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!

More on the Rent Strike, Days of Protest and Politicians before Elections

More and more banners and posters supporting the rent strike can be seen around Warsaw. Even banners left in public places have not been taken down and posters are being put up by residents in their houses. We know that public administration buildings have also been postered over the weekend.

On September 30, several hundred people are expected to go to the City Council to demand changes to the city housing policy.
Read more!

ZSP Starts Rent Strike Action

ZSP Warsaw is calling for a rent strike starting on Oct. 1. The strike is meant as a protest against the housing policy of the city and against serious problems with the reprivatization process in Poland. It is meant as a means of radicalizing tenants' protest, which the local politicians try to ignore. It aims to bring together tenants who face eviction or live in dangerous and substandard housing to organize for their own mutual self-defense. The strike will be accompanied by public meetings, assemblies and hopefully the creation of neighbourhood committees.
Read more!

Freedom from Fear Day

September 11 we took part in a happening organized as part of international Freedom from Fear Day. The happening was meant to draw people's attention on the omnipresence of security cameras in the city and to be a critique of security culture.

Activists participating in the happening pointed out not only the implications for personal freedom but showed that the security cameras were very costly and in fact did not serve the purposes they claim. In the end, the biggest criminals and sources of thievery against the working class are the bosses and the state, who exploit labour and force payments of taxes which they often use for their own personal profit.

Read more!

Historic Victory for Tenants!!!!

The Tenants Defense Committee managed to stop the privatization of one house on Targowa St. in Warsaw. This is an historic moment: as far as we know, this is the first privatization in Poland that has been successfully stopped by protest!

In addition, the city has agreed to recommunalize part of the building which was under claim. This means that the entire property (which consists of several buildings) will remain municipal housing!

The Committee is currently fighting a couple of privatization attepts. It is common in Poland that extensive fraud is committed during reprivatization and that there is no independant process of verifying claims and documents.

Read more!

Warsaw: Pickets at Azteca Bar Continue

Pickets at Azteca Bar in Warsaw are continuing. After failure to make any progress with the boss on Friday / Saturday, ZSP decided to picket the establishment every day at lunch and dinner hours. The protests are related to illegal deductions taken from the pay of our dismissed comrade, attempts to make people work illegally, without any contract and unpaid trial periods, with 'training' that the boss wants to charge workers for if they do not work a certain period of time.

During the first picket on Monday, the boss of the bar became very agressive towards the leafleters and started making many threats. According to him, handing out leaflets should end in 'criminal charges" and he threatened to sue us for losses his business has incurred due to our pickets. He made a great scene, shouting at and filming the protestors and calling the police. Neighbours and passersby then got involved in the argument. Most people tell him he should pay the money.

In the evening the protestors consisted of more senior citizens and the boss became more subdued and only shouted at the younger people. Again the police and city guards were called and again the boss was told that we have the right to picket him. We promised that we would return tomorrow, he could be assured.

Read more!

First Picket at Azteca Bar

On Aug. 20, ZSP held an action at Azteca Bar in Warsaw. We are demanding an end to the deliberate cheating of vulnerable workers in this cafe.

The problems which led to the conflict are the following:

1. The owner of the bar (Jakub Mazur) uses unpaid trial periods for workers. On top of that, he claims that he provides "training" to the workers and estimates the value of this training at 1300 zloties (326 euro). He gives the workers contracts which state that this money will be deducted from their salaries if they do not work a certain period of time. It is approximately one month's salary - for full-time workers, So if somebody works only one month, s/he will receive nothing.

Most of the workers are students, working part time. Our comrade, a high-school student, was earning about 500 zloties a month (125 euros), so this fake "training" would cost people like that almost three months' salary!
Read more!

Thousands Rally in Defense of Secularism

In a rare anti-clerical action, thousands rallied late last night in front of the Presidential Palace, demanding the removal of "Kaczynski's Cross". The cross, which was placed there after the plane crash in Smolensk, has been the object of much public debate. It became something of a symbol and a place of pilgrimmage for conservatives and far-rightwingers.The anarchist group WRS managed to gather thousands of signatures on a petition to remove the cross.

Many people were against the makeshift shrine in front of the palace and authorities decided that it should be moved to a nearby church instead of standing in front of the seat of the President. Attempts to move it resulted in a violent clash.

Read more!