On May Day we organized a local demonstration and street meetings in the Praga district of Warsaw where there has been a recent protest movement of tenants who are fighting against rent increases and the reprivatization of some public houses. The day started with a street meeting with residents. related to rent increases which took effect May 1. Although there were fewer people than at recent protests, the neighbours were able to meet and discuss what to do next and how to attract more people to the movement. People were invited to a meeting to discuss an upcoming direct action.
The main May Day event started in front of the Praga hospital. Besides people from ZSP, some comrades from Workers' Initiative and Anarchist Federation came, as well as some non-aligned people, some left activists and some local residents. The situation with the commercialization, restructuring and privatization of health care was discussed. The anarchists explained that we do not people in the two main choices given to people: either bureaucratic state-run health care or commericalized health care. Instead we proposed workers' self-management and public control and co-management of all public services. A lot of anarchist ideas for the reorganization of the work place and society were mentioned. The same ideas were repeated about the Post Office and the railways.
The situation of health-care workers was also discussed. We mentioned the case of the hospital in Bielsko-Biala which would prefer to be re-organized as some sort of collective rather than commericalized. We also reminded people of recent workers struggles and about how difficult it is for health-care workers to protest since they are always accused of "neglecting patients". There are new bills being drafted which would make protests in this sector practically impossible. We sent our solidarity to the nurses from the Barlicki hospital in Lodz who were fired for their union activity.
There was also an explanation of the problems with legislation concerning the maximum working hours, in particular in relation to health-care workers who are forced to work an enormous amount of unpaid overtime. We reminded people of the origins of May Day and how the struggle for the 8-hour day was still urgent 123 years later.
Next, in front of the Post Office, the problems of restructuring and commercialized were explained, as well as the labour problems which people are experiencing in the Post Office. We told about what people were saying on our Post Office Workers' Forum and mentioned the case of Bartosz Kantorczyk who was dismissed from the PO and recently lost his case in court to be reinstated.
There were similar stories about problems in the railways. (The main railways HQ in Poland was on our route.) It was mentioned how the railways plan to cut 7000 jobs and how in some smaller cities these mass layoffs were devastating. We explained the how this had to do with the profit motive more than necessity and how the crisis was being used as a pretext to fire people on masse in many companies and institutions.
Next there was a stop in front of the legendary bazaar which once was full of life... until the chain supermarkets opened. With big corporate competition and rising rents, the main street in Praga, called "Targowa" - or "Trade" Street, named after the once lively trade there - is slowly being taken over by one bank after another. There was a discussion about how this was all part of the larger scheme of gentrification and how big corporate shops replaced some family and individual run shop which had been operating for generations. Once the biggest shop in the neighbourhood was Poland's first cooperative shop: now it is reduced to about 1/15 of its original size and is on the verge of exintinction. There was a tirade against banks and the credit trap which many of the working poor find themselves falling into.
Finally there was a stop in front of the supermarket Biedronka which is well-known for having horrendous working conditions.
At the end of the march, people went to the park to relax on that very beautiful day.
Read more!
Showing posts with label May Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label May Day. Show all posts
Sunday, 3 May 2009
Wednesday, 29 April 2009
May Day
And here is the rest of it.The Union of Syndicalists (ZSP) will celebrate May Day this year with the residents of Warsaw's Praga district who have been protesting against rent increases and the reprivatization of public housing for the last few months.
Hyde Park with Tenants / Residents
Prior to the May Day demonstration there will be a series of small Hyde Parks - in backyards, parks and other public places. ZSP calls on residents to resist the rent increases with protests, direct action and a rent strike. Instead of housing run by irresponsible and corrupt bureaucrats, we call on people to organize themselves and repair their decaying homes with their rent money instead.
In the middle of a major European capital city, there are buildings without central heating and hot water and even without water and toilets in each flat. This public housing has been devasted by years of neglect. The city is now raising rents 200-300% and many people cannot afford it. We call on people to organize neighbour associations to deal with these problems at the grassroots level and to fight against the eviction of tenants who cannot pay or who are being forced out of reprivatized housing.
The main Hyde Park will take place at 13:00.
May Day - Enough Anti-Social Policies! Everything under the control of workers and the community!
At 14:00 we will gather outside the last remaining public health care in the neighbourhood, Praski Hospital. It's future is uncertain as the government vows to commercialize everything. Expansion of the hospital was started but the government cut funds, leaving the hospital with debts. Now they want to merge it with another hospital on the other side of Warsaw. People are presented with only two visions of health care (and social services in general): either a corrupt and badly organized public system, or a privatized and commercialized one. We know that neither system is good since they both revolve around the people in control making money - whether this be a commercial firm or government / municipal institutions. We call for the health care system to come under worker and civic control, to be freely accessible for everyone and not to be based on the profit motive.
We solidarize with striking health care workers across the country. As instituions are "commericalizing", more and more workers are forced onto contracts, work is outsourced and public hospital space is rented to private facilities. Fewer and fewer medicines and medical treatments are refundable by the National Health Service and fewer public services are available. Patients bear the brunt of these anti-social policies, but so do workers, especially nurses who are grossly underpaid and whose work is clearly less valued by hospital administrations. In addition, recently some nurses were repressed for taking part in a strike in Lodz. We support the demands of health care workers for improvement of their working conditions. We are also particularly concerned about the Working Time Directive and the amount of hours health care workers are forced to work. Besides these long hours, many are forced to moonlight in order to make ends meet. Forcing medical staff to work 60, 70 or even more hours a week has a direct negative impact on health care services and safety and is a travesty of workers' rights.
123 years after the events around May Day in Chicago, we see that the struggle for the 8-hour working day is still extremely urgent.
After visiting the hospital, we will also stop at the Post Office. There we will talk about the restructuring and liberalization of the market and what that means for the workers. Another workplace which was restructured years ago was PKP, the Polish Railways, which is divided into some dozens of companies at present. There are serious labour disputes not only with railway workers, but with people who repair trains who have lost their contracts with PKP Cargo. We will hear about how corruption in the Railway companies screws the workers.
PKP Cargo, like many other firms, have used the crisis as an excuse to start mass layoffs and to negotiate worse work contracts under the threat of cutting jobs. We will speak about the effects of the crisis and analyse how it is related to capitalist practices and abuse.
We will pass by supermarkets Carrefour and Biedronka. Biedronka is particular will receive our attention. It is very cheap and many poor people shop there, but it is also infanous for violating workers' rights. We will talk about the economies of supermarkets and the high price of low prices.
Finally we will pass by the bazaar where many people are illegally working and say a few things about the exploitation of migrant workers.
The day will end with some relaxation in the beautiful Skaryszewski Park.
warsaw@zsp.net.pl Read more!
Hyde Park with Tenants / Residents
Prior to the May Day demonstration there will be a series of small Hyde Parks - in backyards, parks and other public places. ZSP calls on residents to resist the rent increases with protests, direct action and a rent strike. Instead of housing run by irresponsible and corrupt bureaucrats, we call on people to organize themselves and repair their decaying homes with their rent money instead.
In the middle of a major European capital city, there are buildings without central heating and hot water and even without water and toilets in each flat. This public housing has been devasted by years of neglect. The city is now raising rents 200-300% and many people cannot afford it. We call on people to organize neighbour associations to deal with these problems at the grassroots level and to fight against the eviction of tenants who cannot pay or who are being forced out of reprivatized housing.
The main Hyde Park will take place at 13:00.
May Day - Enough Anti-Social Policies! Everything under the control of workers and the community!
At 14:00 we will gather outside the last remaining public health care in the neighbourhood, Praski Hospital. It's future is uncertain as the government vows to commercialize everything. Expansion of the hospital was started but the government cut funds, leaving the hospital with debts. Now they want to merge it with another hospital on the other side of Warsaw. People are presented with only two visions of health care (and social services in general): either a corrupt and badly organized public system, or a privatized and commercialized one. We know that neither system is good since they both revolve around the people in control making money - whether this be a commercial firm or government / municipal institutions. We call for the health care system to come under worker and civic control, to be freely accessible for everyone and not to be based on the profit motive.
We solidarize with striking health care workers across the country. As instituions are "commericalizing", more and more workers are forced onto contracts, work is outsourced and public hospital space is rented to private facilities. Fewer and fewer medicines and medical treatments are refundable by the National Health Service and fewer public services are available. Patients bear the brunt of these anti-social policies, but so do workers, especially nurses who are grossly underpaid and whose work is clearly less valued by hospital administrations. In addition, recently some nurses were repressed for taking part in a strike in Lodz. We support the demands of health care workers for improvement of their working conditions. We are also particularly concerned about the Working Time Directive and the amount of hours health care workers are forced to work. Besides these long hours, many are forced to moonlight in order to make ends meet. Forcing medical staff to work 60, 70 or even more hours a week has a direct negative impact on health care services and safety and is a travesty of workers' rights.
123 years after the events around May Day in Chicago, we see that the struggle for the 8-hour working day is still extremely urgent.
After visiting the hospital, we will also stop at the Post Office. There we will talk about the restructuring and liberalization of the market and what that means for the workers. Another workplace which was restructured years ago was PKP, the Polish Railways, which is divided into some dozens of companies at present. There are serious labour disputes not only with railway workers, but with people who repair trains who have lost their contracts with PKP Cargo. We will hear about how corruption in the Railway companies screws the workers.
PKP Cargo, like many other firms, have used the crisis as an excuse to start mass layoffs and to negotiate worse work contracts under the threat of cutting jobs. We will speak about the effects of the crisis and analyse how it is related to capitalist practices and abuse.
We will pass by supermarkets Carrefour and Biedronka. Biedronka is particular will receive our attention. It is very cheap and many poor people shop there, but it is also infanous for violating workers' rights. We will talk about the economies of supermarkets and the high price of low prices.
Finally we will pass by the bazaar where many people are illegally working and say a few things about the exploitation of migrant workers.
The day will end with some relaxation in the beautiful Skaryszewski Park.
warsaw@zsp.net.pl Read more!
Sunday, 19 April 2009
May Day in Warsaw
May Day in Warsaw. In the Praga district. To be preceded by Hyde Parks agitating for a rent strike. (Rents are raised from the first of May.)
For workers' self management and people's control over all public services!
Enough bad working conditions, poverty and fraudulent social policies!
Start at 14:00 at the Praga Hospital. March to Skaryszewski Park for festival. Stops along the way with speeches about working conditions and government policies against the poor and working class. Read more!
Thursday, 9 April 2009
May Day
This year there will be May Day in Warsaw. We are going to invite protesting tenants as well for a Hyde Park / speakout and later to a festival. We will also see in the next few weeks if people are interested in the idea of a rent strike.
We invited some other local anarchists to the event and we'll see if they'll join. Read more!
We invited some other local anarchists to the event and we'll see if they'll join. Read more!
Friday, 2 May 2008
Warsaw May Day
On May 1 an anarchist demonstration took place in Warsaw. A couple of hundred people came from all the different anarchist groups. The demo went to the Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, to the State Labour Inspectorate, a temp agency and a pro-business lobby's headquarters.
Many topics were raised, including the amendment of the Labour Code, discrimination in the workplace, the topic of casual work, firing of unionists and capitalist brainwashing.
A happening about discrimination in the workplace was organized by anarchafeminists from A-Fe. Other groups that took part in the demo included the Anarchist Federation, Left Alternative, Workers' Initiative, Union of Syndicalists, Freedom, Equality and Solidarity and Green Collective.
A pathetic counterdemonstration was organized by fascists. The night before, a talk organized by Freedom, Equality and Solidarity was attacked by fascists who through some incendiary devices into the meeting place. Nobody was hurt.
Some pictures from May Day can be found here:
http://cia.bzzz.net/zdjecia_z_manifestacji_pierwszomajowej
http://cia.bzzz.net/zdjecie_z_1_maja
Read more!
Wednesday, 2 May 2007
May Day Demo
Anarchists organized a May Day march in Warsaw. It drew about 150 people but was cursed with a few problems with broken equipment and police - it even snowed during the demonstration. Things started late and some people left early, meaning that the demonstration did not "accidentally" run into the demonstration of the left parties as had been planned. Perhaps that saved us; there had been rumours and the radio announced that they were expecting riots in Warsaw so a large group of police were staked out around the corner from the demo.
The march planned to visit a few sites: the McDonalds recruitment center, the Ministry of Finance, the Labour Court and the Ministry of Labour. At McDonalds, we protested against not only the working conditions there, but against the growing amount of McJobs being created. At the Minister of Finanse, we spoke about the Thatcherite economics of our Minister, criticizing draconian budget cuts and the false idea that cutting taxes and passing on the social security, health care and pension burdens to workers will create new jobs. There were some big funny pictures of our Finance Minister and she was cut into pieces in the action.
There was a problem with snow and with both technical equipment and the permission to move down the street with our crazy vehicle which delayed the march, so two protest stops were cut so we could attempt to catch up with the red bourgeoise who were going to have a picnic; anarchists organized a picnic next to them. Unfortunately, the politicians were all hiding inside their party HQ celebrating the anniversary of Poland's accession to the EU, so they didn't get a chance to get a piece of anarchist "birthday cake" or to have a chat with us. But there was a lively exchange with the few body-builder trade union bureaucrats who stayed at the picnic behind some rows of police and private security. Anarchists criticized their type of bureaucratic, sell-out unionism and were called "fucking socialists" by the unionists. Read more!
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