migration
Documents on cleaners' strikes in Paris and Milan, 2002
Leaflets and information on strikes of cleaning workers in Paris and Milan.
Being a McWorker in Germany, 2002
One worker's account of being a McDonalds employee in Germany, with information about the workforce, the atmosphere and issues facing the workers.
What is McDonald's?
Construction: Struggle at Laing O’Rourke, Britain, 2004
The following article provides a short summary about a strike of building workers in London in Autumn 2004. Apart from the more or less self-organised character of the struggle, with workers assemblies in parks and blockage of the site entrances, we think that there were two main interesting aspects of the dispute.
1) The fact that eastern European workers got involved. So far capital has more or less managed to use the eastern European countries as a large pool of labour force which could be mobilised for short term projects like large construction projects or the seasonal work in the harvest.
Polish work gangs in Britain
This is the summary of a collectively revised discussion paper including fact briefing on the Crewe Polish migrant worker scandal and its possible solution, written by Martin Kraemer after helping out in translating between Crewe unionists and Polish migrant workers, June 2005
300 workers protest in Abu Dhabi over expired labour cards
Migrant workers from a major engineering firm held a protest in Abu Dhabi City on Sunday, demanding their visas be renewed.
The workers, from the General Construction Engineering Company (GCE) gathered outside the Ministry of Labour, demanding their employers took action to renew their visas and labour cards.
Swissport exploits migrant workers
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Eastern European workers, working as baggage handlers for multinational Swissport at Stansted Airport are being denied basic rights through the company's contracting out system.
Swissport, the multinational company that holds the contract to supply baggage handling at Stansted Airport, is using the employment system to exploit its migrant workers, denying them basic rights such as sick and holiday pay, as secondary companies take further large cuts from their wages for accommodation and "administration fees".
-800BC-today: A very brief history of racism
A quick look at the origins of racism in modern society from its roots in the justification of slavery.
Any discussion of racism needs to examine the roots of racism in order to understand it and to struggle against it effectively. There are basically three explanations for the existence of racism.
2003: Frog pubs strike
An account of a strike of mostly Sri Lankan workers, aided by outside militants, at a British-owned pub chain in France, which won some concessions for the workers.
There are several Frog Pubs in Paris, English style beer pubs, whose menus and ‘sport events on big screens’ are aimed at a young and solvent clientele. Expenses are reduced by all means necessary: the kitchen staff work in tiny kitchens (e.g. 12 square metre kitchen for 450 square metres pub area). The wages vary between the minimum wage and 1,200 euros for the chef.
1999: Dahl Jenson construction strike
Immigrants demonstrated their willingness, when asked, to support British workers in struggle in this victorious strike of 300 building workers employed by different firms.
The week before Mechanical Installers and Pipe Fitters working for Dahl Jenson found that cheques for the last three weeks work had bounced. With massive amounts of overtime being worked some workers had lost as much as £2,000, although these figures were the exception as the workers calculated that the £55,000 in total owed was split between almost 100 workers.
1990: Bacton Fashions strike
An account of the 1990 strike in East London of mostly immigrant workers, which won several concessions for the workers and prevented the owner starting a new sweatshop elsewhere.
Bacton Fashions in Hackney was a relatively large clothing sweatshop employing up to 90 workers. Most workers were Turkish or Kurdish, had been living in Britain for less than a couple of years and were waiting for a Home Office decision on their rights to remain.
