Laure Akai
Articles by Laure Akai, from Poland.
Wildcat Strike at NATO International School
Teachers went on strike at a school for children of NATO officers in Bydgoszcz, Poland.
Teachers at the school for children of NATO officers in Bydgoszcz Poland went on a wildcat strike yesterday after several weeks of protests due to non-payment and lack of contracts.
Occupation at union-busting Schavemaker Transport
Truck drivers plan to occupy the Polish HQ of the firm until fired union members are reinstated.
About 20 drivers from Schavemaker Transport occupied the firm's Polish headquarters in Katy Wroclawskie yesterday. They are determined to stay there until their colleagues, dismissed in a union-busting campaign, are reinstated. The action comes after drivers protesting in Holland and another Polish city were beaten by security goons hired by the company.
Mexico: Former Nokia workers protest dismissals and actions of Manpower and Adecco agencies
On Feb. 4, a group of former employees of the Finland-based Nokia company protested outside offices of the federal labor board. The company has not paid the severance packages which are required by Mexican law to a group of 1000 workers dismissed by Nokia last November.
Nokia has two plants in Reynosa, in the northern Mexico maquiladora area. In recent years, Nokia reduced their workforce in the US and has been moving the work to Mexico. The Alliance Corridor Factory in the Ft. Worth area was formerly the largest mobile phone factory in the world.
Dismissed workers occupy factory in Poland
200 workers recently dismissed from Thomson in a Warsaw suburb occupy factory in the hopes of getting promised compensation.
Thomson factory in the Warsaw suburb of Piaseczno produces TV glass (screens and tubes). A few years ago, the Indian firm Videocon purchased all of Thomson's TV glass factories. Videocon planned to restructure the company and introduce LCD production in Piaseczno.
Seoul: police attack occupied building, kill protestors
Six dead, many injured and arrested after police attack protestors near American Military Base.
Yongsan in Seoul is to be "redeveloped", that is gentrified. This is effecting not only residents, but many small family-run businesses in the area. Members of the Committee of Residents Forced Out of Yongsan District 4 in Seoul and the National Coalition of Forcefully Relocated People decided on Jan. 19 to occupy a building in protest.
Privatisation by the back door: The health workers’ strike and the future of medical care in Poland
Laure Akai analyses the neoliberal reforms to Poland's health service as the doctors' strike enters its fourth month.
Some hospitals have given up the strike, some hospitals are concluding private deals with doctors. Nurses have organised separately from the doctors with a slightly different agenda. And it well may turn out that the results of the strike are strikingly different salaries for health care workers throughout Poland and increased privatization of the health care industry.
Poland’s health care workers’ strike: new challenges and old problems
As a mass health-care strike enters its sixth week, all that may be achieved is the speeding-up of the privatisation process.
The Doctor’s Strike and the Nurses’ Occupation
Death, industrial action and firings at LG Electronics in Poland
At least one worker fired after industrial action. Workers demand an end to forced overtime.
LG is one of the biggest and most important companies operating in Poland. The group owns a wide variety of investments, most notably its TV and LCD monitor/ screen production in Mlawa and Biskupice Podgórne (near Wroclaw) and its refrigerator and washing machine plant in Kobierzyce.
Poland: Workers fired for union activity
A report from Poland on the firing of two workers for union organising and demanding better working conditions.
Two workers from Workers' Initiative have been fired for union activity. Anybody who would like to show some solidarity should send a nasty e-mail or fax with a protest.The names of the fired people are Aurelia Włodarczyk and Jolanta Szypura. They work for the firm Greenkett Polska, which is part of the IG group - headquarters in Spain. They were demanding a 30% pay raise.
Teachers protest in Warsaw
Over 12,000 teachers demonstrated today in Warsaw. Among their demands were not only calls for a pay rise and retention of early retirement priveleges, but also for he dismissal of the Minister and Vice-Minister of Education.
Today over 12,000 teachers from around Poland came to Warsaw to protest the policies of the government, both in regard to its financial committment towards education workers and to the outrageous actions of the Minister and Vice-minister of Education.
