http://www.sac.se/manpower/
is anyone's Swedish good enough to give us a brief on whats going on?
Feb 28 2007 15:59
Feb 28 2007 16:11
Since you ask....
Quote:
Manpower is the UK’s leading employment expert, providing staffing services across all skillsets to all sectors including driving, public sector, production, warehouse, retail, technical, office and finance.
Feb 28 2007 17:29
SAC had a conflict with Manpower after one of their members was given notice that he would be fired. After several blockades of Manpower offices in the following days, Manpower withdrew the notice. SAC weren't satisfied and demanded that Manpower should also make a public apology, inform all their employees about this, and pay a fine. SAC then called for actions against all businesses using Manpower temps, and made a blockade of Sony-Ericsson, before they called off their actions.
SAC has been very active lately, and have been in a lot of conflicts. I can translate some summaries of what they have been up to, if anyone is interested.
Feb 28 2007 17:36
Felix Frost wrote:
SAC has been very active lately, and have been in a lot of conflicts. I can translate some summaries of what they have been up to, if anyone is interested.
I think any inspiring examples and lessons learned type news pieces would be great to hear. I am always amazed to hear how many conflicts they have going on almost any given time, but the international libertarian scene really doesnt hear much about it. Would go a long way in actually building some international understanding, sympathy and solidarity for SAC if they banged their drum a bit more.
Then again, i guess it matters very little what a bunch of anarchists scattered across the globe think about them
Feb 28 2007 22:24
Felix Frost wrote:
SAC had a conflict with Manpower after one of their members was given notice that he would be fired. After several blockades of Manpower offices in the following days, Manpower withdrew the notice. SAC weren't satisfied and demanded that Manpower should also make a public apology, inform all their employees about this, and pay a fine. SAC then called for actions against all businesses using Manpower temps, and made a blockade of Sony-Ericsson, before they called off their actions.SAC has been very active lately, and have been in a lot of conflicts. I can translate some summaries of what they have been up to, if anyone is interested.
translate please!
Mar 1 2007 20:44
Quote:
Manpower withdrew the notice. SAC weren't satisfied and demanded that Manpower should also make a public apology, inform all their employees about this, and pay a fine. SAC then called for actions against all businesses using Manpower temps, and made a blockade of Sony-Ericsson, before they called off their actions.
That's fucking brilliant - to have the gumption to punish the company further even after your demands are met is something which I don't think would even have occurred to me, which maybe says something sad about the state we are in in this country. Nice to see that somebody's on the attack!
Mar 1 2007 23:01
does anyone know any english speaking sweedish comrades that they could bribe into posting on libcom?
Mar 2 2007 09:31
magnifico wrote:
That's fucking brilliant - to have the gumption to punish the company further even after your demands are met is something which I don't think would even have occurred to me, which maybe says something sad about the state we are in in this country. Nice to see that somebody's on the attack!
in the SAC article i wrote which never got published there is a similar example of SAC struggle against an outsourcing company in Solna (suburb of stockholm). They went after the parent companies and what not, picketed their staff parties and gatherings, PR events etc. Finally when they won their struggle they rejected the first offer and demanded that the outsourcing company has to pay all the costs of the SAC campaign! And they duly did! How fucking brilliant is that LOL!
Mar 2 2007 09:42
JDMF wrote:
magnifico wrote:
That's fucking brilliant - to have the gumption to punish the company further even after your demands are met is something which I don't think would even have occurred to me, which maybe says something sad about the state we are in in this country. Nice to see that somebody's on the attack!in the SAC article i wrote which never got published there is a similar example of SAC struggle against an outsourcing company in Solna (suburb of stockholm). They went after the parent companies and what not, picketed their staff parties and gatherings, PR events etc. Finally when they won their struggle they rejected the first offer and demanded that the outsourcing company has to pay all the costs of the SAC campaign! And they duly did! How fucking brilliant is that LOL!
damn.
Mar 2 2007 09:44
found it! Just an snippet from the article: (the local = Solna local of the SAC)
Quote:
Outsourcing company funds class struggleThe local celebrated a recent victory over a months long conflict with a large outsourcing company Snille. Snille provides services to a Nordic energy giant Fortum and was breaking labour legislation left, right and centre. The last straw came when they fired a SAC member breaking the contract which was supposed to last for 6 months. A campaign started and Snille was quick to sue SAC in a Swedish equivalent of an industrial tribunal for damages.
Knowing that direct pressure towards Snille would do very little and a prospect for a strike among casual and vulnerable workers was not promising, the syndicalists decided to put pressure on the hand that feeds Snille: Fortum energy consortium. Head offices were blockaded, public events disrupted, people leafleted. After couple of months Fortum had enough and forced Snille to sort the problem out. Result was that Snille agreed to all SAC:s demands, and also paid 40 000 kronas (about 2 700 pounds) to Solna SAC for "costs of running the campaign". As it happens in many of these cases, Snille was quick to make a deal with a reformist union to keep the SAC out from organising the staff into the union.
Similar kind of blockading tactic brought another victory in August. "Illegal" immigrant cleaners from latin american countries were being shorthanded at couple luxury hotels via a proxy outsourcing company. Few of them are members of the SAC but strike was not an option due to the nature of their immigration status. SAC comrades decided to picket the hotel as long as it is needed to get the workers a better deal. The hotel caved in before banners were unwrapped.
Mar 2 2007 10:06
awsome
Mar 2 2007 15:29
More in depth stuff would be really appreciated. Be keen to see the IWW, which is currently growing exponentially, could do some of that stuff a year or so down the line. Currently Clydeside GMB is on track for reaching about 100 members by the end of the year, based on current growth. Muzzling employment agencies is something where we could really do a lot of good for workers in general and pickup a large number of new recruits.
Immigrant labour is also an increasingly big issue in Glasgow - the number of Eastern European workers entering the city has become a large enough problem to effectively undermine the Glasgow Housing Association's demolition plans.
Mar 2 2007 22:50
Quote:
Currently Clydeside GMB is on track for reaching about 100 members by the end of the year, based on current growth.
well we can only hope!
the whole agency thing is something us in london have been toying with for a while. i wrote a short Stuff your boss style pamphlet for agency workers, but it is yet to materialise beyond a file on my computer.
the only issue with agencies is that the labour market they deal with is so flexible that there's always a danger of one agency being organised around or dealt with a la SAC example, but then the other agencies (who the people are usually also registered with) just take advantage of that pressure and the campaign goes tits up. people tend to go to agencies when they're pretty desperate (or students!) which makes agency campaigns tricky in this respect. it'd be interesting to hear how SAC dealt with this side of things.
Mar 2 2007 23:10
Dundee_United wrote:
More in depth stuff would be really appreciated. Be keen to see the IWW, which is currently growing exponentially, could do some of that stuff a year or so down the line. Currently Clydeside GMB is on track for reaching about 100 members by the end of the year, based on current growth. Muzzling employment agencies is something where we could really do a lot of good for workers in general and pickup a large number of new recruits.
you are so lucky that you dont have to busy yer self with cleaning out all the hippies, flakes, history clubers, people who think the word "acountable" is authoritarian, etc. We spend half our time just making sure our active members are doing what they are supposed to, even then they dont do it.
Can comment on articles and discussions
Do Manpower take funding from the state?
just jokin!