The Ryanair Don’t Care Campaign is calling for a Week of International Action against exploitation and recruitment scamming by Ryanair, starting on March 12.
Ryanair Don’t Care was started by John Foley after his daughter was sacked as a flight attendant mid-flight and abandoned abroad without any money. This led to the exposure of a cynical and highly exploitative recruitment scam by Ryanair.
Ryanair current policy of “recruitment-for-termination” is part of the massive exploitation of young people who apply to work for the company. As it stands potential cabin crew have to pay a fee of 3000 euro through an agency to undergo training for Ryanair. As many as 60 are sacked at one time after this initial training period with up to 200 people a month losing their job. All those sacked lose the money they have paid out for training. There are 11 Ryanair cabin crew training courses already underway, to end at the end of March which gives you some idea of the amount of money Ryanair is making out of the “recruit-for-termination” scam.
The “first” International Workingmen´s Association was founded in 1864 through the initiative of workers themselves but also with some participation of “politicians”. Organizationally, it was built as an association of workers´ unions. According to the Statutes, there was no centralism. The workers of the same profession or area formed a section, all sections of any country formed a federation, and every country federation sent delegates to the General Council. This Council was purely a coordinating body - it could not issue any decrees, instructions, etc. It was to analyze disputes and misunderstandings between the sections. All sections and federations maintained their autonomy. The supreme body of the IWMA was the annual congress of delegates of the sections and federations, and only it could discuss all matters relating to the association and the international labor movement. It could elect the Council, alter or amend the charter etc.
On February 17 the ZSP took part in the international day of action in solidarity with the striking workers of EULEN-ABB in Cordoba. A picket was held in Warsaw outside of an office of ADECCO, which is involved in the conflict as its firm EUROCEN has supplied replacements for the striking workers.
We pointed out that we critical not only of ADECCO's role in this conflict in Spain, but also its role, along with other temp agencies, in building precarious working conditions in Poland and around the world.
The EULEN-ABB workers are fighting and must have all the solidarity they can get. The Spanish CNT-AIT has called for an International Day of Action in Solidarity with the EULEN-ABB workers on February 17th 2012!
We refer to previous articles on this website and IWA- Sections websites concerning the backgrund of the conflict. Please, also this time, show solidarity by concentrations/ pickets, phone calls or sending e-mails and faxes focusing on ABB and ADECCO!
In September 2010, the CNT of Madrid started a conflict with the administration of the National Library for its illegal outsourcing of more than 400 subcontracted workers who are being repressed and fired for denouncing their casualization. Our comrades Begoña and Sara, from the Music Department, and our comrade Marta, from the Area of Institutional Relations, were the first to be repressed for informing about their irregular contracts. They had been dismissed and transfered to the offices of the INDRA company where they remain sequestered until the resolution of the court case.
At this stage of the conflict, many comrades have brought court cases concerning their situation of being illegally outsourced. There are 18 cases against the National Library for this reason, including the most recent ones of our comrades Aurora, from the General Hall, and Raquel, from Periodicals.
On March 31, 2012, the ZSP-IWA will organize a demonstration in Warsaw against social cuts in areas such as day care, refunds for prescription drugs, social benefits to families, public health care, higher education, public housing and transport.
Towards the end of the year, the government announced plans to introduce even more drastic austerity measures, on the recommendation of international institutions such asthe IMF. Working people have already been massively hit by all sorts of cuts and the commercialization and privatization of many social services. This has all cut financing from the public sector, adding additional costs for the use of basic services such as health care and education, making them unaccessible for large portions of society.
We would like to inform you that on the 8th February 2012, there will be a renewed trial against four members of the Serbian Anarcho-syndicalist Initiative (ASI) as well as two unaffiliated Belgrade anarchists, as part of the fabricated legal case of the Belgrade Six (BG6).
The six Belgrade libertarians have been accused of inciting, assisting in and executing an attack on the Greek Embassy in Belgrade at the end of August 2009, in solidarity with a hunger-striking Greek political prisoner. Soon after the attack on the embassy, BG6 (Tadej Kurepa, Ratibor Trivunac, Ivan Savic, Ivan Vulovic, Nikola Mitrovic and Sanja Dojkic) were arrested and held in custody for the next six months charged with ‘international terrorism’. Thanks to a mass mobilisation of support, both globally and locally, they were released early before their trial date. In June 2010, they were finally fully acquitted at a High Court in Belgrade, which decided that there is no basis for a guilty verdict on any of the charges.
On Thursday 19th January members of Manchester SF travelled to Warrington and organized at protest outside the British head of office of ABB. A letter of protest was handed to ABB from the Solidarity Federation. The letter demanded that all the sacked workers at the ABB factory in Cordoba be immediately reinstated and that ABB enter into talks with striking workers.
On Friday 20th January, Solidarity Federation local groups organized pickets outside Adecco offices in London, Brighton, Bristol and Glasgow.
Firenze: This morning at dawn the police cleared the squat of via Conciatori n.4, seat of Unione Sindacale Italiana (USI-AIT), of the Circolo Anarchico Fiorentino and of the "Progetto Conciatori"
Some comrades opposed to this clearing climbing the roof, trying to resist as long as possible, while in the street there were other comrades demonstrating against the clearing. The Unione Sindacale Italiana condemns the police attack to the seat of a worker union and remarks the high level of repression that this kind of action reveal, above all because it has been required by a politician whose party state to be on the workers side.
On December 19, Roche Poland (the pharmaceuticals company) dismissed an activist of the ZSP without any reason. The orders came directly from corporate headquarters and he was asked to leave immediately. The company refused to give any reason in writing or any other documents.
The dismissal came on the first day after a large article with the comrade appeared in the main newspaper. Although no real reason was given, it is largely felt that this decision was related to his work in the union.
