Anarchic update news all over the world - 5.03.2018

Today's Topics:

   
1.  Greece, apo: Announcement on the hunger & thirst strike of
      political prisoner Konstantinos Yatzoglou (gr) [machine
      translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  black rose fed: REVOLUTIONARY ORGANIZING: BLACK ROSE
      INTERVIEW WITH REVOLUTIONARY LEFT RADIO 
     (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  black rose fed: LAND AND LIBERTY: A REVIEW OF ANARCHISM IN
      LATIN AMERICA (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  Surrey and Hampshire Anarchist Federation - The occupiers
      who came in from the cold: workplace round-up for late Feb/early
      March - Cautiously pessimistic (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL #280 - La Poste: Strike
      virus against understaffing (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  black rose fed: VICTORY OF ASSAD REGIME IN GHOUTA IS MAJOR
      DEFEAT FOR THOSE FIGHTING RACISM AND CAPITALIST                          AUTHORITARIANISM
      GLOBALLY (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
7.  Poland, WORKERS' INITIATIVE: Call for mobilization on the
      occasion of the International Women's Day [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
8.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL - That's the riposte ?
      (fr, it, pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
9.  WORKERS' INITIATIVE Social feminism, not liberal! About why
      we get involved in the women's movement [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1






The political prisoner Kon. Yagtzoglou accused by the state of sending trapped letters to 
European political and economic agents and assaulting the former Prime Minister L. 
Papadimos in May 2017 began a hunger strike on February 21, 2028 requesting the Justice of 
his final transfer to the Korydallos prison where he had he was temporarily transferred 
from Larissa's prisons to trial in Athens for another matter, in particular for arresting 
him in a protest against the Memorandums in 2011. It should be noted that his request K. 
---- In response to his request, the afternoons of Saturday, Feb. 24, invaded the EKAM in 
his cell in the Prison of the Korydallos Prison, and after beating the hunger strike, they 
carried him into the prison of Larissa, where the next day a thirst strike began. When the 
abduction and brutal transfer of Yagtzoglou to Larissa broke out as a first reaction, a 
revolt in Korydallos Prison broke out, and a representative of the Justice Department 
pledged that on February 26, the Central Committee of Transfers will be convened to the 
ministry in order to answer his request . However, no Transit Committee met on Monday 
26/2, no response was given to the hunger striker and thirst and no explanation to his lawyer.

It is obvious that the Justice Department, particularly lately, with a series of 
continuous and unjustified deaths in prisons, in addition to the intended psychological 
killing of Y. Yagtzoglou, does not hesitate to play a filthy toy at his expense, even 
endangering physical extermination. Obviously, all those responsible for the life of the 
hunger and thirsty prisoner, both government and judges, have not realized in the 
arrogance and vengeance of their power that they have no right to life and death on it, 
and what exactly is at stake their criminal negligence to satisfy the legitimate request 
for his transfer before it is late.

Because it does not require much insight to understand that not only is the hunger striker 
and thirst at great risk but also those who think they can play with their life by pushing 
a political prisoner to death with immeasurable consequences.

TO IMMEDIATE THE REQUEST OF THE POLITICAL CONTRACT DIRECTLY. YAGTZOGLOU FOR HIS EXCHANGE 
IN THE CORRIDAL WARRIORS AND TO STOP EVERY DRIVER OF 4 SOLIDARIZED SOLIDARIES OUTSIDE THE 
MINISTRY OF JUSTICE

Anarchist Collegial Circle of Fire
- member of the Anarchist Political Organization

http://apo.squathost.com

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Message: 2






Revolutionary Left Radio is a top source for discussion of radical left politics and ideas 
and is unique in hosting guests from a range of political ideologies and organizations 
that you won't hear anywhere else. We were humbled to be featured on their most recent 
episode, "Revolutionary Organizing," discussing our ideas on revolutionary political 
organization, relationships to social movements, state power, feminism and more. ---- The 
two members of Black Rose Anarchist Federation interviewed are Jen Rogue and Servio. Jen 
Rogue is based in Austin, Texas and is active around healthcare, feminist and queer social 
struggles. Her writings on feminism, queer politics and intersectionality can be found 
here and here. Servio is based in Providence, Rhode Island and is active in student 
struggles, the Anti-Criminalization Committee of Black Rose as well as the IWW and it's 
Incarcerated Worker Organizing Committee. He was also one of the editors of the Black 
Anarchism Reader.

Listen to:
Revolutionary Organizing
with Revolutionary Left Radio
We also recommend checking out other podcasts featuring members of Black Rose Anarchist 
Federation / Federación Anarquista Rosa Negra:

Mark Bray, author of Antifa: The Antifascist Handbook speaks on Revolutionary Left Radio 
giving a history of anarchism and it's ideas.
Enrique and Adam interviewed by It's Going Down on the Black Rose analysis and strategy 
document "Below and Beyond Trump."
Romina Akemi, co-author of "Breaking the Waves: Challenging the Liberal Tendency within 
Anarchist Feminism" is interviewed on KCHUNG Radio discussing feminism, anarchism and 
movement building.
Luis from Austin, Texas is interviewed by A World Without Police about local organizing 
with ICE Out and pushing back against use of police to assist with enforcement of 
immigration laws.

http://blackrosefed.org/revolutionary-organizing-rev-left-radio/

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Message: 3






Review of "Anarchism in Latin America" by Ángel Cappelletti. Translation by Gabriel 
Palmer-Fernández with introduction by Romina Akemi and Javier Sethness-Castro. AK Press, 
2018. ---- By Sasha Berkman ---- The translation of Ángel Cappelletti's expansive 
Anarchism in Latin America, itself a small preface for an even more expansive anthology of 
Latin American Anarchist texts, into English is a welcome crash-course into a virtually 
unknown past (at least north of the Rio Grande). As Cappelletti notes in the preface, the 
history of Anarchism in Latin America has been largely downplayed and obscured by 
professional historians (liberal, revisionist, and Marxist) for perhaps obvious reasons. 
And as Romina Akemi and Javier Sethness-Castro remark in their thoughtful introduction to 
this translation: "[t]he publishing[of Anarchism in Latin America]...feeds a growing 
hunger by Latinx anarchists who want to read more about their history, and for gringo 
anarchists to become further acquainted with a history to which they are historically 
bound." The book at times reads like a breathless series of heroic strikes and near 
revolutionary climaxes, at other times like a bibliographic list of revolutionary figures, 
books, poems, newspapers, and plays. The book lands short of its mark in a few significant 
regards, but it accomplishes a great deal in its ambitious endeavor.

Compelling and a breakneck pace
Anarchism in Latin America is at its most compelling when it recounts, at breakneck pace, 
the lives of the revolutionaries who managed to fit what seems like several lifetimes of 
work into one. Towering figures such as the Spanish-born anarchist Diego Abad de Santillan 
who moved to Argentina at a young age loom large across several decades and numerous 
countries. A participant and chronicler of the Latin American anarchist movements, he also 
edited La Protesta the most influential anarchist newspaper in Argentina, was a militant 
in the Federación Obrera Regional Argentina (FORA), helped found the Asociación 
Internacional de los Trabajadores, and was one of the primary economic theoreticians of 
revolutionary Spain. Many of his works are yet untranslated into English, including a 
documentary detailing the rise and fall of revolutionary Catalonia from the perspective of 
its participants.

The book makes anarchisms' immense influence throughout Latin America evident, he weaves 
his way from the Southern Cone north to the Rio Grande, country by country laying out the 
general structure of the movement. From Argentina, where the Federación Obrera Regional 
Argentina (FORA) led the workers to expel the ruling class in a fierce general strike that 
nearly turned insurrectionary and was subsequently bloodily repressed in what has come to 
be known as Tragic Week. To Mexico, where the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM) led by 
figures such as Ricardo Flores Magón and Práxedis Guerrero helped topple the dictatorship 
of Porfirio Diaz, fought for libertarian communism, and even gave the Zapatista movement 
it's slogan "Tierra y Libertad!". Not to mention the many combative workers federations in 
Cuba, Brazil, and others. Even in the countries that did not have fully realized anarchist 
movements such as Bolivia, many dedicated anarchists organized in local unions, ran 
newspapers advocating for libertarian communism, and faced repression as a result.

The "Why?" of Anarchism in Latin America
Cappelletti largely attributes the growth of Anarchism in Latin America to the influence 
of the large immigrant populations from Europe. As in the United States, Latin America 
experienced large waves of European immigration throughout the late 19th and early 20th 
century. To give just one indication of the extent of immigration, according to 
Cappelletti in the early 20th century nearly half of the economically active population in 
Argentina was foreign born. These immigrants were primarily from Spain and Italy, two of 
the countries most influenced by the Anarchism of Bakunin and Proudhon. While certainly 
important, the texts reliance on the thesis of European influences in Latin America is one 
of its primary weakness. As Akemi and Sethness-Castro in their introduction so acutely 
diagnose, "...[Cappelletti]begins his historical arch with Spanish, Italians, and Greek 
proselytizers of the faith as active subjects while indigenous and mestizo people are 
described as the object's who consume the faith."

It is a strange oversight, that a book so dedicated to retrieving a lost history would not 
grapple in a more nuanced way with the question: why was anarchism was so successful in so 
many Latin American countries?

The important question of, "Why?," is left unexplored in several significant ways. 
Cappelletti doesn't tend to highlight the ties of the anarchist movement to the indigenous 
communities (ideologically or materially). To his credit he does, though almost in 
passing, suggest that there were commonalities and intentional efforts by anarchists to 
make explicit connections to indigenous systems of communal agrarianism (such as the 
Andean ayllu and the Aztec calpulli social systems). One of the more interesting episodes 
noted in the book was the short-lived Peruvian Federacion Regional Obrera Indios which 
according to Cappelletti was, "...immediately and violently repressed by the government, 
which declared it a special danger." The nature of this "special danger" is left for the 
readers speculation, but can almost certainly be attributed to the threat such a 
multiracial, anti-colonial challenge might pose. Additionally, Cappelletti notes that the 
anarchist movement was derided by the Leninists for its strong overlap with indigenous 
forms of organization, with the typical racist derision applied to indigenous thought by 
more crude Marxists ("romantics", "idealists", "utopian", etc). Its curious then that 
Cappelletti shys away from highlighting that connection and the potential strength of the 
anarchists to appeal to indigenous modes of organization and thinking. This connection may 
have exposed a bit more clearly the unique character of the anarchist movement in Latin 
America, if not at least have vindicated the anarchist position morally.

The question of anarchist women is also noticeably overlooked. Again, the introduction 
smartly remarks that while the book notes some of the women leaders in the movement it, 
"...nevertheless overlooks the contributions by women in the development of Latin American 
anarchism." A serious history of revolutionary movements, in order to avoid 
simplifications and romanticization, should contend both with the contributions made by 
women to the movements growth and the limitations of the movement in it's reproduction of 
patriarchal and misogynistic antagonisms (subordinating women and non-men to gendered 
roles, etc).

Remains lucid and groundbreaking
Nonetheless, Anarchism in Latin America lucidly details numerous successful movements and 
gives an amazing cross-section of the "resistance communities" which built robust and in 
some respects prefigurative proletarian and peasant social organs. In Brazil for instance, 
unions and mutual aid societies created: a Universidad Popular in the city of Santos 
offering hundreds of courses, a workers' commission to aid drought victims, workers' 
lecture halls featuring libertarian writers and speakers, and more. And of course, the 
brilliance of the workers' federations, many of which were founded partially if not 
primarily by anarchists and had explicit goals of establishing libertarian socialist 
societies. Organizations such as: the Federación Obrera Regional Argentina, the Federación 
Obrera Regional del Peru, Federación Obrera Regional Uruguay, the Confederación Nacional 
Obrera de Cuba, the Partido Liberal Mexicano, and others gave the worker's movement its 
bite throughout Latin America. As many organizations grapple with how to build movements 
independent of election cycles that can supplant and ultimately replace established power 
understanding these mass organizations may prove instructive.

Despite its limitations, Cappelletti's work, as the introduction so aptly describes, is 
"groundbreaking," if for no other reason than its ambitious scope. Anarchism in Latin 
America is hopefully just the beginning in a series of reflective studies, translations, 
and "rediscoveries" of anarchist literature and thought from throughout Latin America. 
Cappelletti argues that anarchisms eventual decline was largely tied to the rise of 
dictatorships in the 1930's (in Argentina, Brazil, and elsewhere) and the rise of 
Bolshevism throughout Latin America in the wake of the Russian Revolution. A century 
later, authoritarianism and fascism are experiencing an ominous resurgence and state 
socialism has largely collapsed. Against this rising tide, decentralised resistance 
movements have begun to take shape and anarchism has to a certain degree become in vogue. 
New libertarian and socialist resistance movements may do well to draw lessons and 
inspiration from the expansive history of Latin American anarchism.

If you are interested in learning more about the book, we recommend checking out an 
excerpt of the introduction to the book, "Anarchism in Latin America: The Re-Emergence of 
a Viable Current." The book is available for purchase from AK Press.

http://blackrosefed.org/land-liberty-review-anarchism-latin-america/

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Message: 4






One of the biggest and most notable disputes going on at the moment is the UCU dispute 
over attacks on the USS university pension scheme. Academic staff at 61 universities are 
currently in the middle of 14 days of strike action, and the last few days have seen an 
explosion of student actions in support[...]
via The occupiers who came in from the cold: workplace round-up for late Feb/early March - 
Cautiously pessimistic

https://surreyandhampshireanarchistfederation.wordpress.com/2018/02/28/the-occupiers-who-came-in-from-the-cold-workplace-round-up-for-late-feb-early-march-cautiously-pessimistic/

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Message: 5






The conflictuality is rising at the Post Office, with a succession of localized strikes, 
very followed, and often victorious. But that do not turn into an overall movement capable 
of bending the direction. ---- For several weeks, the post office teems with local 
conflicts: Carhaix (29), Guadeloupe, Piton-Saint-Leu (Reunion), Saint-Herblain (44), 
Rennes, Tarascon (13) ... Letter carriers are striking to say stop under-staffing and 
increasing their workload. ---- La Poste, citing the decline in letter traffic, has, for 
years, suppressed tens of thousands of jobs. However, if this decline in traffic is real, 
that of the recommended, followed letters and parcels - especially from Asia - has 
literally exploded. If we add the flyers in the workload, and the removal of rounds, the 
cup is full. The agents and the agents can no longer render a quality public service 
within the allotted time. La Poste closes the holes with precarious: temporary workers, 
fixed-term contracts, assisted contracts are legion.

64 days of strike at Ris-Orangis

On the side of the post offices, the situation is catastrophic: management announces 
schedule reductions and closures throughout the territory. At Ris-Orangis (91), the 
counter and teller have done, at the end of 2017, 64 (!) Days of strike against the 
suppression of 4 jobs and the drastic reduction of schedules. This beginning of the year 
is in continuity, with its batch of announcements of closures: in Brittany (Saint-Brieuc 
whose 3 offices must close, Le Palais, Vannes), in Lorraine (Liverdun), in the Loiret 
(Fleury-les -Aubrais), in Côte-d'Or (Pourrain), in the Hauts-de-Seine (7 offices 
concerned). The local population, thankfully, does not let it go. Supported by the elected 
officials, in association with the unions (most often SUD and CGT), the users and 
petitioners, gather in front of the threatened offices,

Fighting pays off - many local conflicts result in victories - but the addition of local 
conflicts is not enough to push La Poste down on its overall strategy. It has set 
ambitious objectives in terms of turnover by 2020. But the results are not at the 
rendezvous and the " levers of growth " (diversification of services, purchases of 
subsidiaries) both praised by leaders are primarily pretexts for restructuring. The " 
conquest " is therefore waiting, the Post presses, again and again, on its employees. 
Regardless of their health and quality of service.

Faced with this, workers, users and users have every interest in grouping their forces 
impose in the political debate the question of the future of public postal service and 
stop this spiral of hellish demolition whose sole purpose is to boost profitability !

Lise Backer (AL Saint-Denis)
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?La-Poste-Virus-greviste-contre-les-sous-effectifs

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Message: 6





"A man and three children, who were wounded in air strikes carried out by warplanes of the 
Syrian government, sit at a makeshift hospital" Photograph: Samer Bouidani/dpa/Alamy Live 
News. 20 February 2018 ---- Reposting Frieda Afary's analysis of the Assad Regime's 
murderous ongoing siege of Eastern Ghouta and its impending ‘victory' there. Originally 
published on the Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists' page, 25 February 2018 ---- Those 
who oppose both the Assad regime and the Jihadists and all the imperialist powers need to 
focus on a glaring fact: Support for Assad and Putin has become a rallying cry for Western 
white supremacist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic organizations and parties. We need to 
show that opposing the Assad regime's war on the Syrian masses is absolutely necessary for 
fighting the growth of white supremacy in the U.S. and other Western countries. Indeed it 
is necessary for challenging the growth of capitalist authoritarianism around the world. 
Assad's Syria could be our future.

There is no lack of evidence about the barbarity of the Assad regime. Supported by Putin's 
Russia and the Iranian regime,   it is currently  massacring  400,000 innocent civilians 
in Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus which it has kept under siege since April 2013 and 
subjected to chemical warfare as well.  The intensified daily bombing and shelling of 
Eastern Ghouta which  started in November 2017 and has led to hundreds of deaths of 
innocent civilians in just the past few days,  is part of the Assad regime's systematic 
destruction of the Syrian revolution since 2011.  Ghouta has also suffered from the 
practices of a reactionary Salafist movement, Jaysh al-Islam, which has repressed  and 
killed democratic activists.

While the U.S. and European powers such as France shed crocodile tears over Ghouta, by now 
it should be clear that neither the U.S., not any of the Western powers ever genuinely 
supported the Syrian revolution or wanted the overthrow of the Assad regime. At most, they 
wanted the regime without  the person of Assad because they considered the regime 
necessary for imposing "stability" in the region. Even in April 2017 when the Trump 
administration carried out a missile strike against a Syrian government airbase where a 
chemical attack was launched, its aim was to show the U.S.'s imperial might.

None of these powers could ever have any genuine concern for the Syrian masses who rose up 
against an authoritarian and butcher regime. The capitalist and imperialist foundation of 
these powers would not allow them to do so.

Need for a New Discourse of Solidarity

Those who oppose both  the Assad regime and the  Jihadists and all the imperialist powers, 
need to focus on a glaring fact: The authoritarianism that we see in the Assad regime, 
Putin's Russia and the Iranian regime is increasingly growing in Western countries as 
well. Assadism and Putinism might be the face of the future of the Western liberal 
democracies.  Indeed,  support for Assad and Putin has become a rallying cry for Western 
white supremacist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic organizations and parties from the U.S. 
alt-right to the Italian far-right Forza Nuova,  all of whom are becoming more and more 
mainstream.

Facing up to this fact,  can also help us find a pathway forward in our solidarity work: 
We need to show that opposing the Assad regime's war on the Syrian masses is absolutely 
necessary for fighting the growth of white supremacy in the U.S.  and other Western 
countries. Indeed it is necessary for challenging the growth of capitalist 
authoritarianism around the world.  Assad's Syria could be our future.

The current evidence about the relationship between the Assad regime and the U.S. and 
European far-right reveals that Assadist totalitarianism has become an "inspiration" for 
various parties representing the more openly authoritarian and racist direction of capitalism.

Thus the need to oppose the Assad regime's bombing of Eastern Ghouta and Idlib is not only 
a concern for people in the Middle East but should also be a concern for anti-racist 
activists around the world.  Allowing Assad and his allies to continue their massacres in 
the name of "fighting terror" will greatly strengthen those who want to repeat that 
scenario in the U.S. and Europe and elsewhere.  It will have consequences for Black Lives 
Matter, Latinos, all people of color, Muslims and Jews.

Supporting Kurds Requires Opposing Assad, Erdogan & All Imperialist Powers

Closer to Eastern Ghouta, the current victory of the Assad regime will have direct and 
horrible consequences for the Kurds in Afrin and  Rojava. Since the Summer of 2012, the 
Democratic Union Party (PYD), which leads the autonomous region of Rojava in Northern 
Syria,  has claimed that while it does not support the Assad regime, it has chosen to not 
engage in aggression against  it in order to advance its own political project. The 
collaboration of the Syrian anti-Assad opposition with Turkey and their support for 
Turkish president Recep Tayyip  Erdogan have also convinced the PYD that its course vis-a 
-vis the Assad regime has been correct.

Since January 20 however,  when the authoritarian government of Erodogan intensified its 
ongoing war on the Kurds and attacked the Afrin canton with support from Russia, and by 
using Syrian Arab fighters from the anti-Assad  Free Syrian Army and the Islamic 
fundamentalist forces, the PYD leadership has openly asked the Assad regime to come to its 
aid. On February 22,  following a meeting between Saban Hamo, a leader of the Kurdish 
People's Protection Units (YPG) and Russian and Syrian government officials, and with the 
backing of Iran, Syrian regime militias swept into Afrin.

How could a butcher regime which is currently engaged in decimating the people of Eastern 
Ghouta and has been responsible, for the past seven years, for the murder of half a 
million mostly innocent civilians, be called upon to "save" the Kurdish masses? This is 
also a regime with extreme Arab nationalist and racist policies toward the Kurds, some of 
whom were not even recognized as  Syrian citizens until 2011.

The Syrian regime might negotiate a deal with the Erdogan government and Russia, and gain 
full and official control of the Rojava region and hence temporarily stop the Turkish 
ground and aerial attacks on Afrin. However, the PYD's deal with the Assad regime will 
only exchange one brutal assault with another. What called itself the autonomous region of 
Rojava can no longer continue under these conditions.

Two years ago, when the Alliance of Syrian and Iranian Socialists was formed,  its 
founding statement of principles stated the following: "While we insist on upholding a 
principled position of support for the Kurdish national liberation movement and its 
struggle for self-determination in Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran, we think it is also 
necessary to challenge many of those on the left who separate the struggle for 
self-determination of the Kurdish people in Syria from the dynamics of the Syrian 
revolution. It was the 2011 Syrian revolution that made it possible for the autonomous 
cantons in Rojava to come into existence. Without a Syrian revolution there can be no 
democratic Rojava.... The liberation and emancipation of the Kurdish people is linked to 
the liberation and emancipation of the people of the region."

This statement is more true than ever. The victory of the Assad regime and its allies in 
Eastern Ghouta is a major defeat not only for the Syrian Arab revolutionaries but also for 
the Kurds, all other ethnicities in Syria, and all those fighting racism and capitalist 
authoritarianism around the world.

Frieda Afary

http://blackrosefed.org/victory-assad-regime-ghouta-major-defeat-fighting-racism-capitalist-authoritarianism-globally/

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Message: 7






International Women's Day - celebrated on March 8 - in its early days commemorated the 
demonstrations of American workers who in 1908 demanded workers' rights and voting rights, 
appearing under the slogan of "bread and roses". We want to continue this tradition and 
therefore we appeal to all members and members of the union and people supporting the 
Workers' Initiative for participation in initiatives organized in connection with the 
International Women's Day: Social Women's Congress in Poznan (March 3), 19th Warsaw Manifa 
(March 4) and International Strike Women (March 8). ---- The fight for women's rights and 
gender equality is an integral part of the fight for better working conditions, higher 
wages and worthy income for all: ---- Discrimination and wage inequalities, as a result of 
which women receive lower wages than men, are means of sharing the working class. State 
authorities and capitalists use them as a means to reduce the wages of all employees and 
employees;

Mobbing, sexual harassment and sexual violence are phenomena affecting mainly women, but 
they are part of a wider system of controlling and keeping employees and employees in fear 
and obedience and pacifying workers' protests;

Forcing women to give birth by banning abortion and restricting access to contraception is 
an extreme form of controlling state power over our lives and bodies;

Lack of places in nurseries and kindergartens and high fees for using care facilities are 
a way of transferring reproductive labor to women (giving birth and raising next 
generations of workers and employees), which extends their working time by creating a 
second - unpaid - full time home;

The risk of poverty in the situation of unemployment, motherhood, transition to a pension 
or retirement is a means of forcing female employees and employees to take up low-paid 
jobs and reduce the level of remuneration for all employees.

The struggle for women's rights is therefore part of a wider fight for social justice, and 
as a trade union movement we should and should fight it both in workplaces where we 
operate and support demonstrations, pickets protests of feminist movements on city streets.

Detailed information about upcoming initiatives in the defense of women's rights:
Social Women's Congress - Saturday, March 3rd - Theater of the Eighth Day (Ratajczaka 
Street 44 Poznan) 11:00 - 18:00[event on Facebook]

XIX Warsaw Manifa - Sunday 4 March - IPC Commissions meet at 13:45 at the Dramatyczny 
Theater on Defilad Square by the Palace of Culture and Science[event on Facebook]

Demonstration "We are everywhere - International Women's Strike" Warsaw - Thursday 8 March 
- Plac Konstytucji 18:00[event on Facebook]

OZZ committees. Inicjatywa Pracownicza z woj. Mazowieckie:
Works Commission at the Zacheta Gallery
Works Commission at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
Works Commission at the Wolski Osrodek Kultury
Warsaw Environmental Commission
Works Commission at Danfoss Poland Sp. z o. o
Works Commission at the Universal Theater Zygmunt Hübner
Environmental Committee of Art Workers
Commission of the Workers in Non-Governmental Organizations
Works Commission at the National Film Archive - Audiovisual Institute
Works Commission at TR (Teatr Rozmaitosci)

http://ozzip.pl/teksty/informacje/mazowieckie/item/2342-apel-o-mobilizacje-miedzynarodowy-dzien-kobiet-warszawa

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Message: 8





The government and the SNCF management are organizing a massive attack against the 
railways and the public railway service. The trade union federations, all, bid higher in 
the ads: "one-month strike" for the CGT, "renewable strike" for SUD-Rail "," major 
conflict "for UNSA," indefinite strike from March 14 " for the CFDT ... ---- But finally, 
after hours spent in various meetings (between them, with the bosses, with the government 
...), no federation takes any new initiative ! ---- From the new interfederal meeting held 
on the evening of 27 February, it appears that: ---- The federations call to March 22, but 
only for a demonstration in Paris, without strike and they file a request for immediate 
consultation ; and until then, they will go to the new meetings organized by the minister 
or the SNCF management. The routine somehow ! No one calls for a strike when it comes to 
the end of the Statute, the privatization of passenger traffic, the closing of many lines, 
etc. !

Only concrete decision: to meet again on ... March 15 ! We are really close to the plate, 
given the stakes !

We are not saying that the strike must be declared for tomorrow morning ; but you have to 
organize it instead of procrastinating. Not to fix a clear deadline, not to decide a firm 
call, not to put forward unifying claims, it is all to make sure that it does not take place !

Let's take our business in hand ! In each service, discuss the attacks and the real 
response. Let's use our union tools to prepare and organize the fight: hours of union 
information, tours and union meetings must be the priorities of the moment. Meetings will 
wait ! Let's hear the reactions of the basic union teams ! Let's multiply unitary 
initiatives, wherever possible ... and it is in many cases, because at the base activists 
are aware that what is being played out there will not be settled by nice cold negotiations.

This article is taken from the blog The Raging Rail . The raging Rail is made by railroad 
workers and AL railroad workers.

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?C-est-ca-la-riposte

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Message: 9






March 8 - Women's Day - in its early days it commemorated the demonstrations of American 
workers who in 1908 demanded workers' rights and voting rights, appearing under the slogan 
of "bread and roses". We want to continue this tradition. ---- Social Congress of Women 
---- On the occasion of Women's Day in different cities in Poland, Manify will take place. 
As an accompanying event, the Workers' Initiative in Poznan organizes the "Social Congress 
of Women" (March 3). This will be the first event of this type, whose aim is to gather 
women and girls who are fighting mainly on two fields: in the field of work and in the 
field of tenants. We have long understood that staffing and tenancy problems - that is, 
the issue of earnings and rent - are related to each other. And for women who are less 
well-treated on the labor market and at the same time for which greater responsibility for 
care and home work is shed, it is particularly important to organize in these two areas. 
This is happening - for several years it has been seen that condominium movements and 
trade union committees associated under the IP are becoming more and more feminized. Women 
work actively on the first line:

What do we want?

We called our social congress with the subtitle "For high wages and low rents" - in 
opposition to the "Congress of Women", which often includes politicians or representatives 
of employers' organizations. They do not represent us, they do not speak on our behalf. We 
want to talk about common experiences and needs: about how to defend ourselves against a 
job that changes our lives into a nightmare; before the price, which forces us to work 
even harder; against politicians and bosses who ignore our needs. We demand wage increases 
and stable employment, regardless of whether we work in a factory, cultural institution, 
crèche or in a supermarket. We demand that we pay for work, which we must do for free in 
our own households. We demand a shorter working day, which means more free time for us and 
our relatives. The end of eviction and universal access to housing, in which we will not 
freeze in the winter. Development of public care institutions for children and the 
elderly. Free public transport and unlimited access to medical care.

The first part of the meeting will be an open discussion about the problems we face in our 
work places and places of residence. In the second part, we will talk about plans and 
forms of protest to date, how to effectively build women's social movements, what 
strategies are right for now and for tomorrow.

Social struggles for women's rights

In 2016, mass protests broke out against the drastic tightening of the right to abortion - 
the Black Protests and the Women's Strike took place. Also for women associated in our 
relationship it was an important event. Mobilizations took place in over 150 cities and 
towns, and where we operate as an IP, we were present: we spoke at rallies, we prepared a 
newspaper, we painted banners. However, we want the Women's Strike to be inscribed in the 
broader history of social struggles for women's rights.

Women's protests have not started in Poland in 2016 - they have been taking place in 
various fields for years. For example, girls from nurseries from our relationship have 
been organizing in Poznan since 2011 - they have won a lot: increases for the most 
forgotten group of self-government employees, improvement of working conditions, but also 
blocking the privatization of public nurseries. The wave of protests by nurses, recently 
supermarket employees, social workers, carers of disabled children and others were also 
flooding through Poland. Most often, they did not label themselves as feminist protests, 
but it was clear to us that they addressed issues of social justice important for women.

The demands of female nurseries were not limited to narrowly understood employee issues. 
Girls from a dozen or so nurseries in Poznan began to jointly demand a change in the 
social and budgetary policy of the city, opposed to the marginalization of these spheres, 
to which women are assigned, among others care, social welfare, education, culture. They 
also began to say loudly that it is usually on their shoulders that there are household 
duties related to the maintenance of the family, so they will not stop fighting for 
publicly available health services and the possibility of deciding whether they want to 
have children or not. This is what feminism means to us.

Clipping the belt hits women

When in 2016 someone would ask our friends why they are going out on the street, he would 
hear: "We work hard, and the attack on women's rights only added oil to the fire. After 
many years of tapping on garbage trucks, too low wages, often on two jobs, working hard on 
chord, no access to medical services, no access to cheap nurseries. And all at a time when 
it told us that Poland from the 2008 crisis came out with a defensive hand. "

For the last 28 years, expenditure on schools, hospitals, kindergartens, canteens and 
community centers has been reduced in Poland - and this has caused the deterioration of 
the living conditions of many women and workers' families. Between 1990 and 2005, the 
number of public kindergartens decreased by 38%, and nurseries by 74%. The percentage of 
children attending extracurricular activities dropped from 50% in primary schools and 70% 
in secondary schools, to only 10%. The state, shirking from the obligation to take care of 
the elderly and children, threw him on the shoulders of women.

A drastic reduction of the legal right to abortion would further deteriorate the situation 
of poor women who can not afford a procedure abroad. Already today in Poland the abortion 
underground is flourishing, where treatments are expensive and not always safe. Colleagues 
from the Employee Initiative from Amazon emphasized that they were outraged by restricting 
access to prenatal tests and deciding women. Many of us - they said - work hard 
physically, on nicks, raising packages, making standards, under constant pressure, walking 
many kilometers a day. Having to commute long hours to work, we do not sleep. The nature 
of work has an impact on our health, it can increase the risk of pregnancies endangered or 
dangerous to our health or life. It's hard for us to imagine that we can have a police 
state that will look after us,

Every day women's strike

Women in Poland have long been striking their way - without giving birth to too many 
children. We have one of the smallest fertility rates in Europe. And regardless of what 
organized political forces will engage in the fight for women's rights, this refusal of 
women's births is crucial. It was her that led to the fact that 500+ was introduced, i.e. 
quite a high supplement for children, to induce us to give birth.

"Women's strike" is a good mobilization slogan that serves to express anger and emphasize 
its economic background. The women's strike has not been carried out - and can not be 
carried out - by any formalized organization. A strike is a form of pressure used by 
employees, in this case women who refuse to perform imposed duties. The strike draws 
attention to the subordination of our life to the rules of work, including reproductive 
work (caring and home).

It is very important that it is the idea of a strike - even when in fact rallies, 
protests, marches, sometimes after work, similarly will be on March 8 - moved the crowd 
and also speaks to us. This distinguishes the women's movement from the movement led by 
the liberal elite, whose only goal is to take power currently exercised by PiS. Protests 
against the tightening of the right to abortion for a long time were organized in a 
non-hierarchical way, with the participation of many different environments and people, 
without clear leaders.

Against the use of grassroots resistance of women

However, for two years liberals who have lost power are trying to exploit the 
dissatisfaction of women in order to regain public support. The vote on the 'Let's Save 
Women' project has emphatically confirmed how much the liberal opposition is worth. We do 
not need politicians and politicians. The slogan "power is a woman" is false.

Has our situation changed since more women appeared in parliament? Are our wages higher, 
when the managers and not the managers supervise our work? What is the cause of low wages 
of women, cuts in social security, the ban on abortion - the lack of women in power or the 
economic system that only works by maintaining social inequalities? For us, it was 
particularly annoying that the opposition was sticking to women's protests for a long 
time, some effectively went into grass-roots structures and tried to monopolize them, 
today, for example, the organization "National Women's Strike", which in our opinion 
ceased to be a grass-roots structure and tries to acquis of bottom-up movement.

We are not representatives of business or politics. We do not want to act as experts, 
leaders or businesswomen. We operate in trade unions, tenants' organizations, educational 
associations and other groups fighting against exploitation, poverty and lack of influence 
on the surrounding reality.

Our answer: we have the strength!

The mass movement against the tightening of the right to abortion has shown us what 
strength we have. We want to go further and link feminist demands with workers' and social 
demands. Organized together we are a real threat to the authorities. There are no women's 
rights without decent working conditions, without accessible care institutions, without 
shelter.

Our relationship friends - who have never been involved in a pro-choice move - now say 
loudly: "Each of us has her own conscience and she will be alone with her own choices, but 
women must have something to say: they bear the hardships and consequences of pregnancy 
and childbirth, for many years, and we live in the semi-districts of Western Europe, where 
politicians want us to give birth, but then they are not interested in us anymore, and our 
work is not well paid. "

A lot of women in Poland work on garbage, through work agencies, subcontractors, for less 
than 2 thousand. on the hand, spending time on commuting to distant workplaces, because 
there are no jobs in small cities. For example, to Amazon people commute up to 100 km one 
way every day. We tell each other stories every day at work: the lack of cheap housing, 
rising prices, the lack of deadlines for medical examinations, the fact that one of us did 
not manage to embrace a child before going to sleep, about fear of becoming pregnant in 
such circumstances , wondering whether to go abroad. Employees who have children return 
home from home in the morning at 7 o'clock, they often go to school at once, after 
returning they cook, wash, sleep between 10 and 13, pick up the children and at noon. 15 
must go out for a staff bus.

That is why we are organizing under the IP to increase our bargaining power, it is clear 
to us that we deserve higher salaries, but we are also increasingly talking about the fact 
that we want to work shorter, and also under less pressure. Both girls from nurseries say 
that there are too many children in groups, and in the Amazon we repeat that standards are 
too high. For us, therefore, the fight for women's rights is closely related to the fight 
for workers 'rights, tenants' rights and other social rights. We operate in various ways: 
in the situation of local government employees it is putting pressure on local 
authorities, picketing during sessions of the city council, building coalitions with 
parents. Of course, IP uses the tools provided by the Trade Unions Act: we enter into 
collective disputes, organize strike referenda and protests, conduct union duties, we 
operate in committees of health and safety, we build transnational alliances, we develop 
our local structures. And there will be more of us!

Organizer of the Social Women's Congress

http://ozzip.pl/teksty/publicystyka/spoleczenstwo/item/2341-feminizm-socjalny-nie-liberalny-dlaczego-skk

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