International

Campaign for Workers' Rights in OTTO Begins with Actions in Holland, Poland and Slovakia

Some workers cheated by the OTTO temp agency are fighting back!

They don't get the conditions promised to them in their contracts and job interviews and the company makes money off a system of fines used at the workers' "hotels". The end result - people work and don't get paid, or they wind up paying too much money for substandard housing which does not meet the standards of the collective labour agreement OTTO is supposed to be following.

After some Polish colleagues working in Holland were cheated by the agency, they decided to take action. The Vrije Bond in Holland, ZSP in Poland and Priama Akcia in Slovakia have all started taking action to both inform workers of their rights and encourage them to organize and take action.

Revolution for Egypt

Below is the text of a speech given by a member of our Polish sister organisation, the ZSP-IWA, outside the Eyptian embassy in Warsaw.

The human urge for freedom and dignity burns intensely in Egypt. We support this urge for change, for greater freedom and a chance to shape ones own life. Only we ask the question: what next?

A report on the Portuguese General Strike of November 24th

The following is a report by our Portuguese sister organisation on the one-day general strike that paralyzed Portugal on November 24, as Portuguese workers fight austerity measures being imposed by the Socialist Party government.

This is the first general strike in Portugal for the last 22 years and that alone should shed some light over the social situation in this country. In fact, class struggle in Portugal is quite low and the number of strikes has actually been falling for the past thirty years, despite the continuously worsening situation of the Portuguese working class. Unionisation rates tend to fall as well, as the two large Portuguese party-run Trade Unions serve more to appease and stall conflicts than to fight exploitation, and that hasn't gone unnoticed.

Warsaw Rent Strike: Community Organizing in the Context of Social Atomization

In Warsaw a rent strike has been going on since Oct.1. Despite the fact that the issues may effect up to a quarter of a million people in Poland's capital city, we cannot say that a significant percent of public housing tenants have joined. This is mainly due to a lack of tradition and the extreme social atomization of the population - something typical in many post-Soviet bloc era countries. There is also the issue of a minuscule grassroots social movement and the disdain of the left for anything radical and outside the realms of reformist and party politics. [1]