ZSP supports LOT staff... but not selling out workers

Members of ZSP support the workers of PLL LOT Polish airlines in their struggle to maintain jobs and working conditions. Management of LOT for years tries to bring airline to ruin so that it will be privatized for very small money. In this trick suffer the workers who hear that their company should go bankrupt. Union leaders who try to fight this were sacked against the law. LOT doesn't care that it breaks this law.

ZSP sent protest about sacking union leaders. However soon it turned out that next union leaders want to negotiate the salary cuts of 30% for workers. They say it saves some jobs. Still LOT wants to sack hundreds. The unions now go on their knees - "sack less but cut the salaries".

ZSP members know about this strategy of union but not sure the workers know about it too. 28 September (today) LOT workers were supposed to have protest in front of Ministry of State Treasury. ZSP went. But there were almost no workers from LOT today. Instead anarchosyndicalists found the "demonstration extras" holding banner - but not the workers of LOT. They found the professional union leaders and former union leaders of LOT. And more than 200 unionists, mostly leaders or fired unionists from trains! They support the workers in transport industry.

ZSP asked "where are the workers"? Bureaucrat from OPZZ told that they should be working, not protesting. There were many interesting comments made to comrade by union bureaucrats and there was sharp discussion.

ZSP believes that in this case, unions will make some deal and fuck part of workers. They propose to workers of LOT to protest themselves and self organize struggle without bureaucrats.

About IMF/WB and Workshop for Activists

This weekend there will be a couple of activities in the Infoshop. There will be a talk about the IMF/WB and a film. We send our solidarity to the comrades in Istanbul. There will also be a workshop for activists. Based on experiences in the student movement, workers' movement and tenants' movement, there is much one can learn about effective organizing.


A note about the Infoshop: the administration has recently threatened to kick us out in relation to the meetings of the Tenants' Defence Committee. We were quite shocked that for years radicals have met openly in the space, but now the city is trying to repress the tenants self-organization. We are sure that this is in relation to the fact that the Committee is, among its other activity, investigating years of corruption in the administration.


We decided that we allow this repression to go unanswered. The administration is a little uneasy and is probably assessing the situation.


The Infoszop has been running for 8.5 years.

TV Appearance

Today was a TV appearance of our comrade related to yesterday's action. In Polish.

Blockade of Eviction

Today members of ZSP from the Tenants' Defence Committee, along with neighbours and two other tenants' groups, helped to block an eviction of a 62-year old disabled man.


The eviction was to take place in a house were a few months ago, a man who was evicted from a building and sent to live in a box in the boiler room of the basement died.


The building was formerly owned by the Solidarity Trade Union, who sold it to a private firm. The union did not give the tenants the priority option to buy their flats, which is the standard procedure for public housing and flats owned by companies.

The new investment firm that runs the building jacked up the rents. The owners prepared a tiny space in the boiler room to use for people they wanted to kick out. They claim that if the city cannot provide immediate social housing for people they want to evict (and by law they can't just throw they people onto the street), they would stick them in the basement until the city would do something with them.

New Issue of Wolna Praga Newspaper

There is a new issue of the Wolna Praga (Free Praga) local newspaper. It is available on line on the page of the Tenants' Defence Committee. Due to high demand for the newspaper, which is distributed for free in Warsaw, the print run has been doubled. We probably need to increase the print run 1000% but don't want to take advertisements to fund the paper. We encourage people who can do get the PDF on the internet.

JW Construction Campaign

ZSP has started a campaign in Warsaw among workers at JWC Construction. After meetings with Chinese workers at JWC, we were able to get contact and are trying to monitor the situation and help people be aware of their rights and to fight for them. We would like to encourage, as much as possible, workers' self-organization at the sites.
Part of the campaign is also aimed at public awareness about working conditions on their building sites. The campaign page is under construction.
www.jwc.zsp.net.pl

Protest at the City Council

Members of Warsaw ZSP who are part of the Tenants' Defence Committee visited the Warsaw City Council again Sept. 17. The Tenants have made legal motions to rescind two resolutions made by the City Council. The latest resolution, concerning the maximum income limits to qualify for public housing was made after the Vice President president inaccurate information at the Council just before the vote. This is still under investigation by the Council Ethics Committee. However the Council is dominated by the neoliberals. The President of the City has intervened on behalf of the Vice President, whose dismissal was demanded by tenants. In the meanwhile. part of the council opposed to the neoliberals moved to dismiss the Council Chairwoman but the vote was shot down.

Protest Sept. 11

On Sept. 11, a group of people from ZSP Warsaw, Anarchist Solidarity and some non-alligned supporters visited the Serbian Embassy in Warsaw to demand the release of comrades arrested in Belgrade.

On Sept. 7, some people also visited the Embassy and delivered a protest letter. Apparently the presence of even such a modest protest unnerved the Embassy people. When we arrived on the 11th, there was a police van and cops waiting.
Members of ZSP made some speeches and delivered a new statement to the Embassy, but, as the Embassy people were hiding, it only went into their mailbox. The activists harshly criticized the actions of the Serbian government, the way the comrades were arrested, police methods used, the detention of the comrades without charges, etc. etc. There was also a long diatribe against state terrorism and the hypocrisy of the government.

Statement written by ZSP Sept. 11

The authorities in Belgrade have been holding our five of our comrades for a week now. A sixth person is reportedly arrested as well, although the police, with their typical games, will not confirm this publically. We demand their immediate release.

The repressive nature of the state is evident. All who oppose its power, violence and repression or its legal support of forms of mass exploitation are potential candidates for arrest. It does not matter if you actually break one of the state’s laws designed to protect its own power or not; the state can always find somebody to accuse when they need to show off their power to crush their opponents.

Free our Comrades!

Today members of ZSP visited the Serbian Embassy and delivered a protest. We are planning a larger picket later in the week. Our comrades from Priama Akcia also visited the Embassy in Bratislava today. More demos are planned throughout the week.

As of writing, over 800 protest emails were sent from our page.

FREE THE COMRADES NOW!

Solidarity with our Comrades from ASI

Tomorrow will be a demo at the Serbian Embassy in Warsaw in solidarity with comrades arrested in Belgrade. More info is on our solidarity page:

www.asi.zsp.net.pl

You can send protest letters through this page.

New ZSP Sites

The comrades in Wroclaw are involved in a transit strike campaign for free public transportation. The page of the campaign (which may spread to other cities) is here: http://niekasuj.pl

They have also set up a local Wroclaw ZSP page. For now it is only in Polish but hopefully there will be news in English soon.

http://wroclaw.zsp.net.pl