Poland

A salute to a comrade,

Lionbridge specializes in translations and adapting products to local markets (so called “globalization services”). Lionbridge is one of many US-based companies which move jobs from the US to countries with lower wages and working standards.

THE STRIKE IN BUDRYK: Miners get the shaft as elite get wealthy

The mining industry in Poland is still a quite healthy business. Fuel prices are rising as is the global demand for coal. Budryk is one of the mines in Poland that was making a very healthy profit – until a labour dispute began costing the mine losses of about 1 million US dollars per day.

The Cadbury Company plans to shut down its Keynsham plant, which would result in 500 lost jobs. Another 200 jobs will be cut in Bournville. These jobs are to be transferred to Poland by 2010. (The company plans to start additional chocolate production in Poland in 2008. It has also signed a deal with Barry Callebaut in Poland to outsource some production.

On Thursday November 22, a wildcat occupational strike was held in the bus company PKS-Lomza. 200 of the 250 workers there went on strike. 50 workers who are part of the Solidarity union were surprised by the action and didn't support it.

The workers protested against the dismissal of the director Adam Wykowski on Wednesday night. Workers striking on behalf of a fired director?

After 17 days the bus drivers in the South Polish city of Kielce have surprisingly won their strike. The sale of the communal bus company MPK planned by the city’s mayor is stopped and MPK is given to the workers instead. The strike had been preceded by months of confrontation.

This is an English translation of the original Serbian. Further editing by libcom from the translated version.

Polish Revolt of 1956

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.

BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 46-4-214
TITLE: Polish Workers Commemorate their Past Struggles
BY: J. B. de Weydenthal
DATE: 1981-7-7
COUNTRY: Poland
ORIGINAL SUBJECT: RAD Background Report/192

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RFE-RL

RADIO FREE EUROPE Research

RAD Background Report/192 (Poland)" 7 July 1981

The deadly stand-off between workers and the National Guard was the culmination of events that began on Saturday May 1, 1886.

A historical marker, pictured above, is located at Russel and Superior on Jones Island in Bay View. It commemorates the Bay View Massacre.

The Doctor’s Strike and the Nurses’ Occupation

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.

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.

Gasping from out the Shallows
Reflections on revolution in the early twenty-first century

By Wayne Spencer

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.

Alfons Thomasz Pilarski (alias Kompardt) was born in Upper Silesia, a part of Germany with a 30% minority of Poles, on 6th July 1902, the son of a working class family in Leschnitz near Stehlitz.

libcom.org coverage of the November strikes (1, 2).

On Sunday, December 17 anarchists held a picket in front of the main post office in Warsaw in order to protest against the deal most trade unions made with the bosses and to show solidarity to those who had still not signed the daeal and who were deciding that day whether or not to renew strike action.

Behind the Border
It is only a one hour journey from Berlin to the German-Polish border, the supermarkets in Berlin offer Polish food, immigrants from Poland are part of daily life in the German capital - nevertheless there are not many direct contacts (apart from perhaps the punk scene). The ‘iron curtain’ is slow to dissolve, due to languages and the geographical location.

Here is an update on recent struggles in and around Poland. More information in English can be found on a website run by the base-unionist ‘workers’ initiative’ from Poland: http://paspartoo.w.interia.pl/index.htm

Polish seamen on strike for eleven days in the docklands of Travemünde/Germany