union bureaucrats said that only Solidarity or OPZZ members were invited and could march in the bloks. (ZSP was actually invited to officially attend, but did not answer the invitation. In the end, it was the only independent union (of well over 5000 in Poland) to attend this demo.) The radical blok was thus modest but miners and ZSP joined up later. Some of these miners were ones who ignored the union leadership in 2005 and rioted with anarchists in front of the Sejm, eventually forcing the politicians not to make drastic changes to their pensions. The miners wanted again today to escalate the protest but at every step we were foiled by the union bureaucrats.
Read more!

Strike is the Only Reasonable Dialogue with the Bosses

Leaflet for demonstration, Sept. 29 in Warsaw.

The so-called "economic crisis" in Poland was a boom for the bosses. Although there was actually economic growth in this country - in contrast to some other places in the world - the crisis served as a pretext for mass dismissals and worsening work conditions. As we can see, often the dismissals were made only to get rid of full-time workers with benefits and replace then with temporary ones. Working people saw how this was happening, yet all the time we were hearing lies from the bosses and being told we should be happy to have any job
at all. The crisis also brought in new anti-worker legislation. Some of it, in the anti-crisis package, was meant to be temporary. But we know that the bosses have been trying to impose these things for a long time and now it is clear that much of this will become permanent changes, a permanent blow to working conditions.

Read more!

PO tries to ignore tenants - but we fought back!

On Sept. 30, a special session of the city council will be held to vote on the future form of cooperation with tenants. Tenants demand that they be included in the decision making process in municipal housing and have prepared a bill. The council was forced, due to consistent protests, to hold the voting session. But it is clear that the leading party, PO, is vehemently against anything that may impede their plans to destroy public housing.

Politicians from this party have already expressed their negative opinion of this bill. ZSP is calling for a rent strike and direct actions, in particular against the members of this party before elections. It has also published some hints about legal loopholes that tenants can use to avoid evictions. Some politicians from PO, who are currently in charge of offices such as housing, responded by trying to play a trick.

Read more!

Tenants Demand Session or Will Take Action

Today is the tenants' deadline to the City Council to call a special session to vote on a resolution submitted by a coalition of 30 groups. The Tenants' Defense Committee is one of the founders of this coalition and is encouraging people to form newgroups in their houses, streets and neighbourhoods. Needless to say, if the session is not held on September 30, tenants will start occupations and blocking the city council.

ZSP has called for a rent strike and series of actions starting Oct. 1. If the City Council does not publically announce the Sept. 30 session by 17:00 today, ZSP will answer with direct action against the politicians.

The media has been warning that this time the fight will be harder than before since the situation of tenants is worsening.

See video from TVN (in Polish) Read more!

ZSP on Labour Action 29 September

ZSP will be a critical participant in the labour action against austerity to be held  29 September in Warsaw.

The main unions, Solidarity and OPZZ call for a symbolic protest, which is not even a strike. Austerity measures of all sorts, reforms in the Labour Code and Act on Trade Unions are hitting workers with huge force, yet all the unions call for is a few hours of protest. These unions even do not encourage workers on a large scale to take a day off and go to the protest: their armies of paid union activists will lead the protest instead. Despite this, we know that some groups of rank and file workers from supermarket chains (who want to strike and are held back by the unions) and the railways will be there - so we will too.

Read more!

Another One Bites the Dust

September. The politicians come back to work, sessions start up again and so do the protests. But somebody was oddly missing at work and, as it turns out, was discretely recalled from his post. Vice Mayor Majewski, the famous anarchist-baiting, Libcom reading, tenant bashing politician we motioned to recall after scandals related to a housing struggle this winter was, in fact finally voted out. 

This is the umpteenth politician or administrator to be ousted in relation to our protests and this is the highest-ranking official yet to lose his job. Earlier motions to recall the Vice President and the Chairwoman of the City Council did not pass, although they were submitted and actually voted on.

For those who can be Polish, we recommend the film of negotiations with Majewski which shows how he failed to deal with the tenants' problems.

Read more!